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Book now at Verbo dot com. It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinit Sports Network. Yeah, we just got underway in Los Angeles. We got the Chargers hosting the Eagles two teams.
Well, eight and four records, one defending Super Bowl champs. There's nothing perfect in the NFL, and we're going to see how tonight. Um Kind of bears fruit, or what bears fruit out of tonight, and also we've had plenty of action. Yesterday Tonight is the conclusion of week 14 of the NFL season. Things aren't looking good for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Things aren't looking good for the Ravens. The Steelers stay alive, and the Houston Texans look like they got some life to talk about everything going on in the league. Joining us back on the show is someone who covers all things NFL for Athlon Sports. Welcome back, Luke Easterling. Luke, how are you, man?
Hey, I'm doing great, J.R. Good to be back, my man. Absolutely appreciate you.
Well, I mean, to talk about the game that just kicked off, we know the Eagles have been kind of I'm not going to say a disaster, but there's always been stories all season long, especially as it relates to A.J. Brown and their offense. And then we have the Chargers here.
Well, they're dealing with injuries. Justin Herbert has a plate and screws in his non-throwing hand. What are you expecting from the game tonight? Yeah, I don't know what I'm expecting as much as what I'm hoping to see if I'm an Eagles fan, right? Which I'm not.
But let's be honest, that offense has been excruciating to watch for so much of this season. And it's just, if you look at them on paper, you're like, you've got Jalen Hurts, you've got Saquon Barkley, you've got Devontae Smith, you've got A.J. Brown, you've got a strong offensive line. I know Lane Johnson's been banged up. He's not going to play tonight, but the rest of that unit's still been solid.
You've got such a great defense. Why is this team struggling with that much talent on the offensive side of the ball? And I think it just comes back to the scheme. Kevin Petulo as the first-year play caller, replacing Kellen Moore, who went to take the head coaching job in New Orleans. It's just felt so dysfunctional.
It's felt so bland and so uninspired in terms of what they're doing with the scheme. It shouldn't be that hard to get that much talent to score points and to create yardage consistently. And they just haven't done it.
So tonight, I'm interested to see. particularly, and I wrote about this at athlonsports.com this morning, I I'm interested to see if this is the night that Saquon Barkley breaks out. Last year, he had 11 games where he went for over 100 yards. He's done that once this year. At this point in the season, he's facing a Chargers defense that in totality has been one of the better teams in the league in terms of allowing total rushing yards.
But they're in the bottom third in terms of giving up yards per carry and in terms of giving up rushing touchdowns tonight.
So I think they've got an opportunity to let him loose a little bit if they can do what they've done this season that's been the best and most effective for him, which is run out of the shotgun, do some of the gap scheme stuff that's worked really well for them and just stick to what works, not trying to overcomplicate it. But scheme is what's holding this team back on offense. Oh, we we certainly heard that from A. J. Brown.
On the other side, as uh the Chargers have the football as it stands right now. We've gotten plenty of images tonight so far of uh Justin Herbert in that heavily wrapped hand, uh his non-throwing hand. The Chargers seemingly are always in the mix, but never realistically contenders every single season. Where y what are your thoughts on the Chargers as it stands tonight? Yeah, obviously Justin Herbert's health is going to be huge, but they're going to have to lean on the running game.
I know I just talked about it with Philly, but the big thing that I'm wanting to see from the Chargers tonight is they just brought back a Marion Hampton from injured reserve, the first-round pick out of North Carolina, their top pick in this year's draft. And how much does that Stabilize the offense. How much does that take pressure off of Justin Herbert to not have to play hero ball, to not have to throw the ball 35, 40 times a game? How much can they lean on that ground game? And honestly, even in Hampton's absence, Kamani Vidal, the fifth round pick a couple years ago out of Troy, has kind of held things together pretty well for not being the starter.
But Hampton, as a talent, is just on a completely different level. He's a three-down guy that can catch the ball out of the backfield.
So I'm wanting to see can they be effective enough on the ground against that really tough Philly front? to be able to not force Justin Herbert to have to take all the pressure on himself, not put him in a ton of third and longs where he's having to sit back there against that pass rush and put himself in danger. They're going to have to run the ball effectively on those early downs to keep them out of those long downs and distances if they want a chance tonight. Luke Easterling is here with us, covers all things NFL for Athlon Sports. This is the Monday night football game.
We saw what took place last night. We know Houston has the best defense in the NFL when it comes to points, and we know the Kansas City Chiefs have certainly been scuffling. These are two teams right now going in opposite directions. Is this? Can we just kind of chalk this year up for the Chiefs not getting to the postseason?
I know they're still alive, but can we just go out? This ain't their year. I mean, I think we can already say it's not their year. I'll count them out when it's all over and the clock's hit, zero, right? When you got Andy Reid, you got Steve Spagnolo on defense coordinating the defense, and you got 15 back there catching the snaps.
It's not over until it's over. But they're two games back at that last wildcard spot. They got four weeks to go, and they just have so many problems, man. Those issues aren't going to get fixed in a couple of weeks. Like, that's an entire couple of offseasons of work they have to do to kind of retool and rebuild that.
They're looking at something much akin to what New England had to do a couple of years ago over these last couple of years with the quarterback situation, the coaching situation. They still have a lot of work to do. It's impressive what Rabel's done in New England. But for the Chiefs, yeah, I mean, we're about to I mean, if the season ended today, we would have an AFC playoff bracket that would not have Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, or Joe Burrow in it. Like, we're looking at the very, very possible reality that that's what we're looking at, that Josh Allen is the only one of those big four that make for the playoffs.
And Josh Allen's team is a wildcard team right now. It's very likely going to stay that way.
So It's just going to be it's been a wild season. It's the same thing on the NFC side where the team at the top and the team at the bottom of the of the playoff bracket from one to seven There's not a ton separating those teams, I don't think. And I think it's going to be interesting if you're one of those two, three, or four seeds, you're going to be really happy you won your division. But if you're in the AFC, how happy are you going to be when that means you get to welcome Josh Allen and the Bills to your stadium for a playoff game? The parody of this season has been great to watch just as a general fan of the game.
And in terms of to your question about Houston, defense always travels and defense always takes you deep into the season. And if you can hang your hat on a dominant defense, the key for Houston is going to be, can they run the ball effectively enough? Can they move the ball effectively enough? Can they protect C.J. Stroud enough, just like they did last night?
13 points was enough to do it against the dynasty of a couple years ago. They're not the same team. But to go into Kansas City and win that game, only scoring 13 points is huge. If that team can score 17, 20 points a game in the playoffs, they're always going to have a chance no matter the opponent because that defense under D'Amico Ryans has just been so, so good. Luke, you talk about who's in and who's out.
We know Daniel Jones is now out for the season with the Indianapolis Colts. And now we've gotten the reports this evening, this afternoon. That Philip Rivers, who turned 44 years old today, might be in. Last ditch, if you gotta call up a 44-year-old guy to say, That 365 is paying out before the final whistle. Check out Bet365's unrivaled early payout offer.
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Make money from your podcast with the Odyssey Creator Lab. You create the show. We bring the advertisers. Apply now at creators.odyssey.com. F ⁇ k of the season, huh?
Yeah, I mean, within a couple minutes, we saw that the Bucs are going to sign Jason Pierre Paul to their practice squad and bring him back after a couple years out at 36 years old. And then I guess Phillip Rivers had to be like, okay, I'll one-up you and I'll come back at 44. Listen, if that doesn't tell you how desperate the Colts are right now, I don't know what does no offense to Phillip Rivers, who will be a Hall of Famer when he actually finally stops playing. It will reset the clock for him.
So I don't know if that they're going to have to make it worth his while, I think, to reset that clock. But man. It just speaks to the road they have ahead because after that loss to the Jaguars on Sunday, they faced a really tough road to make the playoffs at all. And this is a team that we were I mean, they were the number one seed just a few weeks ago. And now you're looking at a team that's just they're in trouble, man.
It's not just that injury. It's the Sauce Gardner injury after trading two first-round picks to bring him in and shore up the corner spot.
Now you know he's dealing with the calf injury, and we know the pipeline of calf strain to torn Achilles is obvious in all sports. And so they're going to have to be very, very careful with Sauce Gardner, especially after what happened to Daniel Jones.
So I don't know, man, there's so many things going on with the Colts, and that division is so tight with the way the Jags and the Texans are playing right now. I just don't see a path forward to them with their quarterback situation and the injury situation the way it is. As impressive as Jonathan Taylor has been this season, it's not enough. I can't see them rebounding from this.
Well, I mean, we we talk about all these teams and who's in and who's out. There's not one set dominant team. There's not a team that you look at. The Super Bowl champs aren't scaring the living daylights out of anybody right now. Is there a team or are there teams that you look at and go, Oh, I can see them going on a run.
We know there's a lot of parody in the league right now. Yeah, I think honestly it's hard to bet against Buffalo just because I think they bring the Trump card to the table with Josh Allen and what he's able to do. We saw him flip the script so quickly on Sunday. They were down two scores against Cincinnati and were able to make plays on defense, bounce back and make plays on offense as a result off of those takeaways. And I think anytime you got number 17 in your corner, you're going to have a shot.
I'm interested to see what happens at the top of the AFC because while we haven't had one dominant team, we do have a fun race at the top between the Patriots and the Broncos. It's like one of those, like, what year is it? It feels like we're back in 15, 20 years ago when these teams were at the top. But in the NFC, it's really the NFC West that encourages me. It really gets me excited.
The race that we're going to have down the stretch, we get to see Seattle and the Rams play again in a couple of weeks here. Both of those two teams have been so complete, so balanced in terms of offense, defense, running the ball, throwing the ball. I'm excited to see how the race finishes at the top. Who's going to get that one seed and be able to get that by? But no matter who does it, man, every team that makes the field, it feels like this year is going to have a legitimate path.
If they bring it for those 60 minutes, everybody's got a shot. And I just don't know how often we get to say that. Luke Easterling is joining us, covers all things NFL for Athlon Sports. I want to talk to you about a team that, well, two teams, they ain't got no shot. We learned that Shador Sanders, he's going to get the opportunity to start the rest of the season for the Cleveland Browns.
We know Cam Ward, he's definitely going to get his chance and his opportunity next year. What are your thoughts on how things stand, more specifically for Shador? And what can Tennessee do moving forward to not screw this opportunity up with Cam? Yeah, I think first with Shador, I think we all have to be honest with ourselves and say that if you watch the tape and you know me as a draft-centric guy, that's really my bread and butter. I spent a ton of time watching Shador's tape at Colorado, and he was a first-round player for me, like just as a quarterback.
I had a late first-round grade on him. And I think if you just look at the tape and what he brought to the table as a quarterback, the fact that he fell to the fifth round is just absolutely preposterous. Like it's absolutely ridiculous. It never should have happened. If there are genuinely 32 teams out there that were so afraid of whatever they thought he brought off the field in terms of his personality or Dion's involvement or all that, if all of y'all were that scared of that side of things to not bring him into your locker room until the fifth round, that says way more about you and your organization than it does about him.
And I think that that is obvious over these last few weeks. That he is I said it at the time. I wrote it at the time at athlonsports.com that Shador Sanders immediately, when they drafted him in the fifth round, two rounds after drafting Dylan Gabriel out of Oregon, he immediately became the most talented quarterback in that room that still had Kenny Pickett, still had Joe Flacco in it, had Dylan Gabriel, still has Deshaun Watson because they can't afford to cut him still two years later.
So like to see these things from Shador on the field now that he's the starter, it's like, yeah, yeah, this was who he was at Colorado, but all y'all spent too much time arguing about the other stuff to actually talk about the football side of it.
So listen, does he have areas in which he needs to grow? Absolutely. He's still learning not to drift backwards and to step up in the pocket when he wants to extend plays. And there's plenty of room for him to grow there. But what we saw was a quarterback who.
is just again should have been taken at day two at worst And now we're going to hopefully get to see him develop over the next few years that Browns are armed with a couple of first-round picks. They do not need to take another quarterback. They need to take an offensive tackle and a receiver and build around him and give him the tools it takes to succeed and to use that as a jumping off point to talk about Tennessee. That's the goal ahead for them is, okay, now we have the guy we think we can build around in Cam Ward, the number one pick. And now we need just about everything else.
We need impact players on both sides of the ball. We need to ensure I talked to my friend Lewis Riddick from ESPN in the offseason about how Yeah. Teams fail young quarterbacks way more often than quarterbacks fail their teams. And it's all about development and the supporting cast. There's so many variables that go into it.
It's why it's the best team sport around, in my opinion. But I'm anxious to see: does Tennessee have the organizational health. To be able to build around that young man and give him what he needs to succeed. Because if you look at his track record, Cam Ward has always brought it. Cam Ward has brought it from the time he was a no-star recruit coming out of high school, going to Incarnate Word, and then he put up video game numbers, and they're like, oh, who is this kid?
He goes to Washington State, and they're like, oh, let's see him do it in the Pac-12. He does it. He transfers to Miami. They're like, oh, well, let's see him do it in a Power 4 conference. He does it again.
Every time that young man raises to another level of competition, he raises his game to match it. And he goes from a no-star recruit to the number one pick in the NFL draft.
So I'm confident that his track record shows that he's about that. He's about the work and he's going to bring it. I'm interested to see if the Titans can meet him there, can raise their game to match his level of excellence because he's always been there.
Well, I mean, they've certainly made some questionable decisions over the past few years, so let's see if things work out for Cam with this organization. Hey, Luke, we appreciate the time. We always appreciate your expertise. Tell everybody where they can follow you and all your work with Athlon. Absolutely, man.
Always a good time. You can find me on Twitter at LukeEasterling. Again, you can find all my work at athlonsports.com. I'm already starting work on our NFL draft preview magazine that comes out every year.
So I'll be writing all the scouting reports and mock drafts and rankings for that as well. But we have updated content on the website every day. Every Tuesday, I have a mock draft that's fresh out every week. I change the order based on the standings. And so every Tuesday morning, you can look forward to that.
Right now, I'm doing two rounds instead of one. Eventually, that'll grow to three. I'd like to go a little bit deeper to make sure the teams that maybe not have a first-round pick still get to participate, still get to see who their team could end up with in the second and third rounds.
So definitely look out for that every Tuesday. Yeah, going to be interesting to see how the New York Jets screw up all the picks they have this upcoming season here next. Always always a a a a favorite pastime of everybody outside Florin Park, right? Oh, what what, to beat up on a jets will tell the truth? I love it.
I love it. Four first-round picks in 1999 or 2000, I think it was. We got the Chad Pennington and Anthony Becht and Sean Ellis and John Abraham all in one class. Four picks. That's hard to do.
Well, let's see if they get somebody who can move the ball more than 10 yards next time.
So we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Dante Moore from Oregon, Ty Simpson from Alabama.
They're going to have some options there. I'm interested to see who goes back to school and who ends up declaring. And run away from the Jets. Run away. Hey, Luke, we'll catch you soon, okay?
Hey, anytime, man. Thanks so much. Listen up, football fans. You won't want to miss this. Right now, new Bet365 customers bet $5 and give $150 in bonus bets, win or lose.
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