Grading Rookie QB Debuts (Hour 2)

It is the JR Sportbrief Show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Much love and many thanks to everybody tuned in and locked in all over North America. Our super producer and host Ryan Hickey, he's holding it down for us in New York City.

And thank you for listening wherever you might be. You can always tune in on the free Odyssey app. You can lock in on your local Infinity Sports Network affiliate. If you have Sirius XM, it's channel 158.

Shout out to all my truck drivers out there. And if you have a smart speaker, ask the speaker to play the Infinity Sports Network. This show gets started every single weekday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific. That means I've been hanging out with you for one hour. And we have so much more to do. How about this? In 20 minutes, we're going to be joined by Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun Times.

Why? We need to talk about Caleb Williams, the Chicago Bears, first impressions and expectations for a team that, well, the defense won the game for the Bears yesterday against the Titans. We'll talk about some of those other rookie quarterbacks making their debuts momentarily. And we've we've gotten into some other QBs like Tom Brady made his debut as a broadcaster on Fox.

People said he was boring. People said this is what you paid three hundred and seventy five million dollars for. We talked about Dak Prescott making all of his money.

All of it, four years, two hundred and forty million dollars. We talked about Tyreek Hill's situation. And then, of course, it's Monday night. Monday night football. The San Francisco 49ers are going to host the New York Jets.

The New York Jets are going to hope that Aaron Rodgers can last more than four plays. And for the 49ers, we just got some news that unfortunately came down for them. Their star running back, Christian McCaffrey, who's been dealing with both an Achilles and a knee, a calf. Excuse me.

They're all connected, right? Christian McCaffrey is out. This man missed the entire preseason with that calf injury and the most dynamic weapon on the 49ers offense is gone. This is an injury for Christian McCaffrey that dates back to last season. And I guess if you are the 49ers and you have to look at a Christian McCaffrey, you know, injury, this is the time to be hurt.

I mean, right. The 49ers are a team out here competing for a Super Bowl. You rather have the injuries come.

Sooner than later, I assume. Meanwhile, for the New York Jets, there's another guy who's not going to play tonight, but I think we all know this. He's already cost himself $5 million. And by not showing up, he's costing himself a game check of $800,000. That's Ahsan Riddick. And so Christian McCaffrey officially out for tonight. Ahsan Riddick, he's out as well.

He doesn't want to show up to work. Okay. We'll talk more about the New York Jets and the San Francisco 49ers. We'll get into that next hour as they're getting ready to conclude what has already been a very, very busy week one of NFL action. Unfortunately, we also have some other news involving a quarterback. I shared it with you last hour that Deshaun Watson, this is totally unrelated to the showing yesterday by the Browns as they were destroyed by Dallas 33 to 17. Deshaun Watson is facing yet another new lawsuit from a 2020 incident. He's been accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit that was filed today in Texas. This lawsuit against Deshaun Watson was filed by the same attorney, Tony Busby, who represented the 25 plus women that sued him for, you know, sexual assault, I feel like over the past, he was like three and four years.

All of those lawsuits were settled out of court. We know about Deshaun Watson facing that 11 game suspension. We know about that broken shoulder from last year. Yesterday he had a crap game on the field, was sacked to six times. His father passed away on Friday.

A friend injured, hurt on Saturday. Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. Damn.

Hickey, I want to have a, I want to have a glass of water after even listening to that. I mean, damn. I know that's, that's a lot.

That's crazy. Oh, this isn't, I haven't even looked into the details. Do I need to at this point? This was not a massage therapist this time, right? This was just a, someone, a dating person, right?

A person he's dating? Yes. Yeah.

This is the first person that was not a masseuse. It was, I believe seemingly they met on the dating app and the, the, the guise of the meetup was to go out on a date and that did not happen. Allegedly. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Okay. Man. The Browns, $230 million guaranteed. There were people chant, and this was before we got the news about the, uh, well, of course this was the game was yesterday.

Today the lawsuit was filed. There were people calling, calling for Jamis Winston, calling for the man. Man, you might get Jamis Winston. You might, Deshaun Watson might have to take a sabbatical.

I have no idea. This is just a bad all the way around. And for a guy who had so much promise in the NFL, everybody loves a good redemption story. Everybody loves a good comeback. Everybody loves to see a bounce back, but for Deshaun Watson, it seems like every time he even gets close to stepping out onto the field and maybe showing something, he just gets, gets batted right back down. We'll see what happens with this situation.

Anyway, there were some other NFL quarterbacks yesterday. They, they, they got the world right in front of them. The world is their oyster. As you would say, they can build on a blank slate.

And this is why they were brought in. I'm talking about the rookie quarterbacks, the guys who have never thrown a pass in their lives, never thrown a professional, professional pass. You got to see him yesterday. Somebody like Jayden Daniels. Well, we found out a few things.

Well, I think we knew a few things already about Washington. The depth around Jayden Daniels is, is not good. We know about Terry McLaurin. The leading receiver yesterday was Luke McCaffrey.

Yes. The brother of the one who's not playing today against the Jets Christian. He couldn't go out there yesterday. Well, he was the leading receiver, I should say. And Luke McCaffrey was only able to go out and muster three receptions for 18 yards. Austin Eckler had 52 yards receiving. Brian Robinson, the running back had 49. Zach Ernst, the tight end at 28. Terry McLaurin had two catches for 17 yards. At Jayden Daniels, he did rush for two touchdowns. Didn't throw an interception.

And so this is going to be a learning experience for everybody in Washington. Bucks snapped the living hell out of them, beat them up 37 to 20. Jayden Daniels says, yeah, this was a failure because we lost.

I grabbed myself hard. We didn't win. So, uh, you know, I'm a competitor.

I like to win. Um, but overall, um, and we're well, pretty well, um, there's some stuff that as an offense that we, we left on the field, we got to execute better, but you know, that's what it's a long season. We're going to move off from this, uh, long season. Oh, this is going to be a long season in Washington, Dan Quinn, the head coach of the Washington commanders. And he was happy with at least with what his quarterback showed.

You got to fully express all the things that he has, you know, of, um, you know, using his legs, you know, being aggressive down the field and like him, like a number of the players tonight, there's going to be a lot of takeaways and thing that, um, we're going to like things that we want to improve upon, but what I can say, like we got one hell of a competitor. And here's some good news for the Washington commanders. Their next game is against the New York giants.

Okay. We got the New York giants and the Washington commanders. That will be a crap-tastic for lack of a better phrase. The New York giants got smashed yesterday by the Vikings 28 to six, where people are looking at Jayden Daniels to be the future of this man. When a Heisman, uh, giants fans are looking for Daniel Jones to be shown the door. And so maybe we'll see a better showing by Washington and Jayden Daniels against the New York giants.

A good luck. Anyway, he's not the only rookie quarterback to make his debut. He was selected at number two. Overall, we got another quarterback in the NFL.

Well, he is basically the, uh, how dare I say this? He is the pet of Sean Payton. His name is Bo Nix, selected 12th overall. Sean Payton wanted to bring in a quarterback who would get rid of the ball and do it expeditiously. Well, he has that in Bo Nix. He made his debut yesterday against the Seattle Seahawks and Bo Nix. He got rid of the ball.

Okay. 26 of 42 to two interceptions, not all that great. He did rush for 35 yards and a score at the end of the game that kept them alive. He looked like he knew what the hell he was doing. Broncos gave up two safeties.

That certainly didn't help. And it's going to be a long year for the Denver Broncos and Sean Payton. He understands that absolutely.

And he says, you know what? Yeah, he did well enough for us to win the game. We just choked it away. He gave us a chance, you know, I mean, our protection was average at best. Um, and I just think, uh, and I believe this, we have to, you know, one point in the game, I came to the bench and talked to the receiver and said, let you know, let's go, you know, I don't, I don't know how many drops we had, but man, let's help this guy. Come on now. We knew this for a minute. Outside of Sutton, them receivers suck. Man, we saw, we saw Jerry Judy actually score yesterday.

Come on now. He's in Cleveland now. So what does Bo Nix think about his performance? He said, guys, guys, guys, listen, I'm never going to give up. I'm never going to quit.

We won't. It was a tough day. It was, uh, you know, they didn't make it easy on us.

That's for sure. Um, but like I said, we competed, we went down and scored there at the end, um, and, and gave herself a chance to win. And we were, you know, an inch away on a, you know, almost batted ball at Riley Moss, made an incredible play on that. They just, you know, made it, made a better play.

So it's, um, it's tough. You got to give them credit, but, um, we battled and we continue to fall. And that's, you know, those are the emotions of today that we got a competitive team. We got a team that's not going to quit.

Um, and we're going to put everything on the line and no matter if it's, you know, ugly start, um, we're going to continue to, to find ways to finish. Speaking of ugly starts the Denver Broncos next game, this, this won't be an exciting game. The Broncos are going to play the Steelers, the Steelers who will score, you know, six field goals and, and win a game. That's what they did yesterday against the Falcons. That that's going to be an ugly one. Prepare yourselves, Broncos and Steelers. That will be a, be a boring watch. Maybe you have a couple of exciting plays, but if the Steelers want to win football games, they, they got to do it. They got to do it in ugly fashion.

It's pretty simple. Speaking of ugly fashion, how about the guy who was selected number one, overall Caleb Williams, the Chicago bears did beat the Tennessee Titans 24 to 17 and they had to get that W they had to pick up that victory in ugly fashion. Caleb Williams, number one, overall selection out of USC. There was nothing pretty about his performance. The win, nothing. The bears actually trailed the Titans early 17 to nothing.

They were getting booed in Chicago. Caleb Williams finished 14 to 29 93 yards. He rushed for 15. I mean, the first touchdown was a Jonathan Owens return off of a block point. Yeah.

Jonathan Owens is the, the husband of Simone Biles claim to fame right there. And the only other touchdown was later picked six and a fourth to help close it out. You could thank Will Levister that as he was under distress behind that crap offensive line. And so the bears, they got a victory despite Caleb Williams not lighting it up.

Come on now. Bill Belichick just told us last week. He says me not impressed. Maybe Belichick was right.

Caleb Williams. He said, I didn't, I didn't play the way I wanted to. Obviously we didn't perform how we wanted to. We want to be the most efficient team out there. Um, you know, myself included, um, didn't perform the way that I wanted to. Um, I missed a few passes that I normally don't miss all of these other things.

And so, um, I think there's small things that always lead up to big things, uh, make things, you know, make those moments and things like that a lot bigger, um, to make games a lot closer. Okay. Well, what does his head coach feel? Matt Eberfluse? What do you think about Caleb? You feel good about what he's done so far?

I thought the operation was good. I thought we had one delay, uh, but again, he's got to keep getting better every single week. And we decided you need to keep doing that as he grows and develops because he is a talent. Um, he's smart as a whip and knows the offense and that we just got to keep playing well around him as he grows and reinvest and improves. And he's going to learn a lot these first three or four games, um, in terms of the NFL looks, the NFL speed.

Oh, there's going to be a lot to learn. It's not going to get any easier for Caleb Williams. The Chicago bears are going to take on the Houston Texans this Sunday. This is not a Sunday early game. This is not a Sunday afternoon game. This is Sunday night football. The Chicago bears are going to be in Houston taking on the new look Texans, or let me not even say the new look Texans, the improved Houston Texans, Caleb Williams goes prime time for his first game as an NFL quarterback.

The whole world will have an opportunity and chance to see him. They were able, they being the Texans, they were able to get by the Colts yesterday, 29 to 27. It's going to be a whole nother animal feasting on a rookie quarterback. Caleb Williams is going to have a chance and an opportunity to make his mark or be picked apart this upcoming Sunday against a team that a lot of people look at as being groomed to be one of the best in the NFL, not just for now, but years to come.

Caleb Williams is trying to do that with the bears. It's the JR sport re-show here with you on the infinity sports network. We're going to take a break.

When we come back, you know what? We're going to have a conversation with Patrick Finley of the Chicago sun times. I want to get his thoughts on Caleb Williams, his expectations for the bears this year, where he thinks that they can improve from what we saw yesterday. It's time to dive a little bit deeper into the bears and Caleb Williams is the JR sport re-show here on the infinity sports network. You're listening to the JR sport brief. It's the JR sport re-show here with you on the infinity sports network. NFL week one is almost a wrap.

We have Monday night football out in the Bay area tonight between the 49ers and the New York jets. But yesterday we saw the debut of another, or I guess we could say the next or latest number one draft pick. That being Caleb Williams.

He's also the first draft pick quarterback wise to win his debut since David Carr did so, even though it wasn't a pretty one. To talk about Caleb Williams, the bears, what comes next on Sunday night football and more. It's time to have a conversation with Patrick Finley of the Chicago sun times. Patrick, thank you for joining us.

Hey, thank you for having me. Absolutely. Now, before we get into Caleb and the bears, do we have an update? I know Roma Dunezay had a knee injury.

What's the latest on that? Rome got rolled up on with about five in the flesh while he was blocking. He stayed in for one more play and seemed to pull up limping at the end of that.

Did not return. The bears announced today that he was getting an MRI on that knee and that, you know, they're concerned about it. I talked to Rome after the game yesterday, made no mention of the injury. It wasn't anything that jumped out in person or really on tape until the bears brought it up. So we will see. You know, the bears said that they'll let everybody know Wednesday.

A lot of times these things flip out long before then, but that would be a pretty big deal here in Chicago. You know, we joke that on any other franchise, the number nine overall pick would be somebody that you're right about every single day. And because he has been Caleb Williams' shadow, Rome gets to kind of go about his business in relative anonymity. Obviously, the bears need him and they need him to develop.

You can't do that if you're hurt. Patrick Finley is joining us from the Chicago Sun-Times, where you talk about Caleb Williams after game one, and it may not be a lot to kind of ascertain, but what are your initial thoughts about him and the elements they have surrounding him? Boy, this is a team that had won 10 games total in the previous two years. Matt Eberfluss has got 10 and 24 in his career. That's only one game off of the worst mark ever for a Bears coach in terms of winning percentage. So, you know, my first thought is winning a football game is hard to do and something that hasn't happened around here very often. And if the Bears can have Caleb develop while they're winning games, boy, that is the best of both worlds. I mean, they're not going to play the Titans every week and things are going to get a lot tougher from here.

But what a luxury to have Caleb post a really historically bad day statistically and still walk out with a smile on his face. Well, we saw that defense and the special teams have to help out for them to get that victory yesterday. Is that something that they're going to have to rely on for the remainder of the season?

Little pop-ups here, returns, blocks and what have you? I, they hope not. I think they think they have a really good defense, you know, probably top five. You know, the most optimistic Bears player probably says they have a top five defense. So, you know, that defense will be with them all year. But boy, they need Caleb to play well in order to go where they want to go, not just this year but into the future.

So, you know, there'll be a little bit of this going forward. And I think the plan is by the second half of the season to not need just otherworldly performances by your defense and special teams to win you a football game. You know, Caleb doesn't have to be an A-plus quarterback for the Bears to win, but he can't be a D either. And, you know, the quicker they can get him to a C-plus or B-minus in his rookie year, the better off they'll be.

And Patrick Finley is joining us of the Chicago Sun-Times. What's the confidence level in that offensive line? We all know about the names on offense. Romo Dunze dealing with the knee, Keenan Allen, D.J. Moore and Swift.

What are the thoughts on the line? Yeah, you know, there was a reason to be worried this year. It was the offensive line and the defensive line. Darnell Wright, who they drafted in the first round last year, certainly seems like the answer at right tackle.

But that's probably it in terms of long-term projection. Braxton Jones is your left tackle. They had an opportunity to improve upon him this year and they didn't. You know, they had a chance to move up in the draft, to look at free agency, and they decided to stick with Braxton.

So this is a really big year for him. And then if you look inside, Tevin Jenkins, a left guard, is playing in the final year of his contract. Coleman Shelton, the former Rams center, is playing center. And then you've got Nate Davis, who was a big money acquisition for them two years ago, or last year, playing right guard. Davis has been up and down ever since he got here last season. And, you know, that's something that the Bears are still trying to figure out how to get the most out of him.

You know, I think in the perfect world, they're probably, you know, somewhere between 12 and 15 in terms of offensive line in the country. But they didn't look like it on Sunday. DeAndre Swift got 10 carries for 30 yards.

That's not going to work. And Caleb Williams was running for his life at times. And that is just not the formula to break in a young quarterback. Well, Patrick, we heard so much at USC about Caleb Williams from the press conferences to postgame and behavior and fashion and what have you. And it seems here in Chicago, he's been embraced inside the building enough to be named captain. What have you observed that people, we don't hear anything about the USC stuff.

And I hope that I guess we don't, right? Yeah. I mean, the Bears, uh, some of the Bears players, you know, when Caleb came here to interview with them before the draft and then once they drafted him, some of the Bears players were curious what he was going to be like, because, you know, you hear these stories about him being kind of a Hollywood guy and they have found the exact opposite. They have found a football junkie, a guy who works hard, who's there early and stays late and somebody who is really engaging. I mean, the most interesting part, I think of, you know, his early tenure with the Bears here is, you know, when he first got here, he was quiet in the locker room. He was respectful. You know, he wore number 13 at FC. He could have tried to wear 13 here, but Keenan Allen was coming over and Keenan Allen really liked that number too.

So Caleb didn't push it, didn't ask, just said, no, I'll wear eight shoes. And I thought that that was a really smart move for him because I think the veterans on the team saw him do that and appreciated the respect he had for his elders. Now, if he's been here longer, he started to open up a couple of months ago and the guys really like the personality that he has.

You know, it can be really awkward when you're a young guy and you're trying to be a leader and he has not made it awkward. He's made it comfortable for everybody, including himself. And that's one of the reasons he's going to be the captain, or he's the captain here and, you know, if everything goes well, he's going to be the captain here for a long time. And Patrick Finley joining us from the Chicago Sun-Times. Now I could go back a month and two months and three months and after the draft and before and during, it doesn't matter when the process was, there were still people going, okay, yeah, fine, we're going to get Caleb, we have Caleb, but I would have preferred Justin Fields. Are the fans in Chicago, has that been put to rest? Have they kind of moved that out the way? Have they fully embraced Caleb now? Yeah, I think the fans have, you know, the lunatic fringe on social media is probably never going to go away, but you know, at some point you just throw your hands in the air and go, hey man, you believe what you want to believe. But I do know this, you know, the Bears, you know, were pretty convinced by the end of last season that they were going to go draft a quarterback, you know, whether it was Caleb Williams or, you know, had the Panthers found a way to win more games, maybe it would have been somebody else. I mean, maybe it would have been JJ McCarthy. I think that that was more attractive to them than bringing back Justin Fields for another season. So, you know, I don't blame Bears fans for falling in love with Justin. He did some really exciting things.

He's one of the great runners of the football and his position, maybe in the history of the sport. And you know, the Bears franchise, their greatest quarterback ever retired in 1950. You know, the people here are dying for a quarterback that they can believe in and that they can love. And, you know, some of them, I think, got carried away thinking that Justin was a little better than he was. I like to tell the story.

I have a nine-year-old little boy. He is on his third different Bears quarterback jersey right now, starting with Mitch Trubisky in 2017 and then Justin Fields in 2021. So I don't blame fans for growing attached to these guys because, you know what, they usually leave town pretty quick.

Well, I hope this is certainly the last. When you think about the man who selected him with Ryan Polls, we know there was another Ryan before him. You also have Coach Iberflus. This has to be a success for them in their tenure with Caleb, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah, I think it does. Also, by the way, Matt the coach preceded Matt the coach and Ryan the GM preceded Ryan the GM, which is very good. Yes, yeah, this has to be a home run for them. You know, as we sit here right now, Ryan Polls has made one of the great trades in the history of the modern NFL, you know, trading the rights to Bryce Young for DJ Moore, Darnell Wright, Caleb Williams, a second round pick next year.

Boy, that is highway robbery. And, you know, Caleb doesn't even need to be great for that to be a great trade. Caleb could just be good and that'll probably suffice. But yeah, they think that they have taken their home run swing with him. You know, three years ago, if you would have sat them down and said that this was the way things were going to go, not just with Caleb and with the draft, but in their ability to get off the money. You know, they traded Khalil Mack right when Ryan Polls got here. They, you know, let the likes of Akim Hicks walk. They traded Roquan Smith.

They really did clear their books and they built it back up the right way. And, you know, if the quarterback can go and can get up on his feet pretty quick, he's got a lot of really good teammates. You know, it might be the best position, but number one overall pick has ever walked into in terms of, you know, quality drops around him. You know, now Caleb's got to get there as fast as he can. And, you know, the Bears have to help him a lot. America will have an opportunity to see him. This is going to be the highest profile game that he's played in that the country can sit down and watch.

There will be no other games on on at that moment. Do you think Caleb Williams is the type of guy to go down in Houston and light it up? Or is it out of his control because of the whole team? I'm not sure the Bears want to try to race the Texans to 40 points. So that might not be the kind of game that the Bears want him to play.

But yes, I think he will be a lot better. You know, I talked to Roman Dunday yesterday and, you know, Rome said, listen, you know, this guy's driven. This guy's got Michael Jordan's level drive. And, you know, you can bet that throwing for 93 yards and going 14 for 29 and having a passer rating of 55 something, you can bet that that's going to motivate him this, you know, this week. But again, look across to TJ Stroud. TJ Stroud is the reason that people think Caleb Williams has a chance to be good this year. Before CJ Stroud, if you were a rookie, you just kind of treaded water and held on tight until you became a second year player. Stroud broke through, showed that you can succeed right away. I think that's a really high bar for Caleb to have to clear. I would be surprised if Caleb was as good this year as CJ Stroud was last year, just because it doesn't happen like that. But if Caleb can get close, the Bears, I think, have a better roster around them than the Texans did last year. And I think the Bears have a chance to at least play meaningful games into December. Well, certainly we're going to see.

I know music to a lot of Bears fans' ears. And last question, Patrick, what's the latest on the football stadium? Are we still looking now at the burbs? It's not downtown anymore. What are we looking at?

Oh, who knows? The Bears still say publicly that they want to build downtown. There's a parking lot just south of Soldier Field that they have their eyes on. And the proposal they've made is that they will kick in two billion dollars with a B of their own money, but that the city's got to provide a whole heck of a lot of money to in terms of the roads and streets and ingress and ingress and all the stuff that goes around the stadium. So far, the city's not going for that. The state's not going for that.

And Kevin Warren, who's the Bears' new president, is still pushing us. You know, worst case scenario, they own 326 acres in the suburb of Arlington Heights. They can always go back there. But part of the reason that they're not there right now is the most Chicago of complaints, which is they don't think the property tax bill is fair. They think they're being stuck on property taxes, which if you own a house in Chicago, we all have that feeling. So we'll see. You know, if they can't get it done in the city, I think they will go back to the suburbs.

But I think they're just going to continue trying to give the city the old college try here for another year, a year and a half or so. Patrick Finley has been joining us here from the Chicago Times. Patrick, where can people follow you and your work as you keep up with this ascending team and their former Heisman Award winning quarterback? You can follow me on Twitter at Patrick Finley, one word. Check out the Chicago Sun Times at suntimes.com. And we've got a podcast called Halas Intrigue, spelled like George Halas.

You can find that wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Patrick, thank you so much, man. You stay warm as it starts to get cold, OK? It's 71 right now. We're doing good. Let's just keep it like this. I hear that. Thank you, Patrick. Catch you down the line.

No doubt about it. That Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun Times. Caleb Williams going to look to improve on his showing. Sunday Night Football is the next game for the Chicago Bears as they will be down in Houston against the also ascending Texans.

It's the J.R. sport re-show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. Caleb Williams, Bo Nix, Jayden Daniels making that transition from college to the pros on the other side of the break. I got to talk about college because we had some games over the weekend that have they have altered rankings and I think they have also altered attitudes and expectations. I think the college football playoff has also been kind of shaken up. We're going to get into that on the other side as as Colorado takes a hit.

And so does Notre Dame is real ugly. You're locked into the J.R. sport re-show. You're listening to the J.R. sport brief. It's the J.R. sport re-show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. 855-212-4227.

That's 855-212-4227. Thank you so much to Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun Times for joining us in the last break to take a look at Caleb Williams. The man trying to make a transition from being a Heisman Award-winning quarterback in the college ranks to bringing the Chicago Bears into a space where damn it they actually have a franchise quarterback. Wild stuff.

Wild, wild stuff. Let's see if Caleb Williams can do it. Not the greatest of starts yesterday against the Tennessee Titans, but a Sunday night football matchup against the Houston Texans on Sunday night.

Now, that's going to be that's going to be something worth seeing. Is he going to bounce back or is he going to get slapped back down? And not everybody can wake up and have the start to a career that C.J. Stroud did last season. Now, having said that, if we take a look at the college ranks for the NFL going through week one about to conclude tonight with the New York Jets and the 49ers, this is going to be one hell of a game tonight to wrap things up. This has been one one hell of a start to a week. But on Saturday over the weekend, we still had college football and we had some teams that, let's just say, didn't have the best or greatest of showings on Saturday. I think I can start with a team that actually had some expectations to be competitive in the college football playoff this year. That would happen to be the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

This is or this was embarrassing. They went out and lost to Northern Illinois. The final score, 16 to 14. They got beat by a field goal. They had their final field goal blocked. And pretty much all anybody could could muster up was, especially from Coach Freeman, is that. The Fighting Irish read the press clippings that they were smelling their own, you know what, that they were feeling themselves and they went out there and they didn't compete.

And meanwhile, they were the ones who paid the school to give them the ass whooping that they got. And even though they only got beat by two points, this was a beat. Now, Thomas Hammock, the head coach of Northern Illinois, he spoke to the media, NBC.

He was emotional after the upset. Listen, I'm so proud of our kids, the coaches, just everybody. They believed. They believed. And we came here and got it done. I told them all week we don't need luck. We just got to be our best. And they was their best today.

And we was able to get it done. Where is this emotion coming from for you? You know, all these guys that have been with our program through the ups and downs and continue to fight.

It's like they're my kids. I'm happy for the adversity to push through, you know, no matter the situation. I just couldn't be more proud. Oh, man.

Wow. I'm not I'm not I'm not even mad. I'm not you know, no crying in baseball, no crying in football.

Look, you you do something like that. And your guys go out there and both they had no expectation. Who woke up and said, Oh, my God, Northern Illinois is they're gonna they're gonna beat. You know, beat Notre Dame.

Nobody's thinking about that. That's the type of game I turn on and go. I changed it. I'll change it. I'm not watching this. I'll look at the score here and there and something will pop up and go, hey, upset alert. You better pay attention.

And then I'll watch. There's no expectation there. In Notre Dame, in the new AP poll, they have fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen. They have fallen 13 spots.

They are currently ranked 18th behind Michigan. By the way, no expectations of them. I'm sorry to tell you. But this is embarrassing for Notre Dame and for Marcus Freeman to say that our players believe the hype. And that's that's your fault, man. That's your problem. If Notre Dame doesn't get into the playoff, man, they may wipe the slate clean with him.

Period flat. And speaking of wiping a slate clean, we don't know what the hell ever we talked about this. We don't know what's going to happen with Dion in Colorado, but they lost in Nebraska 28 to 10. And a lot of the same issues that they had last year with the offensive line, even though that they have now wiped the slate clean there through the transfer portal. And Chador Sanders, his son is still out there running for his life. His other son, defensive back, Shiloh Sanders, this guy broke his forearm.

It's ugly in Colorado, too. I mean, Dion said he saw players. They're not ready. We're going to be under pressure, not just the pressure of I'm not saying them rushing to pass the pressure of the game, the pressure of the moment, the pressure of the time.

You know, everybody want to be him to stand to be him. We've got to be able to handle that pressure. Did it feel like that affected you early at all? I don't know about early as the game progressed. I think it affected us.

Not really defensively, but offensively. The pressure. But what does his son think about this? His son didn't mince words, not the one who broke his forearm, Shiloh, the one who actually throws the football, Chador. He had a reason for the bad game. Chador only threw for 244 yards at a touchdown in an INT. Who's to blame, Chador? I mean, how many times did Riley get touched?

He said what? How many times did Riley get touched? Of course, whenever you're able to run the ball consistently and whenever you're able to, then that opens up the pass, you know, but it's just like, you got to understand like what your team good at. So it's like, why would we keep running the ball if, OK, we are, we out there, we get in a situation where it's a must get and we don't get it. They could only muster 16 yards rushing net.

Chador was running for his life. He's blaming the offensive line. Well, I mean, damn it, I thought his dad, the first day he showed up, said that he was going to fix the offensive line by bringing in his own players. And that didn't work last year as his son was beat to a pulp. And then this year he brings in a new offensive line and the guys are still getting beat to a pulp.

And so at what point throughout the course of the year, I guess, do they gel or do they ever have a time to gel or does he just get beat to a pulp on his way to the NFL? And he talks about freshman Dylan Riola, 185 yards passing to go along with one touchdown. And you could consider this to have been a grudge match between Nebraska and Colorado.

There was so much vitriol from Chador Sanders, even to Matt Ruhl, the opposing coach over at Nebraska, because of, you know, commentary used by Matt Ruhl about, you know, his dad and the attention that he garners and the way Nebraska players last year, you know, just hung out around midfield. There's one way to answer everybody back. There's one way to respond to everybody. That's winning. That's it. Now, I don't know if things are going to get worse in Colorado before they get better. We'll find out. But I'll tell you this much. When you start putting the cameras around and following around the coach and the players and everybody's a superstar and a celebrity, what happens when you don't win?

What happens when the tide doesn't turn? Are we going to get the same cameras? Are we getting more of that then?

Are you going to just ban all the media? You know, it's one thing for Notre Dame to get their asses whooped to Northern Illinois. They got Purdue next, by the way. Notre Dame don't handle them. They just need to call it quits. But the fact is, there's a lot of people enjoying what's going on in Boulder, Colorado.

In Boulder, Colorado. Because when things don't go your way, you got to be able to back it up. There's only so much talking that people are going to be interested in.

People are going to revel in the fact that you suffering right now. Hickey, what are your thoughts on some of these upsets that your team, your team, Penn State avoided? Thankfully, they did avoid. When it comes to Notre Dame, like it's Marcus Freeman I think is a good coach and they beat good teams. Like A&M, that was a good win last week. Yeah, they lost 23-13.

Right. They lost to Marshall in previous years at home. Like I don't know what it is with these smaller opponents that come to South Bend where they just don't get up whatsoever.

But it's obviously a problem and you got to look at it. But I mean, that could be a loss. When you look at the College football playoff, even if they go 11-1, with Florida State falling off, we'll see what USC is at the end of the year. Notre Dame probably gets in at 11-1, but you look at their resume, if A&M is not in the rankings, you could be looking at zero ranked wins and maybe the worst resume of any playoff team. This could be the loss that kicks them out of the playoff.

Yeah, you can't let them in. I mean, when you start adding it up, if you got to start looking at everybody's worst loss, this might be the worst. And this is foreshadowing because we haven't seen everybody's worst yet. Notre Dame is in a crap situation. They got nobody to blame but themselves. Speaking of a crap situation, the New York Jets, they're going to get started against the Niners soon. We'll talk about it. The J.R. sport ratio,