Carolina Panthers HC is official, so let’s talk about it.

in those situations. Will Brinson, senior NFL writer, CBSSports.com, Picsics Podcast moderator. Before we get to anything else, let's talk about Frank Reich and your thoughts on the new head coach of the Carolina Panthers. Well, first of all, Adam, sorry that I can't be on video.

I don't know what's happening with my wired internet here. I even wore a visor for you today on a hat. You've never looked better, Will.

Right, yeah, this is the best I've ever looked. But this segment, by the way, is sponsored by angry Carolina fans who got in my mentions about the foul discrepancy in the NCAA game this past weekend. Justin Timmons, Hogan, I don't think you're in the market. You know who you are, people. Maybe Matthew Cook, although he may have been talking about the foul discrepancy at Trinity Baptist in a youth basketball game.

I'm not sure. At any rate, I would say that I think Craig Wright is an A plus higher. I know that like the big complaint for people is probably the fact that Steve Wilkes wasn't retained after he went five and five. His name had coach. He has a year prior in Arizona where he was a head coach. He kind of got to definitely got a raw deal there.

I get it, man. But Steve Wilkes is a really good person. A good, a really good coach. Yeah, like and like the people in Charlotte love him. Like I know I have family in Charlotte that he is befriended and like it is universally known throughout the city that he is a very, very good person. He's loved by the fan base, loved by the locker room.

I don't think that that should factor into deciding how we judge the Frank right higher because Frank, right? He went, I mean, he would, he would, he had winning seasons three or five years and be fired mid season, of course, this year by Cuckoo to mercy with Indianapolis. He didn't have a, a, a starting quarterback, but he had, he had different starting quarterbacks all five years. Every year.

Yes. It was Andrew luck to cover percent Philip rivers, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan. That's crazy, man. Like there was no content, like no con like, like continuity whatsoever with the quarterback there. And I like, I think that like, I, I have Frank right to my top pin at one point head coaches. He is steady. He is smart. He's a great game planner. He is aggressive analytically that people really know that he can't like to go four to four down. The locker room loves him. He is a player's coach and he is a quarterback developer, even though he didn't get a chance to do it in Indianapolis because Andrew left retired after one year.

Um, I think it's an eight plus higher. I, I, I, I said, uh, where's G four ATW, one of these texts as I'm on, I said, in November, I was like, look, David Tepper is going to take a swing for the fences and try to get Sean Payton. He's going to with, and he's going to quote, unquote, settle for Dan Quinn or Frank. Right. Now look like he's selling, but like David Tepper, like, this is like David's ever doing whatever it doesn't want to do, but he's like doing the grownup decision.

And I applaud him for it. Okay. I mean, I mean, doing what he, like, he, he wouldn't want to hire Frank.

He actually had to hire Frank. Right. Okay. Okay. Like, okay. I don't know.

By the way, this could be an eight plus plus higher. If as is rumored, remember from Frank, right. Was the quarterback for the Panthers in 1995, first nap through the first touchdown, you know, his defensive coordinator was his defensive coordinator, uh, in, uh, in 1995, in 1995 was, uh, uh, bill Bellacheck. Oh, and the Panthers have already interviewed Vic Fangio to be the defensive coordinator just coming here.

I like Vic Fangio. Oh yeah. With that personnel on that defense. Sure. Right. Right. One of the office and you bring into Coby preset as your veteran, like, you know, like bridge quarterback and then draft somebody that is like, you got to be able to Panthers, man. Okay.

Tom Brady, at least it's probably at least a division in the, in the, in the Falcons will trade for, uh, uh, uh, Michael Vick 2.0, AK right-handed or right-handed Michael Vick Lamar, Lamar, uh, Jackson. All right. You're a, you, you haven't sold me on it yet. It's a bad idea. It's a bad idea. You haven't sold me on it yet, but I'm not quite at a plus. Um, I do think that it's a good hire.

I am not anti Frank Reich. Um, I am more, I am more about, uh, I was pro Steve Wilkes and by the way, I elevated five and five to six and six. I don't know how I got six and six in my head. Uh, cause I've just done the math and if Matt rule was fired at one and four, then there's no way Steve Wilkes could have gone six and six because that's illegal. They played too many games at that point. Frank Reich also fits my, um, like my, my coaching replacement, ex-girlfriend theory where like these owners of these, these GMs always go in the like total opposite direction of whoever they just get rid of. Like, like, you know, like Matt rule was the completely unproven college coach who wears khakis for five straight days. And like, it doesn't have any lick, a lick of offensive acumen.

And now in Frank Reich is like the very subtle and subdued, you know, straightforward veteran NFL coach. I like, I like that. I like the move.

Well, okay. Uh, I'm glad, I'm glad you liked the move now about getting a quarterback, um, a bridge quarterback, Jacoby Brissett. Chances are chances that the Panthers trade up in the first round to get a quarterback. I think it's, well, so this is a really interesting idea because one Scott Sitter loves to trade too. He mostly likes to trade back, right? But the, I believe number five pick in India, Arizona's three Indies for Seattle is at five. Got federal came from Seattle. You know, who likes to really trade back?

John Schneider. It's right. You know, who would, you know, who would definitely like to trade back and get more pics? Cause they already have their quarterback in theory. Arizona.

Do you know what would be really funny if Frank Reich and Jacoby Brissett leapfrogged and Scott for leapfrog to Colts and Jim Murphy and Jeff Saturday, who they're definitely hiring by the way, they're going to hire Jeff Saturday. Oh yeah. Wow. Sadly.

Yeah. Um, I think three in five are very good landing spots for the papers if they want to trade off. Now it's also possible that they say, we're going to go to Kobe and we're going to sit at nine and see if somebody falls to us.

Like a CJ shroud could get down there. You sort of wait and play that game to be like, you know, worst case scenario, we go to 2023 knowing that we're going to try and win games with a competent coach. And hopefully, you know, like worst case scenario, we have a high draft pick again, we go to Drake, May, Caleb Williams. I mean, I don't think they will be hyper aggressive about trading up, but I say that knowing that David Tepper is prone to bizarre mistakes.

Yes. Um, look, I don't know if it would be a mistake. I just know that drafting a quarterback in the first round, uh, especially since there are no slam dunks here. Um, like if you were drafting Andrew luck, then it would be one thing if you were drafting, uh, look, some, some drafting would be one thing. Last, um, last week, I believe you go like, not you, but anyone who wants to listen to it and go hear Brady Quinn on the pick this podcast talking about it. He put, uh, Bryce young ahead of Trevor Lawrence behind Joe burrow in terms of his pre like pre draft race, which is insanely high. Like I have not heard anyone else do that. And Brady, Brady, I believe Brady's quote was when I'm feeling down, I just go and watch Bryce young tape.

Oh wow. That's uh, makes you feel some type of way. Good for, uh, I'm glad that Brady feels that way about quarterbacks. I actually think that Bryce young is the best quarterback. My fear about Bryce young is that he's too small and it will get broken.

Uh, that really is my only, uh, reservation about Bryce young is that he's just going to break. There's a, there's a quarterback from Raleigh or, you know, from Raleigh or Madison, wherever you want to pin it from who, you know, did okay in Seattle. Right. But he wasn't, he was not small. He was short, but he was not small. Bryce young is both.

Yeah. But like, I mean, Russell was really good at avoiding hits. I mean, Bryce is pretty good about that too. I mean, I guess that's the whole thing, man. You can be like, you can be Josh Allen or Carson Wentz or cam Newton. If you don't know how to, you don't know what kind of hits you have to avoid. You're, you're not going to stay healthy in the NFL.

I mean, that's the bottom line. And Russell, like Russell is definitely like thicker than for sure. No doubt about it. But like Russ has always been good about avoiding contact and Tom Brady was good at it. Manning was good at it. Like you would see Peyton just drop out of nowhere. Like even when he was like five years in the NFL, you just drop in the middle of the pocket rather than take a big sack. I mean, that's, that's just, you know, that's just smart, intelligent quarterback. Now I'm not saying pressure will do that. I'm just, you know, I think it's, I don't know that it's necessarily about your size and stature so much as about it as it is about your football intelligence.

And Bryce Young has it. I just don't, he certainly won't be there at nine. You're going to have to trade up to get, and I don't think CJ Stroud will be there at nine too.

I think most people believe that at nine, you're going to be looking at more than likely Anthony Richardson of Florida, who a lot of people think has incredible raw ability, but obviously has not put consistent performances on tape at the University of Florida. But we do have two very important football games because we won't know who's in the Super Bowl until we watch these two football games coming up on Sunday night. And the first game is in Philadelphia. It's the 49ers and the Eagles, Will Brinson is back with us. Pick six podcast moderator, cbssports.com, NFL, senior NFL writer. All right, let's get to it.

It doesn't write anymore. Yeah. Um, Brock Purdy didn't play well, I thought, against Dallas. How good does he have to play for the 49ers to win this game in Philly?

Um, yeah, I mean, he, I don't know if it's about Brock Purdy so much. I think this game hinges on Nick Sirianni, honestly, and what the Eagles' offensive game plan will be coming out of the gates. And I said this last week about the Bills and the Bengals, right?

Bengals needed to come out and throw early and throw often and get the ball out of Joe Burrow's hand quickly and force the bills to really, cause you know, they were missing Novant Miller, young pass rushers, forced them on their heels defensively. You're in the snow, you know, you just get your guys open and it's like the Eagles also have to do the same thing basically. And we've seen them, and this is kind of interesting cause we've seen them do it twice against the Steelers and the Titans this year, the Eagles did not run their basic office or their, their, their, their convoluted, you know, um, you know, read option offense that features Jalen hurts, pounding the ball down low and miles Sanders on these, you know, just plays that make the linebackers and the secondary just deal with all kinds of, you know, like eye candy and stuff. Right.

Right. Um, instead what they did was just let Jalen hurts wing it early. And if you look at the Niners and it's, it's tough because both the Niners, the Eagles really haven't played anybody when you start diving into their schedules, right? But the Niners run defense, their front seven is so much better than their backend. And if they, if, if Nick Sirianni comes out and lets Jalen hurts, throw down fields against with, with A.J.

Brown, Devonta Smith, you got Dallas gallery eating over the middle and the running guys, you know, Boston Scott can gain well can catch it too. Like this is where that, this is where you force the 49ers hand and you make Brock Purdy become the catalyst for their offense, as opposed to, you know, letting their defense operate. And then Brock party just makes the easy throws.

It does the college hand and stuff. If the Eagles do that, this could be a runaway train for Philadelphia. Like, like it's like, like really ugly where Philly wins by 17. Plus if they, if they try to pound the ball into the 49ers front seven, and they don't let Jalen hurts attack early, then you really handle, you really like give sort of the, you know, the, the, you get the, the, the offense over. Like you, you, you, you let Kyle, you let Cal Shanahan become offensive, right? And that allows him to do what he wants to do, where you have guys running wide open across the middle. It was a pretty good about stopping those, but you, you, you don't want to let Cal Shanahan get his game scripts going. You want him to become defensive with his offense.

And then it was weird, but if the Eagles attack vertically with their, with their passing game, it could get ugly. If they don't, I think the 49ers win. All right.

Let's do, let's, we have about a minute and a half here. Cincinnati is at Kansas City. I think the Bengals have been the best team the last six, seven weeks.

I don't know what, what version of Patrick Mahomes we're going to get on a high ankle sprain, unless it's not a high ankle sprain, which what they said it was. How do you see that? It's Sunday. It's Sunday still in the month of January.

It is. Oh, that's weird because Joe Berra doesn't lose in January. Adam, he doesn't, he just, he just does it. He's never lost in January. And that's not like, that's not even like the Trevor Lawrence doesn't lose on Saturday, like the silly stat, Joe Burr, like he's ice cold, man.

He doesn't lose in January. He shows up and plays big and look, this is going to be a close game. It's going to be a fun game. It's on CBS. You're streaming on paramount plus, but, but like, but Mahomes is gimpy. I think they're making a show of it to make everyone think he's healthy. He's not he, the chiefs have lived over the last five years on the homes, making plays on third down, either extending it out outside the pocket or running with his legs to pick up the first down.

He won't be able to do that this week. I think the, I think the biggles win by seven points. Bengals and who you got? Is it 49ers or Eagles? Biggles and Eagles, but I'm a heart kind of wants the 49ers.

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm the same way. I like the Eagles in the game, but I want the 49ers to be in the Superbowl. It would be a plus. My wife's a 49ers fan, so I'll just go quarterback to ever start a Superbowl game too, by the way, Mr. Irrelevant, the last pick in the draft. It would be phenomenal. I'll bet there's an interview with him.