All right, Will Brinson, senior NFL writer, CBSSports.com, pick six podcast maestro. All right, so yesterday I was reading on CBSSports.com and the byline said, Will Brinson. I love the fact that you're writing. Yeah, I'm back in the words of, in the eloquent words of Michael Jordan via his agent David, was it David Falk who issued the I'm Back statement?
Yeah, doing some writing these days. Now, another story of today, the teams are the roughest rise for 2023, five teams that have struggled for 2023 and beyond. By the way, the Canes, man, just, I mean, this Bob guy, I haven't seen a Bob guy get this hot.
I haven't seen somebody named Bob get this hot since I punched my brother in the face back when we were kids. Let me ask this question, because you are a person who understands odds and numbers. Is Carolina at plus 900 to win the series? Does that seem pretty short to you?
Yeah, it seems very, very short. They're saying that they think it's possible. Yeah, I mean, just to put that in perspective versus the NFL, like the Patriots are 10 to one to win the division, right? So, I mean, pretty unlikely, right?
The Texas, the Houston Texans are nine and a half to one to win the AFC South. So it's maybe one of those cases where to avoid a ton of exposure, the numbers a little bit lower than it probably should be. Like, I mean, I don't think, you know, I think, I think it's probably the real number is probably something closer to like 15 to one. That's what I saw Carolina actually winning it. But I mean, to your point, the kids have played really, really well. They just, I mean, this is like a four straight year.
They just run into some goalie who's just like, can't feel his face. And it's like, like insanely hot. It is. It does. It does. It does seem that way.
Like, I don't, I don't want to completely ignore in some ways the hurricanes role in all of this. There have been chances squandered the score for sure. I mean, like you got to go higher you got to elevate the pot. You got to go a little bit higher with it. You've got to, you got to close around the goal, but Bob has been awesome.
He has been awesome. I was screaming into my, into my Twitter. Can you even do that? I'm not even sure.
Last night. Cause they kept shooting into his belly. Like, can somebody please aim at the crossbar? That's all I'm asking for. Aim at the crossbar, hit him in the face and look really nice goal by the, by the Panthers too. They're one goal. I mean, you know, if Freddie, I think Freddie's played some pretty good as well in the net.
And yeah, it's just one of those cases where, you know, I mean, again, like you just, you know, you've got to, you've got your, this is one where you're going to get, like, you're going to get a couple of chances to finish and you've got to finish because both goalies are playing so well. No question. All right. Let me get to some NFL things with you. I want to start with not something you wrote, but I want your thoughts on Ben Roethlisberger telling Kenny Pickett that he was rooting against him.
Now, as, as shameful as that emotion is, I have, because it is a shameful emotion. Ben is so jealous and insecure that he didn't want the guy who was following him. Cause Ben wasn't coming back. He didn't want that guy to succeed because it would make him somehow look worse. But I give him credit for at least admitting that he's shallow. Yeah, of course. I mean, like, I mean, Coach K definitely is rooting for John Shire publicly. Oh gosh.
I can't believe you went there. Really rooting for Hubert Davis publicly. Um, I'm sure they are. I mean, you know, publicly, um, when you're, when you're a hall of famer and you are maybe the face of your sports team or your college or what, like, like, I mean, maybe Roy is in the case. If you've got Dean Smith, however you want to do it, but K obviously is the greatest player in Steelers history, probably, or at least he's, he's the first picture when you do the Mount Rushmore, he's the first pick.
Um, even if you're, uh, isn't he? No, I don't even think he's on it. You're going to lose a lot of your demographic or if you yell Terry Bradshaw, although maybe I'm losing it if I say Big Ben. Well, I mean, as much as I don't like Terry Bradshaw, I think Bradshaw is on it over Ben, but I think the late Franco Harris, uh, Joe Green. Ben's on it, man. Ben's on it. No, no, no, no way. No, you and I might fight about this right now. We weren't even supposed to be talking about this.
I just saw the story and I've brought it up. Um, he didn't want to say he's not the face. He is a, he's a short fire hall of famer who was the face of the Steelers for close to 20 years. He was the bloated face, the bloated face of the Steelers, right? The fat face of the Pittsburgh Steelers. When you think about Steelers, the greatest quarterback in Steelers history is big. How about that?
Yeah, he's second to Terry as much as, as much as I don't like Terry second to Terry, but the larger point, let me, let me give you a better example. Carson with 2017 is trending to be the league of VP. The Eagles are dominating. They have an incredible defensive line, a fantastic offensive line.
They're rolling. Everybody's like Carson goes out to LA players, buddy, Jared golf. He cares as ACL. The Eagles make the supporting Nick Foles. I've never heard him comment on this.
Don't need to don't care. I know that in his heart of hearts, Carson went, did not want the Eagles to win that Superbowl. I think he believes that Superbowl ring.
He got from that is a ring of shame. And that he, and that he was deeply affected psychologically by the statue of Nick Foles and Doug Peterson do the Philly special out in front of that stadium every day when he walked to work. And so deep down in his heart of hearts, just like big Ben, they just like other local sports people have noticed. He did not want success for the guy who followed him because it takes away from his own personal legacy. And so I appreciate big Ben's honesty, I guess is where I'm going with that.
No, that, that, that was my point. I mean, I, I appreciate somebody who admits how frail he is, uh, as a human being before we get out of here, I'm going to give you my Mount Rushmore of, uh, of Pittsburgh Steelers. Uh, but before we do this, uh, I texted you yesterday because I was reading your, your piece about your playoff predictions and I thought it was, uh, first of all, you don't have the Panthers winning the division. I thought they were going to go 19 and 0. I had the Panthers, um, originally, so this is the Princeton model as it's called.
It's a proprietary, uh, statistical algorithm that, um, it's just me picking which wins and losses. But, um, I had the Panthers originally going 10 and seven. I think I ended up with him going eight and nine. I, you know, I tweaked some stuff, uh, after I ran through the entire schedule and not like I was trying to like come out with outcomes, just like, all right, this, you know, like this record, this game, you know, look at, just look at like, you know, when you have gaps, when you play on a Thursday after a Sunday, et cetera, et cetera, you just want to make sure you get all fine tuned those things. So I think that the takeaway, this is where, I mean, you know, it is what it is, but like, I've been, I got yelled at, I was at war with Cleveland, the city of Cleveland this morning on a, on their drive time radio show, uh, with my buddy King Carmen, because I had the Browns going seven and 10, but it's like, just cause I had the breath eight and nine.
And I was saying, you're saying this, this is a general rule. So I'm like, the difference between seven and 10 and 10 and seven is very, very good at school in the NFL. You talk about a couple of bounces, a couple of missed field goals, a couple of drop passes, like a drop interception here and there. I mean, it's really small. So like Panthers at eight and nine is more of these things.
Like, I think this is a 500 is team that can make a playoff run. Um, but just didn't quite have them there. Uh, uh, look, I, there are certain things that are fascinating here.
Um, I, I didn't find that egregious. I didn't find, uh, I think I've said this for a long time. Uh, the Panthers were not just a quarterback away from being a playoff team, even in this division. Uh, there are still holes they need to fill the offensive line, I think will be good. Uh, I'm still not a hundred percent sure, uh, about wide receiver tight end.
I think it's better love, hate nurse, but I think on the defensive side, for all the work they say that they have done, uh, I see some holes. There are some very interesting things here. What you, you wanted to say about a hole.
Excuse me. I was just saying one thing that I think is interesting too, then they're just psychologically, when we start thinking about this particular season and the Panthers and the bears is that most people think about the Panthers as having the first overall pick and taking Bryce young, but you just sort of forget that they traded up to get that. So this is really like, this wasn't the worst team in football that just added a quarterback. It was the, you know, a bottom third team in football with a little more upside. If some things break their way that added the young quarterback and the bears were not the worst team in football, they were the worst team in football.
So it's like, don't forget that when we're sort of plotting out, it's just sort of a weird psychological thing that kind of happens through our brains. We forget that the Panthers weren't the worst team in football. Correct. Let's, uh, let's talk about one of the, uh, one of the worst historical teams, one of the worst run teams in all of sports, the jets who went out and got, yeah, they're, they're a train wreck. Uh, let me draw this comparison. They are, they are Tottenham in the NFL.
Nope. Nobody is one run worse than Tottenham or Chelsea. There's a tough, uh, there is a, they're like tied. Um, but the jets did go out and get Aaron Rogers.
And like, there are people talking about Superbowl. I don't see that, but you know, he's already hurt, right? What he got, he got hurt today. He hurt his ankle today.
Did he really? Yeah. I mean, I think he's fine. He's walking around talking to Daniel Hackett, but I think it's important to note, like, you know, everyone is talking about the Superbowl. They are talking about the jets as a legitimate contender.
They're talking about the jets as, you know, dethroning the bills and just dominating this already just loaded AFC. But then you think about the, you know, the fragility of what happens when you trade picks for a veteran quarterback, who's had injury histories, injury issues in the past, even if you've had the two MVPs, like one bad injury to Rogers and this jet season is down the toilet. Zach Wilson is trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons.
Yeah. Look, there are some good signs about Rogers. Rogers is at OTAs. He'd never, he never went to these with Green Bay. He was at, he's already been there, spent more time in the off season. He had no other really, he really didn't have any other option. He had to with a new team and a new system and new, and new everything.
Not to mention the fact that he knows he gets skewered and it would be deserved, you know, in the New York media if he didn't show up, but I give him credit for being there. The Eagles, the greatest team we've ever seen, not really, but close. You have not even winning the division in the NFC East.
How, tell, tell me. Yeah, mostly just trolling my podcast producer who's an Eagles fan, but no, I mean, I think in all seriousness, do you have a, you know, I had the Eagles at the Super Bowl last year and nailed that one. But you've got a Philly team that had the easiest street to schedule in the entire NFL last year.
They now have the hardest strictest schedules. The NFC is wide open. So there's really only like two or there's only like four good teams.
I mean, it's crazy how thin the NFC is. So I certainly expected to make the playoffs for that not to be a problem, but you lose your offensive coordinator. You lose your defensive coordinator.
You know, you like key free agents. That's what happens when your team is good. I mean, this is a, there's attrition there that people aren't accounting for. And when you go from having the easiest schedule in all of football to having a harder schedule in all of football and being a team that went to the Superbowl from the NFC and having a target on your back, like it's a little harder. There's a lot more taper Jalen hurts out there for people to study, you know, Nick, Shane, thank you. Excuse me.
It's gone. I mean, this year, I mean, great play caller, great offensive designer, but you still got to reincorporate all these pieces. We saw it with the bills last year.
It's not always that easy. The Eagles fans are like, well, we'll just, we lost symbols. We'll just win it this year.
It's like, not dude. That doesn't work when you, like you just don't win the Superbowl that they're here. I mean, they could, but there's a lot of teams in the AFC. The AFC is going to produce a very good team in the Superbowl and they're still, there's going to be some surprise teams in the NFC, whether it's the lions Falcons Panthers, you know, the Rams could bounce back.
It's probably not. Football is a year to year proposition and expecting consistent success just doesn't happen outside of a few very rare teams. All right. Uh, literally 30 seconds, by the way, you have the lions winning their division.
Uh, here's what I found most interesting about this whole thing. And it wasn't even a team that made the playoffs in your mind. Uh, chiefs, you have winning running away by five games in the AFC West. You have the chargers missing out on the playoffs. So, uh, in 10 seconds, tell me which week it will be when Brandon Staley is fired. Uh, 14 week 14 market down will Brinson, senior NFL writer, cbsports.com.
He is writing again, people content. I love it. Well, you're the man. I will talk to you later. Thanks. All right. Bye.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-05-23 17:31:50 / 2023-05-23 17:38:41 / 7
