Tom Pelissero: Dave Canales made the bold decision that something different needed to be done

This is the Rich Eisen Show.

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Baker Bayfield. Touchdown! A 97-yard touchdown from Sam Dernold. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles.

These are kind of the games you look back on late in the season and you're thankful that you won these. Earlier on the show, NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah. Coming up, NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Hour number three of the Rich Eisen Show is on the air.

And as if there's not enough stuff to talk about what happened yesterday. Or in advance of what might happen tonight of Monday Night Football. And I'll be hosting the pregame and halftime on many of these radio stations in Westwood.

One country between the Falcons and the Eagles tonight. And my conversations last week with Kirk Cousins and Saquon Barkley on the Rich Eisen Show. If you missed that, we'll be playing that tonight.

At any rate, as if there's not enough to talk about that, something just happened about ten minutes ago. And Tom Pelissero tweeted about it. Let's bring him in right now to kick off hour number three here on the Rich Eisen Show.

One of the NFL insiders and one of my colleagues from the NFL Network and the NFL Media Group joining us right now. In the aftermath of the benching of Bryce Young in favor of Andy Dalton. Just two games into his second season. The former first overall selection has only won twice.

And is now benched just two weeks into year number two. Tom is here on the Rich Eisen Show. Tom, I'll give you the floor on what happened. Rich, Dave Canales was adamant after the game yesterday. An ugly loss in the home opener. He kept saying, Bryce is our quarterback. Asked about whether he was going to remain the starter.

Bryce is our quarterback. But my understanding is Dave Canales went back. He looked at the tape last night. He came in the building this morning. Had some further conversations. And Dave Canales made the decision, it's time.

Need to do something different here. And that's why Andy Dalton now is going to be taking over as the starting quarterback. There are a lot of layers to a decision like this. Because you're talking about massive organizational change. Everybody knows the boatload that they gave up to go and get Bryce Young. Albeit with a different head coach in Frank Reich. A different GM in Scott Fitterer. But Dan Morgan, who is now the GM of the Panthers, was the assistant GM at the time. He was part of that decision. David Tepper was a part of that decision.

It seems like it just boiled down to, they couldn't go on like this. They couldn't continue to let Bryce Young go out there and get pounded the way that he did. And have the offense unable to function the way that it was. Andy Dalton, at minimum, can operate the offense. He's 36 years old. He started like 150, 160 NFL games.

You know what you're going to get from him. They feel like they put more weapons around the quarterback position this year. Not just in terms of training for Deontay Johnson. And drafting a running back in Jonathan Brooks who we have not yet seen on the field. They've made other additions up front in terms of paying guards a lot of money. It was all built with give Bryce Young the best chance to succeed.

But it still doesn't look right. And at this point, when you're talking about being a first time head coach. Who's trying to maintain your credibility in the locker room. It would be hard for Dave Canales to look people in the eyes and say our best chance to win right now. Is with Bryce Young at quarterback. There's going to be a time and it's not that far away to talk about what this means for Bryce Young in the big picture of his career.

Again, a player that this was not just Carolina. The consensus within the league was Bryce Young was the best quarterback in that 2023 NFL draft. Because of his accuracy. Because of his work ethic.

Because of his processing ability. Even though he didn't have the stature. Even though he didn't have the big arm.

The belief was all those other traits were going to give Bryce Young a really good chance to have success at the NFL level. That has not happened yet. And that's not to say somewhere down the line it hasn't happened. But you look around the league, Rich, at how quickly teams have pulled the plug on starting quarterbacks. Whether that is the 49ers moving on from Trey Lance. The Jets from Zach Wilson. More recently, Justin Fields obviously. The Bears moved on from him.

Kenny Pickett got two years. Not even before he ended up not being in the lineup down the stretch last year. As much as we can say, and there's truth to it, guys need time to develop. When it doesn't pass the eye test and this entire Panthers team has not passed the eye test to this point this season. The one position where you can create a sea change is at quarterback. They're still really short-handed on defense.

They've still got issues. They've got to resolve as an offense here. But the one thing you could do to try to shake things up before the season really slides away from you. Is make a quarterback change. And so a very bold move by Dave Canales making that decision overnight and into earlier today. He informed the quarterbacks, Rich, a few minutes before I put the tweet out that announced this news. You can imagine that this is a heartbreaking moment for Bryce Young. It's an opportunity for Andy Dalton. And there's no question, it's a shakeup in Carolina.

Well, I'm just looking here. Those are the only two quarterbacks on the depth chart right now. I mean, they've got Louisville quarterback Jack Plummer. Three season standout.

Right? I mean, he's a rookie. He's on the practice squad. I mean, is there any sense of just deactivating Bryce Young? And literally having him removed from the equation on a game day so he could just sit back and watch. Because let's say, you know, Dalton goes into Vegas. He gets dinged up by Max Crosby, which is, by the way, or anybody else out there. It's not a stretch. And then now all of a sudden you've got a benched Bryce Young out there trying his best to get back to what he once was at Alabama. I mean, so what is the plan here with him and for how long will he be benched and how far down the depth chart might he wind? It's a great point, Rich.

And also remember this. They're facing this team this week, a Raiders team that just beat the reigning NFL MVP and has a defensive coordinator in Patrick Graham, who is one of the hardest guys to game plan against in the NFL because of the volume of stuff he's throwing at him. So, again, to put Andy Dalton, who at least has been there and he's seen it, it does make sense at this point. It just creates all these other effects. In terms of what the number two position is going to be, there are veterans out there, you know, whether it's guys on practice squads like we saw the Dolphins grab Snoop Huntley earlier today.

There are guys on the street. I don't know if you want to go in with Jack Plummer as opposed to Bryce Young here. Those are decisions that they're still going to have to make. What I can tell you is, again, Dave Canales made this decision. He watched the tape.

It was based on what he was seeing on film. Dave Canales, remember, Rich, he was hired with the idea this guy can get the best out of Bryce Young. And he went back to the basics and breaking down the footwork and trying to bring a positive energy that might have been lacking at times last year.

So you could continue to, you know, kind of bang your head against the wall on this thing and just hope it's going to get better. But when you're just seeing it be over somebody's head at this stage, you can understand where Dave Canales says, hey, right now we just got to win a game. We got to find a way to go and be competitive because they've been non-competitive.

Derek Brown's not coming back. They've got a secondary that they basically claimed off waivers at the cut-down deadline. I mean, the Panthers have a lot of issues beyond the quarterback here.

But at least by putting Andy Dalton in, it gives you a chance to go and try to function and run your offense here. Exactly what they do at number two. That remains to be seen. We saw Zach Wilson get the motive to number three a couple of years ago here.

It's certainly a consideration. But the big sea change today is what they've done at the quarterback position. And it's going to raise all kinds of other questions, Rich, too. And again, it's very early in the season. They're thinking, let's try to win some games, get this thing going the right direction. But if the Panthers now have yet another high draft pick, you have to wonder, are we talking about the Panthers drafting a quarterback high again come 2025? Certainly if they wound up first overall, Tom.

I mean, let's be honest here. Because that's the conversation why I'm asking of how long is this benching going to last? Now, obviously, that'll be determined by how Dalton performs and how healthy he remains, as well as the concept of what's the metric by which they'll feel more comfortable letting Bryce Young back under center. And if that goes south in a half or a third quarter or a game, the question is, how much do they believe in him anymore? It's wild.

Right. There's not a lot of history of a franchise quarterback, much less a first round pick that you gave up as much as they did to go and get them has been benched and then come back and played well later. It's not totally unprecedented. We've seen other quarterbacks. I mean, Sam Darnold is an example right now, but that took six years and four different teams for him to start to be able to capitalize on the potential. You know, in these types of situations, you kind of have to weigh it out this way, I think, which is as much as Dave Canales, again, kept saying Bryce is our quarterback and you learn right. You learn from these hard opportunities. There is a point at which you're not learning anymore.

You're just getting your ass kicked. And Bryce Young and the Panthers were getting their ass kicked over the past couple of weeks and going through last season when they went two and 15 in his rookie year. That's that was always my concern with with Bryce Young was just the level of shrapnel that he was taking. And even though coming out of the firing of Frank Reich 11 games in last year, you saw certain levels of improvements, but then you saw some backslide to it as well.

And you bring in a new coaching staff and the results look the same. It's too soon to say, you know, that the book is written on Bryce Young. But the first chapter of Bryce Young and the second chapter of Bryce Young in Carolina haven't been very good yet. There's going to be a pretty significant plot twist for this thing to work out for him in Carolina. Nobody could have thought going into the season we'd be two games in and talking about Bryce Young going to the bench.

But that's exactly what the breaking news was this morning. Bryce Young is headed to the bench and Andy Dalton is going to be starting for Carolina week three at Vegas. Tom Pelissero here on the Rich Eisen Show. Let's talk about a couple more quarterback situations that might be fluid or maybe not. The Steelers are 2-0. Justin Fields hasn't lit up the scoreboard, but they're 2-0. He hasn't made the mistakes. He did have an incredible throw to George Pickens that got called back due to a hold. But so he's shown flashes and but they're 2-0. Is there a possibility that he's earned the job and they'll just let Russ try and get as healthy as possible in case he's needed?

Tom? Well I think that this is important to understand about the way that Russell Wilson is wired. This is a guy who what four or five years ago in Seattle played one week after suffering an MCL sprain in one leg and a high ankle sprain in the other.

He's always found ways to come out and be the superhero and play through anything and make the most of it. Now he's in a place in Pittsburgh where he's kind of being told we're not going to operate that way. Russell Wilson has told him for two straight weeks that he can play. He made a pitch in Atlanta in week one that he can do this thing. He went through a pregame workout.

Same thing going to Denver this past week though I think at that point it was a little more apparent that he was not going to be in there. I would fully anticipate that Russell Wilson is going to continue to make that pitch. I'm healthy.

I can go. I'm doing everything that you're asking me to do. But for Mike Tomlin, he's watching them win games with Justin Fields playing much the same way that he was hoping Russell Wilson was going to be able to play. In other words, we haven't seen Justin Fields have the hellacious big play, the eye-popping run.

As you said, he had a couple of big plays that either got called back or something didn't go his way in the game against Denver here. But more importantly, he's not turning over the football. He's not putting the ball in harm's way. He's running what he needs to.

He's not taking the chance that he's not supposed to. And I think realistically when you're talking about one guy being early in his career and another guy being 34 years old like Russell Wilson is, you probably say there might be a little bit more upside in Justin Fields. There have been so many times in the non-Ben Roethlisberger parts of this where Mike Tomlin has let guys basically hang on to the job until they throw it away. I mean, I was at a game I want to say was in Cleveland like four years ago where you remember Devlin Duck Hodges was having a pretty good run and he was making some plays, but then he got a little loose with the football. And I was told, hey, if Duck throws it away again, you know, he's probably getting benched in this game, but Mike wants to give him every opportunity to keep that job. And sure enough, Duck threw another one or two Ducks and he was out of the lineup in that game. Same thing last year with Kenny Pickett, who he was saying, hey, I'm fully healthy and they were going, well, you know, still working your way back. We're going to stick with Mason Rudolph. Like that's like the organizational philosophy that encompasses the Steelers as a whole. It's, you know, people wanting Mike Tomlin.

When are you going to make a move there? Well, Mike is competitive. He hasn't lost the room.

I talked with Aruni about this this summer. Like they're still gravitating toward him. They're still believing in him.

And so we want to give him every opportunity to be that guy. When the entire world was calling for Matt Canada to be fired, it was Mike Tomlin who kept saying, we're staying the course until he got to a point where he felt like he could not do that. With Justin Fields, you're not being inundated with it's not good enough.

It is good enough right now. And so I would not anticipate that he's going to put Russell Wilson back in simply because it's Russell Wilson's job. At this point, Russell Wilson never took a snap in a game, a regular season game for the Steelers here.

So let's continue to monitor how he refers to, you know, the position here. Let's, as Mike Tomlin would say, Ritz, the participation will be their guide as long as Russell Wilson remains limited in terms of the participation. There's probably not much of a conversation to be had in Mike Tomlin's mind, particularly when Fields is playing the way that he is. Let's talk Jordan Love. The Packers got a win out of Malik Willis while Love is on the shelf. What do you have for me on his readiness and how soon it might occur? Well, Matt Leflore left the door open for Jordan Love to play last week.

And that was not strictly gamesmanship from how I've understood it. There was certainly anticipation. Yeah, the MCL sprain is not an ideal injury.

It's probably three to six weeks. They're hoping it's going to be on the earlier end of that here. But nobody would be surprised if Jordan Love manages to beat that timeline and get back onto the field. I give Matt Leflore a ton of credit here because when you're talking about starting a quarterback who's coming from a little different style offense, and in college for Malik Willis was coming from Liberty where they didn't run anything that remotely resembled an NFL concept. And you're telling me 20 days later at Lambeau Field, Malik Willis has to start the home opener for the Green Bay Packers.

Like that's unfair. That is a tough position to put Malik Willis in. But from what I was told, and I talked about this with you yesterday, on game day morning, Matt Leflore, even while keeping the door open for Jordan Love, spent the week pumping up Malik Willis. Willis said it in that postgame video in the locker room yesterday, like, hey, it helped build the confidence. Matt Leflore told him all week, you can do this. You can, hey, whatever was happening in Tennessee, whatever you might have heard from Mike Rabel over the last couple of years when you were falling down the depth chart and they're acquiring Josh Dobbs to start a must-win game at the end of the season, you're being demoted to number three.

Hey, you can do this. We're going to find a way. And in the team meeting on Saturday night, Matt Leflore gets up in front of the team and says, Malik, everyone in this room has your bleeping back. That was the message, which was we're going to play complimentary football. The defense might have to make a play.

The special teams might have to make a play. And lo and behold, not only do they play great complimentary football to beat the Colts, Malik Willis, when it came down to it, stepped up and made a couple of plays. He threw his first NFL touchdown over two years after he had that slide in the NFL draft.

The only ball he didn't throw was the one at the center vomited on during the course of the game. It's a really cool moment for Malik Willis. And it shows again, my guy, Matt Leflore, who, for whatever reason, doesn't get respect. He doesn't win coach of the year.

He's one of the best coaches that we've got in the NFL right now. And now, potentially, pending Jordan Love's status, Malik Willis might start against the Titans in his own revenge game in Week 3. So it's sooner rather than later for Love, right? That's why they didn't IR him. You're hearing that it is possible Love comes back this week.

Tom? I believe that Matt Leflore will approach this the same way he did last week, which is if Jordan Love wakes up Friday, Saturday, Sunday and says, Hey, I think I can do this, Jordan Love will have a chance to play. He's up to speed on the meetings and the call sheet and all that. Realistically, it's probably another week of Malik Willis, especially because this is going to be guided medically, of course, and the Packers historically are a pretty conservative medical team. But you've also got a little more breathing room. If you're 0-2 right now, a little different conversation than, OK, we're 1-1, let's go in there and just try to play the same formula we're at, grind out another win.

And then as we get closer to probably Week 4, more likely Week 5, Jordan Love might be back out there. OK, before we do a quick hitter and then send you on with your day, because I notice your phone keeps blowing up, and I appreciate you multitasking right now, Tom. I understand what's going on. No, no, no, no, you're a multitasker.

And it's not me asking for fancy advice. I appreciate that, because he's busy. Leave him alone. Yeah, you can safely pick up Johan Dotson now. He only got seven texts from me about that, Brockman, over the weekend.

Oh, my God. I had to make sure, and I had him yesterday, sorry. So you were eloquent and highly detailed in telling us what Tua's going to go through in terms of making a decision to come back on the field. What is the latest with that and the Dolphins' Planet quarterback right now, Tom? Tua is scene specialist this week, and like we discussed, there's so much data about Tua's brain because of the process he went through back in 2022.

They're going to have ample information to guide him to make the best decision. It's going to come down to the health of his brain, the safety of him coming back and playing NFL football. I don't believe there's really any question whether or not he's going to pass the NFL's protocols here, but they want to gather all the information before they're making a decision. They did add a quarterback today. They're signing Snoop Huntley off of the Ravens' practice squad. They have not yet announced a corresponding move to open up the 53-man roster spot.

At this point, it's not Tua going on IAR. I know Mike McDaniel has said we don't want to put the added stress and the pressure of timelines onto Tua Tonga-Wailoa. If he were to go on IAR, that would sideline him four games. Well, the Dolphins have three more games prior to their bye. This week's game is against Seattle.

They've got two more and then the bye. So if you keep Tua on the active roster, and again, these are decisions they don't have to make until Saturday in order to free up the roster spot here. If you keep him on the active roster, then that raises the possibility maybe after the bye, potentially we could see Tua back on the field.

Again, that's getting ahead of ourselves because he's got to go through the medical portions of this. But whether or not they put him on IAR this Saturday might give you a little bit of a clue, at least in terms of what they're thinking is the soonest possibility of Tua getting back on the field. For now, the plan is Skylar Thompson going to be the starting quarterback.

I thought it was very fascinating, Rich, because there have been so many people speculating, are they going to go get a C.J. Beathard, bring back Ryan Tannehill, somebody who knows the system. They've had a guy in Tyler Huntley who's not really been in this style of offense and also has a different skill set than what Tua and Skylar Thompson does. That makes me think, you know, it's going to take some time here for him to get the entire system down. But you remember way back, 2008, the Cam Cameron Dolphins, when they went to Wildcat and just kind of came up with a different way to play, maybe there's some things going in Mike McDaniel's brain that, hey, we don't have somebody as accurate, as good of a processor on this team with as much experience as Tua. Maybe we've got some different plays and different things that we can put in, having a quarterback you don't mind exposing in the run game.

Again, I don't know that, Rich. I don't even think Snoop Huntley is in the building yet. He literally just got signed off the practice squad this morning.

But keep that in the back of your head. Is there a Snoop Huntley package? And depending on how things go with Skylar Huntley, could Snoop Huntley maybe even be an option to see a lot more time and even start as we get into Week 4, Week 5? Okay, finishing up, let's do some quick hitters on some injuries, if you don't mind. Justin Jefferson, what's the scoop with his thigh injury?

It sounds like it's not anything that's significant. It's a quad bruise, a quad contusion. Jefferson said after the game he wasn't really concerned with it, though I did get a Texas, not with someone with the Vikings, but a doctor with a different team who said, hey, don't underestimate those quad bruises because those things can swell up and be really painful. In terms of could Jefferson be just in too much pain and have limited mobility where he can't go this week? That's something we'll monitor up until the game.

It certainly looks like a pretty good one Sunday against the Texans. Pacheco, is he going on IR with the broken fibula? Certainly seems like it's an IR situation. I know Rappaport reported this morning that the belief is it's a fractured fibula. It's the third straight year where that type of tackle, and we'll see when the finds come out whether they define this as a hip drop or not, but you remember Tony Pollard had a fractured fibula a couple of years ago. You had Mark Andrews last year. Andrews had a cracked fibula and ligament damage that kept him out. It was around two and a half, three months before he got back right around, I believe it was the AFC Championship game, that he came back here.

So a similar type of timeline. You're talking about most of the regular season, at least a couple months, that Pacheco's missing. They've got the running back that they signed, Samaj P. Rhine, after he got cut by the Broncos. You've got a couple other guys, Clyde Edwards, he layers out at least another couple of weeks on the NFI list here. There are some other backs that are potentially available. There's a guy they know really well, Kareem Hunt, who's still a free agent. You've got guys like Dalvin Cook, who's on the practice squad in Dallas. We'll see exactly what they decide to do moving forward here, but would not be a surprise if they added backs. Pacheco's going to be out a lot.

All right. And speaking of hip drop tackles, certainly Joe Mixon was subject to that. What's his ankle looking like today? Best you can tell. Yeah, Joe Mixon made that clear in no uncertain terms on social media last night, that he would like something to happen to T.J. Edwards for that tackle.

I checked on it. It's unclear yet whether or not that's a high ankle sprain or a low sprain. What I can tell you, he's having an MRI today. He got twisted up pretty good.

Texans are also short. Remember, Damian Pierce wasn't even active last night. They've got Cam Akers after two Achilles tears.

That's a cool story. But they potentially could be in the market to have to add a back as well, depending on exactly what that MRI shows with Mixon. Two more. Cooper Cupp left with a walking boot on in Arizona.

What's his deal? The Rams are the walking wounded right now between their wide receiver group and the offensive line group. Test today for Cooper Cupp. We know Puk is not going to be back for probably six weeks or so. Their buy is coming up. They're one of the rare teams. A lot of coaches like to have the buy in the middle or at the end. The Rams are the rare team where I think they have a week six buy. That might be the best thing possible here just to try to get some guys healthy. Remember, too, they have their two suspensions that expired today. So Jimmy Garoppolo can come back, be the two, and Alaric Jackson, who also suspended for two games, will be back.

We'll see what those tests end up showing with Cooper Cupp and at least the offensive line getting somebody because they've lost a lot of dudes on that unit. And then lastly, Jermaine Johnson of the Jets popped his Achilles. Does this mean movement with the Hassan Raddick holdout?

That was one of the many texts that I got while we were talking here, Rich. It does not sound like the stance for the Jets has changed even with Jermaine Johnson. Tearing the Achilles, Hassan Raddick has given up. The running tally is $7-8 million at this point. He's losing $800,000 for every game he misses. He had all the fines back in camp.

The tally is going to continue to go up here. Now, at some point before the trade deadline, which is November 5th, the date that, as I keep saying, you know only for no other reason than the fact that it's the trade deadline, they're going to have to make some decisions here. You know, Raddick is either going to have to decide whether to show up, potentially have his contract told if he does not show up, or the Jets would have to decide, you know, we've had enough and we're going to try to recoup some level of a pick. They're not going to get the third back because all of a sudden now you're talking about getting Hassan Raddick for eight, nine games instead of getting him for a full season unless you can agree to a contract extension, which what team signing a 30-year-old pass rusher to a contract extension in the middle of a season where you don't even know what type of shape he's in for the rest of this year.

It's complicated. I don't think that anybody is advising Hassan Raddick to stay out, certainly not his agent, Tori Dandy, who's never been a believer in, you know, giving up money that you can't get back. And so for Hassan Raddick, he's ultimately going to have to make a decision.

Does he want to make football? Does he want to continue to stand on pride and miss $800,000 in paychecks per week? You know, that pot of gold is not at the end of the rainbow for him right now. I don't think that any of us would ever hold it against somebody, hey, you're holding out, get your money, great. But this is the rare holdout where that money's not out there. It's not coming right now.

The best thing you can do is probably get on the field, show that you're a great pass rusher, and then get back and get that money in March. That's just not where Hassan Raddick is at at this point, so it doesn't sound like there's a whole lot going on in that front yet. Tom, you the man, really appreciate your time. Apologize for Brockman blowing you up about Jahan Dotson. My goodness gracious, what a waste of your time. AJ's still out.

AJ's still out. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. Before we let Tom go, Tom Rich this weekend watched a great movie the first time, the original Beetlejuice, so I was just wondering, what's the response?

What do you think? Just only say it one more time, Tom. It's been said once already. Be careful. I got about 25 minutes into Beetlejuice.

I know you're not supposed to say it the third time. So at this point, all I've seen of him is reading a newspaper from the back, and so I'm still waiting. I'm going to get there, TJ. Before I see you guys, before I'm out there in like two weeks, I promise I will finish the movie. He's busy. He's busy.

I'll have the full review ready. Dude keeps looking at his phone, and we're out of time, too. Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it.

That's Tom Posada right here on the Rich Icing Show. Let's beat it on down the line. We'll be back with more 844-204-rich number to dial in a sec.

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So get in the game today. Follow and subscribe to The Triple Option on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Triple Option on YouTube as well. New episodes drop Wednesday mornings. This episode is brought to you by FX's The Old Man, starring Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow. The hit show returns as the stakes get higher and more secrets are uncovered. The former CIA agent sets off on his most important mission to date, to recover his daughter after she's kidnapped. FX's The Old Man, all new Thursdays on FX. Stream on Hulu. I do believe it was the first time that we met.

I'm going to bring this up. It was in the city of Houston. It was the first-ever Super Bowl the NFL network had ever covered. But you and the entire Manning family strolled into the Gatorade suite, and who did you hear singing karaoke in the Gatorade suite that night? It was a beautiful voice.

Would you say, like, in terms of... It was like an angel bringing us in, and there we walk in and we see Rich Eisen, karaoke, dominating. To basically, by the way, nobody else in the room, right? Just solo.

Just, you know, you get a little practice. There was me and my buddy. There was nobody else. What song do you like? That's a good question. Sinatra. Sinatra? I forget which one it was. Okay.

Well, I mean, did you have to ask? Yeah. Seriously, it was me and my buddy. I remember. We walked in and, yeah, we joined. But we joined right in. You did sing, right? You guys all did get on the mic. I think we got up there.

You know, we can't turn that down. No, I know. And it was, honestly, me. I was obviously, like, pre-cell phone. I mean, you had cell phone, but pre, like, you know, I had a camera. You didn't worry about anybody filming.

Yeah, so there's no video. Get up and sing. You saw karaoke, you sang. You don't think twice. It was just the moment. Yeah, the moment.

You didn't have to memorialize it. It was me, my buddy, Doug, and then it was, I think, your entire family. Yeah, probably the whole crew, yeah. Your mom and your dad. You and Peyton and Copper.

And Copper. Yeah, exactly. And do you have a go-to karaoke song you like at all? It's changed over the years, obviously. Has it really? Yeah, you kind of go with the times.

You know, Footloose has always been one, you know, just because you can kind of dance with it. But now, you know, it's tough. It's tough to do karaoke now. You're just kind of worried, you know, people are filming all the time. Then they judge, and, you know, I get judged enough.

I don't need to be judged on my singing ability. That's, you know, that's fun. Yes.

Everybody's made it too serious. Good stuff on our YouTube channel, if I don't mind saying so myself. Back on the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network, sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk, furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you. Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Andy in Kansas will take your call. What's up, Andy? Thanks for hanging on as long as you did. What's up, Andy? Hi, Rich. Good afternoon to you. What's up? Hey, I just wanted to call in. You asked Bronco fans to call in, so I'm calling in to let you know what was going on, how I'm feeling about the game yesterday.

Okay. I think I got to watch some of it, but I watched a list of some of it on the radio as well. Could you describe that interception that Bo Nix threw? Well, I think he threw it to the other team, Andy. That's as simple as I saw. He just threw it to the other team. He dropped back. Oh, right.

All right. That's where I was just trying to get a little humor there. So if I had called in on the Broncos win-loss game, I was going to predict something pretty amazing, probably. It was all because I was drinking the Kool-Aid that Sean Payton was feeding us.

The preseason was a great preseason, and he also gave a lot of praise to Bo Nix. And so I probably would have put probably a 10, 11, 12-game winning season for my prediction. Yeah.

You'd fall a little bit short right now, and I'll tell you what. Thanks for the call, Andy. I appreciate you calling in from your drive back, it seems.

We're right around there in the beautiful state of Kansas. Guys, Denver's next two games are on the East Coast, at Tampa, at the Jets, home for Vegas, home for the Chargers. And then here's why they've got to get this thing on the straight and narrow, fast. Certainly if you're Sean Payton, and obviously he wants to get it done fast anyway, at New Orleans, his homecoming. With the new OC dialing it up at 40 points a game, and his guy struggling to just throw it four yards right now. And as much as I saw body language and good comportment from him in Seattle, which is a tough spot, and Pittsburgh ain't easy either. We knew these games were going to be tough. I know, and that's the whole point, too.

That's the whole point, too. But I mean, 1-5, 0-6, because that offense scares no one right now. Nobody. And like we were talking about pre-show, what players on Denver do you have in fantasy? What's our poll question looking like right now?

Yeah, so we talked about Daniel Jeremiah. Which team concerns you the most right now? Dallas, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Cincinnati. Correct. All lost yesterday. All lost. 48%. Baltimore.

How about that? 29% Dallas, 17% Cincinnati, only 6% concerned with the Niners. What a dumb poll. The Bengals are 0-2, and we've got to win. No, the Bengals are used to starting 0-2.

I know, but still, most people that voted in this, I promise you didn't. Their last five years, they're 1-9 in their first two games. Joe Burrow's September record is, what, 6-10?

Right. And Baltimore, I can kind of pick up on it. I would be more concerned about Baltimore. Their next three games are at Dallas, home for Buffalo on a Sunday night, and at Cincinnati. They could be 0-5. And they just lost to Vegas after being up a ton. Yeah.

Let's just give a little bit of flowers to Vegas real quick here. Brock Bowers is really good. Brock Bowers, nine catches, he was targeted nine times by Gardner Minshew.

Nine. And he caught all nine of them for 98 yards, including a long one for 27. Gardner was 38 for.276. And all of what we're talking about last year with their quarterback problems, and Gardner Minshew, as we saw in week one, a lot of people thought, he ain't it. He found number 17 in a way that last year, as we saw very famously on Netflix, number 17 didn't find it. The only thing that found number 17 was a camera and a microphone last year on the sideline. Yeah. Nine catches, a buck ten, and a touchdown for Devontae Adams. That's the good stuff right there.

They didn't run it very much, which is something I'd be concerned about moving forward. But they're one and one. They're staring 0-2 right in the face. Max Crosby, dude. Two sacks, four tackles for loss. That's the good stuff right there. And I guarantee you, number 98's on the screen right there, is when they're going down the list of why Carolina went down the list of where bench and Bryce Young right now.

On that list, there was none. Number, we got to face 98 next. Boy, howdy. As for the Ravens, Lamar Jackson was asked if he's going to be more vocal with his teammates this week after falling 0-2 and having the Ravens 0-2 for the first time since 2015. It's always business, you know. Yeah, but we're going to see. We're going to see. I'm definitely going to talk to my guys, though, because we've got to find our mojo. We've got to find and do what we do because that's not us at all.

OK, we'll find out if that's not them. I mean, Isaiah likely said good luck. We played our worst game all year after they lost to Kansas City. And then, I mean, you look at the numbers and Derrick Henry ran for 84 yards on 18 carries and a touchdown. Zay Flowers had 91 yards on seven catches.

They were up. They just couldn't stay on the field to wrap things up against the Raiders who made the plays. Why isn't 22 getting the ball every single time? 18 carries should be enough.

Maybe saving them a little bit. Fourth quarter carries, come on. And kudos to Vegas. Antonio Pierce is now one on Christmas Day in Kansas City in week two in Baltimore flying east and playing an early window game. Any Raider fan from back in the Oakland days remembers and in Los Angeles days knows Raiders playing early window East Coast.

That was no bueno nightmare. And they got Carolina next Cleveland after that. And then at Denver, they can get a nice head of steam here with the Steelers coming to town and then at the Rams. That's all before they face Kansas City for the first time.

They can get a nice head of steam here. That was the higher register. Man, isn't it amazing? I know. But it's just amazing how the difference between 0 and 2 and 1 and 1. Again, in the last three years since we've got 17 games, 9% of the teams that start 0 and 2 make the playoffs.

Just 9% and 45% of the teams that are 1 and 1 make the playoffs. What a major difference. What a huge win. A monster win for the Raiders in Baltimore. And I think they doused a lot of survivor tiki torches yesterday, man. No doubt.

I had them. Their tribal council spoke on Sunday. Maybe we can hit on this later in the week. But you look at the 0 and 2 teams. They've been talking about it since they went to 17 games.

Yes, sir. Only three of the 21 have made the playoffs. Last year only one of nine did and it was the Texans. So we're looking at Rams. I'm not going to put the Panthers in there. Or Giants.

Broncos, Titans, Jaguars, Colts, Bengals, Ravens. We got one or two in there, you think? I think so. I'm not giving up on Baltimore.

I absolutely think so. But it's interesting they're winning our poll question at present. I haven't even hit it with a retweet, which I will do in the break. We will be back with more as we get you ready for Monday Night Football in our Overreaction Monday pod. This thing flew by. Time flies when week two is off the rails. Hey, Sean. Hey, Rich.

Thanks for having me. We all know NerdWallet for their credit card comparisons, but there's more to it than that, right? So much more. Even for credit cards, it's not the basic this card versus that card. With us, you can filter for features you want, add your top cards to a comparison table, and get access to exclusive offers. Smarter tools, smarter financial decisions. Exactly. Beyond credit cards, we research and review thousands of other financial products, from high-end savings accounts to mortgage lenders, so you can find the smartest products.

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NerdWallet Compare, Inc. NMLS 1617539. Crazy-ass commercial break. You're singing Wham! He's taking phone calls.

What is going on around here? At least I'm conducting the business of this show. Mike Hoskins is saying, hey, let's do this. Let's do that. I'm like, yeah, we should do that. I've got things, guys.

You do you, and I'll do what we need to do. Can I explain to you what I got? No, no, no, no, no. I don't really even care.

I think you might. No, no, no, no. Because we got to Harbaugh Files, guys. We got to Harbaugh Files. JK Dobbins with another dominating performance.

He ran for over 100 yards, 131, including a long of 43 that he flipped into the end zone on, and that leads to today's edition of Harbaugh Files. Sometimes people that are standing on third base think they hit a triple, but they didn't. I had something I've never been able to do. I know people can do it rather easily, something I always tried to do. I've tried to flip off a diving board into water. I've tried to do it off of a trampoline. I only tried it once off to just the ground like he did it.

And pretty much every time, for some reason, I stop mid-turn. So, yeah, just cool, cool. I've always admired people that could do that. That's something I'm missing, not getting that last part of it in. The Harbaugh Files.

No triple Lindy for Harbaugh. Wow. Look at that. That's unbelievable.

He did that on purpose. He's getting stronger, guys. J.K. Dobbins, stronger.

Who's got him in the Dillingham League? Oh, boy. This guy over here. Oh, all right. It's me. All right. Very good. Congratulations.

Thank you. Back on the Rich Eisen Show, the NFL Sunday ticket yesterday, 10 early window games. So two different multi-views and a little quad box. It was all over the place.

Amazing. I mean, when there's so many games and so many wins in one single window like that, you need NFL Sunday ticket with YouTube TV bundled together. You get the most live NFL games all in one place. The multi-view is a total game changer for NFL and certainly fantasy football fans. YouTube.com slash NFL ST device and content restrictions apply local and national games on YouTube TV.

NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Tommy in Washington State. Let's take his phone call. What's up, Tommy? He's up. You there, Tommy? Can you hear me? You're there. Okay, Tommy. I almost cut you off.

What's up, Tommy? Sorry, guys. I just wanted to talk about some Seahawks for you guys.

Go for it. All right. So I think Geno Smith is the most underrated quarterback in the NFL. And I think what Mike McDonald doing in Seattle is a little bit under-talked about and a little bit under-appreciated. Okay.

Go for it. Well, I just thought what Geno did yesterday going against New England's defense, that is very underrated. Chris, shout out your Patriots, but I think that what Geno did yesterday with his offensive line, that is probably one of the worst in the league. And then with what the Seahawks are doing on defense after their last few years of having one of the worst defenses in the NFL, I think the Seahawks are just being under-looked at this point.

I agree. And they're 2-0. And that's one way to basically say after, thanks for the call, Tommy, the Seahawks being overlooked, as Tommy in Washington just said, one way to be looked at is to lead that division through two weeks, which they are. The NFC West currently led by the Seattle Seahawks. And I looked it up with those two green rectangles up on our screen, having started 2-0, Mike McDonald, the new head coach there, I said to myself, I wonder who's the last Seahawks coach to start their Seahawks career 2-0.

So, I went down the list. Pete Carroll in 2010 did not start 2-0. Are we talking about Chuck Knox? Jim Mora, I thought, wouldn't that be ironic if he started 2-0? He did not. Mike Holmbrin, he did not start 2-0.

Even the Super Bowl hero. Dennis Erickson, I'm like, that would be surprising. Nope. Tom Flores did not. Chuck Knox, he had to, right? Nope.

Whoa. He did not. The year before Chuck Knox showed up, they had two coaches, Mike McCormick, I thought, wouldn't that be ironic? Mike McDonald, does it have to be an alliterative M? He did not start 2-0.

And then I looked it up. The coach that McCormick replaced, Jack Patera, did he start 2-0? Because he was the first coach in the history of the Seattle Seahawks. He did not. Mike McDonald's the first. First ever coach to start his career as a Seahawks coach 2-0. It never happened.

Wow. And they do it with Zach Charbonnet at running back, because Kenneth Walker's out. Tyler Lockett hardly caught a thing. The JSN game yesterday. Well, it was also a DK game. Yeah, DK broke free on that bomb.

He sure did. Yeah. And the defense, you know, I mean, we want to come up with a nickname for it, I mean. Right now it's a legion of who? Yeah, right.

Right? It's a legion of who right now? We were talking about it, Rich, you and I in the preseason. Nobody was talking about Seattle.

Nobody. Didn't hear a peep about that team at all. And now Seattle's next game is against, I guess, Skylar Thompson. Looks like after that at Detroit on a Monday night, those games are always on tilt, right?

Yeah. It's going to be a high scoring affair, huh? Home for the Giants. And then there's San Francisco week six coming in.

Can the 12s, I mean. You're just giving them a win against the Giants? No, I'm not. I'm not. I don't know. I'm just saying that they can get at home.

You just kind of skipped it, that's all. No, it's a week five against the Giants and there's some winnable games for them coming up next. But, you know, you can't just check them off to say that they're expected to win right now. Yeah, they'll be favored by them. But they're out there.

And how about Arizona as well? Kyler Murray. Kyler Murray was phenomenal.

He was awesome. Isn't that the whole business of it's not my job to throw it to Marvin Harrison Jr., which was totally taken out of context. And as if he says that thing got put to bed instantly, he threw it Marvin like it was his job. Marvin, I got to say, if you haven't seen the video of the first touchdown, the toe tap on that is absolutely next level reason why he was the number one wide receiver prospect in the draft with Malik neighbors in the draft as well. Who else involved he did, but it dude, this is an amazing stat.

This might be the stat of the week stat of the week stat of the week. It'll be tough to top this one, Marvin, as you know, caught two touchdown passes in the first quarter. He had four catches and two touchdown passes in the first quarter against the Rams.

They both raised the Rams out who are so banged up. Do you know the last rookie to have four catches and two touchdowns in the first quarter of the game? It's Marvin Harrison Sr. No, no way. Really?

In 1996. No way. I was going to say Randall.

It's his dad. Go. Figure that. Can't make it up. Stat of the week. Hands down.

Hands down. That's incredible. Yep. I love stuff like that. Oh God.

It's his dad. Cardinals next up. Let's see who's next up for them.

Oh boy. Home for Detroit. Let's go. Talk about a shootout.

Washington and then at San Francisco when rubber might meet road a little bit here. But you know what? Hey, you know what the offense was yesterday? Pew, pew. Pew, pew, pew. That's what it was. They have 69 nice points. Shoom, shoom, shoom, shoom, shoom.

That's what it was. At Green Bay. Let's go. Arizona being good. What are they third in points this year?

They might be. Behind. Arizona being good. Chris, I can remember Marvin's freshman year. I came in here and told you I hate Ohio State, but this guy's my new favorite football player. Yeah, man. It's man. He's living up to it.

Marvin Harrison. Yeah. Yeah.

Freshman year. Yeah. So. That's what's up. That's what's up. We go back to Pittsburgh for a second.

Go for it. Is there a new trend? The petty game ball. Did you hear about that? What? Oh, they gave Russell Wilson a game ball after the game and called it a petty game ball because he couldn't play. He couldn't play in the game, but it was a revenge factor against Denver.

You know what? If I could come up with, you know, another phrase, it's like the Larry David spite. It's a spite ball. Yeah, exactly. Here's a ball of spite for you, Russ.

You couldn't play. But we got it for you. And I thought it was funny that Justin Fields was the one who explained.

Wasn't he the one? Yeah. Okay. So it's all working there. It's sitting there seething in the corner. Right. Where do you put that ball?

What's cool about it? I don't know. Well, I'm sure Sierra. I imagine Russ has gotten a lot of game balls in his football career. I'm sure. It's up there. We did it for you, Russ. Yeah.

And let's be honest. Sierra decides where these game balls go. Russ has no say. What? In the garage, I guess? Hey, listen.

I'm sure Russ has a very nice office at home in one of the 14 rooms. We haven't seen the new- Well, they got rid of it. We don't even know what Pittsburgh decided. I don't know.

I'll tell you what. Chris Pittsburgh hasn't come up yet. Is he in Penn Hills?

Is he in North Hills? Russ. Russ.

Russ may have the- Mount Lebanon? The spike ball, but Justin has the beans. Got to have the beans. Justin's got the beans.

He's got the beans. That throw to George Pickens. By the way, Pickens was eaten up.

Yes. Patrick Sertan. He was. Pickens, he's coming on strong.

He's got a little bit of Unleashed, unlocked a little bit. And T.J. Watt is just like, he is absolutely everywhere. We're not going to apologize for winning.

No, they are not. They're two weeks defensive player of the year. Kind of a toss-up.

You got so many options. Max Crosby is up there, too. Aiden. Aiden Hutchinson with a five sack game. Yeah. Oh, gosh. We could go on and on and on, but we are out of time here on the Roku Sports Channel. We'll be returning in a moment. For that, overreaction Monday.

Look for that pod coming up. The Rolling Stone Music Now podcast gets inside the biggest stories with Rolling Stone's senior writer Brian Hyatt, movie director James Mangold. I don't want to turn Bob Dylan into a simple character with a simple thing to unlock that then makes you go, ah, now I get him. First time I sat down with him, he said, what's this movie about, Jim? It's about a guy who's choking to death in Minnesota and reinvents himself in a branded place, becomes phenomenally successful, starts to choke to death again, and runs away. And you smile. He's like, I like that. The Rolling Stone Music Now, wherever you listen.