1st & Goal: Carl Dukes, 92.9 The Game Host

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That's birddogs.com slash MLB. The NFL season is inching closer and closer. Who are the contenders and who are the pretenders?

We have four downs to figure out your team's future. It's time now for first and gold on the Zach Gelb show. So usually I'm in control when I'm hosting this show. I'm getting very worried because usually when Hickey screens the phone call, he'll talk to the guests and the guests will say something and I could tell when Hickey's giving like a sympathy chuckle. I've never seen Hickey laugh as hard as he just did.

I thought he was going to fall over and all like 150 pounds of him was just going to go into thin air. So I'm really curious what my next guest told Hot Take Hickey and he of course is the preeminent sports talk show host. In the ATL, he is Carl Dukes, who does afternoon drive a 92 nine the game. You could also hear him nationally right here, but where else?

CBS Sports Radio. Put him up. Carl Dukes. What's happening? Put him up. What's going on, Zach, man? I'll tell you. Hickey called me and I picked up the phone and I just said Deebo Samuel. Well played. Well played. And you know what? If you say some stupid things, I'll call you out on it and I won't let you go.

Until you hang up on the Carl Dukes. Well played. I don't think you're going to be getting the Christmas card from his people anytime soon. It's all good though. It's all good. No, but I'll tell you the people at Panini, which is what he was promoting, should thank me.

They should send me some trading cards for being honest because that's the most pub they got. I agree. I mean, there was a lot of love there, man. I'll tell you this and I sent this to you. I listened to it.

We played it on my show and I just I went in on Deebo because the whole deal with these guys, a lot of these guys, he's an amazing talent. And I know we're going to talk about some other stuff here, but at the end of the day, come on, bro. Really? I mean, come on now. Just answer the question. Keep it moving. It wasn't personal.

He didn't ask you about your family. I mean, like, I was just like, come on, Deebo. Don't be the last. Probably won't be, Zach. I'll tell you this, though.

I'll start you off with this and the Falcons. Are you upset that Dean Pease is no longer there? Because he usually gives the media a good tongue lashing each and every year.

He does. And you know, Dean Pease got here. We like Dean a lot, man. When he got here, I was busted his chops because he immediately came in and was like, we got to stop this crap.

We got to believe in ourselves and we're going to change the culture. And he came in. I was like, Dean, you haven't won a game yet here. I mean, calm down. At the end of his tenure, and he promised Arthur Smith he'd come back and coach for a few years and get things rolling.

The answer's yeah, man. I mean, I would love to see Dean Pease with the talent that they've added this offseason in free agency and through the draft and see what this defense is going to look like. But I'm excited about Ryan Nielsen, who came over from New Orleans.

Highly touted, well respected, a teacher. And so I think a lot of people are going to underestimate this Falcon defense and they're going to be surprised. Yeah, no one's going to pick the Falcons and deservedly so to go to the Super Bowl. And when Kaleis Campbell was talking about how this is actually a winning destination at first, when he signed there, I was like, what the heck is he talking about? But the Falcons are starting to grow on me inside this crappy division heading into this year. Well, I'm glad you said it. It is a crappy division.

I mean, let's be honest. Baker Mayfield, hot garbage. Bryce Young, unproven. Derek Carr, he's got a chip on his shoulder, but who cares? This division is crappy. And here's the deal. The Falcons have improved, in my opinion, more than anybody else in this division.

Now, what that said, the reason why you should be on board is because this offense is going to be dynamic. I got to tell you guys this, right? This team under Arthur Smith went 7 and 10, 7 and 10 the last two years, and people said, oh, they're not any good. Do you know what he was dealing with? Do you know what personnel he had on the field?

I mean, to win seven games is almost miraculous. And if you watch this Netflix quarterback series, this documentary, you know Marcus Mario to quit on the team, that even made it worse. So at the end of the day, what is he going to do now with an improved roster and Bijan Robinson, who I think is going to be the Offensive Rookie of the Year?

You heard it from me, Zach. He's going to be the Offensive Rookie of the Year. Were you on board with that selection? Because everyone these days, they don't want to do anything with running backs, it seems like. So it's funny you say that. Two months before the draft, I told my audience here in Atlanta, Bijan Robinson, and people said, you're crazy, Dukes.

What are you talking about? You don't draft a running back that high. Nobody drafts a running back that high. You take the best player on the board.

This kid is a top three overall prospect, not running back prospect. How can you pass that up? And people said, Oh, you're nuts. What are you talking about? And then the night the draft happened, I said, no, Stradukis. What did I tell you guys? Of course, I was all over this thing, Zach. No, Stradukis, you're a piece of work. I love that.

Let's get to the next. So you say all these nice things about the defense. You say all these nice things about the coach and Bijan Robinson as well. What the heck is Desmond Ritter as a quarterback? Well, I saw him today on SportsCenter, which is great. Young fellas getting some exposure, which he deserves. It's his team. It's his time. I know he made the rounds today.

I think he was on NFL Live as well. Dez is going to be a good professional, but let me tell you what I'm hearing about him in the building. First one in, last one out. Totally buying in to understanding everything he needs to know about running this offense. He's a great teammate, and guys are already talking about his leadership. Now I'm going to say that again. His leadership, Zach, all these guys don't necessarily have to be Patrick Mahomes, but you know what they have to be?

Leaders. So if he is what they're saying he is in the building, he's going to be fine, man. He's going to go through some growing pains. He played four games last year, but Desmond Ritter is going to be a very good professional.

If you're wanting me to say he's going to be a 10-time All-Pro, I'm not willing to go there, and I'm certainly not willing to tell you that he is going to be one of the all-time greats, but I think he can grow into the role, and with the weapons they have around him in Drake London and Kyle Pitts and CP, Cordell Patterson and Bijan Robinson and Johnoo Smith, they're going to score points. Johnoo Smith, that's all stopped the Atlanta Falcons hype. When they brought him into Atlanta, they just showed what he did in Tennessee because he had brick hands in New England.

Well, I think it didn't work because there were things against him there and the system, and this is not coming from me. It's coming from the coaching staff. Listen, Arthur Smith had him in Tennessee. Go look at his numbers in Tennessee when Arthur Smith had him as the offensive coordinator.

Dude, he is a dude and a very likable guy. Red zone is going to be something that the Falcons will be hard to stop, or at least they should be this year. When you've got Johnoo Smith and Pitts on the field along with London and Bijan, who can play a slot receiver role, you could roll Bijan out to the wide receiver. He might run a better route than most wide receivers in the league.

That's how good his hands are. So you're going to have options down there, and oh, by the way, you can leave Tyler Algier in the backfield, who ran 4,000 yards last year and was averaging over 4.5 a pop. I think they're going to have some options, and Johnoo came in just realizing, hey, it didn't work in New England, but Arthur knows what he's getting.

Let's get to the next down. Carl Dukes here with us. You mentioned Algier. I was really impressed with him last year. Now, as you said, they drafted Bijan Robinson, and you think he's going to be Rookie of the Year on the offense side of the ball, and it's tough to debate that. How does that relationship work now between Bijan Robinson and also Tyler Algier? Well, Algier came in here with really no expectations, and to be quite honest with you, Zach, I was loving that pick last year coming out of BYU.

I watched this kid a couple of different times. I knew he ran hard, but this team needed a game changer. What I mean by that is, for Bijan Robinson, just to give you an idea of how elusive he is, at the University of Texas, he avoided 113 tackles. That's the most tackles avoided by any FBS player over the last five years. You don't get a clean shot on him, so once he gets to the linebackers and makes his move, and now he's past the safety, it's a wrap. Algier doesn't have that, but he runs hard, and he'll give you quality yards, and he's tough to stop.

I think Tyler Algier has taken on the addition of Bijan Robinson with saying, hey, we're going to make each other better, and I think they're both going to be important to the run game. So, you look at Kyle Pitts, and I know it's easy to second guess, but if you just look back at the top 15 in that draft, after the Falcons did take Kyle Pitts at 4, you had Jamar Chase go 5, Jalen Waddle goes 6, Penay Sewell 7th, you had Patrick Sertan go 9th, and Devontae Smith go 10th, and then I'll still throw out Justin Fields there, and you had Micah Parsons go 12. Are you still fine with the Kyle Pitts draft pick, or is it like, man, they shouldn't have drafted him and gone elsewhere? Important year for Kyle Pitts. Year 1, 1,000 yards, great tight end season, first tight end to do it since a guy named Mike Dickett did it.

Year 2 hurt. Important year for Kyle Pitts. Is he a unicorn, like we think he is?

4-4, 4-3 speed, 6-6, all the things that we talked about coming out of Florida. I think the answer is yes, but he's got to prove it. Zach, I'm not going to sit here and tell you, you know me, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Kyle Pitts is all that. He's got to come in and have a great year for the Falcons, and, you know, I know he's gone through this quarterback transition, Marcus Mario didn't find him enough, but he didn't find anybody enough. So, I'll give him a pass and say he was injured last year, he's got to come into camp healthy, he put out an Instagram post today or yesterday saying he was going to be healthy, and he's coming in, he's ready to go, he's not going to be on the pup list, so we're excited to see where it goes for Kyle. Let's get to the final down.

Before we get to the prediction for this year's team, I have not watched the Netflix documentary yet, you know, the account sharing, I have to go pay for my own Netflix now, so I'll do that at some point this week. Me and Micah Parsons were best buds, you know, I was hoping that my parents or a friend would still be paying for it, but that's not the case. When you get into the whole Marcus Mariota thing, what's the truth from your understanding of what transpired there? He just got benched and then he quit on the team?

Yeah! There is no other truth! Are you kidding me? The whole thing about him wanting a surgery and getting the surgery after he was told he was being benched, it was his out. It was his out! Here's what happened.

They go to him, they say, hey, we're going to go to Dez for the final four games. Marcus didn't like it. If you remember, or maybe don't remember, the Falcons were still in contention in December. They were still in the division hunt, as bad as things were in this division with Tom Brady, etc., and ultimately, he didn't like it, and then he made the excuse, because here's the deal, if you were going to have the surgery and it was that bad, you could have had the surgery earlier in the season and just said, hey, I'm going to shut it down. You only shut it down when you got benched. So, yeah, and then he walked out and left, and everybody said, hey, where's Marcus? And I put this on anything, I'm telling you, I talked to people in the building, they were like, they came in, they couldn't find the guy.

So, you tell me what that is. Alrighty, before we let you run, we know Tampa Bay is going to regress because they lose Tom Brady. The Panthers, I like Bryce Young, but I don't think they have enough around him.

The Saints, everyone's picking him, and I just don't trust Derek Carr. I don't love your team in the Falcons to win the division, but if I had to make a pick today, I would choose them to win the NFC South. How likely do you think it is that Atlanta wins the division this year? They will be in the hunt, and I actually have them winning 10 games.

I think 10 is going to be enough to win this division. The key will be the Saints, and this is a great rivalry that I don't think a lot of the country knows about. There is a tremendous rivalry in this division, and it has been for many years, between the Saints fans and the Falcons fans and these two organizations.

And it will continue. We don't like them, they don't like us, we have some good fun with it, but if they can somehow maneuver either splitting or winning those two games against the Saints, I think they win this division easily. I'm not worried about Tampa Bay as much as some others, and certainly Carolina. I think Bryce Young is the real deal, but it's hard to win as a rookie, and I don't care who you are or where you are. So I give Atlanta the advantage because Dez has already played four games. He did not turn the ball over in those four games he played last year, and they allowed him to throw the ball.

He should have won two of those games that they lost because there was a fumble late in one of those games, and then the other game just kind of got away from them, but he played well enough to win. I'm going to say the Falcons will win 10 games, and they will win this division. So Carl Dukes, the one thing that I look at just from last year, and I think they have a fourth place schedule because I know there was three 7-10 teams, but I think because tiebreakers, Atlanta was in the bottom of that division, they were 1-7 on the road last year. How much are they going to improve on the road this season?

Because that's the one thing when I look at that number I go, 1-7 on the road, that's brutal. All right, so the thing on the road is absolutely true, Zach, but you've got to get stops, and this is why they went out and spent the money on Jesse Bates and Kaleis Campbell, and they went out and got Caden Ellis. They're trying to get off the field on the road. If you can do that and you're scoring points, you're going to be okay, and I think it was one of the biggest issues for this football team going into the offseason was how do we improve this defense. Listen, it's been Grady and A.J. Terrell.

That's it. There's been no other star power on this defense, so now you've added some veterans who know what it's about, who know how to get it done. You've got a nice rotation up front with Anya Maude, who also came over. I think they're going to be able to have some success on the road because they'll be able to get off the field.

It was a big problem last year, and then your offense just wasn't doing anything. He's Carl Dukes, Deebo Samuel's best friend. You can listen to him, of course, at 92.9 The Game and also on the weekends right here on CBS Sports Radio. Carl, I always appreciate the time. Thank you. As always, Zach, put them up!