Week 1 College Football Recap (Hour 2)

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Well, Rocket can. You could always go to Twitter at Zach Geld, or you could find our poll question for today also at CBS Sports Radio. And the poll question today simply reads this. Clemson football this year will be winning it all, make the playoff, miss the playoff. 79% say miss the playoff, 18% say make the playoff, 3% say winning it all. I think Clemson is going to be on the outside looking at income, college football playoff time, offensive line, problematic against Georgia Tech, wide receivers dropping the ball up against Georgia Tech, and DJ Young-Gill away not looking like an improved quarterback from a year ago no matter what Clemson tries to tell you and tries to sell you. Their defense is championship caliber. Offensively, there's a lot of problems, and we'll see how much longer Dabo, I think he's going to have a long leash here, but how much longer Dabo is going to allow DJ Young-Gill away to play, knowing that there's other issues on his offense, or you get to go to the guy in Cade Clubnick, who is a five-star quarterback and is someone that has not played extensive time yet. We did see him have one drive up against Georgia Tech and go for a touchdown, and he was very efficient marching the ball down the field, but when will you finally make the call that we're going to tell DJ to hit the bench and we're going to go to Cade Clubnick? The next few weeks, the next two games, you have two cupcake games, but after that you get an uptick in competition a little bit with NC State and then also Wake Forest as well. Talking about Twitter, you can find their poll question today.

Hickey, this is why I love Twitter. So about a month ago, I went down to the Borgata in Atlantic City, and I did an appearance on Angelo Cataldi's show. Angelo's going to be hosting for one more football season, Legendary Voice. Been hosting Morning Drive in Philadelphia for I think more than 30 years, and I interned for Angelo. So Angelo invited me down, and I hosted two segments of his show. Now at the time, he was very upset with Nick Sirianni, the head football coach, because on the first day of training camp, I think they had like a 90-minute practice, and Angelo hated that, and it was in shorts and a t-shirt.

It was only 90 minutes. He didn't really think that the practice was satisfactory to the level that the way that NFL teams should be operating. There's all these restrictions and all these rules with training camp practices, so training camp's not what it once was, but Angelo thought that the practice was basically a slap you-know-what type of practice. So I said to Angelo, who was freaking out over the first matchup of the season against the Lions, that if the Philadelphia Eagles lose to the Lions week one, because that day, even though I love Angelo, I was telling him it's not a big deal. It's training camp. These are the ways these training camp practices work. So I made a bet with them, and I said if the Eagles lose week one, I will drive down to Philadelphia at some point throughout the football season, and I will hand deliver you a meal from one of their sponsors in Del Frisco's. When I was an intern there, they got Del Frisco's catering all the time, but I will buy him a meal from Del Frisco's if the Eagles lose the Lions because I don't think the Eagles are going to lose the Lions. So I repurposed that clip today.

This was a response that I just got from this guy Curtis Chase on Twitter. You fat bastard, always looking for a free meal. Now, Ryan, if you're going to call me a fat bastard, you would think that person calling me a fat bastard would be an impeccable shape, would be buff like you. How much do you weigh? What are you, like a buck seventy-five?

Yeah. Buck seventy-five. How tall are you? Six foot? Five eleven.

Five eleven? Okay, that's modest. At least you could have just lied and said six foot. So you're six foot, a buck seventy-five in good shape. Now, I don't think I'm in bad shape. Three, four years ago, I was in bad shape.

Then I lost 70 pounds and I go on elliptical and I could ride the elliptical for some days up to two hours and I bet a bare minimum on that elliptical four or five days a week for an hour a day. So I go to this guy's profile picture, Curtis Chase. The guy's a fat slob and he's calling me a fat bastard. That is Twitter, basically.

Just summarized in one tweet. And I looked at a few more of these guys' pictures and he needs to hit the gym before he calls anyone else a fat bastard. Calling me a fat bastard. Are you sure he's talking to you?

He's got to be. You're not the one getting a free meal. You fat bastard always looking for, but Angelo's not fat. But Angelo's the one getting a free meal. Yeah, I guess so. You're, you know, it's not like you looking for a handout or something like that. This is you saying all right, unless I'm wrong.

But especially the way you headline the clip, I will go down there and buy the food. That's why I was confused as well. If the Eagles lost. You're not saying, oh, if the Eagles win week one, you owe me a stake. But Angelo's not on Twitter. OK, well, he's just tweeting it to me. That's why it's confusing. You tag WIP morning, so maybe he thinks that he'll see it that way. You got to realize it's Twitter. People aren't putting two and two together sometimes on Twitter. So it's not like they're like, oh, he's not on Twitter.

He's not going to see something. I can respond. It's oh, no, I'm in the moment. Screw this guy.

Oh, it's Angelo being Angelo again. I have no idea. So my response of I think I'm in better shape than you judging by your profile picture. Maybe I should delete is what you're saying.

Do a little quick delete. Maybe just from the sense of I'm not sure that he's talking to you per se. OK, but still, the point is still there. If he's calling Angelo fat bastard, which is not the case, Angelo is a big man, but I would not call Angelo fat. He's like six four. And for a guy that's 72 is in good shape. But I wouldn't call Angelo fat. And this guy is not in the best shape of his life. If you look at his profile picture or if you just do a quick search of him, he's got a turkey neck. This guy.

Gobble, gobble, don't people to look in the mirror or they just they see what they want to see. Six pack and ripped arms. Yeah, he's in workout clothes.

The guy's in a cut off shirt. But I would not say that this guy has any right to call someone fat like I would not call someone fat. And I don't think I'm fat. And I'm a big man, but I wouldn't call myself fat right now.

There was a timer. Oh, yeah, I was definitely fat. But if you're to go call someone fat. I think you need to be in better shape if you're this guy that's creeping into my DMS.

That's just me. Now, you're not really, I guess, well versed in in the rules of of being able to call someone fat. Because no one's ever probably called you fat. So you and you're a nice person.

You don't probably don't call people. Also, I feel like fat bastard is more funny than like hurtful. Now, if you said you're right, fat and another word that's hard to enough. Now, just escalate situation.

Now, it's now it's hurtful or like that sandwich at Penn State. Right. The fat bitch.

Yeah. There are definitely certain ways to say, you know, words after fat that could definitely mean different meanings. I'd say fat bastards more like, oh, you you're funny. You fat bastard, like in a in a good sense, more than a mean a mean full. Now, do you remember what's on that fat bitch sandwich at Penn? No, it's like I didn't go to like fresh with a mozzarella stick fries.

You're a fat bitch if you order that sandwich. There's no doubt about that. All right. We got Ralph Acciano coming up in a few moments. We got to do the final first and goal of the year, previewing all 32 teams giant somehow. I would say save the best for last.

But there's no way you can make the argument. They're going to be the best. That's just the way that the cookie did crumble. But let's set up the news brief right now. Get you the biggest stories of the day with somebody.

Let's go. Time for your daily news brief. We get you caught up on the rumors, reports and reconnaissance from the day in sports. It was not pretty for the Clemson offense. Yes, they won 41 to 10, but they didn't score a single point in the first quarter. They only had 14 points at halftime and one was off an interception pretty much that gave him a favorable field position.

This was a sloppy game all around for the Clemson offense. But Dabo Sweeney still praising his quarterback DJ on go away. There's nobody in America that had more eyes on him tonight than our quarterback.

And I love how he responded. He led. He made some huge plays for us. I think you saw DJ do things tonight that, you know, we needed to see and that he didn't do last year, man. He made a lot of plays with his legs. He showed great leadership, great moxie.

Yeah, that's a no for me, dog. Nothing moved the needle from what I saw from DJ last night on Monday night to wrap up week one of the college football season. He did not thoroughly impressed me. I know his offensive line was hard, but the receivers are horrible, but I didn't really see a great quarterback when I was watching him up against Georgia Tech. Billy Napier. He had great quarterback play from Anthony Richardson and Billy Napier says Anthony Richardson has thrived under pressure so far. I mean, this kid's on the spotlight on him for a long time. You may worry that that would affect him, right? But I think it's made him a better person, right?

I think he being from Gainesville, I think he realized the platform and the opportunity that, you know, the example that he can set. We talk about the Clemson quarterback situation where it's DJ on go away, maybe getting eventually replaced by Kate Klubnick. Kate McNamara, your time is coming to a close. You won a Big Ten championship last year. Don't ever take that away from you. But JJ McCarthy is a better quarterback. You saw that in glimpses up against Colorado State. Bad pick early by Kate McNamara. But Kate McNamara says he's surprised that the QB competition is carrying into the season.

I would definitely say it's pretty unusual. It was kind of a thing that I wasn't expecting about you in the camp. You know, I thought I had my best camp. I thought I put myself in a good position. And that was just a decision that coach went with.

It's very clear. You have three cupcakes to start off the year. You won the Big Ten championship. If the coach can't outright name you the starter before the season starts, that means he's definitely thinking about making a change. And it's just inevitable that JJ McCarthy will take over this team. Let's hear from Jim Harbaugh.

He says he's likely going to let both quarterbacks play and see what happens. I don't feel like I have to manage it. It's just they're both tremendous competitors and I mean both are warriors.

I don't feel like I gotta manage anything. I just gotta let them go out there and compete and do what they do. Let's go to maybe the biggest game of the weekend or one of the bigger games of the weekend.

Texas up against Alabama. Coach Sarks says Saturday's game against Alabama won't have a major impact on the program either way. Yeah, come on coach. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is like this is going to be the game that's going to define our program.

It might, it might not. I'm not that concerned about it. I'm more concerned about just the way we play the game, you know.

Said all along, my goal is to be in Dallas December 3rd, right? This game has no impact on that, right? It'd be great. It's an awesome opponent. I want to play really well. I want to make sure that our guys play our style of football, our brand of football, and do it the way that I know we're capable of doing it. Oh, it's, it's a, it's not a Big 12 game, but if you beat Alabama, that could be the difference of you making or missing the college football playoff or getting to a Big 12 championship. I know it's in conference, but that does matter for your season, Ryan. How many teams can beat Alabama this year?

Maybe none. I actually get what Sark is saying and I would agree. He's talking about conference getting the Big 12 championship, but in a different sense, I'll split it this way. Last year, A&M beats Alabama, right? That was, you know, we hold the Jim say on Jimbo Fisher comments, they beat Alabama, but they also also lost for the games. Not that that Alabama win is meaningless per se, but when you beat number one and you don't cap us because there's four other games, it's kind of like, Oh, we beat Alabama, but we didn't accomplish any of our goals.

I kind of get what Sark is saying. If they beat Alabama, Alabama, doesn't that totally improve the confidence of that team? It does, but they lose three games in conference and they're sitting there in nine and three or eight and four. It's like, yeah, you beat Alabama great, but the unit followed up and you lost till Kansas state or Iowa state.

It's like, Oh, can we just be honest here? He's basically saying, yeah, even if this year doesn't go the way that we want it to go and Quinn, yours doesn't play well, we got arch bad and coming in. So he's no dummy. If Quinn doesn't work out, I got arch. If let's just say quit and plays great, we can maybe push arch back a year.

Well, so what have you said? This is the biggest game in the program. You know, our, my entire tenure is going to be based on 55 to 10.

And you got to like, it's got a fire shark. Do you think most Texas fans are going into this game saying, Hey, it's not that big of a game. Oh no massive game. Talking about big game, Brian Kelly's first game with the LSU tigers and maybe at Orgeron should have been coaching. Cause Brian Kelly's team, they lost to Mike Norvell in Florida state, Brian Kelly on the biggest lesson learned from the week one loss. What we learned is that we've got to coach better. I mean, we've got to have our kids coached in a manner where they're ready and I'm accountable for that.

And we have to have them tackling better, executing better in all phases. Let's see what the halftime speech was. What did Brian Kelly tell his team at halftime courtesy of ESPN? Cause you're only down by four.

What was your message? We can't play any worse than that. I don't think. I mean, it's my first game. Maybe we can down seven, three and a half time.

Yeah. We couldn't play any worse than that. And LSU was unprepared. They were sloppy.

Yikes. Mike Tom. And I'm why he decided that Mitch Trubisky or as I like to call him, Mitch Trubusky was named the starting quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Mr. Biscay is our starting quarterback and our captain, man, we just really comfortable with what Mitch has shown us. He's a guy that came to us with, with franchise quarterback experience, if you will. He's comfortable in those shoes. He's been the focal point of a football team in the organization before.

Yeah. He had franchise quarterback experience, but he failed. He was asked to be a franchise quarterback and the bears moved on from now.

The bears are horribly run organization, but it's not like Mitch Trubusky did a great job. I don't see the upside going to Trubusky. I would have started Kenny picket Trubusky played fine in the preseason, fine in training camp, but he didn't find the way to clearly make it above head and shoulders and leaps and boundaries.

Why you need to go with them. I would just go to the future and fast forward to Kenny picket right now. But I did see this announced yesterday in the depth chart. It was originally Mitch Trubisky won and I go, okay, picket didn't win the job, but he's gotta be the second quarterback. And then it was Mason Rudolph too.

And I'm like, what the bleep they're putting Kenny picket at three. And then Mike Tomlin said there was a formatting error. Yeah.

Right. It was a clerical error. You know, that's how the depth chart was listed at the start of training camp. So the cut and paste component was the cut and paste component.

I know you were hoping for a little bit more colorful explanation, but it is what it is. That's what happened. I rolled my eyes at that with how detail oriented they are and how extensive Mike Tomlin is. You asked Mike Tomlin what he had for breakfast. He'll give you a minute answer. And I'll have the most details that you ever hear for him to try to sell us that it was an error, Ryan, and they copied and pasted.

That sounds like BS to me. It took a full day to either realize and or change. It's a lot of time. People are panicking. Yeah.

That's just absolutely brutal. Ben Roethlisberger says Mitch Trubisky should start over Kenny picket. This is on Ben's new podcast footballing with Ben Roethlisberger. In my opinion, I think Mitchell Trubisky is the starter. He should start. I think he's a veteran. He's been around for a while. He gives you, in my opinion, the best chance to win right now.

Sure. But I think Kenny has done a great job. I would say it's about almost all rookie quarterbacks. It would benefit you to sit behind a veteran for a little bit of time. I wonder if Ben likes Kenny picket. Is this maybe Ben?

Yeah, I'll say Trubisky because I know he's going to stink and then maybe he'll make them miss me a little bit long, you know, a little bit more in Pittsburgh since it didn't end the way that Ben wanted to end, even though it was time for Big Ben to end his career. And it sounds like he wasn't exactly maybe ready to retire or yeah, kind of was pushed out a little bit. Maybe. Yeah, like for example, if I was pushed out of this time slot on CBS Sports Radio and someone that I had no connection with took over, I'm not rooting for that person to fail. But I'm not rooting for that person to succeed and do better than me. That's just the way that it goes. I think that's natural. I think we're being honest with people.

Anyone would admit that. And finally, here's Jerry Jones's internal optimism for this season. One of five through the fan. I have to believe one and one is three. I can't I can't operate where one and one is two. We all know it is physically, but the three is where you have to go. Now you have to have optimism to operate out in that world and commit and do things when you got to count on one and one being three.

And I'm not trying to play games, but that's where the biggest payoffs are is out there. If it's there for everybody to grab at one and one is two. So here you go. I know we got to get to Ralph, but I just got this tweet from Adam Ritchie, 1999, how he started this segment. He said, Zach, hot technique. He's amazing at diffusing situations. You were heated. He just walked you back off the plank like that and produced with multiple skills. Ultimate utility, man. Can you explain that ultimate utility, man? What the heck Jerry Jones is just saying? Cause I got nothing. Yeah, I got nothing. This may have been more bizarre than when you're in the forest and you cut your hand, the liberal arts degree, the master's degree to patch up the cut on your hand. I have one and one and three and one.

She's in the cowboy suck. Like in order for them to want a Super Bowl, one and one has to equal three in the world he's living in. Well, that's the way he, he basically the way I tried to start the only thing I had. And then he just kind of went off the rails was even if I don't believe I have to believe because I'm only getting older.

I mean, they're going to die soon or we'll see, but I wouldn't eventually one of these years. Oh yeah. Yeah. Ralph back.

Yeah. And I'm previous to the giants next. You're listening to the Zach Gelb show. 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 goal on the Zach Gelb show. The last team for first and goal after this segment, we'll do all 32 teams. I don't know why we saved the giants for last, but that's just the way that this went down this year. We welcome in Ralph Bacciano right now is an NFC East reporter for Fox sports covers all the teams inside that division.

And for many years did work at SNY covering both the jets and the giants. Ralph, first off, congratulations on the new gig. Thanks so much for jumping on with us. Well, thank you.

I appreciate it and I'm happy to come on anytime. All right. So I got to start you off with Saquon Barkley. It's always weird to just ask you what to expect out of Saquon because he hasn't been healthy. It kind of feels like Christian McCaffrey the last two years when people ask that about the Carolina Panthers running back for this season. But what are your expectations for Saquon this year?

Well, I mean, it is all about the health, right? You know, I think that he's far enough now removed from his torn ACL that he is probably back to 100%. You know, he's still really young and guys can recover from that and do what they were. So, you know, all things being equal, I could see him having the kind of season he had as a rookie. I think they're going to really use him in the passing game a lot. I think the offensive line is at least a little bit better than it's been.

So all of that to me means, you know, you're looking at a top feature back. A guy who's going to rush for a thousand yards. I mean, I think the limit is carries and wear and tear a little bit, but he could have 70, 80 catches and another, you know, six, 700 yards there. But I say that and I probably thought that at least two of the last three seasons and, you know, he didn't get through many games. So, you know, I don't know. I've got to see it to believe it. I think if he's healthy, he can be as good as anybody in the league, but I wouldn't draft him in the first round of my fantasy league. Let's put it that way.

I do not. I just don't feel like you can trust after three years of injuries that he won't add another one to it. When I watched Saquon Barkley play and when he gets on the field, the first thought is what happens if the Giants would have drafted Josh Allen, if they would have drafted Lamar Jackson.

Now hindsight is 20, 20. We know Baker was the first pick in that draft and then Sam Darnold did go number three. Saquon went at two. Josh Rosen's been on 7,000 teams. Did you ever get a sense if the Giants were close on taking a quarterback that year? And if so, who they would have drafted? No, because I think for a couple of reasons, I think that Dave Gettleman at the time, and obviously this won't make Giants fans happy. I don't think he liked any of the quarterbacks that were coming out. I think he, you know, was looking for one where he really, really had a conviction on him and thought, this is a guy that's going to be a star. And he didn't feel that way about any of them. I don't think from talking to people in the organization that anybody really had that kind of a conviction on anyone.

I think that they were, they were split. You know, I think the coaching staff liked Josh Allen. I think there were people in the front office who liked Baker Mayfield, others who liked Sam Darnold.

And I think if you're the general manager and you can't get a consensus on such an important position among, you know, your, or your people, that's a hard thing to pull the trigger on. I also think, you know, they were looking a year ahead and thinking that, you know, Justin Hebert might be a guy that they could go after. They really liked him, you know, but obviously that didn't work out. Yeah, if he had come out that year, things might've been different, but it, you know, just wasn't the case for the Giants. And, you know, with the, the non-consensus on the quarterbacks and with the way that they've gone and fell in love with Saquon Barkley, I don't think it was really, you know, I'm sure it was a discussion, but I don't think it was really a thought as it got closer to the draft. Let's get to the next down.

Ralph Vacciano here with us. My expectation, I know they didn't pick up the fifth year option that this is Daniel Jones's final year with the Giants. Is that the same way that you're seeing this?

I don't know. I think it's his final chance to prove that he deserves more. You know, I think he is a good quarterback when he is healthy, when he's got protection, I think he just has not had much of a chance the last few years. The offensive line has been so, so bad. He has not had good, reliable receivers.

He hasn't had Saquon Barkley there. You know, I think you put a lot of quarterbacks behind that offensive line and take away all the weapons that he lost and a lot of quarterbacks would struggle. So, you know, I think he's got a chance to show them that they, you know, they can do something with him in a, in a better offense than the one that Jason Garrett ran.

You know, he still kind of got the same cast characters around him. So I don't know that that's, that's going to be much of an improvement, but you know, whether he gets the franchise tag, whether, you know, they decided to stick with him another year. I think probably if he struggles, they're going to move on as quickly as possible because that probably means they'll be drafting way up. I think if he has a mediocre year and they're sitting in the middle of the draft, it gets a little dicey because who knows if there'll be a quarterback they like down at 15 or 17 or something like that. So, you know, there's a chance that he could be back, but you know, it's all up to him.

He's really got a lot to prove. What's going on with Kenny Galladay right now, Ralph? That's a good question. Because it looks like this is a guy that just got paid and then the guy that was in Detroit, he's non-existent anymore.

Yeah. You know, I mean, I don't know where his head is at and, and you know, if he did just get paid and start mailing it in, I think it's been a lot of injury issues. You know, he, he was a guy who was hurt in Detroit his last year and, you know, one of Dave Gettleman's isms that he, you know, forgot in this case was hurt guys get hurt and he was getting up there and in years for a receiver, he got hurt.

He came back the next year. He had some other, you know, some minor issues last year. Now it turns out that he had some kind of procedure during the off season, right before training camp began.

So he's been slow all camp. If he's healthy, he'll be a good target for Daniel Jones. But you know, like a lot of guys on that roster, I'm not so sure I believe he's healthy. I don't know that he will be healthy. You know, and if he is, you know, I don't know that there's, you know, Sterling Shepherd and Kedarius Tony at this stage of their careers might be better than Kenny Galladay.

So, you know, I don't know that he's ever really going to live up to that 72 million dollar contract because he certainly hasn't so far. Let's get to the next down. New coach, new GM. You've been there before with the Giants. What do you like so far of Brian Daybell and Joe Shane?

Been there many, many, many times. You know, I like the fact that they're not pretending like they're in a good situation. They're not, you know, talking about trying to win on the fly and whatever.

And Joe Shane has been incredibly honest from the start about, I had a mess to clean up. Maybe he didn't put it that way, but you know, he's like, the salary cap is what it is. We got to fix that before we can go out and start to add players.

You know, I think they're honest that this is a little bit of a long haul. They don't have a Super Bowl team. They couldn't add any pieces last year.

They need to figure out their quarterback and need to figure out what, you know, what's going to happen with Saquon Barkley. So, you know, they're approaching it the right way. They did what they could this year. They didn't do anything stupid with contracts, restructuring them, just so they could squeeze in one or two more guys.

They, they restructured a few, but not a ton. You know, they're, they're playing a long game here. And I liked that. And I think, you know, Daybell, from what I could tell the players like him, they think he's a real guy, you know, real approachable and friendly and all that stuff. We'll, we'll know for sure how he handles adversity.

And there, there should be a lot of that. The thing I liked right away is that they got K Vaught Thibodeau and Evan Neal and you're right. They, they didn't have to go make a move right now to go win and go try to reach on one of these quarterbacks.

Only won one in the first round. Go fix the offensive line and go get a pass rush again. I know Thibodeau may not play this week, but Thibodeau and Neal to me were two just excellent draft picks. Yeah, I agree.

And, you know, it's often hard to screw them up when you're that high. But, you know, they, they were big positions of need. They didn't mess around and say, you know, let's out think ourselves here. And, you know, what I particularly liked about the Thibodeau pick is he was for months being number one pass rusher in the draft. And then there were questions about his character and Joe Shane didn't sit there and say, you know, I don't know about this guy.

I'm hearing the same things. He went all the way out to Oregon, which I know a lot of general managers would not do and met with the guy and spent time with him and made up his own mind. Didn't rely on scouting reports, said, I'm going to figure out what this guy is all about and made the decision on his own and good for him doing that because, you know, a lot of GMs would have sent a lieutenant or a scout and got a secondhand reporter.

Just believe the nonsense floating around and potentially missed out on a great player. Let's get to the final down. Ralph Acciano here with us. So we have games this week. We have a game coming up on Thursday, but for the Giants, they go up against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday. Tennessee is an interesting team. Ryan Tanel is still their quarterback. We know Derrick Henry's a stud.

No more AJ Brown. They have an excellent coach in Mike Vrabel. How do you think this game plays on out?

Yeah, you know, I was looking at this earlier. You know, obviously they were the number one seed of the AFC last year, but they don't often look like it. You know, they out muscle teams.

They can win ugly. They win with Derrick Henry when he's healthy. I don't know what their passing game is going to look like anymore with that AJ Brown, but honestly, those are concerns for their long-term picture and whether they can compete for that number one seed. It's not a concern against the Giants. The Giants have so many things that they have to piece together and that have to go right for them to be competitive. They were not a good defensive team last year.

They really haven't added much. You know, Thibodeau probably won't play. They lose James Bradbury out of the secondary. You know, their linebackers are three guys that no one's ever heard of. So, you know, they're not stopping Derrick Henry.

I'd be shocked if they can do that. If he gets going, you know, it could be, he could have 200 and something yards. And on offense, you're counting on a lot. Is that offensive line going to hold up?

Is Daniel Jones, you know, does he have weapons? Which ones are going to play? There's just too many questions for me to think they can go on the road and beat a, you know, if not an AFC power, maybe the second tier power in the first game. I think, you know, one thing both Shane and Dable has said is it's going to take a few weeks to figure out what the giants are. You don't figure yourselves out when you're playing the Tennessee Titans in week one on the road.

You figure that out, you know, when the schedule gets a little softer. So, you know, I'm not so sure the giants don't lose their opener in the route. NFC's reporter Ralph Bacciano here with us from Fox Sports. Who wins this division this year, Ralph? You know, I don't, I wouldn't count out the Eagles. I think the Cowboys might be due. I mean, they're Jack Prescott's the best quarterback in the division and that can carry you a long way, but, you know, the Eagles loaded up and, you know, they have the number one rushing offense last year. They had a number 10 defense, I think. I think you had AJ Brown to Jalen Hurts repertoire and, you know, he could be a very good quarterback.

You know, they may need a little time to put things together too, but I think they're a dark horse to, you know, be real competitive, not just in the division, but in the entire conference. Make sure you check him out. Out Ralph Bacciano on Twitter. New job.

NFC's reporter for Fox Sports. Ralph, once again, congratulations. Thanks for coming on for a few minutes. Thanks, Zach.

Anytime. There you go. Ralph Bacciano here with us and that's first and goal. Another year in the books. I don't know why, Marco. I keep on saying this. Have the Giants are the last team that we previewed for this football season? That's a bad job. I will put that on my shoulders.

I'm not going to blame it on Ryan, but I don't know why we made the Giants the last team. Why? They've been a mess for 10 years.

I don't know why. They deserve it. They're a mess. Well, no, no, no, no. This is not, we don't rank them 1 through 32. You know what? I get it. Doesn't matter. They deserve to be last. They've been awful for a decade.

For the phrase, we saved the best for last. No, no, no, no. Not here.

Not this. When we come on back, we talk about some quarterback situations in college football. Who should be starting and who should be going to the bench, but... You're listening to the Zach Gelb Show.

It is Zach Gelb Show on CBS Sports Radio. Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. Hickey, any big plans?

What'd you do for Labor Day weekend? Other than stuff your face like you're doing right now with some pasta? No, not pasta. Some deconstructed stuff, pepper. So branching out. Homemade by myself.

No big deal. New football season, new Hickey? Age and every night you have pasta here. I don't want to change it up. So you have a pepper? What are you eating? Peppers. Red, yellow, orange peppers.

All, you know, pre-cut. Some, you know, taco meat. Some Mexican corn. And some pulled apart corn tortillas.

Okay. You could have had me guess what you were eating tonight. I would have said pasta. If you would have said no, I would say, okay, this is April Fool's. It's pasta.

Anti-pasta. So how about that for hot day, Hickey? I had a busy weekend. So Friday I was doing the Maggie and Perloff show. Friday night went to the Mets game with a few people from work. Then Saturday I had to, oh, I went to Mraz's house. That was a good old time. Saturday I went to Mraz's house. I had to go to Long Island before I had to grab a car, since I don't have a car in the city, and then go out to Pennsylvania for a wedding night on Sunday. But I watched all the college football games at Mraz's house.

Always a good time when you go to Bob's by the Bay. And I'll be doing picks this year going up against Mraz in the DA show. So I wanted to try to pick the brain of Mraz and do some extensive scouting this weekend to try to see how he was feeling about this football season so I could fade Mraz and then just kick his ass and then, boom, the next thing you know, we're at Bob's bar for the DA remote and he's going to be dressed up, pin the tail on the pig. That's going to be the payoff. If he loses, we're going to get to pin the tail on the pig and have a nice little family fun day, Memorial Day weekend. If I lose, I have to dress up as Matt Ruhl and park cars.

That's what they want me to do. So I do not want to lose, obviously. I'm playing to win. You play to win the game. And we got to take down Mraz.

Always a great time when Mraz does host. Great food spread. I did try the hot dog in the straw, using it as a straw and a beer. Absolutely disgusting. Now, I chugged the beer and won the chug off, but the aftertaste for about a full hour, it was just disgusting.

It was gross. Sunday, went to a beautiful wedding. Congrats to my friends, Ross and Emily.

Wonderful affair in Media, Pennsylvania. And then Monday, how about this, Ryan? Monday, drive back from the wedding, go to the brunch first and drive back for the wedding. I get back to my apartment at like 1.30 PM. I go to the US Open at 6 o'clock PM. I didn't get home from the US Open last night until 3.30 in the morning. The US Open, I got to see two matches in the 16 players that were remaining. And the first match, the women's match, went three sets, which is the max it could go. And then the men's match went five sets. And they were tremendous matches. Now, 1 AM, I'm thinking, OK, it's time to go.

I got to get on out of here. But my buddy wanted to stay. And Danielle Collins and Zebelenko was a great matchup. And she won, Zebelenko. And then the men's matchup, you had the 2014 US Open champion, Marian Cilic, go up against Carlos Alcaraz, who if you don't follow tennis that much, and I'm not this big tennis official now, I just like going to the US Open, he's 19. He was insane.

Some of the shots that he was hitting, Alcaraz, Alcaraz was just unbelievable. It was a great match. It ended at, I think it was 2.23 in the morning or 2.24 in the morning. And the longest end time at the US Open was 2.26 AM Eastern time.

So I almost saw history. But man, that was a long night. Did not get home until about 3.30 in the morning.

I was not excited. I know that it could run late. But to basically 3 in the morning, I was not expecting that there, Hatekeke. Would you have bailed that at one something AM? No, I hate leaving any sporting event early.

So do I, but at that point, well, at that point, you're getting smaller and smaller and smaller. I could imagine. Still, I would say about 10,000 people when it ended, which a lot of people. For 2.30 in the morning on a work night, absolutely. Yeah, I was bummed.

I thought I was going to get in a doll. Rafa. But they had him play in the in the earlier session. The early one. What a great match. I thought you tweeted about the tennis. You were into it.

Oh, I love you. I watched one tennis tournament a year. The US Open. Maybe, you know, one or two Wimbledon.

I'm not up in the morning for the Australian Open, so. OK, so always a good time. I had the Pat LaFrieda chicken sandwich, which was delicious at the Pat LaFrieda stand. And it was a grilled chicken with aioli. And it was just good bread. Tremendous. And then I had the honeydew drink that they do serve there.

Speaking of which, do they cut booze sales off? You know, like baseball. It's a seventh inning football. It's like the third quarter.

Is there anything with tennis? Like it starts late. He got his last drink. He got a drink at it, got a drink at one in the morning. But I got up to go get a water at 130 ish. And I didn't see anything else open at that time. Now there's water fountains there.

So I was able to get a sip of high quality H2O. Close down the. Yeah.

This day. I keep hoping that's, you know, you got to see the crowd. He was strict. We had good seats. Security. People are trying to get into like our section and we weren't like right down low, but we were in the 100 section. There was a main section right in front of that. And still when it's two in the morning and people are trying to move down, you think they just let people move down, but was not the case.

Security was very strict at the US Open, very strict. The thing about just a lot of people at the bathroom at the same time and everyone's going to come back and it's going to be, you know, full crowd at two a.m. And now it was a little bit annoying when I went to bathroom and, you know, my friend went to bathroom two and we would come back and people would move into our seats and you would say, you know, come on, this is my seat. But it was a little bit. Annoying when there was clearly seats available, they would not let you move. Now, I wasn't in the in the business of moving, but I saw other people were. I thought that was weird.

You would think they would just find a little and make it look good on television. That that's that. That's just you would think.

All right. Real quickly, quick hitters on some college quarterbacks. Bo Nix. I'm out on Bo Nix.

There's no way. I'm not saying he's not going to start for their next game, but but I was out on Bo Nix before the season started. And still, I was even surprised that it got that ugly against Georgia.

Forty nine to three. I thought they would keep it within 20 points. Now, that was JV up against the varsity. That was the 11th best team in the country heading into the year. I thought we're going to get some Bo Magic. I was a sucker.

Bo Magic enough to keep it within 17. Yeah. So like, you know. Yeah. So he sucks. Right.

And so, yeah, I was not a sucker for nine to three. Sean Clifford. I know he had that great drive at the end, had the pick six, which was abysmal for the Perry Ellis of college football with Perry Ellis was the Kansas. I guess that's what Sean Clifford is to Penn State. He's been there for years. I you know, he they had that the drive at the end.

They win the game, but I did not think he was good. I would go to Drew Aller sooner rather than later from the Nittany Lions. You, Mr. Penn State. Sure is now.

Oh, wow. You're already out on your quarterback when he when he was in the bathroom doing whatever he's doing. That was the happiest drive of the game.

Second happiest drive of the game. So seven times not a charm for for Sean Clifford. Six. Give him over six time.

All right. He's only a sixth year. He's only 24 years old. J.J. McCarthy will inevitably be the starting quarterback for Michigan this year over Kate McNamara. You and you win the Big Ten championship and you're not in the starting quarterback outright. I know he started the game, but it's the competitions playing out through all these cupcakes.

You would think that is Jim Harbaugh saying I'm giving Kate one more chance to outplay J.J., but it's inevitable that it's going to be J.J. and did not do exactly a great job of securing the job that is Kate McNamara. Bad pick early in that game. Not great up against Colorado. Now it's not what you want to see.

And finally, how much longer did you undergo? Maybe the starting quarterback at Clemson line stunk. Wide receivers are bad. D.J. did not play well in the game. That NC State and Wake Forest swings going to be big for D.J.

because you could silence some of the doubters. But he did not, no matter what Dabo said, he did not do that after Georgia Tech. And Kate Klubnick is lurking and had a nice little drive up against the Yellow Jackets. How much longer for D.J.? I still think he's in there actually longer than expected. Team random is not very good on the offense.

So to be determined is what you're saying. Defense is great. Offensively. It's going to cost that team a college football playoff spot this year. Onside's offside. Next.