The podcast discusses key injuries and team dynamics affecting multiple NFL teams. Neco Collins is expected to miss this week due to a hamstring injury, raising concerns about the Texans’ offensive depth after losing Jaden Higgins to an ACL tear. With only Xavier Hutchinson and Jaylen Noel left as viable wide receivers, the Texans face significant challenges against high-powered offenses like the Bills and Bengals. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Vikings are projected to defeat the Chicago Bears, thanks to a disciplined defense and Carson Wentz’s effective game management. Wentz will target Justin Jefferson, with Aaron Jones used heavily in third-down and red zone scenarios, leveraging his strong performance against the Bears’ defense. The Bengals are also favored over the Texans, with Joe Burrow healthy and without Collins, who is sidelined with a grade-one hamstring injury. The Texans’ defense, previously strong, is now questioned after a recent loss to the Bills, while the Vikings’ defensive scheme and coaching under Ben Johnson are expected to neutralize the Bears’ offensive threats. Other news includes Jordan Mason’s injury, Jordan’s potential return, and Aaron Jones being named the featured back in Minnesota’s offense. Running back prospects like Damon Clark and Jonah Coleman are also being evaluated. The week’s matchups, including the Rams vs. Giants, are highlighted as potential showdowns, though the Rams’ defensive struggles and Jackson Dart’s early performance remain uncertain. The podcast ends with a prediction that the Bengals will beat the Texans, extending their 2-0 start, and that the Vikings will defeat the Bears, despite the Bears’ potent offense. A final call is made for the Vikings to win, citing a strong defense and efficient quarterback play, even though some analysts may disagree. The show also promotes a fan engagement segment, where viewers can win a Todd Gurley-signed jersey by subscribing and commenting on the channel.
This is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human. Are we about to lose a big time wide receiver due to a hamstring injury? How do the Rams and Niners before coming backstates side? Is the pre-season's best defense about to go 0 and 2? All of this plus some big game breakdowns right here on the tailgate. I'm Chris Welsh. We've got Pat Fitzmorse and Andrew Erickson popping up the tailgate, talking with you guys, hitting the football for this week. And we got a ton to cover, as mentioned, some big game breakdowns. We are going to be having a prediction going into this week. Some things to watch and there is some big news. So excited to get to it all and excited to see both of you, gentlemen. But I have to imagine neither one of you are super excited about the Neco Collins news. Mr. Pat Fitzmorse, Neco Collins popped up with a hamstring injury. No, why not? The severity looks like it is better than, you know, what we've seen in some more recent hamstring injuries. But as week two is now in question. So do you have any thoughts really these midweek injuries are like the worst thing ever? This popped up, you know, like on a Wednesday during practice. I will say I did see some video. I think me and Erickson might have been watching or maybe it was me embogman. That was me embogman. And we were watching some video from that practice and he actually looked okay. But when the video surface to win the injury happened was a big question. But what are your thoughts on this hamstring injury with Neco Collins? This is not really a team that can afford to take another hit at wide receiver. After losing Jaden Higgins to an ACL tear, he's going to be out the whole year. So you lose Neco Collins and all of a sudden you're looking at what Xavier Hutchinson and Jalen Noel is your top two receivers. A bit problematic and especially with the Texans having these two opening games against high powered opponents with high powered offense is the bills. I mean, how weird was it that it was the Texans defense not keeping up its end of the bargain and that lost to the bills with Josh Allen, just fire bombing. The what is expected by many people to be the best defense in the league. Texans offense certainly did its part against Buffalo last week. Now you've got Joe Burrow and the Bengals. So you want all the firepower you can monster to keep pace with those guys and Neco would be just a massive blowies. They're best offensive player. All I think I can't do that on this show. But if you guys ever seen that that meme or it's I'm doing my part, I'm doing my part. And then it goes to Tim Robinson and I can't do it. There's multiple. It'd be too inappropriate here, but like that's how it vibes to me. By the way, I'm also super bummed out that Tank Dell is on the IR because this would have been the opportunity for tank to just ball out and I'm like all about Tank this year. Erickson is Kisham Booty, the Prince that was promised. Will he save this team with all these wide receiver issues? He's going to have to try. They're going to have to play him more. He was in more of a part time role in week one, having just been trade to the team in the middle of the preseason. So he's still getting ramped up. But I mean, you don't like the Texans chances offensively if it's Xavier Hutchinson and Jared Wayne. Jaylen Noel, who they barely still play, even though he's like one of their most explosive playmakers. They don't get in the ball nearly enough. So maybe this is a blessing in disguise. So wow, we got to play Jaylen Noel in a full time role. Man, this guy is really good. We should feature him more in this offense. So assuming that Noel plays out of the slot, that means he'll escape DJ Turner, who will then just lock up and just take away Hutchinson. Who doesn't do anything anyway? And or match up with Kisham Booty, which will be tougher for him as a perimeter X wide receiver. Chris Turner is one of the better perimeter corners, locked down type of guy. So Niko Collins, when he has missed games in the past, because this is not the first time he's dealt with a lower body soft tissue injury, the Texans have not been nearly as good. I mean, that doesn't really come as a shock, but in terms of them winning games, I was talking about this on the bedding show with Seth, because I actually really like the Bengals now, because I think that Collins probably won't even play. And even if he does play, how effective will he be? He has been one of these players, think I saw from Yahoo fantasy or somebody tweeted it out that his points per game drops dramatically when he came back from his hamstring injury last season. And guys that suffer these mid week hamstring injuries, I think it was Jeff Muehler, one of the Twitter doctors. All those guys like didn't play or they're almost time. So right now the Bengals are getting points, they're playing on the road, but Joe burrow as an underdog. Yes, please send me up. That's what I want to bet on. And without Niko Collins, the Texans last eight games are three and five straight up, two of those wins against Riley Leonard and Mac Jones. Mm mm mm mm. I already answered it. I was going to ask if you think Niko Collins is going to play Fitsy. Do you think where is Erickson doesn't seem to on the channel front of a channel Deepak Jonah, who comes on the Sunday night streams. I think he tweeted also that like huge news that there wasn't there was no like severity tag with the hamstring, but the idea of playing like four days, five days after the injury with the hamstring and a history of these things seems incredibly unlikely. So I don't think he's going to play. Are you going to three for three that you don't think he's going to get out there this week? Oh, I'm not a doctor. Well, I did sit holiday in last night, but yeah, it seems like the news is kind of ominous. I would say more likely to sit up and not. I mean, would you even want him to play? That would be more that that's a better way to phrase it. Like I don't want him to go out there and play. Like play one or two percent of the snaps. And if you play fantasy football and then you're sitting out there and you don't know if to start him and then he react like the worst case scenario is actually for him. It's either you have to be 100% healthy or just I don't want to see him out there. I mean, the Texans could lose even if it does play number one. The Texans went on three to start last season and they ended up going on a run in the playoffs obviously did not end well with CJ Stroud. So I don't think that a lot of these teams have to be really careful with these wide receivers. Is it worth it for the Ravens to put say flowers out there when they're heavy home favorites against the New Orleans Saints? I personally don't think so. I think they can beat the Saints pretty easily, even as they flowers doesn't play now AFC matchup against another heavyweight like the Bengals. It's obviously tougher to take an L in that situation, but I think that we can all agree that the Texans defense would be the reason why they win this game, right? I don't know if it will really will come down and obviously want to go out there. But if the Texas defense plays like it did last week, well, they weren't going to win anyway, but if they do play like we saw from them last year in 2025. When they were a suffocating unit, then at home, you should see them winning, but I kind of think that that won't be the case. Yeah, we're going to be talking about that a little bit later. Also in the in the world of hamstrings, I believe RJ Harvey had a hamstring injury and we don't know the severity or anything like that. So if that were to be another missed opportunity, that would be an opportunity for a guy like Jonah Coleman, if that does pop up, I don't know if it was the same level of severity. And I don't know if it was like exactly how Nico Collins was it came up pretty late yesterday, then we haven't seen any new Thursday notes and I think it he had not practiced on Wednesday, but they played on Monday. So that's like a Tuesday, if you follow me, you know, like the Wednesday world for Sunday is the important one that was relative to a Tuesday, who's on first is the question. Another running back news, Jordan Mason, that was a big one yesterday. Jordan Mason went to the IR, they did mess around thumb stuff serious and it's all Aaron Jones, they brought in DJ Dallas. Erickson, I think we talked about it on a show or two. It's going to kind of dominate the next probably a couple days, but Aaron Jones as the feature back or is Claiborne going to come in and take some of this away, a lot of people are jumping on the Damon Claiborne train here for opportunity. And I also think I kind of do this at you yesterday and maybe if I have more time to think about it, I'm just worried that the Vikings are not going to want to uptick Aaron Jones's role like at all, like they they like what they have in the way that they use him and they want to find other pieces so they don't break him down because then if you break him down, you're done and he is older, but I can be wrong about that. So where do you sit on the Aaron Jones being a full time back and will this affect the Vikings? Because let's see it a little bit differently, I think that they will put him in a full time role. If you look at last year, last four games, 14, 15, 23, 21 touches for Aaron Jones, and that was after he had missed a bunch of time dealing with a shoulder injury, Jordan Mason was banged up during that stretch, barely played in the last two games, which is where you saw Jones average over 20 touches per game. I think the fact that Mason is a thumb injury suggests to me that they feel confident that when he comes back, he's going to be good to go, right, it's not like he's dealing with like an MCL spring or high ankle spring, like just, hey man, I'm just waiting out my thumb getting better and then I can go back out here and be good to go. So I think in the meantime, it's okay, we got Aaron Jones buckle up, break out the sombrero baby, like four weeks, you're getting Aaron Jones bell cow usage because we know that we can then reduce your touches and your snaps when Jordan Mason returns and he's going to be ready and healthy and ready to go. So that's how I see it. I just don't think that them on clayborn is going to be trusted in certain situation. I think obviously like juice wise, like we know that he's an explosive running back and maybe he can provide that there, but when it comes to red zone uses past protection, you already have Carson Wentz under center and that already invites so much chaos into the Minnesota Vikings because of the way that Carson Wentz can play at times with a gunslinger kind of mentality, I think having a stable asset like Aaron Jones is going to help this offense. So I expect them to lean on him pretty heavily, especially when you look at the match up this week against the Chicago Bears, cheeks, buns, however, we want to describe it worst defense in the NFL Jones had two really good games last year against the Chicago Bears. So I think that he is going to be used a lot.
very productive. We're going to talk about that one. Yeah, we looked at the wither without tool on fantasy pros and the actual like counting stat production really didn't change. He actually does average a touchdown when when Jordan Mason is out and he averaged a lot more carries who went from 10 carries to 18 carries based on last year. But the production wasn't, you know, really full out. I think Aaron Jones, Betsy is a lock for like third downs and goal line usage. I'm just I still can't get over that. I would think I think it might go with Damon Clayboard and like in some early downs and some mid run stuff. And then as soon as they get into the red zone or it's third down Aaron Jones has it. So Aaron Jones production takes up a little bit but I'm not sure it's a dominant space. Do you think and you're of anybody more familiar with Aaron Jones? Do you think that's going to be the case? And they're going to belk on him? Or do you think Clayboard is going to get his run as a dynasty a fishing auto? You should be able to tell us a lot about Clayboard here. I tend to think that it is going to be Jones and something close to bell cow roll. But in the few opportunities that Clayboard gets assuming he gets them and that they don't just have DJ Dallas be the number two. Maybe Clayboard can claim a bigger role for himself by making some plays with the opportunity he gets. And he is a pretty fascinating prospect for a sixth round guy. Like his wake forest tape was a lot of fun. And this guy is really quick. The straight line speed is impressive. Like he is a legit sub four four guy and for a smaller back does better bouncing off contact and you know avoiding like hits and just he's better with contact than most backs of his size. So I'm really intrigued and would love to get a long look at him this week. I don't know if we'll get it. This Vikings running game against the Bears defense. Like it whoever is there is probably going to prosper. I need someone in my life to look at me like Fitsy looks and talks about prospects. Like you started glowing. You glow when we start talking about the prospects. I love it. And obviously everyone should pay attention to the dynasty coverage. Fitsy has done. So we'll see what that materializes. But they're going to be without Jordan Mason. But we do have more on that game. The last two bits of news. This is carrying over from Wednesday. Is we're recording this. We don't have any of the Thursday notes. But as mentioned Lad Maconky and Zay flowers. Both questionable for this coming week. There was a report that Lad Maconky was seen on a side field on Wednesday. There was no Zay flowers whatsoever. But ironically earlier in the week, there were some more positive words put towards Zay flowers. So we're kind of in a mess. If you got to pick a side Erickson Zay flowers Lad Maconky. Who's in and who's out for week two? I say they're both out. But if I do bet on one of them being in, I think that the chargers would press more for Lad because losing week one sour taste in their mouth. They really want to get right here against the Las Vegas Raiders who have had success against in the past. And it's a matchup. They should be able to take advantage of. I just don't think the Ravens need Zay flowers to be the Saints. So Fitsy same thing. What's your what's your lean if both are out both are in or one of the other? I feel the same as Erickson. Maybe the Ravens don't press it with a soft tissue injury with Lad who got clobbered trying to go up for a pass last week. And it's a rib thing. You can maybe have him wear a flat jacket or some sort of extra protection. Tape him up, whatever. Maybe he plays. So I'd say he's more 50 50. I doubt Zay plays. I got one. I got one. I don't mean to do real us from the injured receivers. I just wanted to ask a follow-up question about clayborn. So he wasn't, I was just checking the game because I couldn't remember. So he was enacted last week. Right. Is that special teams related? I would assume because I you would think Dallas because he's a Dallas has always played special teams. Okay. So I guess that's my only like other concern about like projecting him for any substantial role when he, I mean, he was a healthy game day scratch in week one. Oh, not, yeah, not safe to do that at all. I mean, I would like to see him get some sort of role. But this week will be the telling. Did they sign another running back besides Dallas? No, they worked out Jerome Ford. He's gonna, but they only signed DJ Dallas. Okay. So am I wrong that they only took two running backs in active in week one? I think it was James. No, Dallas was on the roster. Yeah. Dallas. He was on the roster. He wasn't going. Yeah, he was active and was not. Yeah. Well, then they worked out for some reason. I was thinking DJ Dallas. Yeah, they worked out Jerome Ford. So yeah, either way, I think it looks like it's going to be, it's going to have to probably be Claiborne, Dallas and Aaron Jones. So there you go. Interesting stuff. All right. Well, we'll get more into that because we actually have more takes on that game. So if we want to follow up anymore, those are a few news and notes. We are going to be breaking down the big games that matter this week. But before we do, let's talk about our friends over at Polly Market. It's time to level up your approach to the NFL and college football this season because Polly Market is here. Polly Market is a legal prediction market now available in all 50 states. An unlike traditional sports books on Polly Market, you can trade on all things football from Saturday and Sunday Slates to who wins the Heisman to who performs the halftime show. Polly Market gives you the freedom to cash out instantly. If the momentum swings, you sell it off in real time. You're in control. No one can lock you out and you can also buy in any time. So in the market dips, like if a team starts slow and drops to say 40%. That's not a loss. That's when you can buy in at Polly Market, you can buy in cheap and ride the momentum back up. Polly Market is so confident you'll never go back to the old way. They're issuing a challenge. They're giving you a $50 bonus when you deposit just 10 bucks. Sign up right now with promo code fp pod. That's Polly Market dot us and use promo code fp pod to get a $50 bonus when you deposit just $10. The games that matter this way, they all matter. They all matter. But the big games that we're going to be watching. Let's talk right about it. We got into it. The Chicago Bears in the Minnesota Vikings. If we've got a big five this week, the Vikings could have not been on this list. But I'm as the only thing I'm early going to say because I'm going to talk about this a little bit later is I that Carson wins did a much better job than being given credit for. And he is able to do some positive that some positive ish things, especially for the circumstances. And now you put a veteran quarterback in for a full week with a good complement of pieces around the bears, phenomenal off it with most points scored and opening day, no defense whatsoever, horrifically bad defense. But they were able to do what they did without really involving any of the like big receiving options. Cool. Loveland was a nothing burger, burden, no dunes, they weren't insane. So like, there's still so much we're probably going to learn from this team. Eric, so why don't you kick us off here? Minnesota, Chicago, what's your breakdown of a maybe more balanced Minnesota Vikings team with maybe one of the more exciting offenses in football in the Chicago Bears? How do you think this plays out? What are the keys to the game? This matchup is so fascinating because you have the Ben Johnson scientist in the lab offensive play call are going up against Brian Flores, the madman who threw 75% blitzes at Jordan Love when we call just like two just absolutely insane offensive and defensive minded head coaches that have had so much success. And this is a matchup that we have seen in the past. So this is according to Ben Solack from ESPN last six matchups for Ben Johnson. He has actually owned Brian Flores, like he has been the one that has dominated these matchups more often than not. Five and one his teams are and offenses have been against Brian Flores led defenses. The one loss was week one of last year, which was Caleb Williams first start in the Ben Johnson offense. So that makes a lot of sense, given that he was still trying to understand how that scheme worked. The Bears offense last year, particularly their run game was bad to start the 2025 season. Obviously, it has taken off leaps and bounds compared to where it was at the beginning of last season. So that's one of the things that I'm really looking at in terms of just how Johnson has performed against these Brian Flores defense in terms of EPA per play success rate points per drive explosive past play rate first down touchdown rate. It's all above every other team that faces a Brian Flores led defense. So I actually think that the edge is to the offensive side of the football here with Caleb Williams and this elite run game against this Vikings defense. In particular, the guy that I'm looking at for the Bears offense besides Colson Lovings, I think we can all expect, yeah, he's going to be more involved is Roman Dunesay. How did the Packers generate big plays was with the vertical routes with Christian Watson in week one. Roman Dunesay is the vertical stretch receiver for the Chicago Bears playing on the outside as a downfield threat. And if you look at the last two games against the Vikings last year, who was the most targeted receiver in both those games Roman Dunesay? Okay, there is a big bears run there. I will say interesting thing talking about Roman Dunesay in this. If you go over this according to PFF, they're giving this a poor overall grade from a wide receiver matchup standpoint and all three cornerbacks in are essentially top 50 rated overall to top 20. So again, that defensive versus offensive onslaught 50. What are your big key points in this game and how do you think this one is going to play out? I am excited to see the chess match between Ben Johnson and Brian Flores and we sub-Brian Flores pick on a bad Green Bay Packers offensive line with all those blitzes last week. Watch him watch him drop defensive tackles in his own coverage this week and just do the complete opposite. Like you never know what you're
from Flores. And it's going to be a good test of where Caleb Williams is because we know that Flores is just going to try to throw a zillion different things at Caleb and make him process everything. So I'm excited to see that. And you know, how can you not be a little excited to see what Justin Jefferson can do against the Bears defense this week? Like it's Carson Wentz. But man, Justin Jefferson cooks whenever Carson Wentz is in the lineup. Like the only guy who can slow Justin Jefferson is JJ McCarthy apparently. Yeah, well, there's a couple other quarterbacks that have done a lot of stuff. All the max pros. I just can't wait to see the graphics. There's like Justin Jefferson with every quarterback not named JJ McCarthy or Max Bros. It's going to be like he's you know, the Jersey of the Browns quarterbacks, where it's just it's a big name. It's like he should have I would love to see we should have a dart board. Justin Jefferson dart board. He just throwing darts at the quarterbacks that he hates. And then he just got his one positive take on a few of those other guys here. Next game up. I got to tell you this is probably the game I'm more excited about. It is and I did not think I would say this in a long time. But the Jacksonville Jaguars are going to be facing off against the Denver Broncos who looked poor ish. I actually thought the Denver Broncos would be a similar team to the Jaguars coming in here. Good offenses, good defenses. The Jags prove to be both Denver Broncos. Not so much. There was really no great offensive upside outside of Pat Bryant. They've got some running back issues. My God. Vitsy, could the Denver Broncos go into week three? Oh, and two. What is your take on how this matchup is going to be going down in keys to the Jags versus the Denver Broncos? Man, the key to the Denver Broncos victory possibilities. Playing better defense and not missing so many tackles. That was just embarrassing the way they cannot tackle Kenneth Walker. And I thought I saw the Kenneth Walker head like minus six yards before contact last week. But we know he had a whole lot of yards after contact. And it's just strange to think of like Denver and maybe like this defense having some holes. But now they're going to go against Trevor Lawrence who went into Denver last year in week 16, dropped 279 yards and three touchdowns in a 34 to 20 Jaguars victory. So man, all of us on this Broncos defense is kind of under the gun. I think that one of the biggest things I'm looking at there's actually like a two side wide receiver thing here. That's where my brain goes Erickson of like how is Parker Washington going to step up from his last performance. But also I think really, really big one is going to be Jalen Waddle. Jalen Waddle and his kind of nothing burger here. So to me, it's like how are the wide receivers going to end up performing out of this? But how do you see this game playing out? And what do you think the key points to watch for in the Jags versus the Broncos is? I think that the Jaguars are going to do what they did the last time they went to Denver. And that's win as underdogs. The Jaguars have been so good over the last stretch of games, getting back to last season. Nine and one against spread. They have been one of the best teams to back in the betting streets. They've been one of the best teams straight up. Whereas Denver has not been nearly this juggernaut at home that they've been in the past. It's interesting. During Bonix's rookie year, they were 6 and 0 against the spread as a home favorite. Last year, that fell to 4 and 4. So there were much more mediocre in terms of having this grand home field advantage that is the market kind of over evaluating them or over valuing them as this team to be extremely fearful of for opposing units coming in. They're coming off a terrible performance on Monday night football. They all saw 28 missed tackles 14 where by Ken Walker, which I didn't even know that was even possible in game 28, 28 missed tackles. That is just absolutely absurd. That's according to next gen stats. So they got to be ready. They have to play so much significantly better. But off a short week where Jacksonville is riding high after a big demolition of the Cleveland Browns. I think that the Jacksonville is just who's the hotter team right now. I mean, who the Bonix Davis Webb, Janel Waddle, this combination looked ice cold on Monday night football. And does that get fixed in one week? Maybe. Does it get better? Yes. I think it will improve. But to the extent that, oh, they're going to be firing on all cylinders like the Jaguars are. Remember Trevor Lawrence looked kind of shaky at the beginning of last year too because he had a new play collar. He was still trying to get in sync with all of his new receivers. These new offices take time to jail sometime. You saw with Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson last year the first four weeks. We're not good. So I'm not ready to say, okay, yeah, the Broncos. We're going to get back for going to bounce back in week two when you have this unit coming in that is firing on all cylinders and is carrying over everything from last year. So I like the Jacksonville spot a lot. Can I if I can just jump in for a second? I mean, the NFL is the elastic league. And you know, there's always their their their bounce backs all the time. And I totally dig what Erickson is saying. And I know this is a betting show, but I'm just going to like my favorite spot to bet a team is when it just got humiliated and has the taste of blood in its mouth going against a fat, happy team that just had an easy victory. And I mean, the Broncos are in exactly that spot and they're coming home and are going to have the crowd on their side. So I wouldn't be surprised if we did get a much better performance from the Broncos this way. You guys you have a faith, though, like Bownex looks really, really bad. And but Bownex had proved enough, you know, from last season that you can bounce back from that. But I don't know, I'm a little I get the logic of all that. I'm just a little bit dicey with the running back situation. You know, I was going to ask like a Jonah Coleman question, but it's like if Jonah Coleman gets more run, this isn't a great spot for him to be going against the Jaguars. They completely shut down the run with Cleveland, obviously, but it all is tied around Bownex and Bownex looks lost, but there were a handful of quarterbacks that kind of look lost. I so like, but that one was really, really bad. Like all of these things aside, I think it is solely in obviously always on a quarterback, but it is like solely on his shoulders for this team to be able to kind of overcome, you know, whatever that was on Monday night football. They got the defense to do it. You know, they have that, but do they have the running game? Just Bownex have the confidence. That's what I'm concerned about. Are they going to be the Jaguars going to be in his face all game long because they made he was uncomfortable in week one. Okay, so let's make him even more uncomfortable. And they weren't able to do anything outside of Pat Bryant that off in Evan Ingram, you know, the pieces that you didn't think. So I guess that's a little bit more worried. And it's a revenge game. I know. All about the revenge narrative. I know. That's a prop show. We didn't talk about Parker Washington, but that dude is such a baller. Man, is he good? It's pretty good. Like, it's so it's like not like, I know like we were still trying to figure out because he eventually won the Jaguars wide receiver one title as fantasy drafts kind of ended, but just watching in week one, it was so like, it was like nine days. It's like, this guy's like so clearly the number one read in this offense, Trevor Lawrence trusts him so much. And the fact that he's rocking the gold cleats, I just, I just he moved up another tier for me because it's just like all the Jaguars are wearing their teal and the black and the white cleats and then you just have this one guy operating most out of the slot. He's got the gold and I'm like, there's something aesthetically. I gotta tell you, there's something aesthetically pleasing when you, you know, you, you have the zoomed out cam and you see the offense and you can immediately tell who a receiver is. Sometimes there's like a physicality to what their body looks like. But when a dude is wearing like straight up cleats or like some arm bands or something, there's something very aesthetically pleasing to me about knowing exactly where the guy is in the offense because I'm like, oh, that's his look right there. And to call back from my PFF days when I had to do player participation charting data, you don't know how hard it is to be able to label every single player on every single snap until you actually try to do it and how hard it is because that's actually how you distinguish players. It's like, oh, yeah, this guy wears really high socks. This guy has this color of cleats. This guy has this color gloves. And when they all just wear the mundane colors, you're like, dude, I have no idea where any of these players are like, I literally cannot find. I remember Julian Edelman specifically, he always wore the red gloves because it was a really easy way for Brady to find it. Like because they stood out versus the rest of the colors of the roster of the uniforms from the posing team from the Patriots team. So it doesn't do the drip matters. A lot of scrappy wide receivers in the Patriots team too. So you got to stand out, let a gym rats in there. All right. We actually have an NFC West battle here. And I did not think it would be with the Arizona Cardinals just going to throw this out to you guys there. And the reason I don't think this is like an insane big matchup. But why it is is because there's there is a chance the Arizona Cardinals could actually go to an O and I just eat all of my words because there's no Sam Darnell drew lock is in a quarterback. They still have their defense, but there is going to be one team that is going to step out with a guaranteed undefeated record out of the NFC West. So Erickson will kind of jump to you. What what are the keys for the Cardinals to win this game with the Sam Darnell lists offense in Seattle. We still again, we know who they are. I like to dare price in this one. And drew lock was relatively efficient in that. But what are the keys for the Cardinals to be able to walk out with the two and no record? I think the Cardinals have to hope that drew lock makes more mistakes than their offense does because ultimately this game comes down to the C-OX defense and Mike McDonald because of all the lack of defense that there was in week one. There was no lack of defense on the C-OX side of the football on Wednesday night. Again, they showed that no, we are still an elite unit and we're the reason we're going to win games more often not, especially without our starting quarterback Sam Darnell.
Seattle is one of the best teams on the road since Mike McDonald took over as the head coach. I don't have their exact record here, but I know at least against the spread 1341. Absolutely unit on the road and that's because defense is travel. That is the number one reason why they have so much success on the road. So I understand the well, it's true lock. He can be favored by anybody. I get that kind of read and being nervous about the Seattle sea hawks. I just think that they're going to suffocate this Arizona Cardinals offense. I know they have a lot of playmakers, but I think they're going to force Jacobi percent into mistakes. And the sea hawks are going to continue to roll as long as drill up doesn't make that like really bad mistake. I think that Seattle can take care of business here. I thought there's a really interesting comment that because I mean, I've been kind of team anti Marvin Harrison for a while. I think everyone's kind of moving in that direction, but Jacobi percent was asked about it this week. And he was like, yeah, well, that's what happens when you double team a wide receiver every time. And I was like, I'm not sure that it was like necessarily the case there. I'm not sure that Jacobi was full. Like there's like blanket coverages and then there's double coverages. And I'm not sure like I fully buy what he's saying here, but you know, is there a way that you think the Cardinals are going to be able to jump out of this or is Seattle going to walk out to a no relatively easy. Complaint with Marvin Harrison junior when he was in the Drew Petsing offense was that he was the sacrificial acts and just running a lot of go routes and not doing the stuff that best suited his skill set. And in week one, it seemed like he was the sacrificial acts and just running a lot of go routes in the Michael floor offense and nothing really had changed. So I'm not that optimistic. We do get the the Marvin Harrison breakout season. We've all been waiting for. But as far as what the Cardinals need to do to stay in this game and make it interesting. At the end, no turnovers, run the ball effectively against Seattle with Jeremiah love and Tyler Alger because you cannot let Jacobi percent just drop back 40 times against the Seattle past defense. Like that's just an invitation to offensive ruin if you do that. But if you do that, man, the Cardinals of all the teams we thought we're going to be on the short list of like the worst teams in football. Cardinals, Browns, Titans, dolphins, Cardinals by far were the most professional looking outfit in week one like they look like a pretty scrappy team and their schedule is murderous and they're probably going to be lucky to win four games. But like they could be a respectable three and 14 team this year. Who is the better Notre Dame running back after this week, who has the which Notre Dame running back has the better day. It's the guy who started for the fighting Irish in 2025. Okay. Let me let me answer. Who has the better week to this is really right. Who which Notre Dame running back has the better week to that's more of what I know. I'll still say love even with the tougher matchup. Erickson, why is it jadarian price because the Seahawks since McDowell took over are 15 and two on a road. Almost twice 15 and 28% so I will go with the price is right is trips. There we go. The price is right. All right. The price is wrong. Kansas City Indianapolis is traveling to Kansas City. There's definitely a statement, but the statement also kind of left a bad taste in everyone's mouth about like what the passing offense is going to look like between worthy and Rishi Rice and targets and what it but it didn't with Ken Walker. So you've got this Colts match up here where Jonathan Taylor versus Ken Walker, one of the one of the better we're going to see this week as far as like a running back situation goes. Fitsy, keys to the game and why is this a big game Colts versus the Chiefs. Yeah. The Colts go from the frying pan into the fire after facing Derek Henry last week and having Henry stampede them for 140 some yards and three touchdowns now they get Kenneth Walker. And we had talked about this on the fantasy pros ranking show and how it seemed like the Colts are just not going to be good against the run this year because their linebackers are so inexperienced and their defensive tackles were once really good against the runner are both like 32 years old now. So man, I just think the Colts are in trouble here because like the Chiefs are just going to turn Kenneth Walker loose again and I don't think the Colts are equipped to stop him. Is a bad match up. This is bad match up for them with Ken Walker, especially when Andy reads like, hey, you know what we're going to do. We're going to drop the playbook and it's just going to be Ken Walker on two. That's all that it was on the first drive. And it's going to be 30 carries, but you know the Colts offense. They've got some of those pieces rolling. They've got to get Josh down some more involved. Is this going to be a proverbial runaway game with Ken Walker on the culture. The Colts going to put up any fight for your accent. I think they're going to try with Jonathan Taylor, but I do think that it's worth noting that this offense does not nearly function at as high a level when they are playing on the road and they're not inside the dome. It's really interesting. If you look at Jonathan Taylor and he's like career game splits. I cited it last week because I liked the rushing yards prop for Jonathan Taylor and he went over it. He almost said 100 yards. It averages almost 100 yards per game rushing at home, but that number falls off dramatically when they go play on the road. Tough spot here against Kansas City on the road. They went to Kansas City last year and they did force over time, but they ended up falling flat to the Kansas City Chiefs losing 23 to 20. So I know that when we talk about this on the betting show with myself and Worm, we thought the under was really strong and play here because I think it's just two teams is going to run the football. And I don't remember which interview I was listening to, but the most demoralizing thing when it comes to defenses is they're going to run the ball down your throat and you know it. Everybody knows it and you can't stop it and can't stop it. And I think that's just what the culture going to be faced here again. It's it's a tough look for Indy and yeah, I think if Jonathan Taylor can really get going because both of these passing games kind of shaky in week one and that's to be expected considering both the quarterbacks are coming off, seasoning any injuries. What do you do to kind of help mitigate that and kind of knock off some of the rest is like, yeah, let's get the run game going first. And then I think obviously you'll see these passing games get better as the season progresses, but in week two, I think it's just me more of let's get our running backs going. You know, it's a really weird thing hearing you talk about home road splits, like as a baseball person as well, that's such a weird thing for football because you understand it in baseball, you know, baseball, the home road splits are usually ballpark factor relative. So Colorado Rockies, you've got an altitude situation, which leans to just like huge numbers when you're hitting the ball, but in football, like the only home road thing that I can really think I suppose there's weather. But then I think of like turf versus grass like turf versus grass makes more sense to me, but it that's such an oddity as someone that has baseball in their brain fits your kind of a baseball guy to. To hear like a running back has dramatic home road splits on how effective they are like it just doesn't come, it doesn't compute I'm like, well, what's the altitude, you know, like you know, I'm getting at 50 is not weird. It is weird. Yeah, someone else someone else tell me that I don't have a theory, but yes, I agree it's where I was trying to workshop a theory, but you're not interested. So okay, we'll go to the next game in the final game here. Big one, we've got Rams versus the Giants and the reason this is big is because the Giants are for real. Erickson, I think you and I both like hand up, we didn't think the Giants were necessarily going to be for real. Malik neighbors got out there, he did a stuff Jackson Dart look good, you are very, very pro Jackson Dart this week. Rams, they obviously was a disaster with what they did, whether it was it had anything to do with them coming over 24 hours or whatever before. We now are and we're going to talk about this later the question of like how they bounce back coming back stateside here, but what's your take on this Erickson with Jackson Dart, this is going to be a really, really big test to how real this Harba offence is and how he is. And it's a test to the Rams being without Garrett and coming off of a really embarrassing loss. So how do you see this one playing out and what is the key to the game that's going to swing it in either direction. I think we're going to see points in this game. I think that the Rams offensively are the unit to bet on having a bounce back performance here, just based on how poor Matthew Stafford looked way out of sync. Because it wasn't just him, I mean the running backs did look at least decently good, we talked about play corn on the ranking show, he looked like he was not affected by the travel and the time difference because he would look like he was shot at a can every time he touched the football. So I think the Rams offense can be productive here against the Giants who I think Dallas had their opportunities when they had the ball, but the Giants were able to play keep away for a lot of that game on Sunday night. I believe they asked CD Lam, they're like, yeah, you know that you only had the ball twice in a second half and you guys scored and he's like, what? It's like, Oh man, like going on them like that's a smart strategy. So I don't know if the Giants will be able to do that two weeks in a row. So I think that this is going to be more of a back and forth type of contest. You have dome conditions which are like to have for a shootout, look at the Rams defense, eight or less 10 games have gone over the total obviously last week did not go over the total, but it was one of those really weird circumstances of playing in Australia. The Rams not playing their guys in preseason. I think that after losing, you got to avoid the dreaded Owen to start. I think the office is going to be dialed in and I expect more of the same from the Giants offense. I think that dart is he's in full command of what Matt nagging Greg Roman have been dialing up for him and that Rams defense that was not good last year. They added cornerbacks one of them got absolutely owned by Mike Evans in week one, Trent McDuffie was obviously their big addition, but Miles Garrett's not going to be out there and now they don't have Miles Garrett or Jared verse. So I have your Giants office can score here. So I'm expecting a shoot out on Monday night.
night. Just as a pick up on that thing, I thought it's just a couple of things happening this week for it. I always find it interesting when, and I guess I get it because so many players and coaches are just like analytics are ruining sports and don't talk to me about this and then we'll, all that stuff. But like how detached guys are because you got the CD lamb thing that didn't even know how many possessions they had or paid attention to that. And you guys see the Aaron Rodgers thing too where they were like in an interview, they were like, oh, you know, Roman Wilson, he was the most target. And Aaron Rodgers like, we don't pay attention to that. He like started yelling at everybody. He's just like, we don't, no one pays it. Only you guys talk about targets. Nobody here talks about targets. I'd be like, I think actually like everywhere's wide receiver ever has screamed and cried about targets. And that is to receptions. But okay, just not paying attention to stats is always trippy to me. Back to you, Fitsy. Rams giants. Do you think the, I mean, do you think a Rams girl can go oh and two after this week? How do you think this game is going to play out? And what is your keep matchup point that is going to swing this game? I mean, a future Hall of Famer, Matt, Hugh Stafford continues to look like Blake Bordel's. They could go oh and two. I mean, he had such a bad opening game. Like, I don't know how many turnover worthy throws he had. Even that long completion, he had to poop in a coup. It seemed like was close to being intercepted like where it was sort of a contested catch. And the guy just got their split second late to get his hands on the ball. And we know this giant's defense has no shortage of pass rushing talent with Brian Burns and Abduel Carter and cave on Tibido and our Val Reese. If they can hurry up Stafford and put the sort of heat on him that the 49ers kind of unexpectedly didn't week one. Yeah. We could, we could see this be a game if Stafford struggles again. All right. Those are some big game matchups. You guys can let us know what you think the keys are to the game. Who's going to pick those out? Did we miss a game that you think is is a monster this week, but those are some our breakdowns. The what? Which one? Come on. Come on, buddy. What's quarterback? Oh, you can't tell me, be John getting 40 touches isn't fun against Carolina. It's fun. You know, we should do you guys ever see like I've done this before the wheel. I should put a wheel and we just put all the Falcons quarterbacks and just spin it and just see who plays. I think that's what they're going to do for their decision this week and just we it's going to be strange. It's going to be, I mean, Erickson, they might be calling you up. You might be shooting up here soon for the Falcons. And guess what? They could do it. I look good. And Bernie is Jersey, man. Just saying. Yeah. And you just hand off the beach on. It's an easy thing. All right. We're going to be making some calls. And then we are going to be giving you our each important thing to watch. But before we do, I want to give you an opportunity to win something cool. We finish with the Rams. And I want you to bring home something with the Rams. How about one of the Rams? Great running backs. Todd Gurley, you can win a Todd Gurley signed Rams, Jersey. This is how you do it. Easy opportunity. All you've got to do is subscribe to the tailgate YouTube channel. Do it right now. Then drop a comment. And that's it. I mean, I would say if you're listening to this, drop a comment on this video, but you can do it on any of the videos. And I said this on the tailgate live stream that Erickson and I do on Wednesdays. By the way, at 5 p.m. Eastern, you can hang out with us is that your greatest opportunity to win a prize is actually this one. Like we had one giveaway on one of our channels where you had to like email a thing in. And I think that takes more work. And that's great. But this is a newer channel. So your opportunity to make a comment, subscribe is so much better than, you know, the 300,000 we've got on fantasy pros. So make sure you're subscribed to the channel, get a comment in. And maybe you could be taking home that Todd Gurley signed Rams, Jersey. Let's make some calls, big calls for this week. This is going to be a prediction based call. Uh, whatever it is, you can go coaching, scheme, team, player, however you want to approach it, but you are going to make the call and pat Fitz Morris. You are first up. Make the call for week two. What is your big call? The Browns will bench Dishon Watson and put in Shadour Sanders at quarterback this week. And we know that Dishon Watson to this point has not done anything to keep that job on the merits. And I don't think he's going to this week against the Buccaneers in the ultimate Baker Mayfield revenge game. And I don't think the Browns are going to want to have Dishon Watson starting in week three when they come home to play their first home game this season against the Carolina Panthers. And like they've got this things are moving in the right direction for the Browns, like they have built all these draft picks, they have all these young exciting players. What kind of morale, what would it do to team morale if you come home and your team is getting booed by the home crowd, but it's not really the team. It's the crowd is booing Dishon Watson. Like it's going to be time to pull the plug in week two. They're going to find the excuse and they want to look very hard when Dishon Watson plays poorly against the Buccaneers. Shadour Sanders finishes this game for Cleveland as the Browns go into. And I don't know if you guys saw, uh, Bogman will love this because he knows this was like one of my favorite players over the last like five or 10 years. But the Browns made a move to help Shadour Sanders get a little bit happier. They brought back his buddy Jimmy Horn. Jimmy Horn signed former Colorado Buffalo. This is big. This is huge because he cost him the Carolina Panthers first half money line. Oh, I love Jimmy Horn. It's my dude. I was like, I was just watching and I fell in love and I went to Bogman. I'm like, who is this guy? He's like, Oh, Jimmy Horn. I love Jimmy Horn. And he just signed with the Browns, a total Shadour Sanders being like, bring my guy in, get him in. So I kind of, nothing that actually doesn't mean anything. I mean, I don't think he means not nothing. I mean, it's not like he was like this super important players of the Panthers and the Browns are like, Hey, like if they're going to make the switch, like, let's get your guys. He's going to be cute me. So yeah, I mean, get, get, get Watson off this team, get Judy off this thing. They got to just let. When they come back to Cleveland, just don't bring them back to Sean. You don't need to get on the plane. Okay. Best thing they could do. Yeah, you don't want to get, you're going to have the boobards out. And I like the take Shadour Sanders in and we are you also going to say not only is Watson taking out, but they'll make the full commitment in Shadour is going to be the starter in week three. Oh, for sure. Okay. All right. There we go. All right. Call Andrew Erickson, your big call for the week. Let's, let's have it. Bengals go on the road, beat the Texans, who will now fall to 0 and 2 for the second year in a row, while the Bengals start 2 and 0 for the second consecutive season. People forget they did actually start 2 and 0 last year, but Joe Barrow got hurt. And so it didn't matter. But they start 2 and 0 this year. And Joe Barrow stays healthy. And they, yeah, Joe Barrow is kind of hurt right now. I don't want to boy now. I just want to boy out. He's a little banged up in practices. This is a little back tightness. He's fine. Just a little sorb. And he got new, he just played a football game. They get a little banged up a little bit here and there. As long as it's not a fact with a quarterback, hand in your worries, right? He's fine. He's joking. Yeah. You sure about this fine. You sure about that. I think that they're going to win. And it's not even more so because I think Joe Barrow is going to have like a nuclear game. I know I was a little bit lower on him in the ranking show. It's actually I think that of all the teams that tried to improve their defense of the season. Cowboys didn't work. I thought the Bengals actually got contributions from their guys that they added this year. Dexter Lawrence, boy, Mafe, Cassius Howell, Brian Cook, like all these guys were making plays in that fucking years game. So I know that the fumbles obviously helped them win that game. But I think that they created pressure on Baker Mayfield, which helped create scenarios where they were able to force the ball onto the ground and create turnovers. So I think that they can get after CJ Stroud here a little bit, especially Niko Collins doesn't play. And I think that it may not just be because of Joe Barrow that the Bengals win against Houston and week two. By the way, as a side note, there was an update as we're recording this again around about an hour ago, Niko Collins did not practice. And it was, I think it was a grade one hamstring string. So he's not playing this week. Are they playing to see if it's updated? Cause I know I got to imagine because we go from a limited to DNP. That's basically like, that's like, you never play. Yeah. Yeah. That's great point. Cause it happened in practice last week. So that, and that's a relatively fresh new update. FYI, within the last hours, you guys are listening to this. It'll be much more updated. But it, it looks like he is not going to be playing. All right. The final call, I'm going to make the call. And I abstained from the bears and Vikings conversation, though, I probably was insinuating where I was going with this. But I am going to say that the Minnesota Vikings are going to take down this great, big, powerful scary bears offense. And they're going to pull it out this week. They're four and a half dogs right now. So I would like a straight money line. And I am putting this out to Carson wins because, you know, Carson wins was thrown into a really tough situation this past week. I thought he did a nice job serviceable job. They've got a great defense. And it's kind of built around like a lot of these really great defensive teams. Like, do they have big star quarterbacks? You don't know. I mean, if you want to call Bo Nick's a big star, you can and CJ Stroud and stuff like that, you need a game manager. Carson wins. I mean, he is a Hall of Fame game manager out there. That's what he's built for. And you got great pieces around. You've got Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, not involved last week. Joanne Jennings, nothing burger. And he's going to get Hawkinson in. I actually think as well, having Aaron Jones being kind of hyper focused in here, that offense is going to home. And it's a great defense. The bears, it's going to be an onslaught of offense and potential production. They ain't stop at anybody. And that's a big thing. So Vikings are going to be able to make a few stops. I think they are efficient enough with Carson wins, What's he gonna do? It's gonna look at Justin
Jefferson on every first read, and if he can't, there's Hawkinson, there's Aaron Jones on check downs, there's Addison, there's Joanne Jennings. It's a really good offensive core, and I think that combination is going to make the Vikings kind of scary. So my big call is the Vikings take down the bears this week. Does anybody hate this call because I know one of you is going to probably hate it. Um, Erickson's going to hate it, but the Vikings, again, as someone that had a Vikings money line ticket that bet the Vikings live because the Packers got the lead. And I was like, right, perfect time to strike time to bet on the other team when the green bay Packers have the lead, uh, the Vikings got every single break for them. And I'm sure that fits can agree to that where penalties, turnovers, it all kind of worked out in their favor in the second half of that game. I'm not so sure they'll get as lucky two weeks in a row. So I think they need to, yeah, Sean is Sean Hockley, officiating this game for the, the Vikings. He's an official mode of he was like the official official of the Vikings. They just take him with that on your home road. So the problem is Hockley seems to like playing the crowd with his calls. So if they're playing in Chicago, it might not be an advantage for the Vikings. That's a good point. But hey, live, uh, four and a half number at least at worst. No. Well, I mean, you and I have to pick every game for the, uh, the Pentathlon competition that we're in a combination fantasy betting competition. I also have everything I took the points for the Vikings to. Okay, yeah. Well, so now we both know where we're at on the Pentathlon. So we'll be doing that for sure. All right. Those are our calls, but we got one more thing and it is one thing to watch each before we do though. If you guys are watching on YouTube, just want to mind you guys, leave your favorite calls. Do that in the comments. When you do so and you subscribe and you hit the like button, boom, you could be entered into the contest, but we love listening and hearing from you guys. And if you're listening on the podcast, you can follow the show and leave us a comment or give us a rating or review. It really helps out all the more NFL fans can find this show. So if you watch us on YouTube, just search, uh, if you watch us and listen to us on the podcast, find us on YouTube and search tailgate NFL both sides of it. Take us with you. If you don't have, you know, YouTube premium or you can get it out or if you want to watch us and watch Eric's and give me faces anytime I say anything, you can do that. Hates Viking call. Yeah, they're home. And you just froze too. Actually, that was phenomenal. I don't know if it'll be on the video, but you froze with the tongue out. But make sure you're on all the stuff and think, all right. One thing to watch this week, uh, that can be kind of like in the big call. This isn't necessarily saying this is going to happen, but something you're hyper focused on that you're going to be paying attention to again. This could be player. This could be coaching. This can be scheme. This can be team. Pat Fitzmores. What's one thing you're watching for this weekend? Some of our viewers and listeners might roll their eyes at this one because this was so overdone as a storyline, uh, going into week one. But I'm genuinely curious to see how the different approaches to travel in Australia, whether there's any sort of impact on the Rams and 49ers in week two. You know, the Rams kind of parachuted into Australia last minute, while the 49ers got there early acclimat in themselves. Rams supposedly didn't want to disrupt their circadian rhythms or whatever. So like the Rams better look good against the giants after going with that approach to, you know, seemingly short circling themselves in that Australia game against the division rival. They don't look good against the giants. It's kind of reflect poorly in the organization. Meanwhile, do the 49ers like have a hangover from that game and come in and sleepwalk against the dolphins and, you know, maybe not put that game away as early as they're supposed to. Erickson, you're one thing to watch. What are you watching for this week? Pat's, baby. That's what I'm watching this week, the New England Patriots because I actually have a lot of questions about like their offense, the fact that they don't have to play Seattle the third time in a row. I think that's kind of nice where they'll have to play the best defense in the NFL three times in a row. So playing the Pittsburgh Steelers, how does our offense just play generally when you're not pacing on the lead defense? How is the backfield deployed between Henderson coming back as he's been practicing in full with Ramondra Stevenson and the receivers, life post AJ Brown, Romeo Dobbs is the guy that signed a big fat contract to and that looks like a horrible decision one weekend. Meanwhile, Matt Collins, 33 year old career special team or journeyman guy, he seems like he's Drake Mays boy and the reports out of practice this week have been that Matt Collins has been leading the wide receivers and all the drills because he is there. He is their goat. Apparently. Matt Collins, spoiler, we're going to be talking about the betting pro show this week or taking me over on money Matt Collins go touch and touch grass with the feet thing like he just like that. I love it. I guess I could appreciate it. But I always find it weird when it's like two degrees and he's just walking around without I'm a better for worse if people are going to hate it, but living in Arizona, kind of a sandals guy. So I can appreciate that, but just straight foot to grass and hopefully to production as well. Mine. I'm looking at the chargers offense. That is my big hyper focus. I cannot believe how stunted they looked obviously destroyed survivor pools. What was it like 30% had the charger? I mean, absolute decimation for survivor pools and the chargers they they looked awful. The offense look bad. Herbert, I mean, are we going to have is the new Taylor watch? You know how it would be chiefs and it would cut to Taylor? Is this going to be a Madison beer watch like every time the charger struggle, every camera's got to take over to see what she's doing. And she broken up with Herbert like that offense looks so stupid and so bad. I want that I want to see what me Daniel's just talking about. I want to see the the the total release of big deep balls and crazy good schemes and all these things that he didn't have before and it just wasn't there. And if lad is out, it's even more important. How are they going to get Quentin Johnson involved? That's the thing. Like, Daniels didn't get the all the guys we thought we wanted to see involved. Where was the big play out of why Keaton Mitchell is going to be so amazing? Where's the deep ball to Quentin Johnson? Where was Tray Harris? It was vanilla and that's the opposite of what we had been sold on or projected. So I think I'm hyper focused on what this is going to look like because I don't need around a gadston a whole bunch and I don't need just a bunch of stupid two yard runs. I want to see the big game play that we thought we were going to have and I think not that it can't find itself in the second half of the season, but I'm just going to be hyper focused on if lad is there as well. I want to see efficiency and I want to see Herbert look like that top five quarterback that we thought and not have McDaniel's turn Herbert into two. That scares me when you mentioned the vanilla offense reminded me of this time. I ordered ice cream. I ordered rocky robe, but I thought I was thinking I was going to get mousse tracks. And then when you have that type of taste that bodies in your mouth, you're like, I'm expecting one thing. And it's completely different. You're like, this sucks. Oh, it didn't look you just you just dug in and then you got the right, yeah, that's very jarring. Like very jarring. I think you're going to drink, you know, I don't know, like orange juice and it's just water or something like that. You're like, oh, like that's the similar thing. That's what it was like watching the charges we were having a much bigger expectation. You don't want to dip your chips in, I don't know, actually, everything I was about to, I was going to say, everything I was going to say to dip your chips in that was going to be bad. They all sound good. I was going to be like, cheese and beans and what's a bad thing to dip a chip in? Fits. Oh, is there anything that would be jarring? There's nothing bad to dip a chip. Oh, no. There's no. Oh my god. Let's go, let's look at some chips. We're going to tell, it's a tailgate. We got, we got to go get the chips on. Tell me if you can find a bad thing for a dip chip because I had no analogy for it because literally everything sounded amazing and everything sounds amazing, especially on a football Sunday. Thank you guys for hanging out with us. You guys want more to make your Sunday better? Follow us over on betting pros. Erickson has got the full line game betting show and me and Erickson are going to be recording the prop show which will be releasing on Friday. And Erickson killed it last week, four and one on the prop show and hit a touchdown call. So we will be going through the big board going through 10 prop bets for the week. So if you were into that, follow us over on betting pros, youtube.com/beddingpros. You can get the game lines. You can get the full on bets and we got a lot of other coverage between betting pros and fantasy pros for whether you're looking for fantasy coverage this weekend. There's going to be live stream on betting pros with Matt Peralt, so make sure you're locked into that. But that's it for the tailgate. Subscribe, like, comment, win things, and come back and hang out with the tailgate. It's Pat Fitzmores and Andrew Erickson. I'm Welsh. We're out for now. This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Neco Collins is likely out for the week due to a hamstring injury, with concerns over his recovery timeline and past performance post-injury, raising serious offensive concerns for the Texans.
The Texans’ wide receiver depth is now severely limited, with Xavier Hutchinson and Jaylen Noel as primary options, and the team’s offensive firepower may struggle against high-powered defenses like the Bills and Bengals.
The Minnesota Vikings are projected to defeat the Chicago Bears, driven by a strong defense, Carson Wentz’s efficient play, and effective use of Aaron Jones in red zone and third-down situations, despite a tough Bears offense.
Summary:
The podcast discusses key injuries and team dynamics affecting multiple NFL teams. Neco Collins is expected to miss this week due to a hamstring injury, raising concerns about the Texans’ offensive depth after losing Jaden Higgins to an ACL tear. With only Xavier Hutchinson and Jaylen Noel left as viable wide receivers, the Texans face significant challenges against high-powered offenses like the Bills and Bengals.
Meanwhile, the Minnesota Vikings are projected to defeat the Chicago Bears, thanks to a disciplined defense and Carson Wentz’s effective game management. Wentz will target Justin Jefferson, with Aaron Jones used heavily in third-down and red zone scenarios, leveraging his strong performance against the Bears’ defense. The Bengals are also favored over the Texans, with Joe Burrow healthy and without Collins, who is sidelined with a grade-one hamstring injury.
The Texans’ defense, previously strong, is now questioned after a recent loss to the Bills, while the Vikings’ defensive scheme and coaching under Ben Johnson are expected to neutralize the Bears’ offensive threats. Other news includes Jordan Mason’s injury, Jordan’s potential return, and Aaron Jones being named the featured back in Minnesota’s offense. Running back prospects like Damon Clark and Jonah Coleman are also being evaluated.
The week’s matchups, including the Rams vs. Giants, are highlighted as potential showdowns, though the Rams’ defensive struggles and Jackson Dart’s early performance remain uncertain. The podcast ends with a prediction that the Bengals will beat the Texans, extending their 2-0 start, and that the Vikings will defeat the Bears, despite the Bears’ potent offense.
A final call is made for the Vikings to win, citing a strong defense and efficient quarterback play, even though some analysts may disagree. The show also promotes a fan engagement segment, where viewers can win a Todd Gurley-signed jersey by subscribing and commenting on the channel.
FAQs
Neco Collins is unlikely to play this week. He did not practice and has a grade one hamstring strain, which makes a return in just four to five days highly improbable. Both analysts believe he will sit out to avoid risking further injury.
Losing Neco Collins leaves the Texans relying heavily on Xavier Hutchinson and Jaylen Noel, who are inconsistent and underutilized. With the team facing high-powered opponents like the Bills and Bengals, the lack of a reliable receiving option could severely hinder their offensive production.
Jordan Mason's thumb injury has pushed Aaron Jones into a larger role as the primary running back. The Vikings may use Jones more in the red zone and on third downs, while keeping him as a reliable workhorse until Mason returns.
Yes, Aaron Jones is expected to be a key player, especially in third-down and red-zone situations. His performance against the Bears last season, including two strong games, makes him a critical asset in the Vikings' offensive strategy.
The Bengals are expected to dominate the Texans' offense, especially without Neco Collins. Their improved defensive scheme, combined with players like Dexter Lawrence and Mafe, should create pressure on CJ Stroud and result in turnovers.
The key factors are Carson Wentz's ability to manage the game under pressure and the effectiveness of the Vikings' defense against Justin Jefferson. The matchup is expected to be a test of offensive execution and defensive discipline.
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