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00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on SportsGrid. Adam Kaplan is with us, our SportsGrid Insider.
00:07Boy, the NFL delivered Thursday night, or I'm sorry, yeah, Thursday night, Friday night.
00:13The early window Sunday was as good as it gets. Every game except two, coming right
00:17down to the wire. The later games, eh, not so great. Night game again was awesome. And
00:23I think that that's probably a good place to start, Adam, before we get into everything
00:27that happened with the Packers. We'll dive into it, but the NFL couldn't have asked
00:31for a better start, I think, to their first three days of football. It was really all
00:36around incredibly fun. It was. Look, not every game's going to be great, but the primetime
00:41games, I mean, went down to the wire, no question about it. With Isaiah Likely's foot, was it
00:46going to get in or not? Then you had the Jordan Love injury, which we'll discuss. That was
00:51a knockdown dragout fight. That game had tremendous urgency for a regular season game, and those
00:55two teams, of course, the Eagles and the Packers, from the same conference. And then
00:58you had last night's game, where the Rams had a courageous performance, all sorts of
01:02injuries on offense. Their offensive line had major problems with guys leaving the game.
01:07They were down three starters. They almost pulled that game out. We know it went down
01:10to the wire there, so you're right. You're absolutely right. It was a really good week
01:13one. By the way, more games went over the total than under, which was a difference from
01:18the previous two years, where 70% of the games went under. It was a little different this
01:21year, and we can get into that as well. A couple of those games, high scoring, kind
01:26of surprised me, but look, it's week one, things happen. Yeah, they do, and it's best
01:31to put that a little bit in a box, Adam, before moving forward, because week one doesn't usually
01:36determine the rest of the season. But it may for the Green Bay Packers, and it's just the
01:40nature of the National Football League at this point, and Adam, with Jordan Love being
01:44out, which has been sliding under the radar now, because of all the games on Sunday and
01:48Monday, the Packers are in an impossible spot. Honestly, Adam, as most teams probably
01:53would be when you lose your starting quarterback, and I don't know if you feel the Packers are
01:57in a worse spot with their backups than some others, and I guess that's what we should
02:02dive into here. Are they worse off than maybe some other team that would have lost a starter
02:06for an extended period of time? Yeah, Craig, this is just based on, I go back to the senior
02:11ball, I was there with Malik Willis, who's got a lot of ability, he's got a good arm,
02:15he's kind of small, kind of raw, undeveloped, he needs a lot of work. He basically was beaten
02:21out by Mason Rudolph, wasn't even close in Tennessee. The Titans found one team who would
02:26take Malik Willis. He's a project, if you're going to trade for him, Craig, you really
02:31want him in your offseason program. To trade for him now, for him to be your number two
02:35quarterback, it's going to be a problem. Let's forget about what happened, him being put
02:39in late in the game, that's not fair to him. He needs a lot more work. Sean Clifford was
02:44a fifth-rounder last year out of Penn State, he's on the practice squad, he knows that
02:47system as well. But you ask the question, they're way worse off. This worries me, as
02:51someone who picked the Packers to win the NFC North, you can't predict injuries. But
02:56Jordan Love, by the way, Jordan Love didn't play very well. He has a left MCL sprain,
03:01he has a moderate MCL sprain. Those could be anywhere from four to six weeks, it just
03:06depends, you know, on is it a half-tear, is it just under a half, a little bit over half.
03:11Bottom line is, this is not, this is a setback for them. I expect to run the ball a little
03:16bit more, more of a commitment to it. They're already a balanced team, but you don't want
03:20to put it on Malik Willis. It just, you got to try to help him as much as you can.
03:24Yeah, there's not much to be said, not everybody has Stidham, or Dobbs, or O'Connell, or one
03:31of these other players who have played a little bit in the NFL. Maybe it's because they committed
03:34so much money to Love at that point. How much can you commit to the backup? I don't know,
03:39but look, I see it the same way as you. I saw Willis play, you know, for his cup of
03:42coffee in Tennessee, he looked like he wasn't ready. All right, so where did the NFL analysts
03:47go wrong for many years with Baker Mayfield in Cleveland, or with the Rams? Because Baker
03:52Mayfield right now, Adam, not only did he turn the corner last year, he's turning heads
03:56again this time around. And look, I understand Washington's not the best team in the National
04:00Football League, but he threw four touchdowns, 289 yards, and get this, 24 out of 30 in this
04:07game for Baker Mayfield. He is living up to all the hype that he had when he was drafted.
04:10Yeah, and I think what happened is he got out of Cleveland, he just needed to leave,
04:15he kind of bounced around a little bit, didn't work out for him in Carolina. But man,
04:20it has been a great story, you can call it whatever you want, redemption, whatever it is,
04:24it's improvement. He's been a great story, and yesterday in that game, the Bucs hosting
04:28Washington, where they handled the commanders very well. Protection was great, he delivered
04:33the ball, he's got a good receiver core. I like that kid McMillan, who's a rookie draftee,
04:37he did a good job, he had a big play yesterday. But the story of that game was their protection.
04:42Baker Mayfield, like all quarterbacks, needs protection, and he did a great job. Once he
04:47was protected, he delivered. Bringing back Mike Evans, they got his contract straightened out.
04:51Chris Godwin, by the way, he was probably going to play more inside than outside this season.
04:55It looks good. Now they have a very young defense. This is just one game, as you mentioned,
05:01it's important to mention that. They had an opponent with a new offensive scheme,
05:06a new defensive scheme, everything's changing. They took advantage of it. They got to play the
05:10Eagles coming up, that'll be hard in a couple weeks here. But the bottom line is that's a
05:14great win. And by the way, I did pick the Bucs to win it, to win that NFC South. It's not going
05:19to be easy. Atlanta had a very bad game yesterday, which was kind of hard to believe. They didn't
05:24show up for that game at home, they're home open, they look bad. But when you really look at it,
05:28that division's up for the taking there. And I'm going to pick the Bucs to win it for the
05:31fourth straight time. Yeah. And by the way, on the flip side, I will say Jaden Daniels,
05:39up against it, put up a ton of numbers yesterday too. Maybe we'll talk about that later in the
05:43week. And now Cleveland would love to have Jaden Daniels. They'd love to take back everything that
05:48they did with Sean Watson. I mean, I don't understand how a player can fall off this
05:52badly. I guess I can understand because it happened to Russell Wilson. It looks like it's
05:56happening to Deshaun Watson, although Watson much younger and a lot less accomplished than
06:02Russell Wilson. So, you know, what are the Browns going to do? I hear all this stuff about dead cap
06:08and honestly, Adam, I find that nonsense. Every team gets out of these cap situations. They always
06:13find a way to do it. We hear that they won't, and then they do. Osweiler, Russell Wilson,
06:18everyone else, they figure it out. But I guess the question is, will they move on from Watson
06:22sooner than we thought? They got to give him time to get right here. Remember, he was hurt
06:27last year. He hasn't played good football since 2020. They've got two years of fully guaranteed
06:32money past this season. Jameis Winston was brought back. They should have brought, by the way, brought
06:36back Joe Flacco, but that's a conversation for another time. But Jameis Winston's there. He's a
06:40quality backup. They're committed to Watson. It would have to take something astronomically bad.
06:45You know, like mid-season, if they're two and seven and it's clearly on him, that's a different
06:49story. But right now, it's only one game, but he did not look good. By the way, both offensive
06:53tackles were out yesterday. That was a problem. That's true. Yeah, no, that's true. And, you know,
06:58certainly we'll give Watson the benefit of the doubt again going into this week. All right,
07:02Adam, great stuff as always. Great insight. We'll talk again soon. Thanks for coming on.
07:06Sounds good.