Transcript of Is Week 4 an Elimination Week Already in the NFL? (feat. Arif Hasan)

And I may not be a Cowboy, but this ain't my motherfucking rodeo!

My fellow football Americans, I know it's just week 4, but it does feel like an elimination Sunday is already upon us. We've got an important Lone Star Bowl. The Texans and Cowboys only have 1 win between them. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Neither of the LA teams can much afford a loss, and neither can the defending AFC champs. Plus, we've got Dolphins-Vikes in a Super Bowl VIII rematch, and Niners-Broncos, just as it was in the Superdome for Super Bowl 24. Got a catfight brewing in Cincy between the Bengals and Jaguars and an AFL Classic between the Chiefs and the Raiders who are both good. Maybe. Let's figure that out. Let's start the show. Hi and hello, my fellow football Americans. Welcome to NFL Week 4. Welcome to Football America presented by DraftKings Sports. Now in all 50 states. Subscribe. Leave us a comment. This week's special prize for one subscriber: Buddy Badowski is going to swing by your place to watch football with you all weekend long.

He's going to—

No guarantees. Sleep right there on the couch.

Yeah. That kind of sounds like my last weekend, Dave. I spent a lot of time on couches and air mattresses and in airports flying all over the country. So I might as well just do it again this weekend.

You're a regular, Joey Porter Jr., traveling here, there, and everywhere across football America. It's episode 87, and we have Arif Hasan coming up in just a bit to talk about these critical games and how many teams suddenly feel like, at least to me, before September's out, their season is kind of hanging in the balance if you're looking at shared reality here. Um, number 87, just in time for hockey season. Isn't that nice?

Here he goes, Gino.

Uh, now And that leads us— we have, uh, I should— hello to Mika Bayo, 10 Day Tony.

Hello, Dave.

Just heard Buddy Badowski. And we have Gino Fuentes. Take it away. Who, I guess, NFL player— let's get to the NHL player who wore the number 87 best.

All right, NFL players. This is a tight end number. This is Rob Gronkowski, Travis Kelce territory. Uh, if you want to go back in time, Dave Casper, Ben Coates. A couple of wide receivers, uh, you might have heard of them. The, uh, architect of the catch, Dwight Clark, and Reggie Wayne populate that number as well. Uh, but, um, I'm just gonna back out and—

4 first names.

Yeah.

The wide receivers. So if you wear— if you're a high-end pass— a wide receiver, I should say, who wears 87, you can only have first names.

Yes.

Dwight Clark, as everybody learned in Vacation, Chevy Chase, and Reggie and Wayne. But, you know, Reggie Wayne needs to get into the Hall of Fame already. It's ridiculous he isn't in there. But yes, number 87 worn by maybe the best hockey player in the history of people. Isn't that— that's nice.

These superlatives. Maybe the greatest hockey player in the history of people. Have you ever heard of Wayne Gretzky?

Yeah, he was terrific. I don't know if he's pretty good at work of late. Oh, he's dynamite analyzing stuff with his big puffy Botox cheeks and all that.

Yeah, what's going on there? Weird. There's a weird line under his chin. I don't, I don't want to insult the Great One, but something—

This is it.

Going on there.

I'm glad you don't want to insult him. Oh no, he's royalty after all. Who would have the gall to talk to 99? Let me throw this one at you, Mr. Hockey, then. Yeah, my— with your superlatives or whatever you said, what would happen if you could trade 2010 Sidney Crosby to 1984 for Wayne Gretzky, who would win that trade? Who would be the better player?

I think Sidney Crosby would pretty much do exactly to the 1980s what Wayne Gretzky did to the 1980s.

You're goddamn right.

Ahead of his time. And, and Sidney Crosby is obviously now the kind of player that Wayne Gretzky was back then. They're 2 of the greatest hockey players of all time, but Wayne Gretzky is the greatest, and that's It's fine. We can just leave it at that. It doesn't have to go any further.

You're lucky that this is a football show because we would not leave it at that. In fact, it would be 4 and a half hours worth of discussion of me browbeating you. But '87 in football terms, I do think it is a significant number. Dwight Clark making the catch because in 1981, January of '82, he makes that play and swings Really, it's one of, in my book, one of the 3 or so biggest inflection points of the Super Bowl era. The Cowboys, keep in mind, were the dominant forces of the NFC. Roger Staubach retires in '79. Danny White takes over. They almost go to the Super Bowl, fall short in Philadelphia. They would have won that Super Bowl had they gotten there against the wildcard Raiders. '81, The Cowboys have the game won. The catch happens. Then after Dwight Clark makes the grab, the Cowboys almost score. Drew Pearson over the middle catches the ball. The DB for the Niners barely wrangles him or else Drew Pearson houses the football. And the Cowboys don't just win that game and don't just go to the Super Bowl and beat the Cincinnati Bengals. They maintain their stranglehold on the NFC.

Whereas— Bill Walsh Says, I like Joe Montana, but after this season, he got us to a certain point. He basically is Alex Smith giving way to a Colin Kaepernick type, I think, in the person of either John Elway or Dan Marino. I think Bill Walsh would have moved heaven and earth to get one of those cats in springtime of 1983. As it is, the Niners take over the NFC and rule over it for the bulk of the '80s. Anywho, Can we get to the here and now, please? I would like to do that. Fellas, we're looking for a team. Let's start off the game picks for NFL Week 4, 2026. We're looking for the team or teams who we reckon will have the breeziest Sunday. So, so to help out anyone in a survivor pool or who enjoys watching blowouts, it's time for Stress-Free Sunday delivered by Little Caesars, the official pizza sponsor of the NFL. Right now, score 2 faves, Just you. 4 Detroit-style slices and sticks for only $4.99. Only at Little Caesars. Officially delicious. I don't want to brag, but for what it's worth, I'm already 2-0 in this little game here.

Seahawks are laying 7 to the visiting Chargers. Many people are saying special counselor Jack Smith attended this game featuring the Hawks. That doesn't even make sense because the game hasn't been played yet. How could anybody make that claim? Either way, I like the Seahawks to take care of business. I don't think what we're seeing with the Chargers turns around to a large degree. At least they're not going to go 0-4 for the season, but they are not going to wind up in the playoffs. The Hawks are for real. The Seahawks, that is. I think they cover that 7 points. How say you, me Caballo?

I'm going to take a team that got blown out in Thursday Night Football last week. I'm going to take the Packers. to beat the Buccaneers. -3.5 is the line there. Packers didn't look— they're not going to look as bad as they did against the Falcons. And we got Jalen Daniels starting in place of Baker Mayfield. I don't know what that offense— that offense looked bad with Baker. I can only imagine how bad it looks with Daniels. I'm picking the, uh, the Packers here with what— what is kind of a spooky line. It's a very odd line at -3.5, Dave.

I hear you. I do though allow for the wild card factor of a guy who we have not seen play in, in a football game. I don't know what, what, uh, he's going to be able to do out there, but neither do the Packers. Maybe that gives the Bucs some minor edge there as, uh, as an unknown. But I hear your noise, and it— talk about elimination games, you don't want to be on the losing side of this one either. I mean, whoever loses this one is in some real jeopardy. Buddy, you're next.

Yeah, uh, I am going to go down to the Big Easy. I'm gonna set up on Sunday with some, uh, or Monday night, that is, with some crazy bread, and I'm gonna take it nice and easy on Monday night because I've got the Saints -2.5 in the Dome. Dave, this is a Monday Night Football game. It is the 20th anniversary of that Monday Night Football game, the Steve Gleason game, the first game back from Hurricane Katrina when they rebuilt the Superdome. We all know it's one of the most epic— you want to talk about inflection points in NFL history, right? Like, that sets up that run for the Saints that ends in a Super Bowl with Drew Brees down here in Miami. I think there's going to be all kinds of emotions in that building. The Superdome is going to be insane. And I really, I'm buying into the Saints. I'm not buying into the Falcons off of that win against Green Bay last Thursday. Give me the Saints -2.5.

Do yourself a favor. Don't buy anything related to the NFC South. They all stink. They're all—

I agree with that. But if I had to, if I had to take one team, give me the Saints because I really like that offense with Tyler Shook.

I'm interested in what the Panthers do this weekend against Detroit. Another really big game in the month of September. Well, wait. Well, it'll be October actually. So wait, never mind. Wait, it is October.

It's currently October now. Yeah, Dave.

It's football season. I don't have time to pay attention to things like calendars.

I don't—

wait a minute.

I can only do so much. There are only so many hours in the day. Now, Gina, it's your turn after that embarrassing display by Buddy trying to show me up.

Guys, lots of things in football are hard. So you got to take the easy ones.

Yeah.

So when you identify the worst team in the league and they're the worst by a lot, you just keep going to the well. No, it's the Dolphins.

This guy, Dave, he can't do this every single week.

He can't do this.

It's a stress-free Sunday knowing that the Dolphins are going to lose. And this time there's the added bonus of Brian Flores being the defensive coordinator on the other side. Have you ever seen a team blitz 100% of the plays? Because I think that's what's going to happen.

Yikes.

So take Minnesota over the Dolphins.

Holy hell. I mean, I haven't spent a lot of time considering, uh, the Vikings and Dolphins game. Um, I had not considered that Brian Flores, of all the chips on all the shoulders this weekend, his is the biggest one. He wants to humiliate the Dolphins, no doubt. And coincidentally, the Dolphins want to be humiliated. So yes, I, I can't push back too hard. It just feels like you're taking the low-hanging fruit here, Gino.

You want a stress-free Sunday or not?

Touché, touché. And that's it. Stress-free Sunday. Even better, get that Detroit-style pizza, Little Caesars. All right, now let's get to it. The big event for me on our end-of-week show. We talk about the 3 biggest games of the weekend. If you can only watch a few games, these are those. We're not doing Chargers-Seahawks here. Uh, no, at number 3, we have the aforementioned Super Bowl redo. Denver-San Francisco. Niners laying 3, 46.5 is your total at the time of this recording. The injury plague has become so bad for San Francisco fans. Our guy Ethan Schreier says he and his Niners pals are now texting each other when there's an injury, and they're happy when it turns out that the injury is not too severe. That— it's sad. It's like, what, he's not out for the year? We did it! Very sad. Not sad is how good the Niners are playing in spite of all the injuries. Niners averaging 33 points a game, defense allowing 16-ish or so points a game, and the Niners O-line has inexplicably allowed pressures just 13.5% of the time. Broncos are all about pressuring the QB. They did it 57% of the time.

against Stafford last week. I don't think that happens this week. So Niners get it 26-20. Buddy, you're next.

Yeah, Dave, I'm going to just be honest with you here. I'm watching that Broncos-Rams game last Sunday night, and I'm just thinking to myself, the Broncos could not continue to get away with this. They're 13-2 in one-score games in the last 2 seasons. That is one of the most unsustainable stats you— factoids you will ever see in the NFL. That simply cannot last. And I think this is the week where we finally see it start to break a little bit. I'm not a huge believer in this Broncos team. I'm not crazy about the offense. They just keep finding ways at the end of games, they get a pass interference call that goes their way. I'm not buying into them at all, but I'm really buying into the 49ers.

I—

this team is playing out of their minds. I'm gonna have to repent eventually on Brock Purdy if this guy keeps playing at an MVP level like this. He's been outstanding this year. Give me the Niners 24-13.

I like your conversation there about repent and they're doing it at the last minute even though they don't look good for the, for the whole game. Sounds like Tim Tebow, who happened to play for the Denver Broncos, doing exactly that, and he needs to repent and for, for his sins according to Pablo Torre. Gino, you're over there.

What are we doing there? To my boy.

To Timmy Tebow? You don't think he— We don't know.

We don't know. We don't know. Let's let all the facts come out.

What happened? I've only been involved in— I've only been on the public stage for the last 20 years. You can't accuse me of being a little dim. Gino, before you go, I think this is real interesting stuff because I mentioned Everybody's aware of all the injuries. The thing that has this team still playing at such a high level above and beyond everything else in the QB league is their QB. Take a listen to Brock Purdy.

If you go to a combine and all those things, you're just throwing on air and yeah, you look all good with a strong arm and fast jumping, all that stuff. But when it comes down to 11-on-11 and you got guys that are a foot taller than you and you can't see, it comes down to the processing, like before the play, like, I know that the safety is probably going to rotate down, it's going to be one high, and I got one hitch, no more than that, to rip it where Deebo's supposed to be, like, just inside the hash. And there's a backer that's also got a 40-inch vert that I gotta put up, you know.

Like, Brock Purdy, his QB rating is at 133 so far, his QBR is at 94.

Uh, sweet Jesus, 133!

He is ridiculous this year. And if you're playing fantasy football Whatever team probably has him on their roster, he's probably their backup quarterback. So if you want to maybe try and catch that guy who's trying to maybe capitalize, you know, selling high and all that stuff, get Brock Purdy on your team if you can, because he's probably a top 5 QB at this point.

Gino, if— what if I called you up and said, you have Brock Purdy, I have Caleb Williams, let's make that trade. Would you take it?

Yeah, I would. And it's probably the bad move on my part. Like, because, because everybody thinks of Brock Purdy as Mr. Irrelevant and they just can't get that out of their head. He's just like your backup QB. It's nice to have him, but he should be starting.

If Brock Purdy was picked the second to last pick instead of Mr. Irrelevant, not even like obviously if he was a first round pick, we all know we would look at him differently if he were 253 instead of 254 or whatever it was that year. Are we looking at Brock Purdy differently than we do because he's labeled as Mr.

Irrelevant?

Exactly. because of the name is there. Uh, that being said, I don't want to get too far away from it. I do have the 49ers winning this one 24-21 just because of the run game and the short passes and George Kittle. And I think that's going to keep Brock Purdy from getting sacked because, as we mentioned already, the Broncos like to pressure the QB.

So you're predicting a push, at least, uh, as, uh, the number stands right now. Yeah, I think that's an interesting point you make there, buddy. I think also, um, go even further with that. If you If Brock Purdy were hyped coming out of Iowa State that he's a first-round guy and he doesn't have, you know, all the physical stuff, but man, he's a winner and he's— we project him to be a great processor in the NFL, ergo he's a first-round pick, you would not bat an eye. What Mac Jones was supposed to be is what Brock Purdy is. You would just roll with that and be like, yeah, you see, he's, he's, uh— As I always say, he's a— he's not a gunslinger, he's an assassin. He's a great processor along the lines of Brady, Peyton, Brees. And then you have the gunslingers, and it is hard viscerally to embrace the assassin as much as the gunslinger. You're on board with him with the ebbs and flows of a football game and a football season. Either way, Mi Caballo, 10-Day Tony, who you got here?

I'm going to take San Francisco 26-21. And all the reasons you said, obviously I said it last week, Brock Purdy is criminally underrated as far as Uh, all the numbers that he's putting up, he's doing it with basically nobody. I think, I think the, the conversation with the 49ers also outside of Brock Purdy is how good George Kittle looks from tearing his Achilles in what, December of last year?

It's crazy.

That used to be like death knell, like it's over, like your career's done, we'll see you on TV in about 10 years.

For sure, the next season is gone.

The next season, your career's done. Like, Dave, how many times in the '80s and '90s, Achilles, it's over.

All right.

Good luck. You go dig a ditch or something. Like, your NFL career is over. Now guys are returning in less than 10 months and playing the way that George Kittle's playing. You talk about processing and trying to throw guys open. George Kittle seems to be the benefactor of all of those throwing open between the backer and the safety, and he's just playing amazing. The offensive line, have they let up a sack yet? It's been 3 games. I don't know if they've let up a sack.

I, I think it is one of the uncovered stories.

It's crazy.

Zero sacks.

Zero sacks. That's right.

Trent Williams is their only good offensive lineman.

Yes.

I, I'm no O-line expert, but when I talk to people, they say the pieces that they have individually are not high-end, save an all-time great at left tackle. It's bizarre with Kyle Shanahan how he can just marginalize the need for those pieces. And imagine the advantage that gives John Lynch in the draft and in free agency against his peer group, I don't have to worry about the offensive line. And by the way, that's 5 pieces at minimum. Obviously, I don't really have to address that high in the draft and how that allows— and by the way, as far as that goes, if you like how Brock Purdy's playing now, how about when he has close to, if not a full complement of his pass catchers going into the season? He doesn't have that yet.

Right.

They should soar even higher, man. I am Sort of surprised by where the Niners are so far is the bottom line. Okay, game number 2, Jacksonville-Cincinnati. The Bengals coming off that, uh, that loss in Pittsburgh are laying 2.5. 51.5 is your total on this one. I'm gonna say it, winner of this game is my AFC Super Bowl pick.

Ooh.

That shouldn't shock you. I told you the Bengals were going to the Super Bowl before the preseason. But if the Jags beat them in Cincy, I think I am required to, to recognize what's going on here. Jags has been real good on offense, as I'm sure you've heard, but you may not know the defense has been mighty, except for this. They're bottom 10 in pressure rate, and that's definitely not good against this offense. Derek Harmon in that Steelers game kind of saved the Steelers there. They hadn't gotten pressure much on Joe Burrow all day long. He did not only get to Burrow in the big spot but strip sacked him, and that saved, uh, that saved the Steelers there. I don't think that the Jags get that lucky in this one. Bengals 29-24. Mika Byron.

I'm gonna take the Bengals 31-24. There's been a lot of conversation of late, and I don't know if this has been talked about. Joe Burrow with like 6 minutes left in the 4th quarter by trailing—

Oh my God, this stat is crazy.

It's like 1 in 32 or something insane like that.

Yeah, this stat's insane. He does not come back in the 4th quarter.

All right, this guy is of the same cloth as Manning and Brees and Brady and Rodgers.

Joe Burrow, right? Right.

All those guys that, all right, 4th quarter, we got one drive to go, the Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen type. All right, here it is, like he's gonna do it. And then he continues to not do it. I think he gets it done this time. 31-24. Give me Cincinnati.

Big windup about how he doesn't do it. You know, the other side of that coin, uh, Tony, Is that if you look up, if you dig in a little bit on the numbers, we're not talking one-score games, we're talking trailing in the 4th quarter. If you look at one-score games and with the ball with 5 minutes to go and how often does he rally, it is a different picture.

They get a little bit better. Yeah, but not for my, uh, my—

I think a lot better, as a matter of fact. But yeah, I, I, I take your point and I think they get over on the Jags, buddy.

Yeah. So Dave, if you can talk about rematches of Super Bowl VIII, happening in Minnesota this weekend, then I can talk about a rematch of the 2019 national championship game between the 2 quarterbacks here. You have Trevor Lawrence of Clemson facing off against Joe Burrow, who won the national championship that year with arguably the greatest college football team of all time.

That was that 65 touchdown—

That's 2019. Yes, that 2019 LSU where he had Ja'Marr Chase and, uh, Justin Jefferson. If you look at it like, this is a really good chance for us to evaluate how these quarterbacks match up against each other. at this point in their career, right? 2 number 1 overall picks. Trevor Lawrence was supposed to be this generational prospect, kind of got off to a slow start. Since then has been fantastic, like grown into a guy, Tony, you and I probably agree, that's a top 5 quarterback in the league right now, or, or around, around that area at least, right? Like he's starting to grow into that tier with Joe Burrow, right, that people had elevated Burrow into. This is a great measuring stick, and I think Trevor Lawrence is going to pass it, and I think people will start to realize He should be in those conversations with the likes of Joe Burrow. Give me the Jags here, 34-31.

Hmm.

That's a fun one. I hadn't considered the, the college national championship angle there. Lawrence v. Burrow. Of course, the greatest single-season college football team is now the 2025 Indiana Hoosiers. Gino, how say you?

Okay, well, the, the end of September has happened. So the first month of the season is in the books. And so the Bengals don't have to worry about that thing anymore. September's gone. Now they can move on to the rest. And once they get on to the rest of the season, the Bengals are so much better than that first month. So I'm going to go ahead and take the Bengals here, 30 to 27. But really quick, I want to give a shout out to Trevor Lawrence, who is every fantasy player's best friend unless you have Trevor Lawrence on your team. If you look at this picture right here, he took a knee against the Patriots late in the game at the 1-yard line, not even closer than the 1-yard line, so he can get his buddy Bayshil Tootin into the end zone. So if you got Bayshil Tootin on your team, know that Trevor Lawrence—

The anti-Josh Allen. The anti-Josh Allen.

There are more fantasy owners than there are Tayshaun But that, that, that, that, that, that was very selfish. Trevor Lawrence, very selfish.

Which is—

but, but a good shout nevertheless. All right, now let's get to our number 1 game. It's the MLB playoffs. And so that serves as a great reminder. This game between the Raiders and Chiefs belongs in the East Bay on the Oakland Athletics dirt infield.

Yeah. I, I hated this shout, Dave. Great shout.

Still, it is the best uniform matchup available in all of football. You cannot do better than the Raiders in the home black against the Chiefs so long as the Chiefs wear the red pants. I will not take any pushback on this. You can come, you can argue about the second best, but it is the Raiders hosting the Chiefs in, in their red pants. Hopefully we'll see that the home, the, the Raiders at home are catching 4.5 in this one. 47.5 is the total. The big upset so far this season is that Travis Kelce is playing better than Taylor Swift. Man, people are really upset with that new album from Taylor Swift. Raiders are undefeated because of the 9 turnovers they forced so far. Chiefs much more efficient play-to-play. Mahomes has thrown a couple of picks so far, so if he throws a couple in bad spots in this one, who knows what happens. But did you know that Kenneth Walker—

is this old news—

has never lost a fumble in the NFL? Chiefs get it 24-17. Did you know that? Isn't that wild?

Yeah, I've never heard that stat, Dave.

So I mean, unless the Raiders are going to turn the Chiefs over, which I don't suspect they will, I like the Chiefs to get this one.

Yeah, I'll just jump in here, Dave, and say I like the Chiefs as well. Like, you want to talk about measuring sticks? The 3-0 Raiders getting to match up against the Chiefs who look All the way back at home. This is a huge chance to prove that the Raiders are for real, right? It's that age-old question that we've been asking on the Levitard Show for decades now. Uh, I don't think they're for real though. I think that the Chiefs— I'm just not quite buying into it yet. I think this is a comeback to earth game for the Raiders here. Give me the Chiefs big, 31 to 17.

Mika Bayo.

You guys keep doing this every week and every week. Oh yeah, return the same situation. Give me the Raiders +4.5. Uh, I'm gonna take the Raiders— excuse me, I'm gonna take the Raiders points, but I'm gonna take Kansas City to win 24-20.

No, no, no.

But I do, I do want to read, I do want to read a couple of things here because there's, there's some very interesting numbers that are standing out to me on the Raiders defense. We talk about how good they've been. Dave, you said about the 9 takeaways. They also lead the league in forced fumbles. They're 4th in the league in sacks with 10. They're 10th in points allowed. They're 7th in passer rating to opposing QBs. They're 2nd best in EPA. Like, Nakobe Dean has completely transformed this Raiders defense.

What a pickup that was.

They're, they're incredible. And then you look at the other side of the ball, Brock Bowers' first return into the Clint Kubiak offense, and he went 10 for 116 and a score. How about this? 45 snaps out wide or in the slot for Brock Bowers, 9 in line as a true tight end. Uh, Michael Mayer playing full complement of snaps. They're basically using him like Jaxon Smith-Njigba. In Seattle last season. He's lined up at X receiver 45 times out wider in the slot, guys. Give me— I'm gonna take the Chiefs to win, but I'm gonna take the Raiders to cover.

Geno.

All right, real quick, I'm gonna take the Raiders points, uh, here, and I'm gonna— but I'm gonna take KC to win by 1, 24-23, just because I can't fathom the Raiders beating the Chiefs this early in the season.

You guys are 4-0.

To get to— Dave, the 4-0 Raiders, we all expected them to be a bottom 5 team in the NFL. Like, it's clear they're not going to be that. And can they really be 4-0?

Like, here's some more craziness. Kirk Cousins is currently leading the AFC in touchdown passes. Now he has Brock Bowers, like Tony said, so he can be as conservative as he wants. Uh, he's probably not going to get benched until— unless something really bad happens. So you probably won't see Mendoza this year if this keeps going. But also, if you have Kirk Cousins, let's do the fantasy angle here. He loves the dump-off. He loves the conservative pass. And maybe once or twice, if he sees a receiver streaking down the sideline by himself, he'll let one go. But usually it's going to be possession ball, lots of dump-offs. Ashton Dente, Mike Washington are going to eat with the short area passes. Brock Bowers, as Tony said, is pretty much a receiver out there. And Michael Mayer is being left wide open when him and Brock Bowers are on the same side of the field. So that offense is going to go. I don't think they're gonna, you know, they're not— this is not gonna be a losing streak after this for the Raiders. They might just lose to the Chiefs. I mean, there's no harm in losing to the Chiefs.

Yep. Yeah, I mean, listen, call me, uh, a skeptic, but we saw the Patriots last year and you see them against stiffer competition this year. Um, and the difference in that, Raiders stepping up obviously to play the Chiefs this week, who now magically we now buy when we didn't necessarily 3, 4 weeks ago. But I think we're all in on the Chiefs all of a sudden now. Speaking of the Patriots and Drake Maye, that's one subject I want to talk to with our guest coming up here, Arif Hasan. All right, this figures to be good because I'm well aware of this fella's work, and I hope you are too. If you aren't, shame the devil. Let's right that. You have to head over for his pages to wideleft.football, and if you want the full 3D experience, he's got a new podcast on Defector with our old pal Drew McGarry.

All ball.

He is Arif Hasan. How are you, man? I'm good.

I'm good. How are you?

Well, I'm getting by. I'm getting by. You know, I'm not real happy with my favorite pro football team and the decision to move on from a high-end cover corner. And of course, my favorite football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, has a poor track record of late of drafting cornerbacks. So the promise, we'll just replace him in the draft. Which is an inherent crapshoot, let alone the fact that they don't have a great knack for drafting that position, but they do consider themselves to be Super Bowl contenders, is hard to square. But listen, it's not about me. I want to talk to you about pro football. How are you? And I guess let's start here with this. More importantly, how are this many teams that we thought were going to be good really hanging by a thread here? Let's say the Chargers lose and the Texans lose and the Patriots lose and the Rams lose. That's 4 teams going into the season that a lot of people circled as being factors come January 27th. How many of those teams' gooses would be officially cooked? I mean, like, how do you come back from, from 0-4?

It's real tough, right? Performing a lot better than, than the record says. I think, for example, Houston obviously needs to work on their offense, but the defense, a lot of people are like, where is that defense? And admittedly, by some measures, they're like average. They were league average through 3 games last year, actually. But I just think you take a look at their play, you take a look at players like Kamari Lassiter, you take a look at, you know, maybe the problem areas like Reed Blankenship. I think it's fine. I think that the defense is a high-level defense. It'll bounce back. It'll be fine. The problem is, you know, 0-4, it doesn't matter how good you are. 0-4 is so difficult to come back from.

That's right. That's right. It's not like we're marinating a steak. I mean, like, you know, hey, guess what? The steak has been in the fridge marinating for for 17 days. You missed the window to cook it, man.

Yeah, no, exactly right.

And so I don't know if that analogy worked, but I get it.

I get it. Don't worry about it. You know, I think that, you know, 0-4, I'm sure some teams have done it historically. You know, we can look at the data or whatever. We just know that the odds are long, right? So from there, you probably just have to look at like strength of schedule, right? Houston's got a pretty soft one. You know, obviously they're not going to win the division unless something happens in Jacksonville pretty dramatically. the way Indianapolis is playing, the way that the rest of that schedule looks. I think that they'll be fine. You get to play Tennessee twice. 2 teams that are struggling that are on their schedule that probably won't be struggling by the time they play them, Green Bay and Philadelphia. We'll see if things continue the way they go for both of those teams, then that'll help set up the Houston Texans for success. But I kind of doubt it. I think that they'll bounce back too. So for me, I think the team that can best sustain a loss out of the ones that you listed You know, probably New England. Again, disappointing, right? All of these teams we talked about are disappointing.

The division's out the window if they lose home against the Bills. They have no shot at that, but they could sneak in as a wild card, perhaps.

Yeah, exactly. But, you know, having the Jets twice— who, the Jets are overperforming. I don't want to knock them too much, but I think, you know, the bottom will fall out a little bit. I'm very impressed with them, but I think the bottom will fall out a little bit. And then having the Dolphins twice on the schedule, that's, that's pretty big. And obviously, again, a team that's struggling, we don't know if they're going to struggle by the time they get there. Green Bay, you know, that's on the schedule. Same thing with Las Vegas. You know, just like the Jets look really good, seem really coached well. But I think talent is going to kind of win out and they won't be able to sustain that. And having them on the schedule will probably help New England too. And again, you know, 1-3 is a lot better than 0-4. So I think they could probably sustain that loss a little bit. The Rams are a tough one because I think they're the best—

They're weird, right? Imagine, you know, like it's not a small matter. Again, this would be another team I think you could rightly say, their shot realistically at winning the West is out the window too. If they're—

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think out of all these teams that we talked about, aside from, you know, the Chargers, they've got, you know, the hardest schedule, right? They've got the 49ers twice. You know, they've got Seattle, obviously. It's, it's so—

Well, that's the thing. They already have— so they have the one strike in the division because they lost over in Australia, which is easy to forget about because it feels like it shouldn't really count for a full game.

But I It does.

But it does. It's in the schedule, right? It's what counts. Having all of that go down for them, it's so difficult to bounce back and generate that movement in, at least in the AFC. We've got probably 5 teams that I would— no one's going to call anybody a lock at this point, but there are probably 5 teams that you're pretty happy with, right? Like the Ravens and the rest of the top of the AFC, the Chiefs. We're probably seeing the Broncos in there too. So there's really only 2 spots you're fighting for, you know, and you're fighting with the Bengals for that too. They're 2-1. I think that at least in the AFC, there's 2 spots. In the NFC, I think that even though we don't have clear division winners for the NFC East or the NFC North, because, you know, I don't really trust the Vikings all that much, I see Green Bay and Philadelphia being, you know, significant stumbling blocks along with the 49ers and the Seahawks and all of that.

So I think what you're getting at is the math of it, right?

Yeah.

How many teams are you reasonably trying to sneak in past here? And it probably favors the— well, go ahead with your point.

Yeah, no, exactly. It probably favors an AFC team, right? And so if you go on a hot streak in the middle of the season, say you're the Texans, you figure out the offense, Nico Collins is healthy, you know, all of that, right? Then you've got, you know, more candidate spots available to you to fight for, right? Especially because Anything can happen with Lamar's health. He did appear for practice today as we're recording, but yesterday he was ill, right? And he seems to have illnesses at a higher frequency than a lot of other quarterbacks. Anything can happen, right? And so given all of that, and given that I don't believe in the long-term health of the Steelers as a team that— that team that showed up against the Bengals was fantastic. I don't think we're going to see that every week. I think there's just a lot of opportunity in the AFC. And so the math of it is a little bit easier for New England or for Houston. The Chargers, they probably have the easiest out of all of these schedules, but like, it looks so bad. It's tough for me to buy in. I think I'm probably buying in, you know, if we started the season over, I'd buy into the Texans based off of what we've seen so far.

But I think given what's baked into the cake already, I'm probably taking the Patriots. So I think they've got the best ability to sustain a loss out of all of these teams just because there's more Uh, to, to, to fight for.

What's your theory? I mean, that hinges on the hinge of, uh, of the right arm, the shoulder of Drake May. What's your theory there? I mean, is he hurt? And if he is, um, I feel like he's semi-culpable. It's easy to point the finger at the Patriots and say, why are you running him out there? I— it was a weirdly undercovered story that he clearly was hurt.

Yeah.

Going into the Super Bowl against the Seahawks. And I feel like in the hype machine in advance of the Super Bowl, the networks, the partners didn't want to acknowledge that because it diminished the quality of the matchup to say, yeah, one half of, uh, the, the 2 guys that you care most about, the starting quarterbacks, he's hurt. And it wasn't discussed. And then we go all offseason and Drake Maye kind of hints at, yeah, I think I was hurt for that Super Bowl. But it seems like he kind of still is, right?

It does seem like it for sure. But one thing to kind of keep in mind is that the level of success New England had last year, a lot of it was built off of the deep ball, which I love the deep ball. I love quarterbacks who are good at it. I'm not diminishing that as a strategy. But what I'm saying is it's really hard to be consistently good at it to the level that the Patriots were last year. I think something like 70% of deep balls were completed for the Patriots throwing to Ke'Shawn Booty.

Yeah.

And Stefon Diggs. But like, that's, that is, that is quite the level of success to maintain. And I think that very few people, very few quarterbacks, no matter how good you are— and Drake Maye isn't as good as some of the elites that we talk about— are going to be able to do that. So just from variance alone, just from the way the cookie crumbles year to year, right, that wasn't going to sustain itself. And when it's an offense built around that, you're going to see a little bit of regression. Obviously, the injury to AJ Brown didn't help. The most consistent receiver right now is Mack Hollins, who probably ideally is a wide receiver 4 on a lot of teams. Romeo Doubs obviously isn't doing it for them. And, you know, the offensive line isn't playing to the level that we expected. Obviously, in the playoffs, we saw Will Campbell's injury play a significant role in how they were able to engage in protection. Here we're seeing, you know, problems with Jared Wilson. We're seeing problems. I don't know, did you see the story that he like bled on the ball for one of these snaps?

That was crazy. But like, the offensive line is not consistent, right?

I might WWE it myself. I might let a little blood out of my forehead just to show. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I take your point. I also, though, the other side of that coin is like, that is his superpower, is accuracy with the deep shots. And if he loses that, then it affects the way the defense is going to play the rest of the Patriots offense. I want to talk about the Vikings though. From an easy-to-root-for scale, or let's create that scale now, where's Kyler coming in for you so far? as a Vikings guy?

Ah, I'd say probably a 5, uh, which I know is a boring answer, right?

Uh, but it's interesting because they— the team feels good. The vibes from the outside— I think 31 other fan bases look at the Vikings and say, hey man, they got something cooking up there. But the Vikings fans are sort of like, I don't know if Kyler's gonna work out. That seems to be the headline.

I think a lot of Vikings fans are traumatized by 2016 where they started out 5-0 and then missed the playoffs, right? And a big part of why that happened is because the offense wasn't good and you can't have the defense outscore the offense for an entire season. So here, obviously, the defense is the story. They're fantastic. They're fun to watch. First of all, a bunch of really good defenses are not necessarily fun to watch. This one is fun to watch. And they're, they're putting the clamps on some opponents that you think, you know, should be a little bit more explosive. It's really fun.

Right.

And so that's kind of the engine. They've got a bunch of special teams stuff going, which they didn't have going for them last year, which is really nice. Obviously, Will Reichert was good, but when you talk— when you include the kick return game, the punt return game, the kickoff coverage, all of that, that is way better than it was last year. And I don't know how much that's going to last. Hopefully it will, right, if you're a Vikings fan. But ideally, multiple sides of the ball are pulling their weight. And the offense, I was looking at it by net success rate earlier this morning. Just how many plays are you successful, right? As a percentage of the plays that you took. And the Vikings, I think once you adjust for opponent, are like 32 or 31 in the NFL offensively. Now, a lot of that's Carson Wentz, right? We don't want to But we saw Kyler play, you know, the first time.

I know, but don't you think that's, that's to me, that's why I'm, I, I, you barely have seen Kyler. He didn't look great, but he just got knocked out cold on the field the first time we saw him for about the 3 minutes of exposure he had in Week 1 there. And then otherwise it was Carson Wentz. I feel like the bones are strong for the Vikings if they can be where they are.

The upside is there. And I think we, we could easily move this 5 to a 7 if we get like a pretty explosive game against Miami, which is like, What a sweet setup game that is. Trap game, of course, there always are. But, you know, given that you've got this kind of opportunity to really set some stuff up, you can move up the rooting rankings. But I think a lot of Vikings fans expected the same thing that they expected of Kirk Cousins in 2018 when he showed up, which he didn't fulfill, which was we've got the defense set up. We just need to— we've got a great receiver. We just need a quarterback to execute. And thus far, the quarterback hasn't executed. You're right. It's been one game plus 5 more throws, but they were not good. The 5 throws were bad. The 1 game was pretty bad. Obviously, we had this deep ball to Jordan Addison, which was really fun, but we're missing a couple of deep throws. He had like a something like a 50% or even lower completion rate, and it looked like more his fault than the receiver's fault. So there's just a lot there where you're like, man, I expected a lot more.

And maybe this is a small sample size. Maybe it's kind of the sin of expectation that we're not taking what we have and just appreciating it, especially because— I think a lot of people expected the Vikings to finish 4th in the division, and now they're at the top. Maybe just take your wins. But we expected more from Kyler, and that could change really quickly. So it's a soft 5, maybe. We're not, we're not nailing it down, but I think it's been disappointing. We just know, hey, at least it's not McCarthy and it won't be.

Well, that's right. And it's not Kirk Cousins either, who by the time he left, I think you guys were ready to move on as well. And I'm putting my marker down now. I'm standing by what I said in the preseason. The Vikings are going to win the NFC North. And now the football gods seem to be smiling on that prediction because the Packers don't look great. Caleb is down for at least another week or two, it would— it seems, although you're hearing some noise that he's getting closer to being back. And Detroit, I think this is not— the way they are playing is who they are. I think they are a lousy defense.

And—

Yeah.

By the way, I'll tell you this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do one more for you, Arif. Check this out. The Panthers are gonna beat the Lions this weekend to enhance the Vikings' chances even further. How— what do you think about that?

That sounds exciting. I think the Panthers have a couple of injury concerns heading into this week, if I remember correctly. I'm not 100% on that, but that seems to be the case.

Don't you, don't you push back. I just said something. I was trying to give a vote of enthusiasm.

But if that happens, I think the Lions defense is enough for us to see another— because remember the Panthers Week 1, that offense looked great against a pretty mediocre Chicago defense. The Lions defense I would argue is worse.

Yeah.

Right? And mostly because of injury. And, you know, Calvin Shepard's not doing a great job or whatever. So if, you know, we get to see a lot out of Chuba Hubbard, if we get to see a lot out of Bryce Young and, you know, they contain Gibbs' explosiveness, which is, I think, where the danger offensively comes from, then yeah, the Lions are— I wouldn't say cooked or anything like that, but like we were talking about with all these other teams, what an uphill battle that would be, especially, you know, the Vikings jump out to a 4-0 lead against a Miami team that seems really concerned with winning next year. more than it is this year, which is fine. That's a good approach if you've got the patience for it.

But it's— as long as they don't go 0-17.

Right. Yeah.

1-16, that's okay. If you go 0-17, that's a stink that you never wash off for 100 years.

You never do. And I think there's a particular weirdness about being the only 17-0 and 0-17 franchise.

And that's exactly the point. That's a great point to go out on. That's— who do you think you are? You're the Cleveland Browns? No, you're the Miami Dolphins. You're a storied franchise.

Shame the devil that you would purpose Obviously go over.

Anyway, Arif Hasan, great, great debut here. Best to our guy Drew McGarry over there. Tell the Vikings they got— they would look so good if they would just go with a white face mask. That black one is ruining the whole aesthetic.

That's so true. That's so true. I agree. I'll let them know.

Okay. Thank you. And I hope to talk sooner rather than later. There he goes, everybody. Arif Hasan. Make sure you're checking him out. Like I say, wideleft.football and the great new podcast All Ball with Drew McGarry. All right, there goes a reef. You heard my big prediction there. I'm gonna take the Panthers over the Lions. And that gets us to this week's episode of DraftKings Sports Picks, Picks, Picks. One favorite against the spread, one over-under, one underdog. I'll start us off. Favorite, I'm taking the Rams to go into Philly. It's a weird number, right? That the Rams—

It is a weird number.

Spooky.

It is a spooky line. Yes.

The Rams are— you know what, play it. Everybody's— I bet you that is in the, in the top 2, uh, the public loot will, will be on the Eagles side.

I—

the bookmakers are telling you something. I like the Rams here. How say you, buddy?

Yeah, I'm doing—

by the way, season to date.

Yeah.

Okay, so we guys, we're locked in an absolute battle here. Like, we are all kind of on We're, we're right around it in terms of just being over .500. So, God, that was awful.

For the NFC South.

Can I talk?

Can I talk?

Okay.

Last week was a very good week for Geno and Tony and Dave and I lesser so. Dave and I both went 1-2. Dave nailed his over-under pick going under 45.5 for the Chiefs and Dolphins, but he got the Saints -3 wrong and the Bucs +1.5 wrong. I missed on the Texans -2.5. I'm going to fight through it here. And I missed on the Titans money line as well. But the Cowboys and Ravens went over. That was a thriller. Tony, 2-1, Raiders +3, Rams-Broncos over 44.5. But the loss was the Panthers -2.5 to the Browns. That was ugly. Gino playing well. I know, right? Gino and I both had the Titans on the money line, but he'd had the Chiefs -11.5, which covered and the Saints and Raiders going over 43.5.

You picked the Titans on the money line.

It was gross. It was gross. It was James Webb's day. I didn't account for a monsoon. I forgot about the nor'easter, even though I got caught up in the nor'easter. It was crazy.

Did you forget that they were the Titans?

Yeah.

I, yeah.

You know what I mean? Don't remember that. Try or try to remember they're the Titans. Go ahead. Who's your favorite?

Well, Dave, I may have forgotten about the Titans, but I have not forgotten that I am leading the season standings right now. I have 5 points. All the rest of you have 4. And to try and add to it this week, I'm going to take the Cardinals -2.5 at the Giants. The Cardinals sneaky, super competitive this year. I know they had that blowout loss to the Seahawks. We all know they beat the Chargers week 1 and they pushed the Niners to the edge last week. I don't like the situation there on offense in New York. Give me the Cardinals -2.5.

Micah Bayo.

I'm gonna take the Bills -6.5 laying just under a touchdown. I think Josh Allen's gonna learn from what happened this past week with a ton of turnovers. I think they're going to clear that up, and I just have zero faith in what the Patriots are putting out on offense right now. Drake Maye is seeing ghosts à la Sam Darnold. They have no weapons. They're, they're starting the wrong running back. Like, everything that is happening could go— everything that's going wrong, it has gone wrong for New England. So I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take Josh Allen and the Bills -6.5.

All right.

Well, I'm going to do some easy gambling here. I'm going to go ahead and bet against the undrafted free agent quarterback that's making his first start in the NFL. I'm going to take the Packers -3.5 to go into Tampa Bay.

-3.5. Reasonable. Reasonable. Next up, let's do the total here. I'm going under on the Cardinals and Giants, 44.5. Exactly where would the points come from in this game? Next.

Great question.

I'll go ahead. Oh, okay, go ahead.

No, go, Tony.

I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take New York Jets and Chicago over 43.5. I think we saw enough good tape from, from, uh, from Case Keenum, and I think the Jets are kind of an all right team. I feel like they're gonna score, uh, more than that. 43.5 over.

Buddy, I am going to go to that Rams and Eagles game. You want to talk about spooky numbers? This 43.5 seems pretty low because 24-20 gets you over here between 2 highly talented offenses. Puka Nacua is back this week. Give me Rams-Eagles over 43.5 at the link.

Gino.

Okay, the, the Lions and the Panthers. The number is at 51.5, but it's outdoors, which already you've got the Lions on their back foot. It's also supposed to rain. Lots of weather on the East Coast so far during this football season. It's going to continue this week. It's supposed to be raining all day. In Charlotte. So I'm going to take that one under 51.5.

My dog is— I love the Case Keenum show on Monday night. The Jets are pretty good. I mean, Caballo has noticed that. Jets +3.5, they're going to win this game outright. How say you, buddy?

Ooh, give me— we talked about that Lone Star showdown at the top of the show. Give me the Cowboys +3 at the Texans. I know I picked the Texans to go to the Super Bowl in the AFC.

Yes.

I regret that immensely, Tony. I'm out on them. And I just think the Cowboys, eventually some of this luck is— a bounce is going to go their way. Obviously, they created their own misfortune with the way they handled that game down in Brazil last week. But give me the Cowboys here. I think the addition of Joey Porter Jr. is going to do a lot of good for that defense. I'll take them +3 in Houston.

Tony.

I'm gonna take the Raiders.

Raiders.

Black and silver, +4.5.

So be it. You're really in on them and Geno.

All right, I'm gonna take the Commies in London against the Colts because, um, to put it bluntly, the Colts don't— the Colts ain't shit.

And I don't think they're bad, man.

Well, they, they good. So I'm gonna take the Commies. They, they surprised the Seahawks. Um, they're gonna go crazy stuff happens across the pond and, you know, they got a 3.5-point cushion. So I'm gonna go ahead and take the Commies in that one.

Very interesting. And I was super hot in LA just a second ago. We're in a heat wave here, but all of a sudden I'm feeling a chill in the air. Yeah. Presented by Jägermeister. Serve it cold or don't serve it at all. Jägermeister. Damn, that's cold. For more, visit jagermeister.com. Drink responsibly. You know what's weird? I'm glad I asked because we all agree the best chance your NFL team has at sustained success is having, one, a true franchise QB, and two, a great head coach, right?

Right.

So then how do we explain the Philadelphia Eagles? Their head coach is Nick Sirianni, a guy who gets into fights during games with Eagles fans, and the QB is Jalen Hurts, who's better than Andy Dalton, maybe, Okay, definitely after we saw what happened in Chicago with his one pass. But he's, but he's also not on the level of the AFC's upper crust QBs. But to Hurts' credit, I gotta say this, if he starts just one more Super Bowl, it'll be real tough to keep him out of the Hall of Fame. And if he were to win that Super Bowl, he'd be a lock. And so would his head coach, Nick Sirianni. So I ask again, that's weird, right? Neither Lamar Jackson nor Josh Allen's ever even played in a Super Bowl. And Hurts has already been to 2, both against Patrick Mahomes, and he actually won one of them. Same obviously applies to Sirianni, who beat Andy Reid, a legend, one of the best head coaches ever, but who only really was acknowledged as such after he got over the Lombardi hump with Mahomes. Again, Andy Reid couldn't win a Lombardi in Philly with Donovan McNabb, but Nick Sirianni, a guy who was coaching DBs at a D3 school a few years ago, Did with Jalen Hurts, who for his part, not too long ago, had to transfer out of Bama because he couldn't beat out Tua for the starting gig.

Especially coming out of the city of Rocky Balboa, this should feel like a great underdog story, except in this Philadelphia story, everyone outside of Philly is rooting for Apollo Creed. And I gotta say, Big Dom ain't helping. He's what you would get if King Kong Bundy was a Sopranos character. Now listen, Listen, it's not a mystery. The lion's share of the credit belongs to Howie Roseman, who's devoted the last decade at least to loading up at the line of scrimmage over and over, which to some degree has given his coach and QB a much larger margin for error than most of the high-end QBs have. But still, given what we've convinced ourselves are the basic requirements for a Super Bowl contender, I stand amazed by Philly's successful formula. Now though, At 2-1 after getting pushed in the tush and everywhere else by Case Keenum. Sirianni and Hurts need a win against the visiting pretty boys from LA, or else Sirianni and Hurts could be headed to the Rocky V era, AKA back to the streets. And that's that. We're going to be back for a review of everything in Week 4 on the other side of the weekend on Monday, live at 12:45 PM.

Eastern to try and make sense of it. Till then, it's been a thin slice of heaven. I hope your team wins unless they're playing my team. Take it away, football. My fellow football Americans, the football season is heating up and every week feels bigger with DraftKings. DraftKings is now live in all 50 states. One app, all the football nationwide. New DraftKings customers sign up with code DAMESHEK. That's D-A-M-E-S-H-E-K. Spend $5 to get $150 in rewards within 14 days. Includes all markets. That's code DAMESHEK. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours.

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