Tag: rich eisen show

Is the Commanders choosing Sam Howell the right decision over pursuing Lamar Jackson?

One prominent analyst debates whether Washington made the right decision in choosing not to pursue Lamar Jackson.

What is it about Sam Howell and Desmond Ridder that makes you think these two guys are the right choices over Lamar Jackson right now?

That was the question (paraphrased) that Rich Eisen put to Bruce Feldman (reporter/writer for Fox Sports and The Athletic) during the Rich Eisen Show.

Ridder was drafted in the third round, the 74th overall selection by the Falcons, and Howell in the fifth round, the 144th overall selection by the Commanders in the 2022 NFL Draft.

“I’m not sold on Desmond Ridder,” expressed Feldman. “I think he ran faster at the Combine than people saw on (game) film.”

“He was a really good player on a team that kept getting better and better at Cincinnati. But I am hesitant on that one.”

“I know that Washington really likes Sam Howell, but as much as they liked him, they still took him in the fifth round. I think they are in a position where they are going to give this year to be almost like a make or break year for you (Howell).”

“If he does not convince you that he is going to be a franchise quarterback, you’re doing everything you can to bring Caleb Williams, (USC QB) who is from Washington DC, home.

Feldman added he does not see Washington taking Will Levis if available at No. 16 because they need someone to play now.

Eisen then countered that Lamar Jackson was playing right up the road in the Mid-Atlantic and the Commanders have no interest in Jackson. Eisen then mentioned, “They have Terry McLaurin, Curtis Samuel, Jahan Dotson.”

Feldman quickly agreed stating “that is better skill talent than Jackson had in Baltimore.”

Feldman pointed to Lamar Jackson could help a good team be a contender now. But did raise the question of what Jackson will be five years from now.

He further expressed he felt Jackson could do wonders “for the fan base of a team that has not won in a while.”

He did acknowledge he does not know why Jackson is being treated the way he is. Interestingly enough, in the segment, they did not discuss some of Jackson’s numbers declining as well. For instance, he led the NFL in 2019 QBR (83.0). The last two seasons have been 50.7 and 59.0.

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Rich Eisen on Bills: ‘What a way to start the season’

Rich Eisen on #Bills: ‘What a way to start the season’

After the way the Bills handled their business against the Rams in their season opener, many were impressed.

Include the Rich Eisen Show in that.

Following the Bills’ 31-10 win over the Rams on Thursday, Eisen noted how impressed he was with the team… and namely quarterback Josh Allen.

“What a way to star the season,” Eisen said.

Check out the full clip below:

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Geno Smith talks to Rich Eisen about his approach to 2022

Watch Smith as a guest on the Rich Eisen show yesterday talking about his approach to the 2022 season.

Geno Smith won the Seahawks’ quarterback competition. Now all he has to do is keep it.

Watch Smith as a guest on the Rich Eisen show yesterday talking about his approach to the 2022 season.

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Rich Eisen: ‘How do you not choose the Bills to win?’ (video)

Rich Eisen: ‘How do you not choose the #Bills to win?’ (video):

The Rich Eisen Show, starting with the host himself, loves the Buffalo Bills heading into the 2022 NFL regular season.

Eisen had a segment in a recent episode and the discussion of the Bills and their chances of winning a Super Bowl came up. Buffalo is amongst the favorites on the field, but off of it, Eisen wants it to happen for the fans.

He knows how much it would mean to Western New York.

“How do you not choose the Bills to win the whole thing? And what would that mean to that town?” Eisen said.

Check out Rich Eisen Show clip on the Bills and their fan base below:

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Jaguars HC Doug Pederson discusses the decision to draft Travon Walker over Aidan Hutchinson

Jaguars HC Doug Pederson breaks down the decision to pick Travon Walker over Aidan Hutchinson on the Rich Eisen Show.

Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson joined The Rich Eisen Show on Wednesday where he talked about replacing Urban Meyer and Trevor Lawrence. Of course, one of the first questions he was asked was about the decision to select Georgia defensive lineman Travon Walker instead of Michigan edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson.

Pederson said both guys were at the top of the Jaguars’ board and that they would be great leaders and locker room additions but added that it came down to Walker’s potential and upside.

“I mean as coaches we’re privy to a lot of film, a lot of conversations that a lot of people don’t get right, and a lot of information,” he said. “Part of our job is to gain that information, and we just felt at the time that and even sitting here today that the best for our organization was Travon Walker.

“That’s nothing against Aidan. I mean because I think he’s a great player, and he’s going to have a great career in this league.”

Pederson said Jacksonville also liked how versatile Walker was.

For better or for worse, the Jaguars are stuck with Walker and hope that he’ll live up to his lofty ceiling with the franchise.

“Touchdown Jaguars!” will be published weekly, giving Jags Wire readers a new go-to podcast to hear the latest in news, rumors, and more. To stay up to date, subscribe via Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and feel free to rate and comment. 

Cowboys LB Micah Parsons played one offensive snap in 2021, wants to do it more often

The versatile LB has lobbied the Cowboys coaches to play the other side of the ball, something he actually did for one snap this year. | From @ToddBrock24f7

The official record shows that rookie linebacker Micah Parsons played a single offensive snap for the Cowboys in 2021. But he’d like to make it a more regular thing.

The Defensive Rookie of the Year sat in on The Rich Eisen Show last week, and in an entertaining twist, swapped chairs with the host, taking over the broadcast for a couple segments. During a round of ‘What’s More Likely?’, the topic of Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill came up. By the time the chat was over, the do-everything Parsons had admitted that he’s lobbied the Dallas coaching staff to run routes and catch passes on gameday.

Parsons beat Hill, billed to be fastest player in the NFL, in a foot race during Pro Bowl Week in Las Vegas earlier this month. And while everyone who saw it- including Parsons- knows that Hill was essentially jogging, Parsons still believes that he could could chase down the man they call ‘The Cheetah’ if Hill had a ball in his hands on the way to the end zone.

“This is football,” Parsons reminded a skeptical Eisen. “We’re talking about running down. So there’s angles, there’s pursuit.”

After Eisen capitulated- perhaps for the sake of the interview- and said he’d go with Parsons, the confident 22-year-old agreed.

“I’m taking me, too. No question.”

But Parsons also said he’d like to turn the tables on Hill, making the receiver play defense and cover him while he ran pass routes.

In addition to his official linebacker title, Parsons spent a lot of time lined up as an edge rusher in his rookie season. The Cowboys coaching staff also turned him loose in pass coverage, not hesitating to let him turn into a defensive back on occasion. So moonlighting is already a skill Parsons possesses.

“Do you want to play offense?’ Eisen probed. “Would you do that?”

“Yeah,” Parsons shot back with zero hesitation.

“Have you suggested this to Mike McCarthy?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did they say?”

Here, Parsons gave a painfully long pause.

“They obviously… don’t see the vision I see.”

It was a comical moment that Parsons deadpanned for a laugh, but it’s not necessarily a wildly off-base idea. Parsons played running back in high school, in addition to defensive end. And the Cowboys certainly recognize him as a rare multi-talent who can do practically anything on the football field, even at the pro level.

They’d already let him play offense… in his very first NFL game.

It was Week 1 in Tampa. Bucs kicker Ryan Succop had just kicked a 36-yard field goal to give his team a 31-29 lead. After a touchback on the ensuing kickoff, Dallas had the ball on their own 25 with two seconds to play, time enough for one desperation play.

For what would likely be a last-ditch game of keep-away full of laterals and backward passes, the Cowboys went with an unusual personnel grouping, putting only their fastest and most versatile players on offense.

Tony Pollard would take the direct snap. Cedrick Wilson, Corey Clement, and Darian Thompson were in the backfield. C.J. Goodwin, Donovan Wilson, Dorance Armstrong, Keanu Neal, Jabril Cox, and Leighton Vander Esch were all in on the schoolyard play, too.

And Micah Parsons is the one who snapped the ball.

The play was snuffed out rather quickly, but not before Parsons threw enough of a block on defensive tackle Vita Vea to keep the Buccaneers Pro Bowler from getting anywhere near a tackle.

Knowing now what soon became evident to everyone regarding Parsons’s elite athleticism and game-changing tendencies on the field, one can only wonder what might have happened had Parsons ended up being a ball carrier instead of just the center.

Parsons himself would sure like to find out one of these days.

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Iron Micah: Tyson hype video key factor in Parsons’ pre-game preparation

The rookie LB revealed that he stared down opposing QBs using a technique he learned from a Mike Tyson video he would watch before games. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Micah Parsons has made clear his affinity for predatory jungle cats. The NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year, who made the phrase “the lion is always hungry” his personal motto during an epic first season as linebacker (and sometimes edge rusher) for the Dallas Cowboys, has spoken before about his habit of watching animal videos and wildlife programs in his spare time.

But he revealed this week that his pregame ritual before every contest of the 2021 season involved something arguably even more ferocious: boxer Mike Tyson.

While a guest on The Rich Eisen Show, Parsons was asked about his ability to wreck a game, a talent he put on full display for 17 weeks, accumulating 79 tackles, 13 sacks, and three forced fumbles along the way. The 22-year-old attributed his appetite for destruction to one simple thing.

“The killer mindset,” Parsons told Eisen. “I love grasping knowledge of training my mind to be a killer.”

And while he included nature films, clips of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and even military documentaries among his motivational and educational tools, he said there’s one piece of footage that he uses before each game to get into the headspace he wants to bring to the field.

“My favorite video I listen to right before a game- I always listen to it every game,” he said, “is the Mike Tyson ‘Fear’ video.”

This is that video:

It’s a stirring- and even terrifying- two-minute calm before the storm.

Parsons talked about Tyson’s fear of being embarrassed during a bout. He also told Eisen that he especially connects with Tyson’s practice of staring down the other fighter from the moment he stepped into the ring, never breaking eye contact until his opponent did. In that moment, Tyson claimed, he knew he had the other man beaten.

Parsons began emulating the habit himself on game day.

“We all feel embarrassed. We all fear to lose, all those emotions. But when it’s time, you’ve got to be a killer,” Parsons explained. “So then I started doing that. I started looking quarterbacks in their eyes, and I’ll just stare at them. And they look down, so I know. I feel like they fear me now.”

“I stared at everyone,” Parsons said.

And just like Iron Mike back in the day, Parsons won most of those staring contests… and then proceeded to drop his opponents, often in violent fashion.

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Cameron Jordan on Sean Payton’s sudden retirement: ‘I took it personal’

Cameron Jordan reflects on Sean Payton’s sudden retirement, admitting “I took it personal”

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A lot has been said about the New Orleans Saints hiring Dennis Allen as head coach to help preserve the team’s culture, and few players stand taller in the locker room than Cameron Jordan. Jordan spoke about the transition during a recent appearance on the Rich Eisen Show. When asked about this immediate reaction to news that Sean Payton was stepping down from his post, Jordan reflected on a couple of awkward days in which he had to gather his thoughts.

“I went social media dark, I had to figure out my feelings first. It’s like when your life asks you how you feel about the new couch, I have to sit in it first,” Jordan joked.

Jordan is the longest-tenured player on the team, having started nearly every game he’s played since being drafted way back in 2011. As he went on to say, life without Payton was going to hit him harder than most: “There’s a lot of factors that go into my head coach, the only head coach that I’ve had in the NFL taking a reprieve, or a sabbatical, or whatever he’s going to call it. Because he didn’t say he’s done coaching, in fact he said ‘I look forward to coaching again,’ right? So you’re saying he’s done with me? I took it personal.”

Sure, Jordan felt empathy for Payton after so many years on the job. Few people have had a front row seat to the work Payton has put in. He continued:

“Look as a business decision he put 16 years of his life into the Saints. You know the amount of work that goes into being a head coach. I’ve seen him have the cot in the room, spending multiple days there, I know how intuitive his offense, Drew, everybody was, tweaking the machine that was the New Orleans Saints offense for so many years. That takes a toll.”

But at the end of the day, Payton’s decision to bow out now didn’t sit well with Jordan. He reflected on all the challenges their team overcame last season, and how now he and his teammates have got to keep on moving without the only head coach they’ve ever known.

“I’m like why you going to leave now? We’ve been knocking on the door of the playoffs every year, even in this tumultuous year, being displaced to Dallas, starting 52 or 53 starters, I’m going to say 58 because it’s a bigger number. Going through four quarterbacks and still having a shot at the playoffs at the end of the year and ending in the positive. What were we, 9-8? Teams prior to this we’ve seen teams get into the playoffs with a losing record,” Jordan paused, then finished: “For Sean to step down, it’s got to be bigger than football for him.”

At the same time, Jordan was congratulatory about Allen’s promotion to head coach, adding that they won’t hold his disastrous Raiders run against him. Though he did note Allen immediately responded to his text message about the news, whereas he didn’t hear back from Payton right away. Maybe they’ll have time to mend fences another day.

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Patrick Mahomes not sugarcoating Chiefs’ recent struggles with execution

Patrick Mahomes spoke on the Rich Eisen Show about how the #Chiefs plan to handle their latest spurt of adversity. | from @TheJohnDillon

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Given an opportunity to voice his opinion of the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive struggles on the Rich Eisen Show this week, QB Patrick Mahomes was as direct as he possibly could’ve been. After saying that the talent around him is sufficient to compete at a high level, he emphasized that their inability to execute on Sundays has been the key factor in their decline this season.

“In the NFL if you don’t execute you lose football games,” He explained. “You’ve seen that from us. When we play good I think we can play with anybody, but when we don’t execute and we don’t have great games and we don’t play to the way we’ve been coached and to our ability, we lose.

“You’ve seen that over this season, we’ve had highs and we’ve had lows. Its how we correct those, how we get better, and I’m excited just to kind of get back after it.”

Asked about his experience in dealing with the extreme difficulties both for himself and the team at large since he took over the starting role, Mahomes looked to how other great teams have historically overcome periods of underperformance.

“You have to respond to it,” Mahomes said of the rough patch. “I think if you look at all the great teams they always have dealt with spurts of adversity. We’re definitely dealing with one that’s longer than we wanted, something we didn’t expect, but how are we going to respond? How are we going to be better because of it?”

After a disheartening loss in Week 7 against the Titans, Mahomes and company will get their first chance to respond in prime time. The team is collectively relishing the opportunity to get back on the field and prove they’re better than their last performance.

“We’ve got a great chance on Monday night to really show that we can get this thing back on track against a really good football team,” Mahomes continued. “I’m excited for it, I think the guys in this locker room are excited for the challenge, and hopefully when we look back on this spurt of adversity we have we can show that was the reason we became the team we wanted to become.”

The fate of Kansas City’s season is likely in Mahomes hands until their defense figures out how to stop opponents with regularity. A slide to 3-4 and back to a position where they need to win just to break .500 is certainly less than ideal, but if any team is poised to bounce back it is the Chiefs. With the optimism Mahomes seemed to exude in his interview, Kansas City’s matchup against the Giants on Monday could be the turning point fans have been waiting for amid all the chaos of the Chiefs’ season so far.

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Malcolm Jenkins on Saints leadership stepping up without Drew Brees

New Orleans Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins joined the Rich Eisen Show to discuss the team’s quarterbacks battle and life without Drew Brees.

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Drew Brees has led the New Orleans Saints for a long, long time. So long that Malcolm Jenkins was drafted by the Saints, played out his rookie contract with them, and spent six years with the Philadelphia Eagles before returning for Brees’ last season in the NFL. Now that No. 9 is officially, formally retired from the sport, it’s up to Jenkins and the other team captains to weather the storm.

Jenkins spoke about the changes during a recent appearance on the Rich Eisen Show — or, well, how the Saints’ veteran leaders are ensuring there aren’t many big changes. While the team has organized work in the classrooms and weight room at the Saints practice facility, players like Jenkins have taken the initiative to hold workouts independently — and, most importantly, making sure no one gets hurt.

Still, it’s going to be different without Brees, who has been Jenkins’ quarterback in both of his stints with New Orleans. Like everyone else, he’s intrigued to see how the competition between Jameis Winston and Taysom Hill shakes out, but he’s confident the Saints have enough experienced hands on deck to keep the ship afloat.

“I think everybody’s looking to see how the leaders emerge, especially at the quarterback position. To see Jameis and Taysom really step into their own personalities now, not being behind Drew. And obviously myself, Cam Jordan, Demario Davis, guys who have been veterans on this team, kind of molding those younger guys.”

He also made it clear that both quarterbacks have a real shot at winning the starting job: “I think you see two guys who really respect each other, who really respect the process, and want to do what’s best for the team. Obviously last year Taysom filled in and had some success, and Jameis is also accomplished in this league. And so it’s one of those things where they’re working together, and it’s also a competition, and it’s going to make our team better.”

It’s a good listen — Jenkins also talked about the challenges NFL teams are facing now that COVID-19 vaccines are widely available, but not required for players to receive ahead of the 2021 season, leading to debates in locker rooms and on the airwaves and a more hands-off approach to the offseason. Expect that storyline to continue to hang over the NFL as its calendar inches towards training camp.

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