Let’s move to the notes and quotes from CBS’ pair of pregame shows, The NFL Today and That Other Pregame Show for Week 4 of the NFL season.
NEWS, NOTES & QUOTES FROM CBS SPORTS’ “THE NFL TODAY” WITH JAMES BROWN, DAN MARINO, SHANNON SHARPE, BILL COWHER AND BOOMER ESIASON
AND
“THAT OTHER PREGAME SHOW” WITH ADAM SCHEIN, AMY TRASK, BART SCOTT AND BRANDON TIERNEY FOR WEEK 4 ON SEPTEMBER 29
QUICK HITS
(On Tampa Bay’s Josh Freeman)
SHANNON SHARPE: I don’t like to get into speculation and innuendo, but there is clearly something going on, because Josh Freeman is not even the back-up. He’s the third quarterback, which means he is inactive. You mean to tell me, if Mike Glennon goes down, the guy, Orlovsky, he’s the back-up, he gives you a better opportunity? If I’m Josh Freeman, I’m saying to myself, you know what? Even if I don’t play in Tampa anymore, I still have great opportunities because I believe I’m better than Christian Ponder, Blaine Gabbert, Mark Sanchez, Carson Palmer, Brandon Weeden. They’re still in this league. I’m better than these guys.
(On Cincinnati’s Andy Dalton taking his team to Super Bowl)
RICH GANNON: I believe they’ve got the right guy. He’s a perfect fit in this system. He’s highly competitive, very intelligent, extremely poised. He’s making good decisions. He’s not going to overwhelm you with his arm talent. But he’s a good decision-maker. He’s taking care of the football. And they’ve got enough talent around him to be successful. I think they can win big time with Andy Dalton.
(On Pittsburgh)
SHANNON SHARPE: I’m not surprised at the Steelers because they were a .500 ballclub last year. Tell me who they got in free agency or the draft that was going to make them substantially better than they were last year. Their second best player plays for the Dolphins in Mike Wallace. They made no upgrades. On the offensive line, they didn’t address that issue. That is their problem. They can’t run block. They can’t protect Ben. I don’t see them going .500 this year.
(On Pittsburgh and N.Y. Giants)
BILL COWHER: The common thing with them is that they can’t run the football. It’s been a part of what they do…Their offenses have been the Achilles heel for both of these teams.
(On Kansas City’s Alex Smith)
BOOMER: To me, the biggest surprise is how much Alex Smith is moving around and running with the football. It’s almost like he took some Colin Kaepernick pills during the off-season.
(On Jay Cutler and his contract extension)
Click to view: http://cbsprt.co/16MazXx
(On Coaching Peyton Manning)
BOOMER ESIASON: My former roommate Frank Reich coached Peyton Manning in Indianapolis for three years. He said you would have thought this would’ve been the easiest job to have in the NFL. On the contrary, it’s the hardest job because Peyton demands so much not only from the players he’s playing with, but the coaches he’s coaching with. He wants to be the greatest. I’ve never seen him play so good in my life.
SHANNON SHARPE: Mike McCoy echoed those sentiments. He was Peyton’s offensive coordinator last year. Now he’s the head coach of the San Diego Chargers. The hardest part of his job is not calling plays. It’s coaching Peyton Manning because there is nothing that he doesn’t know or hasn’t seen.
DAN MARINO: He’s just so thorough throughout the week on every situation that comes up. And he demands not only the coaches, but the players around him to be excellent too.
THAT OTHER PREGAME SHOW (TOPS) NOTES
(On Lane Kiffin)
BART SCOTT: I’m so tired of hearing about this guy. He might show up in the NFL, you never know. The best thing about this guy is his last name. He hasn’t been relevant to me in a lot of years… He has to catch up with the game. Watching USC is like watching paint dry. It doesn’t seem like they’ve adjusted to the new up-tempo spread offense. He didn’t make the adjustment.
(On Russell Wilson)
SCOTT: He’s a tremendous passer of the football, but he also is able to buy time with his feet. When he buys time with his feet, what differentiates him from most young quarterbacks, is that his eyes are still downfield. He’s not scrambling to run. He’s scrambling to throw the ball. And his poise and his maturity level allows him to play well beyond his years.
(On NFL franchise in London)
AMY TRASK: London is a stretch. It is something the league feels passionately about, but it’s a stretch. There are a lot of logistical issues that complicate a London move. Let’s take Tuesdays for example. Tuesdays during the season, teams bring in multiple free agents – maybe for the 53 man roster; maybe for the practice squad. When you have a free agent on the field you want your head coach, your assistant coach or coaches, your general manager, your doctors, your trainers to come out on the field and observe that young man or those young men working out. Well, you’re not going to fly a free agent who might be in California dare I say it, all the way to London for a Tuesday workout. Logistically, that means you’re going to need a base of operations in the United States… That’s just one of the myriad logistical issues to work out… Many of these things are analyzed though, through the prism of economics.
That’s all.
