00:00Peyton or John? One. Probably Peyton. There's two nights. You can't say two nights. Two nights. I'll pick both. Okay.
00:06Peyton and John LA? Yeah. Peyton for sure. Peyton for sure. Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning. Yeah. He's still a Denver.
00:12He lives out there. No, no. I just didn't know if you were talking about Sean Peyton. Which could have
00:18happened. I don't know. Prickets. You just have to clarify. I know. Like what are we doing here? We need
00:23first name, last name. That's all. I'd say Sean Peyton right now as Denver Broncos go is just as important
00:27as Peyton Manning.
00:29It won't get a lot of a pop. Peyton Manning, John LA. Those guys get pops. Allie, hear me when
00:36I say this. So help me. If Sean Peyton walks out, the whole show, we will have the lead into
00:42every segment of that crowd pop. And we will never let this man live that down. As a matter of
00:47fact, we'll have that drop ready. Clip it right now. We'll have the drop ready. Mike coming back every single
00:51segment. Sports Radio 9. You know Sean Peyton walked out with Morgan Wallen.
00:58She's a leading Broadway girl. Not a big fan. Oh, man. Sean Peyton. Moving over to the Falcons. We've got
01:06a lot of returning players this season. Who do you think needs to have? And we're talking defense right now.
01:12Who do you think is going to have? I'm going to take out the word needs because it's different. Who's
01:16going to have the biggest jump this season? Who's going to stand out?
01:21Jalen Walker. Jalen Walker. Yeah. I don't think there's another answer to me. Returning guy that needs to go to
01:31the next level. Can Xavier Watts go to another level? I don't know. I've been wrestling with that question all
01:37morning.
01:37Because he had an all-pro caliber season last year. Believe it or not. Look at the numbers. Billy Bowman
01:45just don't know where he'll be. That injury is so much harder to come back from than an ACL.
01:53At that position, yeah.
01:55Yeah. Really, I think defense in general is hard to come back from an Achilles. Because so much of it
02:02is reactionary. And that can be hard with the stress it puts.
02:09And so much about nickel is about sticking your foot in the ground and rolling up in the box when
02:14needed and providing that secondary support. So being able to do that with that Achilles, that's just, I mean, it's
02:19going to be asking a lot for him. I'm with you.
02:21Okay. You know, I would say Mike Hughes, but I don't know where he's going to be. You know, is
02:29he going to be a position battle for the outside spot? Or is he going to move the nickel? Or
02:32is he going to stay outside? I just don't know.
02:34What are we coming up with, Mike Hughes? You're eight in the NFL? Is that where we're at? It's hard
02:39for me to look at somebody that's long in the tooth like that and say that they're going to have
02:42a big jump. Or needs to have a big jump. Either way.
02:47You know, and I think Bo's right. When you look at the defense, this is just so hard to kind
02:51of put your finger on because a lot of these players, you're nine. A lot of these players are what
02:57you believe them to be at this point. Like we know what Jesse Bates is.
02:59Now, do I think that Jesse Bates could have an uptick compared to what last year's season was? Very possibly.
03:06But to say that he's going to, I think that I'm with Bo. The easy answer here in the slam
03:11dunk is to say that Jalen Walker both needs and probably will have a massive jump. Remember, there was injuries
03:17last offseason. We had the hip thing all the way through the combine. There was all this talk about whether
03:23or not he's, I don't even think he was out on the field for the first practice of training camp,
03:26if I'm not mistaken.
03:27It wasn't. He was in and out of camp practices. He missed two games. In 15 games, had 36 tackles,
03:36five and a half sacks, five TFLs, tackles for loss. He made some plays.
03:42But, you know, imagine him going from, you know, that played on full season, maybe getting nine to 11 sacks
03:54instead of two forced fumbles, maybe four, right?
03:59You know, like him playing at the line of scrimmage with a run game, he's very good at.
04:04But I just think, you know, year two for most edge rushers, pass rushers, is a big jump.
04:15I think that James Paris probably benefited a little bit from Jalen Walker, and I'm not saying this out and
04:21vice versa.
04:23So, to me, Jalen would be the one that takes a jump.
04:26Yeah, I'm with you.
04:28If we did put that word needs back in, though, would Mike Hughes be one of them?
04:33Hmm. Yeah. Well, and we talked about him as pressure player.
04:39And I think that, like I said, it's just hard to say jump for Mike Hughes, because like he said,
04:45we're going into year nine.
04:46You know what I mean? Like, at what point do you just say, okay, this guy kind of, because I
04:49have no, and here's the thing about Mike Hughes, and I'll say this, and I've said this before.
04:53I have no doubt that Mike Hughes works his rear end off in the offseason.
04:59So, you know, is there a scheme fit that could, you know, more particularly bring out his best traits?
05:04Probably, but it's the same scheme.
05:06You know, we're going to be dealing with a lot of the same scheme, and a scheme that got home
05:08a lot last year, which I think was very beneficial to a lot of guys in the secondary.
05:12I also think that, unfortunately, cornerbacks are looked at as two ways in this league.
05:22All pro, lockdown, or bum, and it's not fair, because Mike Hughes is neither, but he's a very good player.
05:30Does he give up some big plays? Yeah.
05:33But go across the league, and he's a lot better than the number two option on some teams.
05:38Yeah, I agree with that.
05:39That's a great point, and we talk about, you know, you make that point about offensive line all the time
05:44about you can't have five all pros, and you're not going to have five all pros.
05:47And the same thing goes to the secondary. Now, we have come as close as you can, it feels like,
05:51in the secondary.
05:51And what's crazy about it is we're not really widely regarded as having a great secondary.
05:55But Mike Hughes is definitely the guy that kind of sticks out on that end, and, you know, it's like
06:00you said, if you're average, you seem to stink in a lot of NFL circles.
06:03But it's not true. As you said, it's not true. You know, like, it's unfortunate.
06:08Would you tag anyone else with needing to have a big jump this season?
06:14Yeah, you know what, Ali? I think the difficulty around this question, and I think Bo will echo this, is
06:19that so many of these players, well, first of all, you gutted a lot of players that you had last
06:25year.
06:25But so many of these players made the jump last year.
06:28I mean, Divine Diablo would have been a guy that I don't even know that we knew at this point
06:32last year if he would even start and made a massive leap.
06:35You know, there was all the, hey, what's Troy Anderson? What's this? What's that?
06:39I mean, there's guys that we looked at last year at this point, though, and I'll bring it back up
06:43because he's dealing with the same circumstance, like a Braylon Trice.
06:46Braylon Trice, it would be incredible with what they're dealing with outside if he could make a big jump.
06:51Maybe that's the needs part of it, but, man, it's just hard.
06:54Well, I would tell you, if you want to say needs to, those two guys you just mentioned, Troy Anderson
06:59and Braylon Trice, are playing for their Falcons careers.
07:05Trice has got to stay healthy, man.
07:07If he stayed healthy and had a decent camp, he could make the roster.
07:11And you never know, he could be a four- or five-sack guy, which, again, people want to throw
07:16away, but four- and five-sack guys go a long way when you want to have, if you're going
07:21to get to 50 or 60 sacks.
07:24I got one more for you, Allie.
07:26How about a bookum?
07:28How about needing to?
07:31I would say that that one's going to be other.
07:32Now, you said returning players.
07:34He's not technically a returning player, but if you need somebody that's going to make a jump, boy, it sure
07:40would be nice to have a guy like that, that makes the leap as he gets this defense.
07:43We're going to get back into this at 7.
07:45We've got offense to cover in that video of Michael Penix that came out on Friday.
07:49We'll talk about that then.
07:50The leaderboard was cluttered in Philadelphia.
07:53We're going to break down what happened yesterday with the PGA Next on Sports Radio.
07:5792.9 The Game and the Odyssey app.
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