Latest / AFR Saints / Mike Triplett on the Saints: Week 1 Preview, Expectations & Where New Orleans Stands

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Mike Triplett on the Saints: Week 1 Preview, Expectations & Where New Orleans Stands · AFR Saints

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: AFR On Demand is brought to you by Breck Golf.
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  Speaker 2: Golf.breck.org. Golf.breck.org. Mike! Yeah?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: New Orleans Saints coverage with some Mad Libs mixed in.
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  Speaker 3: Why don't you just go by Mike?
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  Speaker 1: It's time to talk black and gold with Mike Triplett
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  Speaker 1: of New Orleans.football. Presented by Benny's Car Wash. Family owned
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  Speaker 1: and operated since 1951.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah!
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  Speaker 2: Let's go!
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  Speaker 1: Neato gang. Mike Triplett back with us. Talk some hoot
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: at Do some Mad Libs. Better than talking about lawyer stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Yo, dude, what up?
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  Speaker 3: Man, I didn't think you'd have me on today. I
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  Speaker 3: don't have any court cases. I just have NFL players
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: playing for NFL teams. Boring stuff, man.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, tell me all about new LSU defensive tackle Zavian Harris.
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  Speaker 2: How good he was with the New Orleans Saints.
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  Speaker 3: Well, his time with the Saints was illustrious. I saw
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  Speaker 3: him out at practice three or four times in street clothes,
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  Speaker 3: working with the trainers alongside the field. That's all I got.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently, according to Zach Nagy, today in court, Zavian Harris
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  Speaker 1: said he received $ 190 in gas money from the Saints.
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  Speaker 2: That's all he got. Uh-oh.
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  Speaker 3: Uh-oh.
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  Speaker 1: This is the, like, one, Mike, I want to talk Saints.
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  Speaker 1: This is one of the most intellectually dishonest things I
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  Speaker 1: have ever seen and ever covered in my life. Like,
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  Speaker 1: what's going on right now? The absurdity abounds. Okay, let's
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  Speaker 1: just talk Saints.
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  Speaker 2: How do you feel.
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  Speaker 1: Today with the roster set after watching three preseason games
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  Speaker 1: and a month of camp compared to what you thought
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  Speaker 1: when they showed up the first day before Brian Brzee
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  Speaker 1: tore his ACL?
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  Speaker 3: I would tell you this. Pre-draft, I'd say post-free agency,
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  Speaker 3: till now, I've never wavered off of a prediction of 8-9,
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  Speaker 3: which is where I've stayed all along. Now, 8-9 means
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  Speaker 3: anywhere between 6 and 10 wins. That's the middle number.
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  Speaker 3: There'll be a lot of one-score games. There'll be a
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  Speaker 3: lot of injuries. How lucky do they get? But I
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  Speaker 3: never wavered. There's nothing that ever made me feel dramatically
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  Speaker 3: better or dramatically worse. I think they've had the exact, like,
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  Speaker 3: medium number of injuries. Brzee got hurt. Dylan Radins got hurt.
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  Speaker 3: That was a bad one. Obviously, Alvin Kamara and Cam
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Jordan have got hurt, might miss the beginning of the season.
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  Speaker 3: Lorenzo Stiles might miss the beginning of the season. But,
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  Speaker 3: you know, obviously none of the major, major injuries that
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  Speaker 3: make you change your win total. I'd say if anything, well,
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  Speaker 3: Jordan Tyson, but I would have considered him. I've said
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  Speaker 3: this on the show a bunch. I would have considered
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  Speaker 3: him a bonus. Like if he showed up healthy was like,
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  Speaker 3: Oh man, this guy's not going to miss a snap.
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  Speaker 3: He's going to play full time. He's going to be
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  Speaker 3: a full time starter. He's not going to be limited.
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  Speaker 3: That would, that would have increased my wind total. But
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  Speaker 3: since that hasn't happened with him, I almost would have
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  Speaker 3: just considered him a bonus. If anything's made me feel better, though,
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  Speaker 3: there's a couple guys that we needed to see double down.
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  Speaker 3: I'd say the three best things about the team were
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  Speaker 3: probably Tyler Shuck, Chris Alave, and Chase Young last year.
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  Speaker 3: I feel just as good or better. They look just
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  Speaker 3: as good as they did at the end of last season.
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  Speaker 3: I feel like Tyler Shuck can keep it up. I
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  Speaker 3: feel like Chris Alave can keep it up. I feel
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  Speaker 3: like Chase Young can keep it up. The fact that
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  Speaker 3: all five offensive linemen are healthy, that would have made
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  Speaker 3: me lower my wind total. They've all stayed healthy. So
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  Speaker 3: long way of saying nothing that nothing happened that made
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  Speaker 3: me increase my wind total, but nothing has happened that
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  Speaker 3: made me decrease it either.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. What do you think could happen?
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  Speaker 1: Let's say in the first month of the season, that
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  Speaker 1: would make you think, Oh, I undersold them.
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  Speaker 3: Well, winning at Detroit or at Baltimore, obviously, uh, um,
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  Speaker 3: would be eye-opening. Those are two of the toughest games
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  Speaker 3: on the entire schedule that they have to start with
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  Speaker 3: in weeks one and two. And the two things you
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  Speaker 3: just can't predict are who's going to get hurt, who's
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  Speaker 3: going to stay healthy. So anybody, you know, anybody that doesn't,
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  Speaker 3: you know, as long as they can go with Chris
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  Speaker 3: Olave plays 17 games, and Chase Young plays 17 games,
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  Speaker 3: and Kelvin Banks and Kali Falago play 17 games, and
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  Speaker 3: Jordan Tyson plays 13 games, and Kool-Aid McKinstry plays 17 games.
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  Speaker 3: If I knew that was going to happen, I'd have
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  Speaker 3: a higher win total projection for this team. So as
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  Speaker 3: long as they stay healthy, each passing week, each passing month,
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  Speaker 3: you feel where they don't have to dip into their
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  Speaker 3: really shallow depth. I think that's the scariest part of
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  Speaker 3: this team is that they're not very deep. Uh, so
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  Speaker 3: as long as they can avoid that and then like,
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  Speaker 3: you know, winning all the one score games that they
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  Speaker 3: shouldn't have in a season, like the bears or the
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  Speaker 3: Broncos had, where if you go eight and two and
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  Speaker 3: all those games that were a total coin flip. Um,
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  Speaker 3: so if they win a few of those, uh, you'll
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  Speaker 3: feel like, all right, we got to take them seriously.
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  Speaker 3: Cause it really probably will only take about 10 games
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  Speaker 3: to win this division.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Mike triplets with us. New Orleans dot football, new Orleans
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: dot football. He's at Mike triplet.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Great time to go find content over there. at NewOrleans.Football.
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  Speaker 1: Let me dig in a little deeper on Jordan Tyson
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  Speaker 1: because you said something that sparked my interest when you
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  Speaker 1: said you would have considered it a bonus if he
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  Speaker 1: played 17 games.
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  Speaker 2: Does that.
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  Speaker 1: If that's the case, then why use the eighth overall
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  Speaker 1: pick on a guy that would be a bonus if
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  Speaker 1: he plays?
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  Speaker 3: Well, to be fair, that's how I felt after he
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  Speaker 3: missed OTAs in minicamp with an injury. And, you know,
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  Speaker 3: it was starting to be like, oh, is this going
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  Speaker 3: to be sort of a part-time, you know, is he
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  Speaker 3: not going to be fully Jordan Tyson in year one?
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  Speaker 3: And then I got way more optimistic when he showed
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  Speaker 3: up and was playing full-time with the starters on the
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  Speaker 3: first day of training camp. And then I dipped back
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  Speaker 3: below again when he got hurt and he's going to
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  Speaker 3: miss the beginning of the season. So I think it's
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  Speaker 3: just eventually, reach level. But yeah, I guess the reason
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  Speaker 3: you take him with the eighth overall pick is this
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  Speaker 3: team is not supposed to be short-sighted. They are not
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  Speaker 3: supposed to be who will help us win the most
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  Speaker 3: games in September 2026 or even all of 2026 for
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  Speaker 3: that matter. So if you feel like hamstring issues are
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  Speaker 3: not something that's going to plague him his entire career,
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  Speaker 3: you will eventually get him right. You'll eventually get him healthy.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, there are plenty of cases of that. Jackson
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  Speaker 3: Smith and Jigba, Odell, Marshawn Lattimore, like, you know, as
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  Speaker 3: long as you feel like he can have a career
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  Speaker 3: that is not played by hamstring injuries, the question was,
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  Speaker 3: how soon will he be, you know, Jordan Tyson, the
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  Speaker 3: fully realized stud? Because he is a stud. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: when he's healthy, he looks like that's where he should
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  Speaker 3: have been picked. But unfortunately, he's, you know, he obviously
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  Speaker 3: has never gotten fully right yet.
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  Speaker 1: I appreciate the clarification. Let me flip it and say
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  Speaker 1: what is the position, position group, the area that has
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  Speaker 1: you most concerned as a giant liability on this team?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I'm not going to call their secondary a giant liability,
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  Speaker 3: but everybody has to be maximized in that group. I
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  Speaker 3: do like Kool-Aid McKinstry a lot as a player. I
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  Speaker 3: think that was a good pick for them. Is he
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  Speaker 3: ready to be a number one cornerback, like going up
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  Speaker 3: against the elite of the elite every week. I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: You're asking a lot of him and, and maybe he'll
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  Speaker 3: be able to do that, but that's his high end
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  Speaker 3: upside is Quincy Riley ready to be a number two cornerback.
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  Speaker 3: That's his high end upside is Jonas Sanker ready to
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  Speaker 3: be the star and be really successful and, and, you know,
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  Speaker 3: run support against, uh, you know, the, uh, um, Jameer
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  Speaker 3: Gibbs and covering a Monterey St. Brown out of the
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  Speaker 3: slot right away in week one. And, you know, will
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  Speaker 3: Julian Blackman stay healthy and be your free safety? I mean,
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  Speaker 3: when those five are on the field, I like their potential,
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  Speaker 3: but I think they all have to be the best
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  Speaker 3: version of themselves to have that not be a weakness
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  Speaker 3: for this team. And obviously, you know, they can't afford
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  Speaker 3: injuries to any of them either.
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  Speaker 2: And they got a kicker.
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  Speaker 3: Please just be a good, ordinary, regular kicker. Be the 16th,
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  Speaker 3: 18th best kicker in the league, 16th, 18th best punter
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  Speaker 3: in the league. That would be wonderful.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, do you anticipate anything else roster movement-wise? Would that
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  Speaker 1: be common now, what, a week, nine days to the opener-ish?
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  Speaker 1: Would that be common for there to be more roster movement?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we've kind of exceeded it now. I
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  Speaker 3: thought that very first week, right after the moves, and
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  Speaker 3: we did see them, they've added like five guys already.
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  Speaker 3: They made the two waiver claims. They signed a couple
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  Speaker 3: of veterans, three waiver claims and two veteran signings already. But,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I don't think they're trading for
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  Speaker 3: the the number three corner or the backup center at
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  Speaker 3: this point. I suppose it's still possible, but I think
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: the days that that would normally happen would have been
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  Speaker 3: the immediate one or two days after cut down.
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  Speaker 1: He's Mike Triplett, New Orleans.footballs.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to go get his stuff.
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  Speaker 1: He, Nick, the whole crew over there are doing an
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: awesome job at Mike Triplett's where you get them on Twitter.
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  Speaker 1: So you're locked in at 8 and 9.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, that's still where I am now. You know, there's
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  Speaker 3: so much wiggle room in that. I think there's a
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  Speaker 3: lot of optimism around this team right now, like a
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  Speaker 3: surprising amount of optimism, but I think it immediately leapfrogged
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  Speaker 3: to they're supposed to win the division. I think winning
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  Speaker 3: the division is like the top 10% of outcomes of
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  Speaker 3: this season, but I think it's possible in this lousy division,
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  Speaker 3: but it's the high-end best-case scenario for this team.
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  Speaker 2: Who wins the division?
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  Speaker 3: Who we, I did think the Falcons had the best team,
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  Speaker 3: but that was only if, if Tua was going to
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: be like their version of Daniel Jones, like, you know, like, Oh,
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  Speaker 3: they finally have a competent quarterback. Now, now they can
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  Speaker 3: make everything work and it does not sound like it's
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  Speaker 3: happening there. And then their defensive ends, one gets injured.
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  Speaker 3: The other one is getting suspended. So yeah, I finally
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: think Tampa Bay takes a dip. I don't really believe
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: in Carolina. I have no idea, Matt. I think nine
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  Speaker 3: might do it. In this division, they all get to
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  Speaker 3: play each other at least. One of them gets to ten,
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  Speaker 3: but I'm not placing a bet on any of.
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  Speaker 1: Them, that's for sure. My point on this team's ceiling,
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  Speaker 1: I think, is nine and eight win a bad division.
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  Speaker 1: Get to the playoffs for the first time since COVID.
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  Speaker 3: Definitely.
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  Speaker 2: I would love that. Just play meaningful games in December.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Mike Triplett.
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  Speaker 3: I think they can. I think they can. I think
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  Speaker 3: that is a realistic hope and expectation for this team is,
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  Speaker 3: is that the whole season is meaningful and it'll be
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  Speaker 3: meaningful on two levels. It'll be meaningful on, Hey, maybe
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  Speaker 3: they can make the playoffs sneak into the playoffs this year,
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  Speaker 3: but definitely meaningful. And they've now got 12 to 15
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  Speaker 3: guys that like get really excited. If, if, if the
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  Speaker 3: tackles look good and the receivers look good and Chuck
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  Speaker 3: looks good and, and You know, I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 3: you're watching the future version of this team now, too,
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  Speaker 3: not just the team that's hanging on for dear life
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  Speaker 3: to what it used to be.
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  Speaker 2: Next week, Mad Libs.
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  Speaker 3: All right, I'll be ready.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Now, next week, we're going to preview the season opener
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: is what we're going to do. I was just being facetious,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: but we will do Mad Libs at some point.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Mike.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, let's do a court themed version of NIL lawsuit
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Mad Libs.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: How's Iowa going to be, by the way?
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  Speaker 3: Ranked 22. I was just talking to Noah Fant about
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: that today. I talked to him. Iowa football was in today.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: And I said, I always joke that Iowa always finishes
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: every year ranked number 22. This year, they're starting the
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: year ranked 22. So they might just stay there all
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: year long. But they will beat someone in the top
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  Speaker 3: five at some point and play spoiler. They always do that, too.
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  Speaker 1: You got a little Taylor Swift juju there. 22.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: It's a hit. There you go. You know that song?
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Um.
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  Speaker 3: I can't decide if I should say yes or no,
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  Speaker 3: what'll give me more street cred. Uh, but the answer
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: is actually no.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, you know, everything will be all right. You don't
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: know the 22. I'm gonna send it to you. I
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: bet you've heard it before at some point.
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  Speaker 3: I probably have heard it.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Mike. We appreciate it.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: See you.