Aaron Donald’s Return & NFL Preseason Week 3 | Overreaction Monday w/ Rich & Chris Brockman

The preseason is over, the rosters are set, and Chris Brockman opened the last Overreaction Monday before the season by aiming straight at the biggest news in football.

With 99 back, the Rams go undefeated into the Christmas showdown with Seattle.

Rich called it possible and unlikely, then walked the schedule to explain why.

They could lose the opener in Australia to the 49ers. Denver and Philadelphia arrive back to back on the road, and then Buffalo strolls in on a Monday night, which is a brutal stretch on its own. The Chargers at home could get them. There is always an early East Coast window game that bites. Green Bay comes the night before Thanksgiving, which flows into Kansas City, then San Francisco, then Dallas at home.

Getting to week 16 at Seattle at 14-0 through all of that is a lot.

"All it takes is an ill-timed turnover," Rich said. "All it takes is one of those days where it's just not one of our days."

Overreaction. They will be great, it will be must-see television, it may be historic. Fourteen and oh is something else.

Chris' second take was that this is not a one-off, and that Donald plays at least two more seasons in Los Angeles.

Rich called that an overreaction too, and his reasoning was about the shape of a finished career. If the Rams go 15-2 and win it, Donald has checked every box. He wanted to play with Myles Garrett, check. He wanted one more, check.

"Then he's like, mission accomplished. I'm going home."

He also noted that one-year deals become two-year deals, and that Les Snead would be on the program to answer for it.

What Rich would not do is undersell what this is. He acknowledged that some listeners think the show has turned into Rams honks after weeks of this. He does not care.

"It's the story of the National Football League season," he said. Somebody as great as Donald saying he loves the sport, loves the game, and loves the idea of playing alongside someone generationally brilliant is good for the league, and having it happen on the West Coast in an East Coast-dominated media environment, with the Super Bowl in Los Angeles, throws a spotlight on all of it.

The Erica Donald post and the letter to the commissioner both got another airing, and both hold up.

Take three was Chris stirring, and he admitted it. Aaron Donald's comeback is giving JJ Watt ideas about returning to Houston, to play with Will Anderson Jr. on a defense with a Super Bowl shot, to scratch the one itch he never scratched.

The mechanics are not absurd. Watt retired one year before Donald and had 12 and a half sacks that season in Arizona.

But Rich rejected the premise on the difference between the two situations. Donald was sitting at home. Watt is in a booth alongside one of the best broadcasters in the history of the game, calling games to 50 million households, having already checked the studio box.

"I think he's like, this is wildly amazing."

On Caleb Williams, Chris wanted 5,000 total yards, 40 combined touchdowns, and the Bears in the NFC one seed hunt.

Rich took half of it. He does think Chicago could be in that hunt, and he thinks the defense will be better than people expect. What he cannot get to is the offensive explosion, and the reason is personnel. He ran through the receiver room looking for who is actually healthy, with Rome Odunze not fully right and Luther Burden potentially banged up entering the season. He does like Colston Loveland for a terrific year.

His caveat was fair. Williams was extraordinary in fourth quarters last year, in comebacks Rich said put Tebow Time to shame. Spread that same production across four quarters and the numbers get there.

So he asked for a pin in it, with a specific date attached. Chicago opens at Carolina, home for Minnesota, a Monday nighter with Philadelphia, then the Jets. Geographically easy, defensively not, with Jaelan Phillips and Devin Lloyd now in Carolina's front seven and Brian Flores still running a top-five Minnesota defense.

Revisit on October 5th.

Chris then zagged on his own long-running position, arguing that Zac Taylor, number one on every hot seat list, will finish a Coach of the Year finalist. The case is a revamped defense, Dexter Lawrence acquired with the pick they traded away, and a healthy Joe Burrow.

Rich called it an overreaction, but corrected the premise first.

"There's one person who decides whether he's on the hot seat. His name is Mike Brown, and he does not pay coaches to not work for him."

The evidence is Marvin Lewis, who coached the Bengals for 16 years without achieving anything close to what Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh did in the same span. Rich thinks Cincinnati can win the division. He also thinks Coach of the Year requires something like 13 wins.

Brock Bowers got the boldest number of the day. Chris wants him challenging the all-time single-season catch record of 149, held by Michael Thomas, not merely the tight end record of 126.

Rich liked the direction and not the destination.

"Right church, wrong pew."

He believes the Raiders offense will be better and rates Clint Kubiak highly. But he pointed out the obvious defensive counter, which is that any coordinator takes Bowers off the chessboard, or at minimum puts a second defender on him, and that 149 requires somebody else on the roster capable of drawing attention.

Given the choice between Bowers approaching that record and Jayden Daniels returning to rookie form, Rich took Daniels, on the grounds that a quarterback can do it single-handedly and a tight end cannot.

The one Chris got outright was Odell Beckham Jr. finishing as the Giants' second best pass catcher.

"I don't think that's an overreaction at all," Rich said, noting Beckham was the bonus entry on his top five surprising players list last week. He made the 53 on merit, because John Harbaugh is trying to win games rather than sell jerseys.

He also enjoyed the symmetry of the LSU lineage, with Beckham on one side and Malik Nabers on the other.

That led directly into Rich's own overreaction, which he volunteered.

The Giants open on Sunday Night Football at MetLife against Dallas, which is the same opponent, the same platform and the same building as the one-handed catch. So run the play. Same corner, same end zone, same spot. Get Eli Manning out for the coin toss with Beckham standing next to him and Jackson Dart listening.

NBC, he is certain, already has the tape cued.

Chris confirmed he will be betting Beckham anytime touchdown.

Two more landed without argument. Four teams starting at least three quarterbacks this season is not an overreaction, and Rich finds it genuinely bleak, because nobody enjoys watching a third-stringer face a defense chiseled by twelve weeks of live fire.

And the Patriots are playing a dangerous game with Christian Gonzalez, which was less a take than Chris airing a grievance after seeing trade speculation over the weekend.

Rich's position was simple. Gonzalez is their best player other than the quarterback, he is great at his job, and he is not the guy you get a middle-of-the-night phone call about.

The business argument makes it worse rather than better. You draft a quarterback and play him immediately so that the rookie contract window lets you pay your other stars. Drake Maye on that deal is exactly the advantage you are supposed to exploit.

"It'll get done," Rich said. "I just don't know why it's taking them all this long."