Overreaction Tuesday: Rich Talks Vikings, Cowboys, Aaron Donald, Skinny Luca Doncic & More

Chris Brockman opened with the take nobody on the show wants to say out loud. It has been over a month. Time to accept that Aaron Donald is not coming back.

"That's an overreaction," Rich said, and then argued against himself for a while anyway.

The Is He Back Yet segment was supposed to run a week. It has run close to a month. Chris went to the game Saturday and counted plenty of number 99 jerseys and exactly zero Aaron Donalds.

Rich's honest position is that nobody knows, including possibly Donald. Albert Breer was the latest to come on and say Donald is trying to be sure he can still be himself out there. He is 35. He has not played in a couple of years. It is not easy, whatever he looks like standing still.

What Rich always assumed was that this would come down to the pilot light, not the body. That flame can go out over two years. The man does not need this. He may simply not want it. But you cannot conclude he is never coming back from the fact that he has not come back yet.

Next up, Justin Jefferson, who told Mike Silver that people have forgotten how good he is and intends to spend the season correcting them.

Rich went somewhere unexpected with it, which is that this is an argument about running back pay.

"It's not on Justin Jefferson," he said. The talent is not in question. The results depend entirely on someone else, on getting consistent high-quality quarterback play from Kyler Murray. A receiver needs the ball thrown to him by a man who reads the defense before the snap, reads it again after, and delivers in an instant, while eleven people work to stop exactly that from happening because you are that good.

A running back stands next to the quarterback and gets it handed to him. Nobody can stop a handoff. They can absolutely stop a throw.

So Rich called Jefferson's promise a proper reaction, and said he is rooting for him and for Vikings fans.

Then Chris went at the Cowboys, suggesting some quarterback-needy team should call about Joe Milton after his preseason.

"Chill, chill," Rich said. Why would Dallas do that? The answer he got was a higher draft pick, and he rejected the premise entirely. It is go time. The roster is set. You are two weeks out, the oven is preheated, and you trade nobody right now.

Milton may not even end up the backup, which to Rich is precisely the argument for keeping him rather than moving him. Sam Howell is the third-stringer. If Dak Prescott misses four to six weeks, you want the arm you have spent all this time coaching up, from the coach who just spent a full answer explaining what Milton has learned.

Chris tried one more time. He is better than every Browns quarterback right now.

"Don't do that to us," came the reply from the desk.

The basketball entry required a preamble and an apology. Chris has been watching Luka Doncic's Instagram, where Luka has the Lakers over in Slovenia playing golf, and where Luka is noticeably, alarmingly thin.

Skinny Luka and the Lakers finish with a better record than LeBron James and the Sixers.

TJ was unmoved. The regular season means nothing to him at this point. Get healthy for the playoffs and then talk. Rich called it an overreaction but liked the direction, and the room could not get past how different Luka looks. Somebody wondered whether he can still bang down low built like that. Somebody else floated MVP.

The closer was Erling Haaland cutting his hair, which Chris compared to Felicity chopping her locks in the late '90s.

Rich's verdict was theological. You know what happened to Samson.