Week one of the NFL season for 2025 has concluded. As we transition into week two, it is imperative to reflect upon the performances and predictions from the previous week. Our discussion will reveal the bold forecasts made regarding teams and players, evaluating the accuracy of our insights, particularly those of Ed Kleese and me. The episode will shed light on these performances, with particular emphasis on underwhelming showings that may incite concern among fan bases, including the Miami Dolphins and the Carolina Panthers. As we embark on this analytical journey, we shall also proffer our predictions for the upcoming week, aiming to discern trends and outcomes in this ever-evolving landscape of professional football. Therefore, I invite you to remain engaged as we delve into these intriguing narratives that define our beloved sport.

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Miss our football by the day of the year podcasts, well don't, because they can still be found at the Pigskin Dispatch website.

But we have our big bold predictions from week one to cover and see who did better, Ed Cleese or myself.

And we're going to bring you week twos coming up with those predictions.

So stay tuned right after this.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of Pigskind dispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to Wednesday morning and during the NFL season.

We are entering into week two, and if you watched last week, we had big, bold predictions with Ed Cleese.

And Ed joins us again tonight.

Ed, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hello, Darren.

It's great to be back.

Yeah, Ed, what a week one it was.

You know, you have half the league fans are happy, half of them are upset.

There's a lot going on here.

And what are some of your observations you have after Week 1 in the NFL?

First of all, it's always just so nice to get back.

I always tell everybody that in addition to the games, obviously I miss the routine and the rhythm of football season so much.

So it's so nice to set up.

I've got a pretty good little setup with multiple TVs, and you get that going and you settle in, you got food.

And it's just so nice to have that back, that routine back.

And then, you know, the great thing about the NFL now is, you know, the game ends on Monday night and here we are on Tuesday and we're only 48 hours from week two starting.

So that was great.

But I think the, my observations for week one are always, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of misdirection, a lot of misleading.

I've heard people say that, you know, week one is fake.

You know, be very careful about the week one panic or overreaction.

And that is generally true.

But there were a few things that happened last weekend that I think certain fan bases should be panicking.

Okay.

There are certain things that happened that I think are scary and might be more than just a week one anomaly or rust.

And I'm going to start in Miami because that was bad.

That was a very, very poor effort by the Dolphins in Indianapolis, coming on the heels of some bad Vibes coming out of Dolphins camp to begin with and a lot of talk about people not seeing eye to eye with the coach and issues there and then to lay that kind of egg in week one I think is potentially pretty damning.

Yeah, I agree with you.

It was not something that was really expected.

Especially you know, their, their opponents were the Colts last week who came out and looked like, you know, they were the world beaters.

Like they just came off a Super bowl victory.

Daniel Jones really rebounded and looked outstanding for the Colts.

Yes, and one of the, one of Daniel Jones's best games of his career, you know, right off the bat.

And then Tua looked terrible.

He's sailing balls, interceptions.

Their offense was just kind of a mess and you know, that game was over.

That was the one game of the weekend really, that was just kind of over very quickly.

If you, if you're.

That was an easy one on the multi view, like, okay, that one's getting zapped at the, the second quarter.

We can take this one off the board.

We don't need to watch any more.

Colts, Dolphins.

The Dolphins eliminated themselves very early from, from the viewing on Sunday and I think that's, it's Probably, I know McDaniel is like top on the list right now.

Odds first coach to get fired and he didn't do himself any favors.

And they've got a game this weekend against New England and that's very close to must I say for the Dolphins.

It might be one we might be talking about here in a little bit.

Maybe the other thing.

I think it's time.

I mean, I think this panic button's already probably been hit already, but with the way he ended last season, maybe it was a little bit better.

But I think the Bryce Young thing in Carolina is getting very, very shaky and very scary for Panthers fans.

Again, I don't think there was necessarily super high hopes, but the fact that he ended last year on a little bit of an upswing come out week one against the Jags and not even look average.

Kind of like reverting the way he looked the beginning of last year and the year before.

He just looked a little lost.

I thought that was going to be a really competitive game and it wasn't at all.

The Panthers offense really did nothing.

Young just doesn't look good and you know, it, it's, it's.

That's a, that's a problem.

Yeah, I, I thought it was kind of interesting what happened just a few days prior to last week's games when the Panthers traded Thielen away.

Who I thought Thielen was sort of, you know, it wasn't like he put up humongous numbers last year, but I think he was sort of a stabilizing older player, veteran voice in a huddle that helped a young quarterback and sort of a security blanket that he no longer has.

Yeah, that's the exact term I was going to use.

A guy like feeling is a security blanket.

He had a couple good years there for the Panthers.

And you're right, he probably kind of helped settle Young down a little bit.

But, you know, when I watch him, the.

The problem is, you know, obviously he's very small, but he's also.

He's just not very athletic.

He doesn't move all that well.

So it's kind of like a double whammy.

It's like, you know, every time I watch Bryce Young, he seems like a great guy, but I watch him and it's sort of like, what does he do well, you know, what's the strength here?

What is.

What's the upside?

What are we trying to capture?

And I think maybe at the end of last year when he was just sort of okay, we were almost overrating that because it was so much better than terrible, you know, so.

And at this point, I think it's.

It's finger on the button there.

Yeah, that's a kind of a very walking on eggshells situation there for sure for the Panthers.

Another one that I don't think is necessarily panic, but would be troubling to me was that very specifically to the Detroit game was how badly their offensive line got manhandled.

That was domination by the packers front pass and run.

Goff had no time.

They could not run the ball.

Gibbs was stuffed.

Montgomery was stuffed.

And, you know, it was a.

Just a floodgates almost every play.

And I know the Lions have remade the middle of their offensive line with the new guards and Rag now retiring at center.

Um, and to see.

And you know, maybe it's just some little time to gel the.

The packers do.

The packers are good up front, but that is an area where Detroit has been so much better than everybody the last couple years.

And if that.

If their line is about to take a big step back, then you have to wonder if maybe their offense is about to take a big step back.

Yeah, I thought that was, you know, kind of surprising how dominant the packers defensive line was over the.

I. I knew, you know, with the two new players in there, you know, losing some of that veteran service that the.

The Lions had last year and Jamar Gibbs and their other David Montgomery couldn't get it going at all.

Especially when the packers just traded away probably their best run stuffer just a few days earlier.

And you know, who know knew what that shake up in their defensive line was going to be well worked out pretty well for them from results of week one.

Yeah, I think if I'm a Lions fan right now, I'm not, I'm not panicking, but I'm, I'm kind of troubled by, by that, by the line, the O line issue for sure.

You know, in addition to losing the coordinators, which everybody's talked about and it's like, oh man, have, you know, have our, have our strengths.

Are they all gone already?

You know, and I'm not ready to say that yet about the lines.

I still think there's a lot of talent there, but that was a red flag, if not a panic button.

A red flag, but my last one is panic.

And that is coming from.

I told you a few weeks ago about my buddy Joe, the Cleveland Browns fan who has a conspiracy, who thinks everything's a conspiracy against Cleveland.

And I cannot believe that they found a way once again in week one.

You know, it's funny when the Browns fans expectations are so low and that they somehow still crush them, somehow that team manages to just stab the knife in the heart of their fans over and over again because they played so well on Sunday.

They really did.

Their defense was really good.

They were incredible in the second half with the holding the Bengals to seven yards and you know the, and then of course, so now it's the kicker that, you know, it's some, it's this, it's that, it's every week it's a new thing.

And so this week was the kicker.

The new kid panics, can't make an extra point, misses a gimme field goal with two minutes left.

It is just so.

It's going to be so painful to be a Browns fan and my heart goes out to my friend Joe.

It really doesn't because I really enjoy talking about it.

But it's so bad there and, and it just has to feel like, well, this is going to be the same story again.

Even though expectations are low, the over under wins for them are very low.

It's to, to do that to your fans again.

Week one was just, it was just not right.

You know, I have quite a few Cleveland fans that I work with because we're, you know, we're in that triangle where we're very close to Cleveland and they're Actually, some of them had a lot more hope than they had going into week one because it was just such a dumpster fire with the whole, you know, five or six quarterbacks that they had and, you know, didn't draft any offensive lineman and they knew they needed offensive line help and, you know, know, just some.

A lot of mysterious things going on during the off season.

Well, after playing the Bengals, so, you know, really tit for tat the whole way through, actually, probably outplaying them, if you look at it from a lot of aspects.

And to lose, by the way, they did, you know, off of the dumb luck of a kicker missing that extra point, you know, or the field goal.

What do I forget what he missed that.

Both.

Both.

Yeah, he missed both.

They actually have hope that maybe they're better than they thought they were going in.

So.

Well, they call it hope.

I would call it delusion, because.

Because that is.

That's the game you have to win.

You know, that.

That.

That's.

That's the one.

You have to.

At some point, you have to win those games.

When things.

When you're doing most things well, then you also have to actually win, because if you find a way to lose, even if it's at your own hand in a lot of ways that you can sometimes try to rationalize, as, you know, well, next week, the kid won't miss them.

But then, you know what will happen next week?

Someone will jump off sides on fourth down.

Somebody will drop a pass, There'll be a terrible fumble.

You know, next week it'll be something new.

And that's sort of the.

That's the.

The.

The endless cycle of hell for Browns fans, I think, is even when things are going well, they really aren't.

Well, they got to live by the old adage.

You can't let one bad play or one missed call cost you a game.

If it comes down to that, then you're not playing up to your potential, so.

And that quarterback down in Tampa kind of lighting it up constantly.

Can't make them feel much better.

Yeah.

Really put some salt into the wound, I'm sure.

Yeah.

All right.

Yes.

So, we ready to talk about last week's results?

I am ready to talk about last week.

You should be.

You should be.

So the good news here for.

For me is that I am the judge, jury, and executioner of our.

Tabulating our scores here.

So I've come up with.

That might be bad news for me, then.

Well, we'll see.

You'll.

You'll have to see.

Well, so the way it works is, you know, we each make these five bold predictions and I have a zero, one or two point scale.

So if you, if you nail it you get two points.

If you miss it you get zero.

If I, if I decide that you were pretty close, you know, but you had the right idea but it was not quite that you.

Well, we'll split the difference and we'll give one point point.

If you think you have been robbed then you can bring it up to the arbitration council who is also.

The arbitration council exists of me.

So, so you can look, you can look forward to that.

So we will start with, we'll start with my picks from, from last week.

We'll go through them pretty quickly so we can get on to our picks for week two.

But I had the Chargers beating the Chiefs in Brazil.

I got off to a great start.

Not only did they win that game, but I felt like they absolutely looked like the better team in the game.

You know, it was.

I'm not, I'm not ready to say they are, but they certainly looked like the better team Friday.

Yeah, you were all over that one.

Yeah, definitely.

Great, great prediction.

And that's where the all over stops because then we go to my next four and it's going to be all swings and misses.

So I had, I had the Falcons beating the Bucs kind of like of a side prediction of on their way to the winning division and they certainly could have won but you know, Baker got it done at the end.

Penix got him down and really kind of did his job.

And then another missed kick, you know.

Kind of another kicker situation and I.

Was disappointed in that because I wanted to be right but also I kind of wanted that game to keep going.

That would have sent us to overtime.

That was a fun game to watch but so I missed that.

And then I really whiffed badly on the Lions showing everybody that they are not done yet and beating the packers by six or more.

That was never in doubt.

The packers dominated that game.

It was over early and like I said, the offensive line was, was troubling to watch.

So missed that one badly.

I also did not get correct that I thought the saints QBs were going to have a hilariously bad day and their offense would be putrid.

It was not good per se but they didn't do anything humiliating.

They didn't do anything embarrassing.

They.

There's nothing that was eye poppingly bad on the stat sheet or anything like that Rattler did.

Okay, so I was off there.

I thought it was going to be really really ugly and embarrassing.

And it wasn't.

It wasn't good, but it wasn't what I predicted it would be.

And then the last one is also a pretty big whiff.

I had the Panthers winning a close game in Jacksonville and Travis Hunter making at least one big splash play.

Neither of those things happened.

Not even close really.

I think he caught one pass right.

And didn't.

I didn't really.

And he didn't play a lot of snaps on defense, which was interesting.

But.

And then the Jags won that game easily.

So I wound up with two points for the week.

Darren, out of.

Out of a possible 10.

Okay.

Well, you know, I, I thought you had some good picture because I thought the Atlanta Tampa Bay one was interesting and I was watching that one and I was actually kind of rooting for you to be right on that one because it was just such a brave pick.

But yeah, that missed kick really killed him at the end.

So now we move on to yours.

And you did.

You did better.

You did better.

You missed on your first one.

The Cam Ward did not have a rushing touchdown in Denver.

You're right that he didn't have a passing touchdown either because the Titans didn't score any touchdowns, but he did not have a rushing touchdown.

He didn't do a whole lot with his legs in general.

So you got a goose egg on that one.

You nail.

The opposite of me, of course was you nailed the packers winning by two scores over the Lions.

That's a big two points for you right there.

You were all over that excellent pick Burrow.

Five touchdowns.

Darren.

Didn'T really come very close though, did he?

He barely had five yards in the second half.

Right.

So.

So, so yeah, that was a.

The Cleveland defense really did a nice job on him.

If you go and look at some stats, I was actually going to send them to you after we did our picks.

I think of Burroughs started like, I don't know what it is like 50 games in his career now.

I think five, four or five of his worst EPA games are all against the Browns.

So the Browns have had a lot of answers for him over the years.

You are going to get two points though for Geno Smith having his best day passing pretty much as a pro.

He.

You said he'd have 400 yards.

He went for 362.

I'm giving you all the two points on that because I think what you were really saying was that Gino was going to light up the Patriots and have a career day and he did and they won.

So I think that's you.

You.

You.

You were on that and nailed it.

Oh, well, thank you.

Thank you.

There you go.

And then the last one is you also get no points for that terrible Cardinal Saints game.

You had their, their defensive special team scoring at least twice and kind of dominating and that did not happen.

It was a fairly easy win for the Cardinals.

It wasn't, you know.

Well, I guess the Saints did have the ball there at the end, but their defense did not dominate the game.

Well, compared to my Burroughs 5 touchdown pick, that one looked a lot better.

Yes, that was better.

So at the end of, at the conclusion of week one, the, the art.

The.

The judge rules.

Darren wins week one four points to two.

All right, I got a. I got an early lead.

Thanks for your spot.

It's time to catch up now.

All right.

I went first last week, so why don't you go first this week?

All right.

Well, I took a lot of flak last week from Lions fans across the country here, especially some.

Some of my podcast friends that have some Lions things.

Well, this week is.

It's not to get them off my back because they did apologize a few of them, but I'm going to go into some, some Lions things that I think are going to happen here.

I think the Lions are going to come back and roar this week as.

And I'm going to predict that St. Brown and Gibbs are going to combine for three touchdowns between the two of them and a Lions win this weekend.

I think that's a good pick.

I was leaning towards making some sort of Lions pick.

I kind of backed off a little bit based on the.

I think I want to see the O line one more week, but I kind of like that.

So three touchdowns combined for St. Brown and Gibbs.

All right, got it, Got it.

What you got?

I'm going to start Thursday night and this is a hesitation for me because I usually don't like to make predictions about my own team because I am very caught up in all of the different bias that happens when you talk about your own team.

So often I'm too pessimistic and sometimes you can be too optimistic.

But after what I saw from the commanders on Sunday in sort of a very subtle way that I don't think a lot of people, maybe they were just kind of glancing at that game with Z is I really, really liked what I saw.

I think they are going to go into Green Bay on Thursday night and win that game outright.

I think they're gonna, they're gonna win their four point underdogs, but they're gonna go in and they're gonna win.

They're not just gonna cover, they're gonna win the game.

Daniels is gonna have a big game.

But the number one thing that really stood out to me is the the commanders have seven guys on defense that played significant snaps on Sunday that were not on the team last year.

So I think that's something that went under the radar with their GM Adam Peters signing a lot of guys up front and back end and they I realize the Giants are not an offensive juggernaut or anywhere close, but that was complete and utter domination from our defense of the likes of which we haven't seen in a long, long time.

First time in five years they didn't allow a touchdown.

So this the pick isn't just a Jaden Daniels will be a hero pick.

The pick is commanders will go in Thursday night, beat the packers and they will look like the better team.

Well, I couldn't agree with you more actually.

That's one of my picks.

I'm just going to move it up here as my second pick in agreement with you because I think first of all I think Green Bay is going to be on a little bit of a letdown.

That was a big emotional win for them beating the Lions who sort of getting in their way the last couple years especially.

And I have the commanders are going to be too much for the pack at Lambeau, but I'm going to have them score the winning points in the last minute of the game to overcome the Packers.

Well now I kind of want to change my pick there and I was hoping that maybe I would be him now.

Now, now you have me, nerd.

Now we're totally.

Now it's a double jinx.

Yeah, I might have jinxed you now.

Yeah, now it's a.

So now at least I know who to blame.

Well when we do this next week.

But okay.

Commander's last minute.

Well, I can tell you this.

If, if, if number five has the ball in the last minute, I'm feeling pretty confident too.

So I don't think that's a bad pick.

If he repeats anything he did last year.

Look how many of those last second wins they had last year with some, some miraculous plays.

So yes, they were all right.

So I'm going to move on to another amazing quarterback and I'm going to say that Patrick Mahomes bounces back and has three or more touchdowns in their game against the Eagles.

I think this is touchdown passes, three or more touchdown passes and has a big day against the Eagles.

I'M not really ready to pick a winner in that game, but I think Mahomes, at the very least is going to bounce back even with all the missing receivers, and he's going to find a way to get it done.

He's going to throw over three or more touchdown passes and he's going to give the Eagles defense some fits that he did not give them in the Super Bowl.

Yeah, my one question I was going to ask you, who's he going to throw to?

But that's an interesting pick, especially against the world champs.

But hey, it could be that revenge game from that super bowl loss they had last year.

The Eagles may sneakily have a little bit of an issue at corner as well.

CD Lamp was all over them when he wasn't dropping passes on Thursday.

Yeah, it should be an interesting game to watch.

I like the pick.

All right.

All right.

Well, I'm going to go out to the west coast on my next one, and I'm going to say that Matthew Stafford is going to throw for 330 plus and three touchdowns against the Titans.

Not a big stretch of imagination, not a big, bold pick, but I think it's a solid pick.

How many touchdowns?

Three.

Right.

Well, you know what?

It's a really good segue because that game is my next pick as well.

I'm flipping it, though.

Titans are going to win that game outright.

Titans are going to win.

Titans are going to beat the Rams.

I saw a lot of things I liked in the Titans defense on Sunday in Denver, and the Rams defense, while very good, is probably not quite the caliber of the Broncos, and it's also not mile high.

I think that the.

The Titans show up at home, keep it close, and then win the game against the Rams outright.

Wow, that is a bold prediction.

All right.

And there's no way that both of us are going to be right on that.

Yeah, that.

That would be tough.

That would be for the Titans to win if Stafford's throwing for three touchdowns.

So we're head to head on that one for sure.

Okay, there we go.

There's a.

A tiebreaker at least.

There you go.

All right, so I'm gonna go with the team you just talked about, the Broncos.

I think that the Broncos defense is so good that this week they're going to hold the powerful Colts offense, who scored 33 points last week, to hold them to 15 points or less.

I like it.

I think that's a really.

I think it's a really good pick.

I've got no issue with that.

I could see that as well.

I really think that the Colts offensive explosion had a lot more to do with the Dolphins than the Colts, most likely.

That's definitely a show me, prove it to me again kind of thing for the Colts and they are up against a really, really good defense with Denver.

Yeah.

And so my fourth one is we'll go back to the Browns.

I think this is a really bad spot for the Browns.

Catching the Ravens on the road after what happened on Sunday night, which was a kind of a calamity for the Ravens.

I think the Ravens bounce back big.

I think they beat the Browns by three scores.

So I'm going to say 17 or more points.

The Browns defense might be game for a little while in that game, but it won't, they won't be able to hold up and the Ravens will win that game by 17 or more.

I think that's a solid pick because I think Baltimore's a little disappointed in themselves.

They let that one slip away Monday night, which one of the great games of, you know, the last five, ten years.

And for it to happen in week one on Monday Night Football.

That's Cap for espn.

A gutless and stupid decision in my opinion, for my Harbaugh at the end of that game to not go for it.

I know people are saying you got it.

You got a punt on fourth and three.

I think that punt was almost borderline conceding a loss.

There's no way they could have realistically felt they were going to stop Allen from getting into field goal range.

They should have put that ball in Lamar's hands, say, let's get three yards and go home.

Yeah, well, that game saved my fantasy team because I told you I had Jamar Chase.

I also had Josh Allen who really helped me out in that game and extending all those points at the end.

So it really helped.

Excellent.

Excellent.

All right, well, I'm going to go a little bit big here.

I don't know how big this is, but I'm going to go to Tampa Bay and say that the Bucks are going to roll the Texans by double digit digits in Houston.

Okay, well, that is not one of my picks, but I really don't like that one because I think that I think the Texans are going to win that game.

So I would be opposite you, but that is not, that is not my fifth pick.

I, I think the Texans bounce back on Monday night and beat the Bucks in a probably pretty close game, but I think they bounce back.

My last one is also on Monday night.

The second Monday night game was in, in Vegas and I'm going to be very specific here.

The Chargers are going to beat the Raiders, but they're going to do it at the, at the buzzer.

You know, it's either going to be overtime or last minute.

It's going to be very close and the game will not be decided until less than 60 seconds left.

And the Chargers are going to win.

They're going to kind of win a heart.

They're going to break the Vegas's heart a little bit.

But people will come out of that game thinking, hey, maybe the Raiders are for real because they're going to be one and one with a really close loss to the Chargers.

So you're going to say this Coach Harbaugh out on the west coast isn't going to let us hand off the throttle at the end.

No, this, this Harbaugh is a little.

They're different for sure.

But this hardball will get the job done at the end.

All right, well, I, I think I like that pick too.

That's a, that's a great pick.

I, I've got a couple bonuses like I did last year or last week.

Actually just one big bonus.

I think you got some teams that are in big trouble.

They're going to go 02 and I think that's going to be the Panthers.

Titans, Dolphins, Browns and Giants are all going to sink to 02 and start thinking about next season and where they are in the draft pick.

All right, well, I think I'm gonna read that list one more time.

Panthers, Titans, Dolphins, Browns and Giants.

I know you disagree with the Titans already.

I disagree.

The Titans, I, I'm gonna agree with the Giants, although I think they're gonna keep that game close.

I think that's a game where I would like maybe the Giants maybe cover the spread and keep it close, keep it tight.

And I also think there's a chance that the Panthers could upset the Cardinals in the desert.

That was a game that was on my radar as maybe a bounce back game.

I know that goes contrary to me talking about Bryce Young and time to give up on him.

But that's a game that just looks a little fishy to me and that an upset there wouldn't surprise me, but I did not have the guts to call it.

So there you go.

Yeah, I, I think we got some interesting picks again this week and it should be some great conversation next week when we get back together to see the results of this and talk about week three with our big bold predictions.

Thanks for having me, Darren.

I'll see you next week.

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