Predictions for Aaron Rodgers & Steelers vs. Jets | THE HERD NFL w/ Colin Cowherd

Colin Cowherd is joined by Eric Mangini to react to the latest in the NFL. They start with talking about Aaron Rodgers facing his former team in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ season opener against the New York Jets. Then they discuss Brian Schottenheimer’s head coaching debut for the Dallas Cowboys. They also talk about the Philadelphia Eagles only targeting wide receiver A.J. Brown once in their season opener. Then they discuss Jim Harbaugh and the Los Angeles Chargers opening their season in Brazil against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. Finally, they end by discussing North Carolina Head Coach Bill Belichick banning New England Patriots scouts from their facility.

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Welcome to the Herds official YouTube channel. Make sure to like and subscribe. Don’t forget to check out the Colin Coward podcast. All of our NFL instant reactions and more football content. It is interesting. I mean, Pittsburgh’s got a new quarterback, a new left tackle, a new top running back, a new wide receiver, and Eric Aaron’s always been an interesting guy and where, you know, he’s a smart guy. So, you’d think, you know, I he doesn’t mind learning new stuff, but Aaron also, you know, can’t teach an old dog new tricks. He he likes what he likes. And I look at Aaron’s struggles in season openers and I think the Jets actually have some very interesting personnel defensively. What do you think Aaron Rogers Steelers season opener looks like against this former team? Well, it should be really good. He actually has more experience at Metife than he does playing in Pittsburgh, so he should be very comfortable there. the last time he played there against the Dolphins at the end of last season, he threw four touchdowns and one pick and had one of his best games as a Jet. The other thing is he actually has a better understanding of Jets defensive personnel than anybody on the Steelers. He spent all that time with them. So, he’s got the understanding of the personnel. He’s comfortable playing the stadium. His last game there was was pretty good. He’s got the most tenured head coach in an organization that that has, you know, absolute function as opposed to dysfunction against a rookie head coach. It should it should line up as well as it could line up for him in an opener. Now, I know as a coach, uh, you you you know, you could say there’s no good losses, but I came out of the Dallas loss last night. I mean, Shottenheimimer was buttoned up. They had very few penalties. Their clock management end of the first half was strong. More yards per play. Dak moved. I worried about Dak’s movement. I thought he moved very well. I came out of that game and if you’d never seen those two teams play, your takeaway was Dallas matches up well. What did you make of it? Yeah. So, remember when we talked when Brian got the job and I said I felt that Brian Shottenheimr was as deserving as any of these other Yeah. guys who were getting their first time opportunity and and you saw that last night. He was he was very poised. He was very comfortable. You’re playing the defending Super Bowl champions the night that they open or that they drop the banner and the opening of of the NFL season on the road. It is a night game. You have the weather delay. You’ve got a quarterback that’s coming back from an injury. You’ve got to call the game as well. they’ve just traded away arguably your best defensive player or your one of your best players. So, you’ve got all that turmoil and then they come out and and you look at these two teams and you think that Brian had been coaching for a long time. I thought uh I thought the the operation at the end of the first half was a really good indicator of how disciplined this team is. And then take a look at what they did about Saquon and Jerry talked about stopping the run. Saquon Barkley averaged 3.3 yards a carry. That’s his second lowest average in the last year. The only time he was held to a lower average was against Cleveland last year in uh October. I think it was like October 14th where he averaged 2.4 yards a carry. So they talked about stopping the run. They held Saquon Barkley to his second lowest average. That’s that’s impressive in itself. And you got to give Matt Eberloose a lot of credit for for that as well. And and think of the opportunities they had to win the game. So, we talk about the the CD Lamb drops. There’s multiple. There’s three huge ones. What about Miles Sanders fumble? Yeah, that’s huge. What about George Pickkins penalty on the 11 yd line? That’s huge. Huge. So, that you’ve got you’ve got these gigantic plays that that change the nature of the game. But, if I’m a Dallas Cowboys fan, I’m really excited. this this if if they can play like this, they’re going to be in the mix for the playoffs w without a doubt. They they should be in the mix. And and you got to give Dak a ton of credit. He looked he looked like a guy that deserves $60 million. like he looked like a legitimate franchise quarterback leader and and you you have to wake up in Dallas so much more excited about the season than than you did prior to the game. I’m glad you mentioned the pickins uh penalty because that forced them back. They could have scored on the next play. If if that doesn’t happen, they had momentum. It was a really bad penalty. Um, AJ Brown, one target. And I, you know, I’ve, you have joked about this before, probably off air. I think certain things in life are luxuries. Like a watch, a great watch. I got my phone. A, a nice watch is a luxury. If you can afford it, buy it. I tend to think wide receivers, you know, are a little bit more of a luxury than a necessity with a team with a great run game. I When you target him one time, Eric, that’s something. Isn’t it something? Well, here’s here’s where I give the Philadelphia Eagles a lot of credit. Now, here’s why I give Jaylen Herz a lot of credit. He’s noisy and he’s going to make noisy this season. He was noisy last season with the book on the sideline and everybody dressed that up as, oh, this is something that he doesn’t know it was. And it was a very clear message last season that he was unhappy with the amount of targets he was getting. And that’s going to happen again this season. But I give them credit for staying true to what they said. We’re not going to change our identity to accommodate any one individual. And and I can tell you it is so much better to win boring than to lose an exciting game. It is so much better. And this is a formula that made Philadelphia so successful last season and will continue to make him successful. Will that make AJ Brown happy? No. But but this isn’t a one-man band and it’s not the AJ Brown show and there’s going to be a lot of opportunities for him to be the hero. Now, whether or not he can be patient enough for those opportunities, I I don’t know. What would you want to get him more in the mix, yes, and I think you can do a good job at at a beginning of a game to script a few plays to get the ball in his hands to maybe take some of the edge off the rest of the game if if this is the way you’re going to play it. All right, I want to talk about two coaches, you know, first Jim Harbaugh. He’s been very good in season openers. They’ve got Rashan Slater out for the year. Beckton uh has some sort of flu bug. He may not play. They move Joe Alt right tackle to left tackle. I’m like, “Oh my lord.” Uh your take on playing in Brazil as a coaching staff. Your thoughts on Harbaugh now trying to knock off Kansas City in that division. Where are you with the Chargers and Harbaugh? Well, I actually looked it up. So Jim has the second best opening day record of any coach in NFL history. I think the other guy I can’t remember if it’s Py Clark. It was it was from like uh 1931, the Portsmith Spartans and and also the Detroit Lions. He’s second to to him. So So he’s very good in these games. I think the fact that they’re playing in Brazil, that won’t bother Jim at all. He he’s great at embracing those things. So if you’re going to the East Coast, he’s great at embracing that. If you’re going to Brazil, he’s great at embracing that. Where sometimes that can be a a distraction. Guys can be frustrated by it. where he he he’ll celebrate that as look at this incredible opportunity we have and it it gets to be very contagious that the first game of the season is is so hard to predict because all the things that have gone on in training camp that nobody’s seen but I I would say I expect this could easily be an upset if you consider it an upset by by the Chargers uh in this game and and I’m excited to see the way that they run the football because I really like the the the young back in a Marian Hampton. I think he’s I think he’s going to be excellent. Finally, Bill Bich a story that he will not let Patriot scouts into UNCC practice. I I don’t know. What do you make of that? Why? Why? Like why do it? So now I’m a parent and I sent my son to UNCC and and there was the talk about how this is the 33rd team, you know, the 33rd NFL team and it’s going to be run like an NFL program and that’ll help your son get to the NFL. Well, well, part of that is getting your son seen by scouts. So, so to have this level of pettiness, what you’re frustrated that you got fired by the Patriots. Guess what? Everybody gets fired at some point, you know, except for a few guys here and there and and you could have retired if you wanted to. You decided not to. You got fired. That that’s we all sign up for that when you take the job. So So you’re going to be mad about that? I think that there’s so many more problems there from a playing perspective based off of how they played in their opener to focus on than to focus on whether or not you allow scouts. And and I I I don’t think people are going to suffer that type of pettiness very well, especially if you’re losing.