The Sporting Tribune Today

Grant and John Browner break down a wild Monday night: the Rams beat the Giants 28-6, and Aaron Donald played 58% of the snaps in his first game in years, drawing seven double teams and never once getting pushed around. John's comparison is Michael Jordan's baseball-to-basketball return — except Donald looked nothing like a shell of himself. But the story of the night is Jaxson Dart's knee injury, caught on a live mic as a Giants trainer told John Harbaugh "four to six weeks." John explains why that changes everything for New York — Jameis Winston looked like one of the most unprepared backup quarterbacks either of them has ever seen, and the run-heavy identity the Giants built around Dart simply doesn't exist with him at quarterback. The good news: their upcoming schedule is soft enough to survive it. Then Tim Parker returns for the Chiefs-Colts recap — Kansas City looks like the clear class of the AFC West again, Kenneth Walker has 369 scrimmage yards through two games, and John's Terrell Davis/John Elway comparison explains exactly why Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes look dangerous again. It closes with Mykell Mathieu and E Lamb joining live from SoFi — congratulations to E Lamb on a recent journalism award — breaking down Davante Adams' vintage game on offense and the defensive line's return to form.

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Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

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Grant and John Browner open with the worst news of the weekend: Caleb Williams left the Bears' loss to Minnesota with a non-contact hamstring injury, and John gives the game ball to Vikings DC Brian Flores for completely scrambling a Chicago offense that had scored 59 points the week before. Tim Parker joins to call it a tragedy for a Bears franchise that's never had a real championship quarterback — and just watched one go down with the NFC wide open.

Then the recurring fight nobody can resolve: the Eagles escaped Tennessee on a Jalen Hurts game-winning drive, and Tim defends him as a winner while John questions whether two wins over the league's bottom tier mean anything with a diminished offensive line and no AJ Brown. Tim floats a wild theory — the Bears upset the Eagles next — and puts Week 4's Rams-Eagles matchup on his calendar as the real test. Plus the Ravens revert to old form in a stunning loss to Kellen Moore's Saints, the Texans implode again against Cincinnati with CJ Stroud under real pressure, and John absolutely erupts on the Chargers' wide receiver room after a 0-2 start — "this is malpractice." It closes with John admitting he was wrong about Kirk Cousins and the Raiders.

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Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

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Grant and John Browner react to Thursday night's blowout: Buffalo dominated Detroit 41-31, jumping to a 27-7 halftime lead and getting five combined passing/rushing touchdowns from Josh Allen across two games. Josh Tariff joins to make the case this is a genuinely different Bills team under new head coach Joe Brady, while John isn't so sure — Buffalo's still one dropped pick away from being 0-2. DJ Moore left with a shoulder scare that turns out to be a stinger, and Detroit's defense has now allowed 71 points and nearly 1,000 total yards through two weeks. John wonders aloud whether Dan Campbell has lost his magic now that both coordinators are gone, floating the idea that the Lions may have already missed their championship window. Tim Parker joins for the back half, defends the Lions, then pivots hard into the Eagles — he wants a formal apology for Jalen Hurts after Sunday's win, and a debate breaks out over whether Hurts, DeVonta Smith and Saquon Barkley even count as "weapons" without AJ Brown in the lineup.

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Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

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Grant and John Browner kick off Week 2 with the Thursday night marquee: Buffalo hosting Detroit in the first real game at the new Highmark Stadium, with both taking the Bills to build on their Week 1 escape. Steve Cofield joins with the picks nobody else is making — sharp money on the Texans over the Bengals despite Cincinnati's Week 1 win, the Broncos favored at home off a bad loss, and the one that stops the show cold: the Colts plus 6.5 against the Chiefs in Kansas City. John can't let it go. Along the way, John unloads on the Chargers' offseason at wide receiver — the Marquez Valdes-Scantling signing gets torched line by line — and questions whether the Colts' front office actually knows what it's doing after publicly criticizing its own coaching staff. Josh Tariff arrives for the back half: a lopsided Eagles-Titans line that should be much bigger, Cam Ward's alarming start, a Giants team with nothing to lose against the Rams that has John fuming, and a Cowboys-Commanders debate that ends with John begging Dak Prescott not to let the Lord down.

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Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

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It's finally official. Kawhi Leonard is a Raptor, Grady Dick and Brandon Ingram are Clippers, and LA gets a pick swap plus two unprotected first-rounders in 2031 and 2033 — which John Browner says was essential, because going forward with no picks for five years takes the legs out from under a franchise nobody trusts in free agency anymore. Then he drops the take of the night: this Toronto team will be worse than last year's Clippers. Ten Eastern Conference teams he'd put ahead of them, and a vibes-and-chemistry group that loses its chemistry the moment Kawhi walks in. Grant zags hard — 27.9 points a game, All-NBA second team, seventh in MVP voting, added to an already elite defense — and calls Toronto a contender. Beav joins to exhale, and John pitches the reset: shop everybody but Keaton Wagler. Trust the process, and hope you land on your Embiid. David Bloom makes his SportsGrid debut with the prom metaphor that explains the entire Kawhi era, plus the Paul George-for-Jaylen Brown fallout in Boston, a wide-open MLB playoff race, and which Week 1 injury actually changes a season — John says there's only one answer, and it isn't Myles Garrett.

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Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

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Week 1 is officially in the books, and the Chiefs closed it by clobbering the defending AFC West champions. Grant and John Browner explain why this is a fundamentally different Kansas City team: four straight runs to open the game, 38 carries total, Kenneth Walker going 23 for 173, and John's comparison of the night to Denver pairing Terrell Davis with John Elway. Patrick Mahomes looked rough coming off major knee surgery and it didn't matter — because Eric Bieniemy is back calling plays and Matt Nagy is as far from him as the organization could manage. On the other side, Denver was atrocious: 176 total yards, nine first downs, only 15 carries, and a quarterback who couldn't keep hold of the football. John gives Bo Nix grace (you cannot simulate a football game) but lays out the brutal next five weeks and the rule nobody escapes: you don't win eleven one-score games two years in a row. Josh Tariff joins with the trivia stat of the season — the Jets, Giants, Raiders and Cardinals have never all started 1-0 until now — plus Kirk Cousins leading the AFC West in passer rating, John's argument that Fernando Mendoza would have won that same game and actually electrified Raider Nation, and a spirited disagreement about what sports broadcasts should be putting on screen.

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Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

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Late Sunday, Steve Ballmer blinked: the Clippers will comply with the NBA's punishment rather than pursue legal action — a complete reversal from the book-length letter to Adam Silver and weeks of denials, and the franchise's first statement to its fans since any of this began. Grant calls it the right call and the only real one, pointing to the 2000 Timberwolves, who complied and got two of five picks back. John's verdict lands harder: you just watched one of the richest men in the world be held accountable, and when there was nothing left to do but comply, he complied like everybody else. His theory on the timing — dropped on Sunday night, while the Bears were scoring 59 — is worth the price of admission. Before that, the full Week 1 Sunday wrap: John got bamboozled by the Cowboys for the twenty-seventh straight year as the Giants won the John Harbaugh opener on pure physicality, the Chargers were the upset of the week and it wasn't close, Caleb Williams was the best quarterback of the weekend in a 59-point explosion, Josh Allen and DJ Moore made a statement in Houston, and the Vikings won anyway after losing Kyler Murray — which may mean you never see JJ McCarthy again.

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Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

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49ers 27, Rams 7 — and Grant is angrier than he's been since last October. John Browner calls it the most gutless performance he's seen under Sean McVay and, for the first time in McVay's career, uses the words coaching malpractice. The reigning MVP looked like old-school Detroit Stafford, Myles Garrett didn't make the stat sheet in his Rams debut, and Trent Williams put him in a jail cell. E Lamb joins with the receipts: Stafford was pressured on 44% of his dropbacks, the highest rate in any game since the start of last season, Raheem Morris knew the book because he helped write it, and the Rams actually did their homework on the travel — they sent four players to Australia last year. John's response: they should have sent 400, because that's bad data. Then Beav arrives and diagnoses the whole thing in seven minutes: the Rams are bad at linebacker, the 3-4 makes it worse, chip Garrett all day and he becomes a shell, and every bit of it can be carbon-copied by the next smart coordinator. Plus the blame pie (sports science gets 10%), Grant's McVay reckoning — one Super Bowl since 2017 with super team after super team — and credit where it's due: Brock Purdy earned his money, Deebo looks like Deebo, and Mike Evans cooked LA on one hamstring.

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Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

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The season starts tomorrow, so the crew launches a weekly tradition: every game that matters, picked on the record. Grant and John Browner open with the Wednesday-night Super Bowl rematch (John takes the Patriots, because this is AJ Brown's "told y'all it wasn't me" game), then the Melbourne main event — Aaron Donald won't play Week 1, and John doesn't care: Rams by 14, because it's still the best front four in football without him. Steve Cofield joins from Las Vegas fading BOTH Super Bowl teams and taking the Niners plus the points ("they traveled more wisely"), the rapid-fire round produces instant classics — Browns-Jaguars is a poo poo platter, Jets-Titans is the league's first Fired Bowl, and the survivor pool has exactly two teams this week — and Cardinals-Chargers gets the 40-burger forecast as Mike McDaniel finally meets the quarterback of his dreams. Then Tim Parker crashes the SportsGrid version of the show swinging: you're wrong about the Eagles, wrong about the Raiders, and Jalen Hurts was damn near a Super Bowl MVP in a loss — while John counters that Howie Roseman has covered for him since day one, and that every Raiders loss with Kirk Cousins under center will be crucified, rightfully so. It ends with Tim's tossed-salad theory of the AFC West.

New episodes weekday mornings. Follow the crew on X.

Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

NFL week is finally here, and the crew previews the entire NFC division by division. Grant and John Browner open with the North — the division of No. 1 picks, where John argues any team could finish first OR last and it would all make sense, the Lions question is really a Dan Campbell question, and the Vikings are his shocker because Kyler Murray just landed with the league's second-best quarterback whisperer. Mykell Mathieu takes the West (pick the Rams in any video game you want; don't sleep on Seattle), the East brings John's annual confession — he hates the Cowboys, and this could be the year anyway, with George Pickens about to look like Randy Moss — and the South gets the seventy-second treatment it deserves, minus a warning: don't poke Baker Mayfield. Then Josh Tariff drops the board of the night: for the first time ever, ZERO repeat division winners, two worst-to-first stories (the Lions and the Saints), the Chargers as the AFC's No. 1 seed, and the prediction he refuses to walk back — the Eagles miss the playoffs. John closes with the Bengals in the AFC title game and the Lamar Jackson problem nobody in Baltimore wants to admit. Week 1 picks on the next show.

New episodes weekday mornings. Follow the crew on X.

Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.