| AUGUST 17 TAKES — BOOGER McFARLAND (APPROX. TIME) | |
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1 MIN | BIG CAT
Ty Simpson will develop into a meaningful NFL quarterback. Big Cat is “buying stock” after Simpson played on time, avoided mistakes and delivered exactly the kind of controlled preseason performance Sean McVay wanted.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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5 MIN | HANK
Anthony Richardson still has a real chance to become a successful NFL quarterback. Hank remains a believer because Richardson is such an athletic “freak” that he is unwilling to give up on the upside.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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21 MIN | PFT COMMENTER vs MAX
LeBron James will release at least one golf video during the NBA season, with PFT taking the over on 0.5 videos even though Max insists LeBron will stop making golf content once the season begins.
⚠️ Max says it “just won’t happen.”
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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33 MIN | BIG CAT
Cardinals rookie Joshua Baez looks destined to become an enduring problem for the Cubs and “seems like he’s going to be incredible” after homering in his first three major-league at-bats.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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39 MIN | HANK
Christian McCaffrey will be “just fine” despite missing a full week of practice with vaguely described tightness.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 7 MIN | PFT COMMENTER
LIV Golf will survive another round of doom-and-gloom reporting and could return stronger than ever, making the people quietly investing in its comeback—and Hank—rich.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 25 MIN | BOOGER McFARLAND
The Rams will eventually regret spending the pick on Ty Simpson rather than drafting a contributor for this season. Simpson’s encouraging preseason debut does not change Booger’s belief that it was a bad allocation of the pick.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 30 MIN | BOOGER McFARLAND
Lane Kiffin will continue withholding LSU’s No. 9 until a sufficiently special recruit asks for it, at which point he will allow that player to wear the number.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 39 MIN | BIG CAT
Oregon will be really good, but Georgia will be “sick”: its young defense will mature into something much closer to the punishing units that powered Kirby Smart’s national championships.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 40 MIN | BIG CAT + BOOGER McFARLAND
Georgia will return to the College Football Playoff as its young defense matures and its physical running game controls the line of scrimmage. Booger is “engaged” to the Bulldogs and says they will “run you clean up out of your building.”
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 41 MIN | BOOGER McFARLAND
Notre Dame is one of the best teams in the country and a legitimate national-title contender, with an outstanding C.J. Carr, a powerful running game, the country’s best secondary and what Booger considers the best all-around head coach in Marcus Freeman.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 43 MIN | BIG CAT
Notre Dame will win 11 games and make the College Football Playoff because its favorable schedule and C.J. Carr’s composure should allow a very good team to pile up wins.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 44 MIN | BIG CAT
Wisconsin’s defense will be really good after Luke Fickell abandoned the Air Raid experiment and returned the program to its traditional formula of offensive-line play, running the ball and stout defense.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 45 MIN | BOOGER McFARLAND
USC’s defense will be really good, and this is the most talented team Lincoln Riley has had there—but Riley’s ability to evolve offensively and finally deliver in major games will determine whether the Trojans capitalize on it.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 49 MIN | BOOGER McFARLAND
Penn State will take a step backward under Matt Campbell, and even if the regret is not immediate, several seasons around 8–4 or 9–3 will eventually leave fans yearning for James Franklin’s dependable 10-win teams.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 51 MIN | BIG CAT
Kyle Pitts will score six touchdowns next season, seven the following year and eight the year after that because he has increased his total by exactly one touchdown in every season of his career.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 55 MIN | BOOGER McFARLAND
The challengers will win both quarterback battles discussed: Kyler Murray over J.J. McCarthy in Minnesota and Tua Tagovailoa over Michael Penix Jr. in Atlanta. Booger’s rule is that an incumbent has effectively lost once his organization imports serious competition.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 56 MIN | BOOGER McFARLAND
Deshaun Watson will start Cleveland’s season and get at least four starts because the Browns will try to extract something from their enormous investment before potentially turning to Shedeur Sanders.
⚠️ PFT calls Booger’s economic rationale a sunk-cost fallacy.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 57 MIN | BOOGER McFARLAND
The Browns could become the surprise team of the AFC because Watson will be better than people expect and Cleveland still has a legitimate defense and several promising young playmakers.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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1 HR 59 MIN | BIG CAT
The Texans will be a dangerous AFC team if C.J. Stroud can merely improve to a little better than average, because their defense is elite and their rebuilt offensive line should allow them to run the ball more effectively.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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2 HR 1 MIN | PFT COMMENTER
Trevor Lawrence will be the better quarterback to have next season than C.J. Stroud because his productive relationship with Liam Coen should continue developing, while Stroud may never return to his rookie-year level.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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2 HR 5 MIN | BOOGER McFARLAND
The SEC’s move to a nine-game conference schedule will hurt the league, and Booger would not be surprised if the SEC fails to win the national championship this season because NIL and the transfer portal have allowed other programs to close the talent gap.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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2 HR 8 MIN | BIG CAT
The Lions are the team everyone has forgotten and will be really good this season because many of last year’s losses came in close games.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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2 HR 9 MIN | PFT COMMENTER
If Washington misses the playoffs, Dan Quinn will be fired and the Commanders will pursue a young offensive-minded coach to pair with Jayden Daniels.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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2 HR 11 MIN | BIG CAT
Todd Bowles will be fired. During the hot-seat discussion, Big Cat goes beyond merely calling Bowles vulnerable and declares twice, “Todd Bowles is fired.”
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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2 HR 12 MIN | BOOGER McFARLAND
Joe Brady's first season as head coach of the Bills won't be considered a success unless he gets them to the Super Bowl.
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CONVICTION 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 GRADE TBD |
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The Podbudsment
Booger delivered a double-sized donut box of takes this week, most significant of them being his flag-planting on Notre Dame winning it all. What he's seeing in Deshaun Watson is not what the rest of us are seeing, however, and PFT did a good job pushing back on Booger's logic.
I don't know how Max is going to survive having to be a LeBron apologist for the next two years. You can already hear his willpower fading in the face of the PMT hazing and the Eagles may leave Max soulless before the NBA season even gets going.
The Netflix viewing experience not having any secondary visuals to help contextualize the Idiot Jazz of hand-to-ground distance really, really hurt this week's pod. I can visualize Shaq/Simone Biles and Aaron Judge/Jose Altuve standing next to each other, but dammit I need it in the video pod to land the joke even harder. My hands are 25.5" from the ground.