Ross Tucker and his thoughts heading into the 2026 Season

0:00Mike Shope. It's nothing you did. Not you it's me. It's not you. It's you. But you didn't cross me. And the bulldog. Why did I chew when I'd just stay in school? Not WGR. Sports Radio 550. Well, what a week. This is every year. The bills opener. The league. Starting week one. Picks. You and I love picks. We're great at it. Live for picks. We live for picks. Fantasy. And one more thing. Finding out where Ross is going to see like which game. White. And there's been a little bit of a change. There's a net on that landscape. Climbing the corporate ladder at CBS Sports. Is everybody Ross talking? Let's find out. Ross Tucker with us on the West. Her hotline this NFL insider call is presented by Nationwide for your insurance and financial needs. Nationwide is on your side. Hi Ross, how was your summer?

1:01It was pretty amazing actually. Awesome, awesome, off season on a lot of different levels. And now I'm ready to go. Ready to roll and get a pretty good one week one. I got the bills. Builds and the Texans. I don't know. I mean, I think I have the best game of the day. I guess I'm biased. But I did my power ranking today for the Ross Tucker football podcast. And I had, I can't remember which one. I had one of them as a fourth best team. The other one as a fifth best team. So nice. I got a matchup of two of the five best teams in the NFL scoring to me. So that's pretty good. Yeah, we were talking about you here and there in the off season wondering what would sort of shake out with CBS. And I even wondered if maybe they would give bills, Texans to nants with, you know, if it matters, if he's going to be with JJ Watt, both have Houston ties. I mean, there's a four 25 game, which, you know, I don't know

2:02what that's how it is now. But I think Green Bay Minnesota Bulldog. Is that the game? I think that's right. It's a CBS game. So good for you. That'll be cool. Here you go. It's the first time we've had a chance to talk. I mean, I know I texted you, but like in front of everybody here, I mean, congratulations, dude. Like you must be over the moon with this. Yeah, I mean, I'm super excited. Number one, this will be the first time I think since I retired. I will not call a single college football game. So I'm a little bit sad about that because I love college football and I'll miss that. But I'm very much looking forward to doing an NFL game every Sunday and kind of knew that for a while was going to be the case. And then found out more recently that I'm going to be working with IEagle and IEN and I have done a bunch of radio games for West Room 1 over the years. So it's really natural and comfortable. And it's like, it's like you guys working together for as long as you have. It just, it gets you excited when you know

3:05you've done so many games with a guy like that already. I think he's one of the best to ever do it. I don't think that that's hyperbole. I think he's hilarious. I think he's terrific at what he does. And because we've done so many radio games together, I'm just pretty pumped that more people are going to get a chance to hear what that sounds like. I already kind of have a pretty good idea of what's going to sound like in my mind. And I know TV is different, but it's not that different. I mean, still two guys talking about the game. The difference is sometimes I'll be drawing stuff on this green in the radio you're not. But I love working with IEN. I think it's going to be a blast. And it looks like from however many games we get to do together, it looks like they're really good games. Yeah, that'll be fun. Yeah, too bad about the college part of it. I mean, I guess can have everything, but no more. We won't be able to hear reports from Ross about like West Point, that stadium you love, or the day trip to Hawaii when you fly.

4:06If you have to fly to Hawaii for one day to do a game and then you're back on the plane. Well, Tuck Spread's content will take a hit here, Ross, because you're only being one press box a week now if you're just doing the NFL. Unless you have Monday night, unless you have radio on Monday night, you have some of that. I do have some radio. I don't know if it'll be the same volume as other years, but I do have some radio. In fact, I will be in my beloved Buffalo for the home opener. Sweet. That's right. Thursday night. So I actually have the first two build games. I think it's, you know, it makes a lot of sense for Westwood one to put me on that Thursday night home opener. I mean, if they're going to open up a stadium that a lot of people are saying the house that Ross Tucker built. Sure. Because of those 18 starts back in 2003, 2004, which I'm a little surprised when people are saying that, but I guess I kind of understand it. I guess I kind of understand the impact that I had on the organization two decades later.

5:07So yeah, it would be weird to have to, it would be weird to have to hear Solomon Wilcoz describe that. You know, if you were not there on the broadcast for that game, like just talking about you and your career and what you've meant to the bills when they could have picked you for it. Is he still in the game? I don't even know. So I don't know. I don't know. I do know though it's good. I'm going to walk around and try to see where they have the statue. Yeah, you got to find where they put up. You know, where, where, where I am in the ring of honor. You can look to it. It might be a while. I might have to get there early. Yeah, there it is. But I'm going to try to find my spot in the ring of honor and try to find the statue. Just trying to find all the, all the tributes to that unbelievable job. I did it right guard center and left guard. They do have something called the high mark trail, which is about a two mile trail around the stadium. And my understanding is Ross that that you're part of that statue that you're describing. I think is out near the Walmart out near the five corners. I think is where it's so it's at least it's there. You know what? That would be that would be a fitting tribute for a blue collar guy like me.

6:12I got it done. I got it done for two years. Well, for the best team to never make the playoffs to 2004 Buffalo Bill. Well, you must actually is correct. Yes. You must be full on into prep then for this game. And, you know, knowing you were going to do the game, maybe even thinking about and, and, and, you know, ruminating about the bills and what this season could be for them. I mean, we're like, what's your, what's your cold open on Sunday? How are you feeling about the 2026 bills? Well, it's interesting because I feel there's a lot of similarities between both these teams. You know, like Texans fans are just so ready for them to get over the Humphain get past the division around. They've never gotten a conference championship game. Never. They've been around since 2002 now. And the thing is it's like it's one thing to never get to the conference championship game. But they get to the visual round a lot.

7:13You know, like the last three years, in fact, they just can't kind of get over that hump. And obviously the bills you guys are very well aware have not been able to get back to the Super Bowl in a long time, even though they've been knocking on the door. So it's weird because maybe I'll even say this. I don't know, but, you know, week one is always about the optimism and the excitement and the high expectations. It feels to me a little different for these teams. It feels to me. I don't think now or never is like the right way to describe it, but there's just this general sense of like, okay, guys, it's time now. You're going to mean like it. It's like we've been knocking on the door, knocking on the door and the bills have been knocking on the door, logging in Texans, but it's time. I think the difference is that the bills made more drastic changes in order to try to knock the door down, you know, promoting the OC to head coach, firing the head coach, you

8:17know, obviously the new decorinator. So I'm really curious to see how it goes with Jimmy Leonard, former team in a mine, and to see what Brady's like as a head coach and how they come out, you know, obviously I went back and watched the week 12 game against the Texans last year. Man, that was ugly. That was really, really ugly. They better play better than that. I know that much because they were fortunate to even really be in that game. The Ray Davis kickoff return, co-cut along, touchdown run, you know, I just think the Texans defense is as legit as legit gets. And so I'm greatly looking forward to it. I would think that the bills would have a better plan for blocking Daniel Hunter and Roy Anderson in this game than they did in week 12 last year. They lost their year before also and that game wasn't pretty either.

9:21Alan went nine for 30, a stat line, you almost can't even believe, but that was in Houston in 2024 with Ross Tucker who as he told us will be on the TV broadcast for the opener on Sunday. Insider calls brought to you by Nationwide Nationwide is so much more than a great insurance company. They're one of America's largest financial services companies too. Nationwide is on your side. Any particular thoughts Ross on the dynamic changing with Brady now as the head coach? On one hand, I feel like, well, Alan is used to him. He's been here for what, three years now, if not longer already and he's calling plays. There is a seamness to it. But as the head coach, maybe this is just more a question about the defense or something, although they have someone else to call those plays. I wonder just how different it is likely to be. Well, so there's two components of it to me that I think are equally important that maybe

10:25people aren't talking enough about. I think everyone can say, okay, first time head coach and what's it going to be like in terms of his cloth management and game strategy and who's helping him with that and how aggressive will he be all those things, right? I think the other component of it though is he's obviously spending a lot more time on those duties. He's obviously, you know, there's a lot more on your plate, even just from a media perspective when you're the head coach. Does his play calling suffer? Does his game planning suffer? And that's why he brought in Pete Carmichael who I have a lot of respect for. I think Pete can help in that regard. I think there will be so much of an emphasis on how Brady calling the plays affects his ability to make good decisions as a head coach. What about the opposite? You know, what about, you know, Joe Brady being a head coach?

11:26How much does it affect his play calling, his game planning and how well the offense performs? So I think that's a critical, critical component of this. I do think that the dynamic between he and Josh Allen is super interesting because, you know, there's kind of a pecking order in every organization and McDermott had been there so long. I think we all know it's probably nobody more important than a franchise quarterback and certainly has the case in Buffalo, but there was a certain power dynamic or structure there with Josh and McDermott, but especially like a younger off-and-dispoinator like Joe Brady compared to the franchise quarterback who was there with Dave Hall before Brady was there. You know, the power dynamic there is a lot different. And so now Brady's the head coach. I think that those guys get along famously and that they probably have a really good relationship,

12:33but that's easy to say like in June and July and all. What about when the head coach wants to do something that the quarterback doesn't and they disagree or what if the quarterback convinces the head coach to do something that maybe the head coach doesn't want to do, but he wants to do it because the quarterback wants to do it so they go for it and they don't get it and then use the game, you know, these are real things that happen with teams and we'll see how it plays out in Buffalo because there aren't, you know, I have our research guys looking to step. There's not a lot of examples of this. There's not a lot of examples. You know, there's examples where like Bill Walsh retires and then George Seifert gets promoted to be the head coach. There's not as many examples where the head coach gets fired and then the coordinator gets promoted. Yeah, that was definitely a big talking point when it happened was when, because there was how much time between the firing and the announcement that Brady was taking over.

13:36I mean, there were several days at least. Yeah. And the point seemed to be about change, the proverbial playoff wall as the owner put it. And then now you're promoting from within and elevating the GM to a position didn't really feel like that much change was really happening. That's what I'm wondering is just like how, how will it be different? There's a theory here. If you haven't already covered this, which you may have mostly at least that Brady maybe couldn't do all he wanted to do in terms of the offense because he had a boss. And I think fans kind of want that to be true, Ross. You know, that maybe we can get a little bit more Josh Allen, even though they had the leagues leading Russia last year. I think most fans feel like, you know, I'm not sure they're wasting him, but that you want he to be, you want Allen to be the central figure that maybe he was a few years ago more so than in the last couple. Yep. And I think that's what's going to be so cool about this season is letting it play out.

14:41I will say though that let's say they throw the ball down field more or let's say they don't run it quite as much. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was McDermott holding Joe Brady back. You might also mean that they have DJ Moore now. You know, so that's the thing about football is it's never going to be necessarily one plus one equals two because there's always new parts. There's always new faces. Do I think that Sean McDermott as a defensive minded head coach, like when they would run the ball? Yeah. Do I think it's weird that the bills had the shortest average depth of target of any team in the NFL vary, you know, but I do think that's a product of the receiving core they had and secure being so good run after the catch and just getting the ball 10 quickly. But I mean, you've got, I think, well, I got a mostly what it says the most physically

15:46good to get the quarterback in the NFL. Maybe the most physically gifted or certainly one of the most physically gifted guys we've ever seen any 30 second, the bills are 30 seconds. In terms of throwing the ball down the field, like how far they do it, how often that just feels weird doesn't feel right. No, it's never really made sense. You know, another little piece of this that I find interesting Ross is that while I think, you know, like Mike said, there's I think an appetite within the fan base to like, okay, turn it loose now. You don't have Sean McDermott saying, you know, control the clock, keep the ball away, whatever he might have been saying. We don't really know. It's all just sort of a supposition here or exactly supposition. But the other piece to that that sort of flies directly in the face of that narrative is that there's been this thread through Josh Allen's time here. He's developed into this this player that he is now that he has to do too much. He's got too much on his plate like that. That's part of the cook point. Like, well, let's get something off of Josh Allen's plate here and the idea of Brady

16:50leaning into him more, I think is a way of saying we're putting more back on his plate. So like, which is it? Yeah. Well, I am very familiar with putting more on a plate and I can speak to that. And sometimes you want more and you might even feel like you can handle more, but ultimately it wasn't the right decision. Right. You would have been better off with a little bit less on your plate. So I don't know. You know, the reality is the bills haven't been able to get there. They haven't been able to get done in terms of getting to the Super Bowl and or winning it. And so when it was Josh doing too much, it was like, you can't have it all be Josh Allen. You know, you got to take some off his plate. Then okay, they did that. Cook had an unbelievable year. They ran the ball extremely well, but they still didn't get over the hump. So now it's back to, well, maybe we should put more on Josh.

17:51I don't know. I mean, it's back and forth, right? Yeah. It's like the teams always end up hiring a coach. It's the, you know, if they had a disciplinarian, they hire a player's coach. If they had a player's coach, they hire a disciplinarian. You know, that guy might not be the right guy, but that's the reaction. That's the, the young and the young of trying to always account for whatever you feel like might have been the issue previously. I think ultimately, you know, what happens, what matters is what you do in that game that day. We've talked about it a lot. They need to decrease their degree of difficulty in the postseason. They need to not be going to Jacksonville, then to Denver. I know they can get it done, but man, it'd be a lot nicer. Yeah. If they could find a way to not lose some of these regular season games that they typically

18:52lose like in Houston and have it affect their seating later in the year. Just before you go, if you got a team or two around the league that maybe you think that people are largely missing the point about either as a, you know, a surprise good team or the opposite. Yeah. I mean, I think kind of like the New Orleans Saints to win the NFC South. That counts. I'm not hearing that from a lot of people. So I kind of like the Saints to win the NFC South. I'm not really as high on the Ravens as a lot of people seem to be. They have a lot of moving parts. The first time ever play caller, first time head coach. So I don't know that I'm feeling what everybody else is feeling there. I think the Broncos are really good. I have the Broncos, I think, on my prediction episode. I then go into the Super Bowl. I have, you know, one of the two or three best offensive lines, one of the two or three

19:55best defenses. That's a pretty good place to start, you know, those two. And I know they didn't get done last year, but the quarterback broke his ankle and couldn't play the NFC championship game. I don't know anybody that doesn't think the Broncos would have won that game if Bonix was in it. So I think the Broncos are still a little bit under the radar. I don't know if this counts, but I kind of think the Vikings, you know, that NSG North is wild and that you could put all four teams in a hat and pick them out and say that's the final order. And I would believe you and think it's okay, but they won nine games with bottom three quarterback play in the NFL, bottom three. If Kevin O'Connell can just get Kevin Murray to play average, just average, you would think that the Vikings would win double digit games and it feels like they're kind of going under the radar with all the Chicago loves. Well Ross, good luck finding that statue next week.

20:56I mean, I don't know if Bulldog was trying to lead you astray or just what that was, but excited that you'll be up here and even they will hear you on Sunday afternoon this week. Well, if I can't find it, I will at least be able to find some LeBat Blue light. And that's where you can find me. Maybe they'll make a statue of me drinking a LeBat Blue light if there's no actual statue of me anywhere around the state. I'm just trying to, they're Ring of Honor. I mean, come on. Can I at least make what we need a secondary Ring of Honor? We need like a WGR Ring of Honor. That's what you guys should do. You guys should in the off season when you got nothing to talk about it, then like the season is fourth line guys. Come up with like a WGR, all of honor there. What do you want? You guys can be, you guys can both be in it. How we can be in it, but then you have been a separate ring for the guests. Ring of compliments. The guest ring of ring of stations old enough.

21:56It has been a hundred years, so you probably some deserving names. Ring of all right. They'll come up with a look. I'm working, I'm working here. Yeah, they come up with something. Thank you, Ross. We'll talk next Tuesday. Sounds great. See you guys. All right. There you go. You first, I've got why you do the nation. We got nationwide open there. I do. Do that. This NFL insider call is presented by Nationwide for your insurance and financial needs nationwide is on your side. And Ross Tucker's appearance with us on WGR's also WGR is also brought to you by Northtown Volkswagen or town VW West New York's number one VW dealer out on the Ravens. I hear plenty of that. Just you don't see it in the betting markets because they're always the top team or a top team. Mike Schoep in the bulldog here 803 05 50 thoughts on week one as we arrive here to the start of the NFL season. This is.