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GMFB Selects: Kyle Brandt's Best Cuts 4/7/25

Published Apr 12, 2025, 7:00 AM

A selection of the best Kyle Brandt cuts from the Week of April 7th:

  • Are the Cowboys boring right now?
  • Cooper Kupp's farewell to LA
  • Shedeur Sanders pats the ball
  • The perfect fit team for Travis Hunter
  • Questions around the Bears
  • Getting tired of the critiques
  • Expectations for McCarthy too high?

10 Takes with Kyle Brandt is part of the NFL Podcast Network 

Ten Takes is a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio.

It's a really, really strange time for the Cowboys.

I'm not gonna say good or bad.

It's strange because there is very little buzz and there is very little sizzle. And in the most unusual circumstances. Listen, it's not just Philadelphia. Washington is a bright, shiny object who has been nothing for the last twenty years. Now they're one of the coolest teams in the league. And the Giants seem fun and they're gonna draft someone really high and they got Jamis and Russell.

Like, there is so little buzz. So even when the when.

The Cowboys are the Cowboys, for all their faults, they still have buzz. And it's still Jerry surrounded by microphones and you're hanging on every word.

Are you right now?

Like it's if Mike and Mike get paid, he should get paid. They're gonna they have this like this twelve draft pick and if no one knows who they're gonna take. Even in a lot of the draft breakdowns, which we do twenty four to seven, there's not a lot of Cowboys conversation and Cowboys takes.

So we're at a place right.

Now where what we should be to the headline of their offseason, by far, should be that Mike McCarthy was let go and they have a new Dallas head Cowboys head coach. And there was a time when the Cowboys had a new coach was oh my god, this is leading every show in every segment, and we're like yeah, I mean, no one's.

That fired up about it. So I'm not concerned. I'm not excited.

I'm a little bit bored, and I'm just waiting for this jolt of electricity. It didn't come in free agency. It's not coming from a Mica contract. Maybe it comes from the draft. I want them to clear the table on draft night, trade up, go from twelve to eight, do something really bold. I'm like, the Cowboys mean business. They're not just gonna hand this season to the Eagles and the Commanders. I'm a little bit bored. And all the time in my entire life, I can remember think and the Cowboys were great. I can remember thinking the Cowboys were bad. I can't ever really remember thinking the Cowboys were boring.

And they are right now.

Cooper Cup is an all time ram and He's an all time RAMS receiver for an organization that has had some incredible wide receivers. Listen, we cannot overlook the idea of what he did in the twenty twenty one season. He had one hundred and forty five catcheads. It's unbelievable, sixteen touchdowns, nineteen hundred plus yards. And it's not just that he's a good player. It's like Cooper Cup represents something. Cooper Cup is for every kid out there who thinks they can make the NFL and maybe they're not Calvin Johnson physically.

This is a third.

Round pick out of Eastern Washington.

It says something about dreams.

That says something about the NFL draft that you pay attention to those third round picks because they could end up being legends. They can end up being Hall of famers. That third round pick out of Eastern Washington was Secondaries alive whenever.

He felt like it. He was an unstoppable player.

And business is business and he's got to leave and I get that, But I just an all time RAM, an all time twenty first century wide receiver, just a fantastic player who gives a lot of kids dreams and a lot of players things to aim for.

So I missed him. I think that's an absolute legend.

I hope he goes and has one hundred catches for the Seahawks this year, but he's an all time ram and I miss him already. I thought this Pro day was revelatory. I think my huge takeaways. I don't think he can draft Shador Sanders because he pats the football. I think he'll be undrafted all through seven rounds. There's no possible way you could draft. Bring up the videotape, guys, irreparable damage to Shador Sanders' reputation as a football player as.

A human being.

Just watched right before he throws, if we can see it, he does a little tap one sixteenth of a second, he pats the ball, and I think you have to take him off the board.

Not the first round. Not the first He's going to free fall and end up going into.

A different line of work. Because it's not just me saying that. It's not a straw man. Go ahead and go to the social media component. We had high visible players. Andre Cisco now with the Jets, boy, better stop patting the ball.

We're breaking on that early, okay, and.

Then Darius Slayton on the Giants is trying to defend them. But Michael Parsons comes in. You realize that pat on the ball could be difference between a sack Er throw away completion. Again, I don't think you draft schendor Sanders because I did the research.

Guys, there has never been an NFL.

Quarterback who pats the ball who's had any success in the league.

I even have videotape. Bring up the videotape.

All the guys who past the ball like that guy never amounted to anything.

Give me more. It's not just a one off.

Matthew Staffords, Pat right before he throws has never done squat in the league and never made any money.

This guy does never bright future.

Look at the pack before the Giant deep ball. Again, you can't draft you door, Josh Allen. What you want MVP Pat before he throws the ball? Brady Again, he actually played for a team called the Pats, and he's patting Rogers.

Watch Pat get out of here. I'm going to go back down to Planet Earth.

Now. You knew that after Shador's workout, showcase, spectacle, whatever circus, whatever he wanted to call it, they were going to be takes, and they were going to be daggers, and they were going to be critics. Even if someone didn't have any criticism, they were going to make it up just to resonate and just to be heard. And that's going to be the shadure story at the draft and when he starts Week one, whatever it may be, there's going to be criticism just for criticism's sake.

But standing there.

Watching him patting the ball before he throws and saying this is going to be a big problem and he's going to break the rookie in exceptions record is stupid. It's doing it just for doing its sake. Look at what I just showed. You don't do it. If you have honest criticism, then make it. But if you're doing it just to do it, stop because you know who else pats the ball. Cam Ward pats the ball. And I watched his pro day and none of you guys said squat. You're saying it because his last name is Sanders, because who his father is, because you know it will resonate. He pats the ball just like Josh Allen does, just like Tom Brady he does, and on and on and on. If you want to criticize anything about his attitude or his arm strength, fine, but the patting the ball thing is stupid, and I hope you don't talk about it in this show from this day forward, and I know you'll talk about on the other shows. Good luck, leave the guy along unless you have something honest to say.

That's my take.

I don't think it was a statement about what position he's going to play.

He's on record many times that he wants to play full time both positions. I think it's very cool that he played without gloves. I think there's something throwback about that.

As if you needed to see more from Travis Hunter, you saw it, and it is.

It's history we've never seen.

I'm the best receiver and I'm the best defensive back both. So it's the top five pick, and it's kind of like Dion saying, like, what am I gonna come out here and either A injure myself or B give you something that's going to criticize me, Like some of these guys just have a mystique. Lamar Jackson never ran a forty leading up to the draft. We still don't know what Lamar Jackson's forty time is now. He was later in the draft, and he went to the end of the first round, which Travis Hunter is not going to. I'm at the place now where just a couple weeks away from the draft that my dream landing spot for Travis Hunter.

Is New England at four.

I want him at four because my dream is I wanted to see him play heavy snaps on both sides of the ball. For that to happen, I think you need some coaches who are not going to be rattled by anything, who are completely securing themselves. Mike Rabel head coach, Josh McDaniels offensive coordinator. The head coach is a defensive guy who has doesn't make any apologies, does whatever he wants.

The coordinator is.

An offensive guy who has been around the block a million times and has Super Bowl rings. Those are guys with the confidence and the spine and the balls to say we're really going to do this. We're going to draft him and we're going to get him heavy snaps on both.

Sides of the ball.

I think some of these other coaches, I don't know, we don't know to get him injured. It has never happened before, there's no plan for it. I think I look earlier in the draft, especially something like Tennessee and the Cleveland and Giants. They got great coaches, of course, but I just think that the guys on New England are varsity, They've been around defense, offense. I think it's the right spot for him. Plus New England is so short on weapons and talents that they really need to maximize him. That's my dream is that he goes to Foxborough in a couple of weeks, we find out, you know, who is a really pleasant person to be around, Ian Maddy Reflus, great guy, great, great hang, very pleasant, very polite. And if Ben Jonson's not that, and he's a little bit of a football jerk, fine bring it. Everybody got comfortable. I have a lot to say about this. I'm not gonna have a lot to say during the rap Draft. I'll make up for it then. But right now, the guy who has said something this week that I thought really caught my attention, that everyone should pay attention to is Jalen Johnson. This is the young, very talented defensive back for the Bears who was asked yesterday, Hey, there's a lot of hype going on right This is pretty exciting, right for the Bears.

Here's what he said.

I've been through too many times. Man, I'm gonna get excited when we win in November December and we change something and get to the playoffs. That's when I'll be excited. I don't have none to do with me. The only thing that has anything to do with me is the work that I put it in, work that we put in as a unit, and just taking steps in the right direction. Other than that, to talk to hype and all that I mean hyped on with you know games. So I mean, I've been here a minute, been through the hype, and we don't win no games. So I mean, for me, if it's not about winning, Kari Hardens, I don't really care about it.

You know what's crazy. That's a twenty five year old guy. Twenty five. I feel like he's fifty because he's been through on these Bears seasons and he knows, he knows that there are so many questions and nobody knows the answers to off the top of my head, is Caleb Good I don't know. I think so, I hope so, but nobody knows. Is Roma Dunze going to be one hundred catch guy in this league don't know, but he's supposed to be Jamar Chase based on where they drafted him. Is Ben Johnson going to be a good coach? You don't know. I don't know he's ever coached before. This is not Jim Harbu, it's not Mike Rabel, it's not Pete Carroll.

We don't know. Is Ryan Pohl's going to stick to landing on this first round draft pick? I don't know. He's made very few first round picks.

They're usually nine or ten, and the jury is out on all of them, so we don't know. And it's you know what, I think it's exciting to not know. Because Bears fans, there's three types of seasons. One we got this, Two, we're gonna suck this year, and three, I don't know what we have. You are right there in category three. Lastly, on this, I like that Jalen Johnson is saying, I'm not going to give into the hype and we'll wait and we'll wait and we'll wait.

Fans go ahead and give into the hype. I don't even know if it's gone too far. It's gone on too long, and I just think if you're someone who.

Tires of the sports take machine and the fake debates and that type of noise. This is probably the worst time of the year right now, thirteen days from the draft, because before the Super Bowl we talked about the game for ten days.

Well, we've talked about the draft for months.

Now, and we've talked about this guy for two years now. So the takes you're getting exhausted and they're getting depleted. And you can't just come on air if you're on certain types of shows and be like, seems like a solid guy and a pretty good player.

What's your take? You have to have some sort of meat and teeth. And Chadura is so right to sit there.

In the airport and just absolutely run down those dumb takes and how wrong they've been. He's soft, No, he's not. He's arrogant. You're ignorant. Why is he wearing all those diamonds?

What do you care?

He's twenty three and he's independently wealthy, wouldn't you of course? He he's off the field, No, he's not. He pats the ball, so does Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Aaron rodd As. We've run down that already, and what I love that Shador's saying is we go back to the table in la. I can't wait to see what's next. We're thirteen days out. There will be more about this. There will probably be a draft night slight about him, something he does on that night or right after that night. And all he does is stand in the wind and walk through the fire. Do you know how difficult it must be to grow up Dion Sanders' son? Your father signs autographs with a dollar sign instead of an ass and still say humble and tough. And he has done it. It's my favorite player in the draft. I love how he stands up to it, and he's going to continue to do it. I love those guys right there, So keep coming up with stuff. You got time thirteen days. You got ratians and clicks to get, so go ahead, come up with something.

See what you can do. I have to be honest and candid here. I'm a skeptic of JJ McCarthy. I'm certainly rooting for him.

Seems like a great dude, but I am not just saying, yeah, just plug and play.

You'll jump in there and be fine. You know what.

It always rugs me the long way when a conversation about a player, Every single conversation seems to begin with.

He's a winner. He's a winner.

Echoes back to at the draft, echoes back to now. Sure enough, Aaron Jones sits down Good Morning Football Studios yesterday, what do you think of JJ McCarthy.

He's a winner. All he's ever done is win. It's a nice quality.

I need something else before that, because Patrick Mahomes didn't wins squat in college, all right, Kyler Murray didn't lose a game like going back to five years old, gets the NFL and has had a hard time winning. I don't really care about JJ McCarthy's high school roster that he was winning with as it pertains to how he's gonna win with the Vikings this year. And I think it's naive to say, well, Sam Donald did it last year, so certainly JJ could.

Sam Donald's been around this league for years.

He has a lot of starting experience, He has a lot of things going for him that JJ McCarthy does not. And I think it's hubris in Kevin O'Connell and Justin Jefferson to say JJ, with no experience and coming off knee injury, he can just start chucking it all around, and we'll go fourteen and three again.

I think it's gonna be a struggle.

I think it's gonna be a building year, and I'm not interested in how many games he won years ago. I more want his leadership, his arm strength, and the tangible things now that we need that we still haven't seen yet.

So I'm gonna wait and see Mode two.

Rooting for him, but not expecting massive Pro Bowl type.

Stuff this year, not yet.

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10 Takes with Kyle Brandt

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