Ryan Clark burried Justin Herbert in a furry of hot takes on First Take. Photo Credit: First Take
By Sam Neumann on

We haven’t even kicked off the 2025 NFL season yet, and the hot takes are already flowing like lava.

Thursday should have been a celebration. The NFL season is finally starting after months of arguing about Dak Prescott’s legacy, roster moves, and preseason games that don’t count. Instead, ESPN spent the day relitigating tired legacy debates and manufacturing controversies that had nothing to do with the actual football being played tonight.

When the network’s NFL analysts start dubbing Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts the modern-day Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, we officially need games to start being played. When Ryan Clark decides Tom Brady and Peyton Manning aren’t generational talents, we’ve completely lost the plot.

This was like spending the morning of the Super Bowl debating whether Joe Montana was better than Johnny Unitas instead of talking about the game actually being played that night.

Dan Orlovsky opened the festivities on Get Up by declaring that “Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts are the modern-day Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.”

We’re talking about a coach who started last season fighting for his job and a quarterback that Orlovsky himself was calling a “liability” less than 12 months ago. One Super Bowl doesn’t transform you into dynasty material, especially when Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes are sitting right there with three championships and five Super Bowl appearances.

Orlovsky spent the next few minutes trying to explain that he was really talking about how they communicate and stay on the same page, not comparing their actual track records. Which, sure, could be an interesting conversation about how coaches and quarterbacks click. But you can’t lead with “modern-day Belichick and Brady” and then expect people to focus on the subtleties of your point.

As for Ryan Clark, the former Pittsburgh Steelers safety decided that Thursday was the perfect day to redefine what constitutes greatness at the quarterback position completely. During a First Take debate about Arch Manning, Clark claimed that none of Tom Brady, Drew Brees, or Peyton Manning were “generational talents.”

According to Clark’s exclusive criteria, John Elway and Patrick Mahomes qualify, but seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady and five-time MVP Peyton Manning do not. If those two don’t make the cut, then the term “generational talent” has been rendered meaningless.

But Clark wasn’t finished with Thursday’s hot take tour. He also decided to torch Justin Herbert, declaring him “terrible whenever it matters” while claiming Herbert “didn’t win big games in college.” Herbert won the Rose Bowl with three rushing touchdowns. That actually happened. There’s video of it.

Clark’s Herbert critique ignored that the Chargers quarterback ranks third in the league in fourth-quarter comebacks and game-winning drives since entering the NFL. Herbert was legitimately awful in that playoff loss to Houston, but that single game apparently erased everything else he’s accomplished in pressure situations.

So that brings us back to tonight.

The NFL season kicks off with the Philadelphia Eagles hosting the Dallas Cowboys in what should be a compelling divisional matchup. There are actual storylines worth exploring: Can the Eagles repeat as Super Bowl champions? How will Dallas respond after trading Micah Parsons? What does this game tell us about the NFC East race?

Instead, ESPN chose to spend opening day manufacturing debates about legacy comparisons that make no sense and rehashing arguments about generational talent that ignore basic facts. They turned what should have been appointment television into background noise.

This is the sports media equivalent of spending New Year’s Eve arguing about last decade’s resolutions instead of celebrating what’s actually happening. The NFL season is finally here, and ESPN decided that was the perfect time to debate whether Tom Brady was any good.

Tonight, actual football returns. Real games with real consequences will provide plenty of legitimate talking points. But based on Thursday’s morning shows, it’s unclear whether ESPN is more interested in covering the season or creating its own alternative version of reality.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann