Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Jacoby Brissett cashes in with Arizona, Drake Maye and A.J. Brown spark Patriots camp buzz, and Myles Garrett targets the champion Seahawks. Plus, Lando Norris wins in Hungary, Corey Heim takes the Brickyard 400, and the Rams emerge as an NFC West th
Your go-to source for daily sports updates! Tune in every day for quick, punchy rundowns on the latest in sports. From game highlights to breaking news, we've got you covered in just a few minutes. Perfect for the fan on the go!
Welcome to The Sports Hangover Daily, I'm Michael Benatar.
Today on the show: Jacoby Brissett getting paid in Arizona, Drake Maye throwing darts to A.J. Brown, Myles Garrett poking Seattle, and Lando Norris finally cashing in for McLaren. Let's get into it.
Jacoby Brissett got paid. Arizona blinked.
The Cardinals reworked Brissett’s twenty twenty-six deal to fifteen and a half million dollars guaranteed. The max value reportedly lands around twenty-one to twenty-one and a half million.
That’s a real raise. Brissett skipped most of the offseason program, showed up for mandatory minicamp, and came to camp. The message was simple: I’ll be professional, but not for backup money.
And it worked.
This is the part teams hate. Sometimes the boring veteran has the leverage. Brissett isn’t flashy. Nobody’s cutting a Madden trailer around Jacoby Brissett. But he knows protections, he keeps the offense upright, and in that Arizona quarterback room, that matters.
Gardner Minshew is there. Carson Beck is there. Mike LaFleur has only promised Brissett work with the starters Tuesday. So the Cardinals are still pretending this is wide open.
Come on.
You don’t guarantee fifteen and a half million dollars to a camp body. You do that because you looked around and realized the safest adult is also the guy asking for more money.
Brissett played this like the least cinematic hostage negotiation in sports. Not loud. Not messy. Just annoying enough.
And Arizona paid him because the alternative was fake competition plus a very real problem.
Around the league, the Patriots finally finished the entire twenty twenty-six NFL Draft class. New England signed second-round defensive end Gabe Jacas, the fifty-fifth overall pick.
He was the final player from the whole draft to sign. Then the Patriots immediately put him on the active non-football injury list. Congrats, paperwork complete. Now please report to the medical tent.
The bigger New England story is Drake Maye and A.J. Brown. Maye opened camp trying to hit Brown deep against Christian Gonzalez, which is exactly what Patriots fans should want.
Not dink-and-dunk therapy sessions. Not “we’re building chemistry” camp quotes. Shots. Downfield. Against their best corner.
Maye’s twenty twenty-five season was no joke. Four thousand three hundred ninety-four passing yards and thirty-one touchdowns. League-best seventy-two percent completion, eight point nine yards per attempt, one thirteen point five rating.
He also ran for four hundred fifty yards and four scores. So now you give him A.J. Brown and tell him to let it rip. That’s the whole point.
If New England turns this into a cautious offense, I’m sending a wellness check to the play-caller.
In L.A., Myles Garrett said he wants “the champs,” meaning the defending champion Seahawks. Good. I love that. Put a pin in it, because we’re getting there.
Raiders camp has its own quarterback soap opera. Fernando Mendoza, the number one overall pick, said he’s competing “with” Kirk Cousins, not against him.
That’s nice. Very mature. Also, no.
If you’re a number one pick quarterback, you are competing against the veteran. Say the right leadership stuff. Mendoza should.
But the Raiders didn’t take him first overall so he could hold a Microsoft Surface and nod thoughtfully for sixteen weeks.
Cousins is there to stabilize the room. Mendoza is there to take it over. Everyone knows it. The only mystery is how long Vegas keeps pretending otherwise.
Philadelphia has a different kind of pressure. Saquon Barkley said he doesn’t want to be remembered only for the hurdle, and he’s “ready for the next one.”
That line works because his last two seasons are totally different. In twenty twenty-four, he ran for two thousand five yards. Last year, he dropped to one thousand one hundred forty.
The Eagles went eleven and six, then lost in the wild-card round. Saquon doesn’t need another poster play. He needs another season where defensive coordinators are annoyed before they open the tablet.
Outside football, Lando Norris won the Hungarian Grand Prix, giving McLaren its first Grand Prix victory of the season.
Max Verstappen finished second, Kimi Antonelli was third, and Oscar Piastri retired late. Good win for Norris. Brutal timing for Piastri.
McLaren finally has something besides “promising pace” to put on the fridge.
And at Indianapolis, Corey Heim won the Brickyard four hundred. He held off Christopher Bell and Joey Logano over the final thirty-four-lap green-flag run.
That’s Heim’s second career Cup Series win in just his fifteenth start. Hell of a way to introduce yourself at the big-boy table.
The Hangover Take: the Rams are the NFC team nobody wants to admit is terrifying.
Not because they’re cute. Not because of vibes. Because they added Myles Garrett to a roster that already had enough offensive brainpower to ruin your Sunday.
Everyone’s gonna spend camp talking about Seattle, because champs get the camera. Fine. Let Hard Knocks do the slow-motion stretching shots and cafeteria drama.
The Rams are the problem.
Garrett had twenty-three sacks last season. Twenty-three. That’s not a pass rusher. That’s a neighborhood evacuation notice.
He doesn’t just win one-on-ones. He wrecks the plan. He makes quarterbacks speed up. He makes tackles cheat. He makes coordinators keep tight ends home.
Suddenly that cute third-down concept is dead before the snap.
And now he’s saying he wants the champs out loud in July. That’s not random camp noise. That’s a grown man putting Seattle on the calendar.
My prediction: the Rams win the NFC West. Seattle gets the documentary. L.A. gets the division. And every offensive coordinator in that division gets heartburn by October.
That's your hangover. Go hydrate. I'll see you tomorrow.