Overreaction Tuesday: Rich Talks Bengals, Jets, LeBron, Red Sox Win Streak & More

Overreaction Monday landed on a Tuesday, and Chris opened by asking a table full of fantasy football obsessives to take a wide receiver first overall.

His case for Ja'Marr Chase was straightforward. Joe Burrow is back and healthy, the Bengals should be better, and the offense could be a top-three unit. Chris also pointed to Burrow's own comments, in which the quarterback compared how he feels about this offense to how he felt going into his final year at LSU, a season that ended with 60 touchdown passes, a Heisman Trophy and the first overall pick.

"Who's got better quarterback wide receiver chemistry than these two guys in the league?" Chris asked. And if you are in a PPR league, do not overthink it.

Rich was not moved, and his objection was structural. Taking a receiver first means betting on a player who depends on another player to throw him the ball. Take a running back and the ball simply gets handed to him, and it does not matter much who is doing the handing.

"Still, somebody could rip one straight through because it's Derrick Henry or it's Saquon Barkley or it's Bijan Robinson or it's Jahmyr Gibbs," Rich said. "If it's the backup quarterback, then the wide receiver's in trouble."

Verdict: overreaction.

The Jets' new white alternate helmet fared much better. Chris argued it should be the permanent look and that the green should go, and nobody on the set disagreed that the thing is clean. Rich's reservation was not aesthetic.

"Enough's enough. Like we're resetting. We're resetting," he said. "Believe in this rebuild. Believe in this rebuild. We got the right staff. We got the right front office. Now we got the right helmets."

His only real request was that it cascade into the results column. Or at minimum produce one interception.

Then came Tom Brady, who has been popping out of coffins and doing Fanatics Fest content in an arm sleeve. Chris's take was that all of it is beneath a man with seven Super Bowls and a statue outside Gillette while he is still alive.

Nobody pushed back very hard. TJ made clear he does not mind Brady competing against regular people and shooting free throws, calling it fun. What he could not square was Brady tying his brand to Logan Paul, and specifically a video of Brady flipping double birds at Paul during the World Cup final.

Rich floated a gentler diagnosis. Is this a midlife crisis? Just go buy a Corvette like everybody else. The consensus landed somewhere reasonable. Brady has gotten vastly better as an announcer, none of this touches his football legacy, and the New England radio chatter about tarnishing a legacy is overblown. The Logan Paul stuff is still beneath him.

Chris's World Cup entry was that England should have won it and blew it, that they turtled after going up a goal, that the coach choked by pulling everybody back and parking the bus, and that England were the better side with the better offense and more stars.

Rich was with him, and he wanted that England and Spain final. He thought England had more in the tank than Argentina did.

The closer was Boston, where Chris declared the Red Sox will never lose another game this season. The streak is at 14. A win would tie the 80-year-old franchise record set in 1946.

Rich did not blame him. This is a team that was 32 and 46 and had the worst record in baseball, and now sits a game and a half up for the final spot with the Guardians in range.

The Yankees, meanwhile, are watching Aaron Judge's status stay unclear and are four up in the loss column with a roster full of fill-ins. Rich's prescription for the deadline was bullpen arms, one after another after another.

And the Mets? One 14-game winning streak away from being three games under .500.