Alvin Kamara expected to be suspended, plus Hall of Fame Game preview and Tom Brady buys a soccer team

After more than a month of our “All 32” series, we are finally down to our final three teams, and this time, I actually mean it (I said the same thing last week, but as we all know, you can’t trust anything I say from a week ago). 

Anyway, we have another episode of our “All 32” series coming at you, and today, and we’ll be taking a look at the Seahawks. To talk about how things are going in Seattle, we brought on Michael-Shawn Dugar, who covers the Seahawks for The Athletic.

Here are two topics that Katie Mox and Will Brinson covered today with Dugar: 

• Can Geno Smith be as good in 2023 as he was in 2022? The Seahawks’ success this year is going to depend on the play of Smith. One reason Seattle was such a surprise team in 2022 is because Smith was such a surprise, but he won’t have that element of surprise this season. So how good can he be in 2023? “I think he can replicate some of what he did last year,” Dugar said. “He was really accurate, even when his numbers started to fall off during the second half of the season with more interceptions. … If you look, he was still throwing the ball on target, still led the league in completion percentage. It wasn’t that he wasn’t making horrible decisions.” Dugar thinks Geno can be just as good as he was last season, which would be good news for the Seahawks. 
• Can the Seahawks win the NFC West? The Seahawks didn’t win the division last season, but they did shock almost everyone by making the playoffs as a wild card team. Dugar thinks they could sneak into the playoffs again, but he doesn’t think they’ll be able to top San Francisco for the division title. “I’d probably just take the Niners,” Dugar said of who he would pick to win the division. “Their roster is just way too deep. … They’re just so impressive, they have All-Pro players at every level of the defense and I’m not sure how many teams can say that.”

Dugar spent more than 25 minutes talking about the Seahawks, and if you want to hear everything he had to say, you can listen to today’s show here. You can also watch today’s show on YouTube by clicking here. 

2. Hall of Fame Game preview: Jets vs. Browns

Since most starters won’t be playing tonight, we’re not going to do a full preview of the game, but it is the first NFL action of the 2023 season, so we have to give you something.

Here are a few things to watch out for tonight:  

• Storyline to watch for the Jets: Mekhi Becton trying earn a starting job on the offensive line. For the most part, the Hall of Fame game is for players at the bottom of the roster, but the Jets will have at least two former first-round picks on the field tonight and one of them is Becton. The offensive tackle, who was selected 11th overall in 2020, has already said that he’s going to treat tonight like a “regular-season” game. The reason Becton is going to do that is because he’s trying win a starting job at right tackle or left tackle and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win that job after missing most of the past two seasons due to injury (He’s only played in one total game since the start of the 2021 season). 
• Storyline to watch for the Browns: Jim Schwartz takes over as defensive coordinator. After sticking with Joe Woods for three seasons, the Browns finally kicked him to the curb in January. Woods has been replaced by Schwartz, who won a Super Bowl with the Eagles in 2017 during his last stint as a defensive coordinator. In terms of his defensive schemes, Schwartz won’t be revealing much tonight, but it will be interesting to see how the defense looks in its first game under its new coordinator. 
• Player you will be keeping an eye on for the Jets: Zach Wilson. Last year, Wilson started nine games for the Jets and although he struggled for the most part, that might not be the case in this game, because he’ll be facing a lot of backups and inexperienced players, which means there’s a chance that he could go off.   
• Player you will be keeping an eye on for the Browns: Cedric Tillman. You might not know his name, but everyone in Cleveland does and there are two reasons for that: One, he was the Browns’ first pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. The Browns didn’t make their first pick until the third round and they used it to select Tillman. The other reason he’s already made a name for himself is because the former Tennessee wide receiver has had an impressive training camp and it won’t be surprising if he makes a big play or two tonight.

Breech’s pick: Jets 20-13 over Browns (Jets cover -1.5). As weird as it sounds, Robert Saleh coaches to win in the preseason and that’s all I need to know. Since taking over as the Jets head coach in 2021, Saleh has gone 5-0-1 straight-up in preseason games and I’m NOT going to pick against that. He’s going to have several experienced players on the field — like Wilson and Becton — and the same can’t really be said for the Browns. I think the Jets sneak away with the win. 

If you want to watch tonight’s game, it will be kicking off at 8 p.m. ET on NBC with Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth on the call. It should be a fun weekend for Collinsworth, who will see one of his former teammates, Ken Riley, inducted into the Hall of Fame on Saturday (We’ll be covering all the inductees tomorrow). 

If you click here, you can check out a few other things to know about tonight’s game. 

3. Alvin Kamara likely to be suspended

There’s a good chance that Alvin Kamara is going to be spending the first few weeks of the 2023 season at home. The Saints running back is expected to be punished by the NFL for the role he played in an incident that took place in Las Vegas back in February 2022. 

Here’s a quick look at the situation:

• NFL likely to suspend Kamara. The Saints running back met with Roger Goodell on Wednesday, and according to NFL.com, a suspension is almost guaranteed to happen with Ian Rapoport saying he “expects” a suspension for Kamara. 
• Length of suspension is up in the air. It’s not clear yet how long the suspension will last, because that will depend on how Kamara’s meeting with Goodell ended up going. “What’s going to determine whether it’s two games or four games or six games is, what was behind [the altercation]? Why did Alvin Kamara do what he appears to have done,” Rapoport said. “The altercation he was in, in that video, is there something that he can talk to with Goodell to make him have at least some understanding and realize what led to that altercation?” Basically, the length of the suspension is going to come down to how Goodell feels about Kamara’s explanation of the situation. 
• Why Kamara a longer suspension might happen. The biggest problem for the running back is that there’s video of the incident, which shows Kamara and his group kicking and punching the victim (TMZ obtained the video in November and you can see it here). Although Kamara was originally charged with a felony in the case, he eventually pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor, but that might not help him in the eyes of Goodell, due to the existence of the video. 

The Saints have clearly been bracing for the possibility of a Kamara suspension, which is likely why they signed Jamaal Williams while also selecting a running back (Kendre Miller) in the third round of this year’s NFL Draft. 

4. Biggest question each NFC team is facing