Let Me Tell You Something: Please Be Great, Kid — I'm Begging Brandon Cisse

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Let me tell you something, Pac Nation.

Brandon C.

Say.

Brandon C.

Say.

You write that name down, you put it on the refrigerator.

Because I am telling you right now, this is the camp battle.

This is the one.

Not the quarterback stuff.

Not the offensive line.

This.

Let me back up.

Let me breathe because I get like this.

And Darlene, no, no, I'm not doing that today.

No kitchen table today.

Today it's just me and you and this kid from South Carolina.

You understand me? Second round, 52nd overall pick.

And here's the thing that gets me.

That was technically their first pick of the whole draft.

Didn't even have a pick before him.

So when Gutekunst is on the clock, the very first name he calls, the first guy he wants, it's a quarterback.

It's Cissé.

That tells you something.

That tells you everything.

And now he walks into a room with Keyshawn Nixon and Carrington Valentine sitting there as the starters, and people acting like that's settled.

Am I crazy? Is it settled? Because I don't think it's settled at all.

Let me paint you a picture.

You ever have a truck, ran great the two seasons, absolute champ, never let you down, and then one cold morning you turn the key and the transmission just falls out the bottom, just lays there in the driveway? That's a corner room you don't reinforce.

It looks fine in July.

It looks great in July.

Then week six comes.

Somebody pulls a hamstring.

Somebody's a step slow.

And suddenly you're standing in the driveway looking at your transmission wondering what happened.

Stay with me here.

That is why you draft a C-Say.

That is why you push these guys.

Now listen, no offense to Nixon.

None.

The man is a special teams weapon.

He's a leader.

He's a sponge teacher for this kid.

They said that.

Nixon called him a sponge.

Beautiful.

Love it.

He's also a potential holdout candidate arguing for a new contract.

So, there's a world where Nixon isn't even taking every first team rep this summer.

You hearing this? That's a door.

That is a wide open door.

And Valentine? Carrington, buddy, I say this with love, seventh-round pick, gave us real snaps, but he's coming off a down year, and he is on the hottest seat in that entire building.

They went out and signed Benjamin St. Joost in free agency, a guy with over 40 career starts just to breathe down his neck.

That's not me being mean.

That's the depth chart being mean.

I'm just reading it out loud.

So here's what we've got.

We've got a rookie who ran a 4.41 at his pro day.

4.41.

I have not run a 4.41 to the mailbox and back combined in my entire life, and I'm not going to start now.

But this kid did it in cleats with scouts watching.

And the vertical? 41 inches.

41.

You know what 41 inches is? That's not a jump.

That's a rumor.

That's a kid touching the top of the doorframe and the whole neighborhood talking about it for a week.

Corner comes down with a jump ball at 41 inches of hops.

That receiver goes back to the huddle and questions his life choices.

Now, am I getting carried away? A little bit.

I always do.

That's the Peshtigo in me.

I can't help it.

I see 41 inches and I start planning the parade route.

But here's where I reel it back.

Because the reporting, and I read it, I actually read it this time, the reporting says he's pushing the starters.

Pushing.

Not past them yet.

He's had good days.

He's gotten his hands on the football.

Broke up multiple passes.

Tight window throws.

Sticky coverage.

and he's also gotten beat a few times because he's a rookie, and that's what rookies do.

But that's the camp battle.

That's the whole thing.

You don't want to hand it to him.

You want him to take it.

You understand me? Because I need him to be that dude, Pac Nation.

I need it in my bones, not solid rotational piece, not developmental.

I need Cisse to walk out of Ashwaubenon in August and make somebody move.

And I'll tell you exactly why in part two, because this is bigger than one kid

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This is about what a corner room actually is.

You understand me? A great corner room is not three starters.

Everybody thinks it's three starters.

It's not.

It's four guys, five guys, where the fourth guy would start for half the league and he's stuck on your bench being angry about it.

That is a championship secondary.

And right now, if Cissé becomes that dude, Look at what you got.

Nixon, Valentine, St.

Just, Cissé.

And now Jonathan Gannon's defense can do anything.

He can travel a guy.

He can play press.

He can blitz off the edge and trust the back end.

But only, only if the rookie is real.

Let me give you another one.

You ever see a boxer, looks unstoppable, 20 and 0, everybody's crowning him, and then he takes one clean shot to the chin, the first real fight, and you find out everything? Rookie corners are like that.

September is the first clean shot.

You don't know what you've got until somebody runs a double move on him in front of 80,000 people, and you find out.

Does he panic? Or does he shrug it off and line back up? That's the fight.

That's what August is for.

To find out before it counts.

And this is the part I love about this kid.

He's 20 years old.

20! He could be sitting in a dorm room somewhere.

Instead, he's built this whole relationship with Gannon.

The demanding coach, the tough one, and the kid asked for more of it.

He wants the hard coaching.

You know how rare that is? Most 20-year-olds want somebody to tell them how great they already are.

This kid's raising his hand for the tough stuff.

Nixon calls him a sponge.

that word again, a sponge.

Meanwhile, I am the opposite of a sponge.

I am a guy who's been given good advice for 50 years and absorbed exactly none of it.

My whole life, people have said, Sal, less is more.

And I have never once believed them.

So when I see a kid actually soaking it up, actually getting better week to week, I don't know whether to cheer or be jealous, little of both.

But here's my worry.

Here's the thing that keeps me up.

We have done this before, Pac Nation.

Not on this show.

I mean us, the fans, the collective us.

We fall in love with the 40 time.

We fall in love with the vertical.

And then we forget that traits are not tape.

A 4.41 is a promise.

It is not a receipt.

You still got to go out there and cover somebody.

Think of it like a fog bank coming off the bay, right? Rolls in thick, and all of a sudden, you cannot see the end of your own driveway.

Everybody slows down.

Everybody's squinting.

Nobody knows what's real out there.

and then the sun burns it off and you find out what was actually in front of you the whole time.

The 41-inch vertical is the fog.

Right now, it's all potential, all mystery.

We can't see clean yet.

You wait for camp to burn it off.

Then you find out what you've really got standing across from that receiver.

So that's my ask this camp.

That's the whole thing.

When you're watching the joint practices, when you're watching the preseason, don't watch the quarterback.

Everybody's going to watch the quarterback.

You, I want you watching number two.

I want you watching who he's lined up across from and whether that receiver caught it.

Because if Cissé wins this battle, if he takes it, not gets given it, takes it, this defense has a chance to be something we haven't had in a long, long time.

I need him to be great.

I'm not asking.

I am demanding greatness from a 20-year-old I have never met because that is my right as a man who lives and dies with this football team.

No offense to Nixon.

No offense to Valentine.

I love you both.

But somebody has to be that dude.

And I have decided, me, personally, in my kitchen, at 7 in the morning, I have decided it's going to be Brandon Cisse.

Please be great, kid.

Please.

I've got so much invested in you already, and you don't even know I exist.

So do me a favor, Pac Nation.

Learn the name now.

Cissé.

Say it right, say it loud.

And when he picks off his first pass at Lambeau, you remember.

You heard it here first.

Now get out of here.

Go watch some corner drills.

I got to go lie down.

My heart can't take July.

And it's only going to get worse.

Thank you.

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