Fantasy Football Daily - Coaching Blunders and Potential Dynasty 1.01's | NFL First Read

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Welcome to First Read, your go-to podcast for the latest in NFL analysis and insights. Join hosts Brett Whitefield and Joe Marino for a look at NFL coaching blunders and a very early look at the potential Dynasty 1.01. Whether you're a fantasy football enthusiast, a die-hard fan, or just looking to stay informed on all things NFL, "First Read" has you covered. Tune in for expert opinions, detailed breakdowns, and engaging discussions every week. Don't miss out on the ultimate NFL podcast experience! Where to find us: http://twitter.com/BGWhitefield http://twitter.com/TheJoeMarino Find Our Podcasts Here - https://www.fantasypoints.com/media/podcasts#/ Use promo code - SCOREMORE for 10% off of your subscriptions Subscribe to FantasyPoints for FREE - https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/ FantasyPoints Website - https://www.fantasypoints.com NEW! Data Suite - https://data.fantasypoints.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/FantasyPts Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FantasyPts Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/FantasyPts TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@fantasypts #fantasypoints #nfl #fantasyfootball #dynastyfantasyfootball #FantasyFootballAdvice #dynastypoints #dynasty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Canada Life. Insurance, investments, advice. First read. We are your first read. The film and analytics podcast featuring Joe Marino of lockdown and myself, Brett Whitefield, the C-O-O-O-of-Fa-Fanycy Points. This podcast is powered by the Fantasy Points Data Suite. Let's get after it. Joe, my man, welcome to the show. Thank you, Brett Whitefield. Welcome to you as well to the show. Yes, to our show. It's almost like I understand. introduce you as a guest, even though this is our show. We've been doing this for a long time now. Does it feel normal yet that we do this?

Especially because we're doing twice a week. Right. In fact, I think I was going to suggest to Trey that we do this live on Tuesdays. Since we're up and it's so early, we could literally be people's first read. You know what I mean? Getting ready for work, driving to work. Where are your first read? I don't know.

Live at 7 a.m. or whatever time we record. Yeah, live at 7 a.m. He probably won't go for that. because I don't think he wants to produce it this early. But, you know. Oh, yeah. That's, hey, bud. Go ahead and get yourself up and ready to go.

Yeah, I'd be cool with it. But, you know, producers, stuff like that. Well, Joe, week five is in the books. It's been pretty exciting. Actually, before we jump into the football discussion, I wanted to hit one topic real quick. Hurricane Helene has devastated much of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.

It's been kind of a mess. I got people on the ground there. My guy, John Costco, is down there assisting in the relief effort. He lives in eastern Tennessee, and the communities around him have been absolutely decimated. And I just wanted to shout him out for what he's doing. Him and his wife have fed over 2,000 people since this thing has started. They're feeding roughly a couple hundred people a day, including 60 Army Rangers that are stationed at the local airport there. They're using that airport as a base of operations to fly in and out with Blackhawks and go pull people out of their house.

and stuff like that. So shout out to John, but they need help. They need support, financial support. I want you guys to, if you're willing to donate to John and his wife's cause. They have a cash app you can hit up. It's Ashley Costco. And you can always DM me for more details. But the Red Cross organization hasn't really done a good job of kind of navigating this relief effort. And in fact, they even tried to shut down John's community and what they were doing for their community and call it an illegal operation. And thankfully, the citizens kicked them out. But John and his wife are definitely crucial part of what they're doing. And I've always admired John because in the face of adversity, he's always been stadfast and his ability just to kind of do the right thing every single time.

He's been that way since I've known him. And he's basically put his life on halt to kind of help everything. going on there. So I'm a huge, huge fan of what they're doing. And I just want to support it any way we can. I know my wife and I are going to financially support as well. So I'll lead by example there. But if you want more details on that, please DM me on Twitter. If you know me personally, you can text me, whatever. You know, let's let's help rally the troops and support from afar the best that we can. Yeah, it's a good call out there, Brett. It's been devastating. I live in the Charlotte area. And we didn't really get anything.

to be concerned about had a few hours of rain and wind but the western part of the state is crushed man it's devastated it's not built for the type of flooding that they've experienced and people are displaced and it's very real and you know this stuff is unfortunately something that happens across the country but when you're so close to it man it just does it hits different and so it's been amazing to see so many individuals take initiative to help people and um they those people need a lot of help and my wife and I, we've also done what we can. We've certainly collected a lot of items at our house and made it available to people in our own community to bring to us where we've got to people that need it as well. So everything matters. Every dollar, every bottle of water, every blanket. There's so much that people

need. And appreciate you taking the time here at the top to create more awareness and hopefully inspire more help because, man, those people need it. And it's just a very, very sad situation. We vacation, I wouldn't say vacation, but we go, we spend a lot of weekends in the mountains. in Western North Carolina, and just to see the visuals of places that I frequent all the time just literally wiped out, man. It is, it's really sad. So I appreciate you taking the time to share all that. Absolutely. All right.

Now with that, let's get into some football talk. There's a lot that we can get into. I know we have a lot on the sketch today, even some college football player discussion, which will get into the end of the show. But I wanted to start things off today, Joe, by talking about some coaching blunders. one of them I love to look at welcome to the show bright whitefield yeah one of them near and dear to your heart because it involved the buffalo bills in the way they handled that fourth quarter and since you're here with me joe let's just let's just make this locked on bills for a second why don't you break down from your vantage point what happened uh in the end of that bills

game man i've been trying so hard to move on brett trying hard here to move on so the bills um have a really good comeback. They're down three scores in the second half, and they scratching claw and come back. And I think a lot of that was assisted by Houston mistakes, and the bills were able to take advantage mostly of those mistakes, wind up getting the game tied at 20 points. And they take possession of the ball with 32 seconds left at their own three yard line. And Houston has three timeouts, and Kiami Fairburn's an unbelievable kicker. He's been, what, 94% or better the last couple of years and he's great from distance, right? He's a really good kicker. And so the bills have to get a first down.

They have to get a first down, right? That's an important part of this entire conversation. If they want to get to overtime, they have to get a first down. And so there's a number of different things that you can consider here. I know a lot of people would say, well, run the ball, get some additional yardage, get a little bit more space to punt and force Houston to take their timeouts. Certainly that sounds good. But they had to get a first down. And I take no exception with throwing the ball. I really don't.

I don't mind that at all. Josh Allen's your best player. If they ran the ball three times for no yards and wind up having the same exact sequence, everybody in the world questions, well, why didn't Josh Allen have an opportunity with the ball in his hands, right? So I definitely understand the idea of throwing it. But Brett Whitefield,

throwing the ball down the field, low efficiency passes that haven't worked all season. season and in particular this game and the last several games, the bills leaning into a back shoulder throw to Keon Coleman on first down, then a stuttering go to Mack Hollins on second down down the field. Those are ridiculous play calls. And you go to the Keon Coleman back shoulder throw, and the bills hit two of them against Baltimore last week.

So you could see why they maybe had some confidence that they could do that. Brett, you know about how to get a back shoulder. throw you have to push vertical right you have to push vertical you have to make it feel like it's a go route two three steps into the route keon coleman's heads back looking for the ball and what happens as as soon as his head goes for the ball kamar lasseter's head goes for the ball and so you didn't sell anything you like keon coleman's i mean respectfully he seems like a 21 year old rookie that was excited to get the ball and forgot how to run the route with any good technique and so you wasted down there then your next play is a stutter go to mac hollins and respectfully it was there

Like he was he separated the space was there. They just they were off on the throw. But Brett, they've been off on the throw all year. Josh Allen just clearly doesn't have chemistry yet with a lot of these new weapons, right? All these four brand new wide receivers. The Bill's roster five. The only returning receiver from last year is Kalil Shakir. So you lean into two low efficiency plays in a situation where you just need to be efficient and get a first down.

It wasn't the time to make those throws. And then, of course, on third down, Josh has a little pressure from his left. He can't get set and he one hops the ball to a wide open Curtis Samuel. The bills punt and the Texans make the field goal and the bills lose the game. And so I don't take exception with throwing. I don't take exception with not running. I take exception with the way that you threw the ball down the field was inefficient and didn't accomplish your objective or give yourself the best opportunity to accomplish your objective of getting that first down and getting to overtime. Yeah, dude. This was rough for me, man. I felt like I really like I really like I,

I'm not, you know me, I'm default aggressive, right? That's my mindset. I get, we're going to go for it right here. We got to get this first down. We're going to dial up some pass plays. I'm cool with the past place. I didn't like the choice of past concept on any of the three dropbacks. The third one, however, was there.

And then why not just take some safe stuff? Give yourself a chance to complete the ball. Well, I think that's been the issue with the bill's offense. And I'm glad we're getting to this point because the first three weeks of the season, Brett, I was in love with everything happening with Josh Allen, the way he was playing the quarterback position. His decision making was exceptional. He took what the defense gave him.

He took the short stuff. He took the checkdowns yards after catch. It was a beautiful situation. And then it felt like over the last two weeks, Josh is back to big play hunting. And it's inefficient football. And the bills are in long and late downs. And it gets chaotic.

They have some issues with how they are choosing to protect. Not that they have offensive line issues, but I think the way that they choose to handle their protection schemes, it's not really working, and you're getting in these negative game scripts, that just makes it difficult to throw the football. And Baltimore is a team came into this game, fifth in the highest percentage of cover one,

or excuse me, one high middle of the field closed coverage, which means, hey, we got to throw the ball outside the wide receivers. And it's a good idea, like conceptually, it's a good idea to throw the ball down the field. The problem is you don't have down the field receiving talent. And, and just, I know you have the numbers. What's Josh Allen on throws 20 plus down the field? It's not good this year. Despite a pretty good catchable ball rate, you could just tell

that the chemistry is just not there with MVS, with Mack Collins, with Keon Coleman. And it needs to get back to what we saw weeks one through three because, you know, we always had a lot of questions about the turnover on offense for the bills and how it gets, get started. The problem is we saw weeks one through three. And you, it in. You said, oh, wow, everybody eats Josh Allen completing passes to nine receivers, then 10 receivers. It all looks really good. And then you kind of get away from that the last two weeks. And now you're like, oh, Josh Allen needs more wide receiver talent. Well, yeah, but also he has to be more willing to play the style that he did the first three weeks of the season. Four for 20 on the

season passing, 20 plus downfield. It's terrible. Two for 12 the last two weeks. Not good, Joe. So probably don't do that in the highest leverage moment of the game. right when you didn't need it their their past game is also out of sync it seems I feel like I see more wrong routes run with the bills than most teams right now even just go to the back shoulder to the key on you already mentioned how he kind of ran that route wrong he didn't sell the vertical to to then have space to come back to but go look at the other side that's like a double lion concept with a slot clear out who's number 80 on the team Tyrol shaver's off the practice squad and he's running he's running routes on the most crucial down of the day. Well, anyways, it's double line concept.

I'm pretty sure he's supposed to run a slant. And he comes out of that break, super flat like a basic. And he's got a, you know, a DB just playing right over him. He doesn't win. If he wins that route that gives Allen two legit options, and he probably takes the slant for the easy for you think Josh is coming off Keon. He wasn't open to begin with. Like that was all. It needed to be a turn down to begin with. And look at the, if you look at the tempo of the, the routes that were run, it does make it seem like that was perhaps a predetermined back shoulder. I mean, they're not really running it. Like Shavers, your guy Shavers doesn't do anything to try to win the leverage battle. He just literally goes through the motions of his route. It's, it's honestly kind of pathetic.

Well, slot clear out did its job too. He took two guys with him. Right. But there's, you go back to the ball where Joshua the ball into Keon Coleman's head, right? Yeah. That was the only route there was the glance route to Keon Coleman. Like that was the only part of the play. And the only person on the planet that didn't know the ball was going to Keon Coleman was Keon Coleman. So yeah, it's the point, it gets back to the bigger point that like the chemistry is just not there with these weapons. And so that what more importantly, why the style of office. that Josh was willing to play weeks one through three had to be what it was moving forward. But then like, I don't know.

I always get myself in this mental space with Josh Allen where it's like, okay, well, what happened? Week four, you play the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore Sunday night football. Lamar Jackson, the reigning MVP, you probably feel slighted that he was the MVP. You go out, you try to put on a show, you don't play good ball. Then it's what's, who do they play this week? The Houston Texans, who do they have? Stefan Diggs. Oh, you got to go out there and show.

You got to go out there and show everybody that you can be productive. and win football games without Stefan Diggs while Stefan Diggs plays for the other team. And you kind of get out of your process. You get out of doing the smart, normal, right things with the football. And so, yeah, I do think there's wide receiver issues. I think their protection schemes are problematic. I think there's some play call sequencing that can be better for sure. But Josh Allen deserves a piece of this blame as well for the way that he's choosing to approach these games.

I agree. My last critique with this play calling, by the way, is what's Josh Allen's best asset? I guess it's his own physical skill set. competitive nature, right? I was going to say his playmaking ability. Sure. Okay. Makes in place, make stuff happen.

Well, when you're pinned on the two yard line, Joe, you can't really tap into that because you're crambling around in the end zone. Right. You're just, you know, asking for a, for a holding call, safety, yada, yada. If you get a couple yards there, if you dial up like a first down run, you force the time out to come out. And then also you're, you know, you're getting off the end zone a little bit. So where Josh can start to use his best asset a little bit more.

I had issues with this all the way around, but we can move on. How about the Cincinnati Bengals and the way Zach Taylor closed out that game? I'll just run you through the scenario here. So similar to the Bills, they had a great comeback and eventually took the lead in that game, Joe. It was really awesome. So here we go. Bengals get the ball back. They're in field goal range.

It's like a 53-yard field goal. and they decide to run three times in a row, just settling for a 53-yard. A 53-yard field goal is not a chip shot. Like, you know what I mean? It's not like you're 40 yards or 35 yards. It's a tough kick, and I know McPherson's typically been pretty good on those kicks,

but literally just three zero-yard runs on first, second, and third down to then settle for the field goal in which they missed. They also were telegraphed, like, they came in. See, they actually got three yards, Three yards on three carries. And then it is a 53-yard field goal. McPherson missed wide left. They also, the play calling there was all tells.

They brought in the extra offensive linemen. Cody Ford. Baltimore clearly knew that you were just trying to scoot up a little bit. They stuff you three times in a row. I hate this stuff. And Zach Taylor has always done this. He's always been super conservative, never been aggressive at all. And I think it legitimately costs him this game.

in a game that you kind of dominated the entire, dominated the entire second half as well. So I just super passive bone. It's like the opposite of what Buffalo did. Buffalo is a little too aggressive, right? Cincinnati is a little too passive. And I think both situations cost them the game. Yeah, crazy game.

What six consecutive touchdown drives to start the second half? I mean, just absolutely insane. And yeah, this is just a lack of awareness of your football team. This Bengals have never run the ball well. under Zach Taylor, like ever. And then to run the ball well against Baltimore, who's got one of the best run, the best run defense in the NFL.

Get, give yourself the best chance to win the game. Burroughs 30 or 39 for 392 yards and five touchdowns. You have Jamar Chase. You have T. Higgins. What are you doing? But give yourself the best chance to win the game. Middle of the field is wide open all game for them. Higgins,

chase, unslance, all day, every day. It was there. You deserve. I mean, you deserve, of the fate that you got. Yeah. And this is why I call Zach Taylor the biggest fake sharp in all of football. Well, I'll say this about Zach Taylor. I tended to agree with you. He won me over a bit last year with all the injuries that they had and being able to win games with Jake Browning. I thought that was a pretty impressive coaching job. It certainly made me feel a lot better about Zach Taylor as that head coach. But boy. Isn't it? Isn't it like playing with House

money though. Like there's no pressure anymore. No one. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. It's like you're coaching a little looser. It reminds me of the the 2020 Deshawn Watson campaign in Houston. It's like it's easy to put up 5,000 yards passing when you're losing by 30 every game. Like in look good. Like you're just playing loose at that point. You're down 20 at half time. Every single game. You're just, yeah, I'll go out and collect garbage time stats. It kind of reminds me that a little bit. So do you have any other coaching blunders that you'd like to get to, Brett Whitefield? I felt like there were a lot. Those were the two most notable ones.

I think the other ones would be, you know, tickey tack, you know, more nitpicky. Well, it just makes me feel good to get all of them out there if you possibly can't. I'm just kidding. It's, it feels like McDermott's good for one of those a year, where last year against Denver, the too many men on the field with Denver missing the field goal and give another chance or the way he kind of managed a Philly game. I don't know if you heard of 13 seconds against the Chiefs. There's like these moments that just compound for Sean McDermott where it feels like you're just worried about when the next one's going to come and you're worried about if it's going to come in a playoff game, it's going to cost you, right?

It's really those big precious moments. It's like, man, year eight for a head coach. It's really good. Otherwise, it's kind of disappointing to see that stuff. All right. I got one more. All right. Mike Tomlin and the Dallas Cowboys game.

Started on an hour and a half delay. I'll tell you that was not great for me. I know. I had to be up anyways. so I saw it. But, you know, Dallas is moving the ball. They get all the way down into, you know, right inside the red zone, Pittsburgh's side of the field.

And, you know, we're at the time, I think you're at like a minute 30. No, a minute was left on the clock when they got into the red zone. And there was a situation where I think Pittsburgh had one time out left. There was going to be a 10 second runoff. And Dallas has the ball on like the four-yard line, Joe. Like it's inevitable that they're going to score points at this point, whether it's a field goal or, or no, it wouldn't have been a field goal. They were down, they were down four. So they had to go for a touchdown.

So it's pretty inevitable, right, that they're going to have to put this in the end zone. If I'm Mike Tomlin, you immediately got to start thinking about, well, I'm going to need more time for my offense if I give up this touchdown. The 10 second runoff option, you know, you can take a time out to stop that from happening. Like Tomlin opts not to. You want to save his time out for Justin Fields. the problem is by the time they got the ball back joe there was freaking 15 seconds left 15 seconds yeah and you're giving justin fields two plays to go 89 yards or sorry 79 yards i it is a huge blunder to me i in what's crazy is the broadcast didn't even mention it that like tomlin should

be the one to take the time out not McCarthy they were talking about McCarthy not taking the the time out to stop the clock i'm like you know he has plenty of time it's like 30 seconds left to go four yards like we don't you know what i mean and i you know message my book buddies message my team and they all seem to agree, which made me feel better. But I just can't believe Tomlin wasn't thinking about the last possession of the game there. Like I get he's defensive minded, right? And he's like, focus is let's stop them. Don't even give him the touchdown.

But you still have to be prepared just in case you do. I don't know. I thought it was long tenured head coach Mike Tom. Yeah. The three long tenured head coaches that we're talking about. So true. There we go. Makes me feel better about my life.

Can we talk about the Cleveland Browns? You mentioned Deshawn Watson in that great season that he had, his last one with Houston before really the bottom fell out. Andrew, Andrew, Kevin Stefanski continues to tell us that Deshawn Watson's the starting quarterback. And I'm sure there's, it's not as simple as performance, right? I mean, it's a $230 million guaranteed contract. They gave up the world to give him. I'm sure that there's people above him that are telling him that Deshawn Watson has to be the quarterback.

But Brett, I mean, Deshawn continues to be an unplayable guy. I mean, if the Carolina Panthers can put Bryce Young on the bench, why can't the Cleveland Browns put Deshawn Watson? I mean, defensively, they're very talented. I understand that offensively they have a bunch of injuries on their offensive line. But Watson doesn't give them a chance. And you went out, you were pretty intentional. about quarterback depth with James Winston.

You had DTR. You had, they have Tyler Huntley at one point as well. Like you loaded up on this quarterback depth. And I'm sure part of that's because Deshawn Watson and the injuries missed a bunch of time last year, kind of struggled to get through camp and all that. But at what point are you just going to completely ruin your football team because you're overly committed to Deshaun Watson? Like, everybody knows the guy can't play.

everybody knows you have James Winston who's surely a better option like I think there's a lot of damage in having to Sean Watson I think there's more damage in having him and continuing to play him and acting like there's not a problem it's rough man he ranks bottom 10 in just about

every major performance metric we have it's gotten a little better the last two weeks in that regard I think he was literally like bottom four and everything and I think now he's just bottom 10 but man it's it's so bad it's it's got to be a it's got to be a money situation or perhaps the owner slash gm has made it clear to stefansky that his his job is contingent on watson right because he signed

off on it somebody signed off on watson being the guy when they when they made that trade right so you think the owner would i mean with all with everything that you signed up for that's an ownership decision yeah yeah they're not yeah they don't take accountability for stuff like that so i'm guessing like how does that conversation start it's probably stefansky or who's the GM? Is it? Andrew Barry. Andrew Barry.

You know, one of those guys brought that to the owner and said, hey, we can go get to Sean Watson. Are you in? Owner signs off on it, but not from the standpoint of we're not, I'm not hinging my job on this. Like, cool, this is what my guys want to do. I'll empower that. We don't know how those conversations went. I'm assuming that's typically how this stuff looks like unless you're talking about Jerry Jones or Bob Kraft, guys who are a little more involved in the org.

But, man, I, it has, the only explanation. for him continuing to play is it has to be tied to somebody's job. And the second you bench them, you're basically waving the white flag saying, I was wrong. I took my shot and missed on this quarterback, and now I suffer the consequences. That's the only thing I can think of. It doesn't make sense for Stefanski. Because you would think the opposite is true, right?

The more he plays Deshaun, the less likely he's retained because Deshawn's losing in football games. And they just extended Stefanski and Barry in the off season. That's true. Oh, my gosh. Brett, I mean, this, they've played five games. The most points they've scored was 18 in week two against Jacksonville. They've had under 250 yards in every single game, except for Jacksonville.

They had 297. They're the worst. Dude, they're converting 18% of their third downs. Brett, they're 12 of 66 on third downs this year. We can't, we can't do this, man. We can't go to war like this. Yeah. You go ahead.

It's not, you can't do it, man. So I'd be, I'd be a whole. I want to understand what the reason is. Because if you tell me that you're committed to Deshaun Watson based on the trade and what you gave up, I easily say there's 52 other players on that roster that you owe it to to play your best quarterback. Who you also committed to. Right. You're committed more to those players. Man, it's tough. It's actually really hard to watch too.

I think you're seeing the effect that's having on the team as well. You know, I think Cooper, we're not getting Cooper's best effort on every snap right now. I think that seems obvious to me. Trade them. They should trade them. They have that contract in a position where it's extremely tradable. Yeah. So I think that's something they need to explore.

Well, let's talk about this. Are they done at one and what are they one and four? Are they done? Do you see this? I mean, do you see it happening? Not with Deshawn Watson at quarterback. No, no, not with Deshawn Watson. And they're coming schedule.

at the Eagles who are, I think the Eagles are coming off of a buy. Yeah, they are. Then they have three in a row at home. Bengals, Ravens, Chargers. At best they go two and two, at best. Yeah. And then they have their buy week. Are we getting to the buy week and reassessing everything?

Like, I don't see it, man. Like, they're not, I guess they played a close game against the Raiders. Like, they have played, they've been blown out twice, and they've played three close games. Their defense should keep them in close games, right? Yeah, but I mean, it's like if the defense, the defense can only, like, there's, that's the, look at the Jets.

Remember the Jets, the last couple years, they wind up going seven and 10, where at some point, there's just not enough complimentary football for the defense to matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's my concern. It's my concern.

The other thing with the Browns that probably needs to get noted is something that's worked for them since Stefansky's for sure been there is they're a physical team on both sides. I don't see a very physical team right now. I see a team that's losing in the trenches on offense. And if we're being honest on defense a little bit, Miles Garrett's a monster. But other than that, that D-Line has not played well, Joe.

If any of the run has been bad, they're not getting pressure opposite Miles Garrett. They did a little bit in this game. I think Zadarius Smith is I think that's who it was sacked jade and Daniels a couple times but it's just even the identity of who they are has seemed to fallen off where it's this they were this like even when they had past protection issues they could still run the ball down your throat maybe nick chub helps with that i just it seems more oline related to me at this point joe i don't know i'm i'm kind of i'm just skeptical overall even in that stretch you just mentioned two and four

still only gets them the three and six, and they still have Deshawn Watson at quarterback. So, right. Yeah, it's a tough city. Speaking of maybe tough situations, the Colts. And they lose to Jacksonville. Jacksonville gets their first win of the season,

a shootout 37 to 34 win over the Colts. But this Indianapolis team with Anthony Richardson and the hip injury and Joe Flacco coming in and he came in, of course, last week and spark the team and then a very productive day offensively. He scored, I mean, 34 points. He had 348 passing yards.

Are we at a situation where you have to look at this quarterback situation and feel like Joe Flacco is a quarterback that gives the Colts the best chance to win? Or do you need to embrace what you are as a football team, which is one that drafted a young quarterback that started building around a young quarterback and let him fail forward, even if he doesn't give you the best opportunity to win games. Like how do you, how do you sort this out if you're the Colts? Yeah, that's a tough question because obviously there's no future of Flacko, right? He's, he's kind of a one year guy, obviously with his age and stuff.

Also, you invested heavily into Anthony. I think you still got to play Richardson, to be honest with you. There's, it depends how you value the season, right? Like, do they think they can be competitive still at two and three? If they do, maybe you roll a flaco a little longer. I do think Shane Steichen's words were very selective in the way he talked about this with saying, you know, Anthony Richardson is our quarterback for sure, no questions asked, once he's fully healthy. Yeah, take a time.

I think buys him a little time to experiment with Flacco and just see really what they have there with him. And maybe, you know, if they win some games, they can make a run. But here's the thing. I do think the production has been way up of Flacco. I don't think it's been as good as people think it has. Flacco is still, like his catchable ball rate still rolling like 25th in the NFL right now.

It's the same thing with Flacco last year. Yeah, true. Yeah, I mean, not really that good, but. Right, the crucial mistakes too in pressure moments. You saw that in the playoff game last year, right? Like, he's still that guy as well.

You know, is that 10% extra catchable ball rate? It's crazy that that's been what's unlocked the offense, right? Like, he's just, Richardson threw six interceptions in 77 attempts. Yeah, and like a couple of them were returned for touchdowns as well. Right, that's going to kill you. So, yeah, catchable balls and then not turning over the ball in a small sample size.

It's a pretty big deal. Yeah, Flacco. Yeah, Flacco, yeah, 2.9% turnover really throw rate. Not, it's, again, not the best, but. Oh, what's going to go up? We know what happens here. It's going up. Yeah.

Still, it's significant improvement over what Richardson is like 10% nearly, which is crazy. So, yeah, it's tough. So, like, if you don't think you're super competitive, right? There's, there's value in having Flacco play because then you get to evaluate the rest of your young roster, your young players. You know, you got, you got some battles at receivers right now. Alec Pierce looks like a dude all of a sudden. It's crazy. Launch it to him, baby.

Just launched it to him. A quarterback that was willing to throw deep and this guy's an actual player. He's having a great season, honestly. It's kind of crazy. And then A.D. Mitchell being a youngster. Josh Downs in the second year. Michael Pittman's not a youngster, but, you know, you got to see. what fits around with Michael Pittman.

So, and that's an awkward combo to try to sort out too, right? Down is more of a slot only player. AD is kind of a combo outside slot. Pierce is definitely outside only. So you're trying to figure out what the best pair or trio to roll with there. I think it's tough for them. I think Flacco at QB is a little valuable from that standpoint. You get to evaluate those guys a little bit better.

But man, I don't know. I think when you're talking about a guy like Richardson, same thing we talked about with Trey Lance. The one thing that guy needs is reps, man. If you want him to get better, he needs reps. And so I don't know that him's sitting longer than he has to is good for him. Yeah, that's the hard part of the whole conversation is he needs to play, but you have to ask yourself at what expense.

And this is a team that was a play away from winning the division last year. Yes. And I know that they've got some shortcomings on defense. That concerns me as well. But a lot to sort out with the Indianapolis Colts will see how they play. play it. Speaking of a lot to sort out, let's get to the Jets. Let's get to Aaron Rogers. What this football team is and what it isn't. Obviously, it feels like they're having a lot of issues running the ball, which is not helping. But Aaron Rogers and the way he plays, it feels like,

it feels like it's hard for him to really settle into this offense. Obviously, we mentioned they're not running the ball well, but, you know, Aaron Rogers, we throw off the ball, 50s, six times against the Vikings, uh, 22 targets to, to Garrett Wilson. It just feels like his whole process of playing the position is get the ball by time and like by time to get the ball to the desired place that you want to be. Like is he really working progressions? Is he playing smart quarterback? It feels like it's just I want a little extra time to allow something to uncover that I

like and I'm going to try to fit it in there. I don't think it's a good process, Brett. And I feel like, you know, we remember Aaron Rogers in the career that he had with the Green Bay Packers and a lot of familiarity with certain weapons. But as he aged, it was kind of like he's going to throw it to the guy he wanted to throw it to. And kind of got away from like running the offense. And with so much, you know, this is all new for him. And, you know, it's, it feels like it feels like the complimentary nature of the operation where it's like, hey, inefficient passing due to the way our quarterback is playing with new weapons and he's a chemistry guy.

They're not running the ball. Defensively, they've certainly taken a step back. I don't know, maybe the Jets aren't the Super Bowl champions that a lot of people thought they were going to be going into the season. Here's the thing with Rogers, and I might take heat for this. One of my big critiques of him throughout his entire career is that he doesn't really work progressions like that. A lot of what he's done in this career is it's twofold. Quick game. Loves quick game.

Tons of slant flat, tons of stick. tons of spot you know he like he loves that stuff um hit the back foot let the ball out it's what it's one of the reasons he doesn't turn the ball over a lot and obviously this game he did it's one of the reasons reasons he doesn't take a lot of sacks and then on the second and longs and third and longs he likes to buy himself time and improv a little bit and enforce the ball into jordy nelson or defante adams or now garret wilson and i think you're just seeing his age catch up with him a little bit where he's just not as effective on that type of stuff, right? Like, I don't know, look at the advanced performance metrics in the,

the fantasy points data suite. He's, he's fine. He's just kind of a middle of the road QB right now in his performance. And I think some of it is that improv element just isn't as good as it used to be. You know, he's just not as good at doing that. He'll still make those jaw dropping, dropping throws once a while. But for the most people, he's not, you know, he's not out there tearing it up or anything.

And, you know, until he really gets back to working progressions and stuff, like, he can complain about Garrett, Wilson getting double-teamed all game. But what does that mean, Joe? If he's getting double-teamed all game, that means- Guys are open. Yeah, guys are open, bro. You got to find them.

That's on you, man. That's on you. So. Well, and defensively, like the whole story was, if the Jets could just get an average quarterback with their defense, that they'd be fine. And I'd know that they're, what, second in yards or fifth in scoring defense, which are not great ways to measure defense or least amount of net yards per

in terms of pass coverage. Dude, they played Will Levis, Jacoby, percent bow nicks and this version of the vikings yeah you know what i mean like that's i'm not sure i'm not sure the metrics really tell the story of this jet's defense where you've you've i think you've seen plenty of chinks in the armor um and so i guess if you look at the grand scheme of things with the jets as like okay your your your your mission if you're the jets is you got to win the afc east maybe you look at it as well the patriots and the dolphins like doesn't look like it's going to they're really going to be players in the division.

So you just got to beat the bills. And the bills certainly don't look like their world beaters, right? I think they've shown plenty of issues over the last couple of weeks. Their next matchup, Monday night football, Jets, bills. Yeah. So like maybe there is something to, hey, let it play out. It's probably going to get better as he gets more time on task and game experience with, with his players.

And maybe we bring in a Devante Adams and we go get this thing this year. And, you know, you're the four seed in the AFC East. for forcing the AFC, you get to the playoffs, you're hosting a playoff game. Like, okay, you got a chance. Like, I'm sure that's the mindset of the Jets. But I think there's a big difference between, hey, do you think we can overtake Buffalo this year in the East versus, hey, we're a real player that's going to be able to go toe to toe with any team in this conference. I don't feel that way about them right now. And look, I mean, go back to the Tom Brady year in Tampa, right?

They were seven and five kind of stumbled their way. then it starts clicking, right? And they win the Super Bowl. Could that happen with the Jets? I don't know. Like, sure, but it feels unlikely to me just based on the way that it looks right now. So the next chunk of their schedule is kind of tough. They got bills, Steelers, then Patriots, which is a winnable game, then the Texans.

But after that, dude, softens up. Kind of right off into the sunset a little bit. Cardinals, Colts, Seahawks is a tough one. But then dolphins, Jags, Rams. I mean, there's like six, seven winnable games if they can get through this Buffalo game. You know, coming up. And then they end again with Buffalo and the dolphins. But I don't know. It's tough. I guess we'll find out how they perform the next couple of weeks. I think the bills and the Steelers games are really important for them. Yeah. And then Houston and at Arizona, I think,

you know, like, I think they have, they could lose four of their next five. I think Arizona is very beatable, though. Sure. but they're also an opportunistic team. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, they're, they're, they kind of have some big play potential that you're like, okay, they can, they can kind of stick around. And I think that game is, is in Arizona, which is helpful for obviously the Cardinals, not having to go across country and play outside and all that type of stuff.

So the Jets are the Jets will see. They'll define, I think their season will be defined over the next four or five games. We will find out about them. They played the Vikings. in London. And the 5 and 0 Vikings, Brett Whitefield. The 5 and 0 Minnesota Vikings. Defensively, this team looks really good, right?

I think the run defense is unbelievable. They can really apply pressure. They're a tough team to play on defense. Feels like maybe we're starting to see Sam Darnold be Sam Darnold again. And I know you were a week ahead of you. You said it last week. And I watched this game.

I skipped church. stay home and watch watch jets and Vikings and you start the game and i'm like brett whitefield's wrong about this sam darn looks pretty good man he ripping that throw across the middle of the field of jess and jefferson i'm like all right baby sand darndt's going to be here i'm going to talk to brett whitefield about this then the rest of the game happened right there so you kind of saw the inefficiency and high variance of sam darnell defense was able to kind of secure the win uh they have their by week which it feels like maybe comes at a good time you know i mean you hate to be five and oh and like stop playing but it feels like maybe your issue

shoes we're starting to come out you got a chance to reset now you got a tough situation coming out of the buy you get Detroit um but like what's what's your what's your pulse check here on on this viking this this this five and o Vikings team so thank you for acknowledging that i was a week early on sam tarnold he's got six turnover really plays on his last 40 dropbacks 40 dropbacks 40 dropbacks is a typical game sample for most kbs six turnover really plays joe if any quarterback in the league at six turnover really plays in one game we'd be talking about how terrible performance that was darnell kind of straddled two games so it's spread out it feels spread out a little bit even though he didn't have a lot of drawbacks in either of those performances uh concerning to me man it is concerning

that that's been like the raw talent's always been there with darnell he's got a good arm he's a pretty mobile guy he can make some stuff happen with his legs it's always been the turnovers going back to USC. He is the coming into this season, Joe, he is the highest turnover per dropback rate in NFL history. It's, it's absurd. So to see him now go six turnover worthy plays over the last 40 dropbacks, it just tells me that that is still there in him. And I think you're right. The by week comes out a perfect time because I think what's happened is Donald earned some trust with Kevin O'Connell. Cool. We're going to take the the reins off a little bit. We're going to take the leash, so to speak off a little bit and let you play a little loose.

dial up some more deep throws and then now maybe it's time for Kevin O'Connell to rein that back in, go to a way more structured game script and call sheet like he did in weeks one and two. And I think that will help Donald maybe get back to normal. But definitely concerning, though, from what I've seen the last two games. I mean, the Vikings have 13 takeaways in five games. They've had seven over the last two, four. I mean, I think this kind of speaks to it. They had four takeaways against Green Bay, one by three.

they have three takeaways against the Jets and one by one score. Yeah. You should be killing teams with that. And I don't know where you're at on this. I think there's a randomness to turnovers. I think there's certain things that help you get turnovers. And like I think you could be better than other teams at turnovers. But to have them that frequently, 13 turnovers and takeaways in five games,

like probably not going to be something you can regularly count on. Yeah. So I think there's that piece of the equation. Like there's a regression that's coming there. even if they're still the same players as the same team. It's just you're not going to get 13 turnovers. You're not going to get seven in the last two games. You're not going to get that all the time.

That's probably true. Flores, obviously, the nature of how he calls plays sets up. That's his whole thing. It's like we're going to, you know, pressure you, simulate pressure on you, or confuse you, all of which, you know, create a propensity to generate turnovers. Now, they're going to give up a ton of big plays. That's true. In every game, they give up, they don't care.

They'll give up big plays. then they'll just tighten it up after that. I think they have one of the best forced fuel goals rates inside the Red Zone in the league as well. But they do give up a lot of 20 plusers, a lot of explosives, but they don't seem to care. They like that aggressive nature. Working so far.

I like to talk about Cincinnati Bengals. We kind of got into them towards the beginning of our conversation, talking about Zach Taylor and the mismanagement of the end of that game. But speaking of mismanagement, Burrell looks great, man. Burlick's great. I mean, certainly Higgins and Chase is back. He's playing good football. I'm not sure it's going to matter, dude. This defense stinks. This defense is bad, bad. They're giving up tons of yards. They're giving up tons of points.

I mean, Andy Dalton shredded him. Jaden Daniels shredded him. Lamar killed him. It's like, I mean, they got, they gave up yards and points to frigging New England in week one. This defense is bad. And it speaks to the bigger question that I continue to have about Cincinnati. Maddie. And it's just how they manage their roster. It's how they manage their talent. And they sat there over the last several off seasons and said goodbye to Jesse Bates. They said goodbye to DJ Reader. And they were able to get modest extensions done, like, undervalue contracts for Jermaine Pratt and Logan Wilson. They're counting on this Dax Hill transition. It looks like he's out for the year. They've made some bad choices on this defense.

And it stinks. And it's going to get in the way of, what I think this passing offense and Joe Burrow can be this year. Dude, they're one and four. Yeah. They're one and four with Joe Burrow playing out of his mind. I, dude, I agree. I'm tempted to say they just need to hit the reset button, bro. You say that, yeah.

I mean, but what inspires you? They say they just don't manage their players. Like their self, they don't get their self-evaluations right. And part of that's because of their approach to contracts and how they handle their cash. Yeah, there's no reason DJ Reader shouldn't be on this football team. Jesse Bates? Jesse Bitts? Yeah.

We're farting around with Jason Higgins right now? Yeah. Yep, those guys will be playing on new teams next year probably. But here's the goodness. Giants, Browns, Eagles, Raiders, their next three. You got to think in yourself, let's get to four and four, right? Giants, Browns, Eagles, Raiders. Yeah.

why are the Giants so feisty not to divert the conversation, but I know we look and go, oh, that's an easy win, but the Giants are, they're kind of feisty, man. The Giants are feisty. I think they got a couple of good young playmakers and Tyrone Tracy's been a revelation. Blake Neighbors looks like a baller.

They were able to beat Seattle without neighbors and without Devin Singletary, their lead running back. I think they've, defensively, like what, Dexter Lawrence and DJ Davidson destroyed that Seattle interior offensive line. I think that's a fatal flaw for Seattle.

Like they have not figured out that interior offensive line and it's a problem. Yeah. They transitioned the whole thing and it's not good. Especially with that style of down the field passing offense that they want to be. Like you need pocket depth. And boy, they're just getting crushed on the inside, crushed. Yeah, they got false hope because Alim McNeil didn't play against them in that Monday night game. So I think they felt, I'm sure.

I'm being serious. Sometimes you catch a break there and you get a, get lucky and then you think your guys played better than they actually did. They just weren't really tested, you know? Yeah. So kind of all over the place here with Bengals D, that could be a fatal flaw. They got a chance to go on a run.

Seattle problems with your interior offensive line that I think is going to be prohibitive to them being what they need to be. I'm not sure like Jason Peters is on the practice squad. We'll see if, you know, at 47 years old, if he can come in and play guard for them, probably better than what they have. Is he actually 47? No, I think he's like 40. How old?

We got to look it up now. Jason Peters age. Google knows what it is. I'm old enough to remember him being an undrafted free agent. He's 42. Undrafted free agent tight end out of Arkansas out of the bills. He was on a kickoff team as a rookie. He caught J.P. Lawsman's first career touchdown pass.

And 100 years later, he's going to go in the Hall of Fame. But he keeps on waiting. He keeps on not retiring, sticking around, doing this kind of stuff. but I love, I love Jason Peters. You must really love ball or he's got some gambling debt. One of the two. You never know. One of the two.

Let's keep it in the NFC West. Let's talk a little, let's talk about the San Francisco 49ers and the absolute collapse that they had against Arizona on Sunday afternoon. I'm not sure if you've, if you've, I know you have. You watch every play 400 times so you know everything about the NFL. The second half for the 49ers is a masterclass of terrible. This is their drive charts in the second half and a game that they were leading 23 to 10 at halftime.

Interception, turnover on downs after 11 plays, fumble interception. I mean, that's, could it be worse? Could it be worse? Realistically? No. And it was crazy as they were Like Brandon Ayuk was just carving The Cardinals up

Just dominating them What happened to Juan Jennings? He was like the best receiver in the world For a couple weeks. What happened? He caught one ball for 13 yards We couldn't get him more involved Debo Samuel one catch for 11 yards

We couldn't get him more involved Joe 24 or 35 passes went to Ayuk or Kittle, right? Yeah. The Ayuk ones were good, although he didn't get really targeted in the second half. He was tar. I think he caught his first six passes in the first quarter. Like first six targets were all caught,

and it was in the sixth quarter. He had two catches after the first quarter. So something went awry there. And this is a bigger picture issue to me, Joe. Three of the last four games, the 49ers have been objectively bad at football. They got mollywopped by the Vikings. Then they blew that late lead.

They did the same thing against the Rams as they did the Cardinals, blew a late lead. They gave up what? I think they had a 13 point lead going to the fourth quarter in law. It screwed it up. Yeah. And then they, I think they got a dub last week, though, right?

Yeah, they played the Patriots. Yeah. They played the jets in the opener and the Patriots. Like, that was like, oh, here's the 49ers. Then the other three weeks, they've been terrible. That's their two wins right there. That's their two wins. Jets and Patriots, and they've blown two games down the stretch.

I said at the beginning of the year, this team was giving me the hebi-jeebies. Something about them does not, I don't like, I don't like it. And I think you're seeing it, man. I think you're seeing it. Defensive line, other than Nick Bosa, nobody really playing. Nothing. And nothing. Offensive line has warts for sure.

You know, Trent Williams is still great. Dominic Pune is a good revelation. He's still a rookie though, still playing. Look at a rookie. I think he gave up three pressures in crucial crunch time in this game where he got beat pretty badly. You know, again, he's playing fine. It's just a rookie's going to rookie. You know, it's not great having rookie starting offensive line minutes.

Typically not a good thing. Well, we talked about some of these other teams. It's like, oh, well, maybe they can get out of the hole because the schedule ahead looks pretty good. Okay, not really for the 49ers. They are at Seattle, Chiefs. Cowboys at Tampa Bay, Seattle, at Green Bay, at Buffalo. Are you serious? Bro, there's third trouble.

They're not going to make the playoffs. Might not. I mean, that's a very difficult stretch of games, right? And if they come out of that, right? If they come out of that and they still look like a playoff team, then that means they're, they turned it around completely. That's got to be the hardest stretch of games anyone has this entire season. They're 0 and 3 in the NFC and

and two in the division right now through five games. They beat the Jets and Patriots. Those are the least important games you can win. Yeah. Right? You know what I mean? Like that's not going to help you. Wow.

This is crazy. In trouble. Big time in trouble, Brett Whitefield. What gets us to the question. I think it's a good question for us to get to. What teams are actually good? Who are the good teams in the NFL? I think there's,

all rankings. Right. Well, we'll probably do an updated look at that pretty soon. But like, to me it's like the commanders, I think. Wait, how weird is that? How weird is that though? I mean, you got to give them credit. I'm concerned. I'm not disagreeing. It's just weird to say that. I think we picked them to finish last in their division comfortably. Baltimore, the last three weeks looks like a good football team.

They do. They figured they got back to their identity, which helps. Detroit. I think Detroit's a good football team. Detroit looks like a good football team. Green Bay. I think so. We're sure on that. Like when you say like right now, hey,

I think these are the legit super bowl contenders. Oh, let's just rule. Okay. I don't know. Like, can you really, are you, the Vikings,

the Vikings, the Vikings, the Vikings, the thing scares me. They're five and oh, but the Donald thing scares me, bro. And the chiefs aren't playing good football,

but they, they're five and oh. And again, I've already said, don't fall for it. They're going to be just fine. But like, you got to throw the chiefs in there just because they're five and

won the last two Super Bowls and three of the last five. Yeah, they get the benefit of the doubt it's crazy the texans at four and one i don't feel good about them they've done some things this season that have made me really scratched my head like wow they have some flaws now every listen every team that's like even the ravens ravens look good they still have flaws they can't throw the ball down field to save their life that will cost them down the stretch at some point i think the good news for houston is they're going to get christian harris back they're going to get deneco latry back those those are going to be really helpful additions

for their defense um their run game will be better i think once joan mix and is back. I don't think they're a very complete operation. I think they're a good team, though. Okay. Well, that's true for probably everyone. I think that's, yeah, that's, it's kind of the good news about a lot of teams. Yeah. Like, if you, if you're, like, supposed to be good and you're kind of not right now, below bills, below Sincy, um, there's other teams you can evoke, maybe the 49ers, maybe, I don't know, they kind of look rough to me. Dallas, like, you measure yourself against some of these teams and you're like, uh, it's a week five. We'll be okay. Let's, let's play our best football later on of the season.

Yeah, that's a, you don't really want to peak now anyways. Now you don't want to be playing bad football either, but. Where I think the, that's the case for the Vikings. I think the Vikings peaked in the first three and a half weeks the season. Yeah. I'm not sure they're going to play better football than that ever again this year. Correct. I think that is for sure true. But they, they're five and oh, that's a big enough hole. You could go, you could go 500 the rest of your games. Well, there's, I'm terrible at math. So there's 12 games left. They go six to six. six they're 11 and they're 11 and six that's you're going to win the playoffs that right yeah oh yeah they're making the playoffs yeah whatever five and six yeah see i told you i was bad at math they

should never do it live on the show but yeah they'd have to have a colossal meltdown at this point to right you have built yourself such a such a buffer but our the super bowl team though contender i don't i don't think that's true i think darned yeah i probably shouldn't say that yeah i got to we got to make sure the darnal things legit probably need a couple more weeks they have a bye week this week as you mentioned so but you would but you're in on the what like Washington like okay they're probably the best team in the east right like i'm not i'm in on them as like hey they're good dan quinn is the man cliff kingsbury's learned some from a mistake jane danels is awesome but like they still have massive flaws their defense is garbage

right and that guess they're at baltimore that's a one o'clock sunday game let's get that thing flexed let's get that thing flex a sunday night football it still blows my mind in the year 24 we can't flex games early in the season yeah it's although where are you going to put it though bill's cowboys is the uh the main jets or really bill's jets is monday night this week yeah but you don't think more people want to see bills jets than conveyors ravens no i'm i'm saying you said bill's cowboy so i just was affirming bills jets right yeah sorry i meant lions cowboys lions cowboys is the main four o'clock game bills jets is a good monday night game i guess Cincinnati, New York is probably a terrible Sunday night game.

Yeah, let's get that out of there. Let's get, let's get the, and that's fun. It's like the DMV area, right? Baltimore, Washington, like, let's go. That's going to be a fun one. I think that's a game I'm watching at 1 o'clock on Sunday. I'll tell you that. That used to be a pretty nasty rivalry, did it not?

Washington and Baltimore? Yeah, because they're so close, like shared fan bases. I'm sure that's true. I don't know much about the deep rooted hate of, Washington and Baltimore. I'm unaware of it. Because I mean, Baltimore didn't get to Baltimore until like later. And Washington really hasn't been good ever since Baltimore's been in Baltimore. True. So I'm sure there's competitive fans, right? Like that want their bragging rights for the DMV, but I'm not sure how deep that is. All right. What else we got here? Oh, I wanted to ask you one

question. Put you on the spot real quick. Any team have like a, I know we just went through most of them, but any team have like a fatal flaw that you didn't necessarily see preseason. And now you're like, yeah, this team, they're not it for me because of this flaw. It's the Bengals defense. I mean, I thought very highly of Cincinnati and what they would be this year. And I have a lot of respect for Lou Anna Rumo and how multiple his defense is. And I think he's very good at game planning of these great in-game adjustments. But like, I think they've made, they've had too much regression on the defense or into your defensive line.

Boy, not, not good enough. and they say goodbye to DJ Reader and, you know, they make a weird choice at corner. And I'm not to say that they should have brought back Chidobia Woosier, but like, Dax Hill after DJ Turner, like, play decent for you there. And they're probably going to be okay if Dax Hill's hurt. And then it could be DJ Turner's opportunity. But like even the safety stuff, Bates not being around, is killing them. Like they're big play guys back there.

I bring back Von Bell, but they probably should never let him leave. I don't know, man. I just, the structure of that defense gives me a lot of concern. and they can get hot. I certainly think that's possible, but I'm not sure their defense is going to give them a chance to really be a contender like I thought they'd be this year. What about you?

What's the fatal flaw that you see? For me, it's got to be the Ravens past defense. It reminds me a little bit of the Detroit Lions, the last couple years in that. It doesn't matter how good you are against the run. It almost hurts you to be that good against the run, because what happens is, teams will just decide to throw 50, 60 times against you,

and you're going to give up 350 and 400 yards, week in and week out. The other team's number one receiver is going to routinely have 150 yards. And you'll definitely win games doing that, but when it comes to playoff football, I don't think it works. That's why the 49ers are able to come back

against the lines in the playoffs last year. And I think the Raven, they've already given up 40 pass plays over 15 yards, Joe. 40 in five games. That's like eight a game, dude. That's, that's insane. You can't, you can't live like that in the NFL. And I just think, you know, like I said, they'll win regular season games doing that.

But come playoff football, come games that matters, I do think they will get exposed, especially when it comes down to playing good QBs, you know, like a borough, like a Mahomes, like a Lamar Jackson or like a Josh Allen, sorry. And I know. They did finally, that's what I'm listening to you talk about. I saw the bills get 150 passing yards against this team when they were. losing by three scores for most of it. Some of that was game scripts, you know.

That's a little bit. And I agree that that was by far the Ravens' best performance of the season. But every other game, they've gotten exposed on the back end there. So I feel like their players are good enough, though. You know what I mean? Like I think Marlon Humphrey is a good slop. Brandon Stevens is decent. They got a first rounder in Nate Wiggins.

Like their safeties should be good with Hamilton and Marcus Williams. Like these players should be pretty good. Hamilton has gotten exposed. covering the slot this year. And they obviously they're playing more Wiggins on the outside. So Humphrey can kick back in. But that didn't matter against the Bengals. They still got torched right down the middle. I think that's kind of their that's when you want to be really multiple with your personnel on defense where it's like situationally, your outside corner is going to go inside. You're going to bring in a different outside corner. You play these three safeties, but like sometimes

not and sometimes they're a slot. I think that lack of like it's good to be multiple with your personnel, but sometimes the static nature of that back seven personnel really helps you. be in sync with timing and communication, especially with zone. Yeah, and you nailed it with the communication. They've had a lot of busted coverages. It feels like that's been the conversation with Baltimore, though, like for a good amount of the last few years. True.

Coverage bus, right? Yeah, true. So. All right, let's close this by talking a little college football. We had two players we wanted to highlight. And I think the fantasy crowd will be way into this because these are guys that you'll be drafting in your dynasty league is pretty high. But let's start with Ashton.

How do you say his last name? Is it Janty? I would say Jenty. Jenty. Ashton Jenty, Boise State running back. I'm a proud owner of multiple Devi shares of him. And so very excited to see what he's doing. But we had to highlight him five games into the season, Joe.

He's got 95 carries for over 1,000 yards and 16 touchdowns. The best five games in college football history since Barry Sanders played football. So we are I mean we're knocking on history's door I know it's Boise State but remember they are in a Power 5 conference now and he did this to Oregon who have one of the better defenses in the country

he ran for 200 yards and three scores against them so I mean the dude is absolutely incredible over almost 11 yards of carry Joe I love the skill set right I mean like first of all the build I love the dense build that he has really thick lower half he's unbelievable

through contact I mean, this guy has unreal contact balance that is complimented with really good vision. He's agile. He's explosive. He's as complete of a back as you'll see. I know that we'll get into positional value conversations and where's the right place to take him. But he's special running back. There's no question about it.

Like we need to talk about him like we did Sequin Barclay and the way we talked about Bejan Robinson. Like he's that type of dude. I think he's special. Yeah, he's a first rounder for sure. Yeah, special. Um, only thing I'll note, you know, from a peer scouting standpoint, dude was awesome catching the ball last year. And they're not throwing on the ball this year.

Do I care? No. Do you need to? No, but you're going to hear people nitpick it come drafts. All right. Sure. I mean, oh, you will. It's inevitable.

There will be some guy who's, he'll have someone ahead of him because he's a better receiver. Oh, I mean, I've watched Omerian Hampton. That's not, he's not in the same ballpark. What? I'm curious. If somebody has Ashen Genty, not as the, R. B1, that'd be tough for me to reconcile. That'd be very difficult. Do you think it's,

I mean, it's going to happen, though. You know that. Like, you've been doing this long. Somebody will, somebody will deviate from course here. And I'm, and I'll, somebody will very quickly be muted and I won't care about their analysis ever again. I, here's the thing. I like good faith arguments. If you have a good faith argument for, for, you know, for someone to be ahead of Ashton Janty, I'm okay with that. We just, you know, let's not, it's not be hot. Like, you're talking to the guy that had J.J. McCarthy's QB1. I don't like group think. I don't like group think. So I understand it, but like, let's make sure it's a good faith argument and not he only caught six passes through five

games. Yeah. That won't. I ain't going to fly. I ain't go fly. Yeah. All right. The second guy is Shadour Sanders, Colorado QB. You brought this one of the table. I've been a huge proponent of Shadour myself. I went on Ross Tucker's college draft show. Preseason, I said he was my QB1. He's done nothing to changed my mind, but what you got here? I'd like Shooter, Sanders. I don't think he's one of these quarterbacks that I look at as like, wow, that's a slam dunk number one overall pick in any draft. But man, like there's a lot to like in terms of accuracy, how he's able to win from the pocket, very creative as well. And man, he faces so much pressure. Their protection schemes absolutely are terrible at Colorado. Their offensive line gets beat up. And I wonder how much that,

it kind of brings out some of the issues that you might have with him, which is probably at times being a little greedy and extending plays and maybe having a little bit too much confidence in what he can do athletically and with his arm. But at the same time, it doesn't really put the ball in harm's way very often. So there's like a very instinctive nature to the way that he plays that I really enjoy. And I think what like here's my threshold.

And maybe this is a really like huge oversimplification of how to, how to scout quarterbacks. but does he go above the line of do I think that this guy gives you a legitimate chance to have a top-end franchise quarterback? Like, yeah, I think he clears that line. And that's where I'm comfortable. Like there's so many other variables that go into it, quarterback and their success and what's going to happen with them in the NFL. But I think an investment in Shadur Sanders is a reasonable investment to give yourself a chance at having a franchise quarterback. Yeah, I agree.

Things I love about Shadur. you mentioned winning from the pocket i always harp on the the qb centric traits right um you know the work of progression play within timing and structure and throw with rhythm and anticipation and accuracy he is the best at all of those things not just a few of them all of them in my opinion in this draft class and so he's instantly going to be a favor to mind just because he does all those things well and then you add the fact that he does have some creative ability i think he's got a lot of armed talent um you know there's been questions about how much armed talent. He's had a couple throws this year where I'm just like, not many guys making those

throws. Is it Caleb Williams level armed talent? Absolutely not. We're not there. But probably close to Jaden Daniels for sure, and the way you can push the ball down and field. Sure. Sure. Throw outside the numbers. So really like what I see. I think he really has that good marriage of play, win from the pocket, but playmaking ability where, you know, the playmaking ability doesn't get him in trouble. He's not, he's not a Matador kind of guy where he's inviting all this chaos into his life. Granted, the Colorado offensive line has been bad enough that sometimes it might seem that way on first watch, but it's not necessarily by choice. It's forced, you know, forced chaos on his part. The other thing I love about him, too, is he going to come into the NFL with like 2,000 plus dropbacks in not ideal circumstances either.

So he's already got, he's had to carry the load of the offense while dealing with that pressure. And he's very experienced player. So a lot of things I like about him. Yeah. Just scratching the surface on draft talk, but we'll, like, have a lot of it here in the as we inch closer um probably a lot of fantasy listeners we'll get into skill players i've i'm starting to watch them you know what i mean i've done 21 players now brett whitefield so heck yeah we're getting there baby that's so you're you're uh further along than

you were for last year's class correct oh yeah yeah i wasn't 21 players deep until probably somewhere in january so we're we're doing we're doing okay awesome all right that's going to do it for us folks tomorrow little or sorry Thursday show a little switch up we're not going to have scott d benedetto on but we are going to have stephen or work on and joe's learning this for the first time right now all right thank you for listening folks remember no matter what happens we will always be your first read we are