Fantasy Football Daily - NFC Super Bowl Contenders Audit + Thanksgiving Day Delicacies | NFL First Read

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

Welcome to First Read, your go-to podcast for the latest in NFL analysis and insights. Join hosts Brett Whitefield and Joe Marino as they break down "NFC Super Bowl Contenders Audit + Thanksgiving Day Delicacies". 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#/ Check out The Waiver Wire - https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2024/the-waiver-wire-week-5#/ 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

First read. We are your first read. The film and analytics podcast featuring Joe Marino of lockdown and myself, Brett Whitefield, the C.O of Fantasy Points. This podcast is powered by the Fantasy Points Data Suite. Let's get after it. Joe, it is Thanksgiving week and Fantasy Points is in the spirit of gratitude and Thanksgiving. So with that said, the data suite is. free for the week. If you are a listener to the show, you need to go to FantasyPoints.com or data.com and freaking check it out because it's awesome. And it's free. This is your big opportunity to get some access here and check out,

see what all the fuss is about. There's also a bunch of other amazing promos going on. I think our entry level subscription this week is like $3 or something ridiculous for the rest of the season, which doesn't even make sense. I don't know why they don't run these things by me first, Joe, but it is what it is. Anyways, data.com.

Go check out the data suite. All right, Joe, how are you, man? I'm doing good, Brett. I think I made a mistake with that, by the way. I'm in a Dynasty League, right? I've told you this. That's it. A one league guy, that's me.

Dynasty football, we've been going for like five years. It's a good league. I made the mistake of letting the best team in the league know that the data suite was free. And they've already went through and come up with all these data points. and I have no chance for the next five years. So, you know, it's awesome that it's available, but also to neutralize her, I thought I had an edge now my biggest competition is aware. Yeah, I bet you're still good, though, because you have so much experience in the data suite now.

Oh, yeah. You can probably teach courses, honestly. Well, when you ask as many questions as I do, that'll get you there. So, yeah, I'm glad to have a, what's that? There's been some special problems. that have come up in the last few months where we need data suite experts on the project to like pull stuff for us i've literally thought about calling you you're like joe i've got this crazy deadline on a special project i'm doing i need someone with another pair of eyes you want to help me but i just i haven't pulled the trigger on that yet i'll wait until i'm really really desperate but you're

well thank you thank you i love the data suite uh living that thing pretty much every day i have a take about thanksgiving i know we got to do champs and chumps so we're going to talk all kinds of stuff today but Thanksgiving is the best holiday. It's the best one. You will not convince me that it's not. I mean, you get, you get literally a full day of football. Now,

maybe the slate this year is not that great. You get a full day of football. You eat and the food's good. Surrounded by family. I mean, what, there's, you don't have,

there's no, like, gift-giving element to, like, clog it up with unnecessary stuff. It's the best holiday, man. It is a great holiday,

especially when you think about the, why we're doing it. thanksgiving i think gratitude is the is the secret code to having joy in your life yeah see if you're looking for more happiness try to be more thankful and i think you'll find happiness on the other side of that so look at that christgiving's a great starting point yeah yeah love it um okay champs and chump this is a fun new thing we've been doing for the last few weeks it's um it's been kind of fun to just like really think about what answers i want to go with because it allows me at least to like pick out the most prevailing thought on the good and bad side from the weekend

that was. So let's do it. I want to start with chump this week, if that's cool. Why don't you go first with your chump of the week? All right. There were several candidates. I thought about a bunch of different things. I won't say them in case I'm spoiling yours. So I went with CJ Stroud, though. Oh, thank you. Because that was my number two and I didn't pick him. I'm so glad you picked this yeah quarterback Houston texas that's a game right there that you can't lose i get that the tennessee titans are they're competing you know

especially since that lines game they want to make a statement that they're not just going to roll over and die but man you can't let that game slip away that final drive for stroud was so bad the the sack he took on second and ten like i get Simmons is a beast your old line's not playing great

brother you have you had options your check down options you had ability to move in the pocket nothing um i felt like he was treating it like a hail mary situation where like he had to deliver the ball downfield dude it's second and 10 you still got a minute left in the game you don't you don't have to do that um and then the very next play the infamous run out of the end zone for a safety he pulled a dan orlovsky and jo this one was worse this one was worse in my opinion because it mattered it mattered it was he had like dan ralovsky's play he was getting pressured basically the entire offensive line lost and so he was scrambling right or

rolling right to kind of get away from that see j shroud had plenty of room to step up in the pocket was there pressure coming from the right side sure he he ran right into it though he and he got himself knocked out of the end zone essentially he had room to step up in the pocket he had a checkdown wide open he had another receiver about 10 yards on field open and he runs out of the back of the end zone to effectively end the game. Joe, we've talked a lot about C.J. Stroud getting away with stuff. This game, actually this season has kind of exposed that. But this game especially, man, like it caught up to him.

He was not getting away with stuff in this game. And I think this is, he's kind of been playing like this for a little bit now. And, you know, I'm not going to say I'm concerned about him or anything, but I do think the reality setting in that he's probably not quite yet a top five quarterback. We crowned him too soon, Joe. He crown himself too soon. True. He said he was a top five quarter.

after a rookie season acting like he's God's gift of football. I like C.J. Stroud a lot. Me too. But boy, did he rub me the wrong way this offseason? Like, you got to pay your dues a little more than that, but go out there, anointing yourself as a top five quarterback, answering questions.

Like, when did you have it figured out that you could really ball in the league? And then, like, you say in, like, specific examples, man, the best quarterbacks in the league, let everyone else talk about who's the best in the league. They don't sit there and anoint themselves, dude. And for him to have that media tour that he had all, season long, anointing himself, absolutely insane. How about the Tavondre sweats sack that he took?

Shotgun, five-step drop after a hitch. There's no pressure. He runs into freaking Tavondre's sweat. Buddy. Tavondry's first sack of the season, wasn't it? Probably. There was no other pressure, Brett. No.

This guy's getting sacked like crazy, and it's his fault. Yeah, it is. And I specifically wanted to bring it up, too, because we can we like we're all on caleb willames for doing this we're all on some of these other guys cj's doing it too man so we we had to bring it up i had to bring it up that team's at its best when joe mixon's running the ball well you didn't think that was going to be the case that's a that you know what i mean honestly right right honestly uh my chump of the week as i look over my notes because i had some things right now my chump of the week is the new york giants oh come on let's go that was my

This Drew, it's not the Daniel Jones thing. I'll talk about Daniel Jones in a minute. But this Drew Locke stuff is absolutely crap. For them to go out there and bench Daniel Jones, don't care. Fine. Bench Daniel Jones. But Drew Locke came to the New York Giants for this moment because he knew Daniel Jones was a shaky starter. And there was a path for him to get on the field just like what happened.

Everything that Drew Locke considered. when he chose to sign with the New York Giants happened. And you know what they did? They played Tommy freaking DeVito. That's bad. That's just bad business. That's not doing right by your players at all. And I don't know if Joe Shane and Brian Dayball survived this.

And I've generally been fans of them since they're from the Buffalo tree and all that. I've rooted for their success. But boy, do they do bad by Drew Locke. That is absolute crap. For what? They didn't want him to get incentives and have to. pay him. You can't waste years of a player's career like that. And Drew Locke was in like a point of his career where he needed a little showcase opportunity. He found the exact right

spot to do it. And the New York Giants just made a really bad decision. I know you like Dave Ball and Shane. I think Shane, the more I listen to him talk, the more he rubs me the wrong way. I'm even like the HBO, what was it, Hard Knocks, offseason version. This guy is kind of a clown, man. He seems like a like a 15 year old kid who got the keys of the kingdom and he just has no idea what he's doing. I'm a little surprised by how similar the conversations we were privy to seeing that he was having with day ball with ownership. How very similar they were to the conversations I have with people like you. You know what I mean? Like no disrespect to me and you. Oh, right, right, right.

I just expect those conversations to be a little different. You're not wrong. It's like, yeah, like a 15-year-old was handed the keys to an NFL franchise. And he thought about it just the same exact way. So, yeah, I'm with you on that. If I may, I'd like to transition to my champ of the week because it goes hand in hand with my chump of the week. My champ goes hand in hand with your chump of the week as well.

My champ is Daniel Jones. So is mine. Let's go. Let's go. my dude left town with pure class and dignity yes he does scout team safety amazing job in the press conference to go out there and say what he said and be grateful total class not his fault he was the number seven overall pick not his fault they gave him a four year 160 million dollar deal not his fault that his first head coach was pat schumer and then joe judge not his fault that

the offensive line sucked every year that he was there. They never got the weapons right, that they panicked after they had an unsustainable amount of success in Dayball's first season. But here's a take. That season from Daniel Jones was a top five season in the history of the New York Giants at the quarterback position. Low bar to clear, but let's call it what it is. I'm not a Daniel Jones fan at all.

It's not his fault that his first practice with the Giants, the social media team is posting clips of him throwing flare routes to fullbacks saying that they're dimes. Yeah. It's a joke in Daniel Jones left town with pure class and dignity. Absolutely. He, um, you, you basically stole all the words out of my mouth. That was, that was where I was going. Um, I'll say this too, man, Daniel Jones, we can make fun of them all we want.

I think people underestimate the toll, a completely dysfunctional organization takes on a quarterback. Huge. And I would not be shocked, Joe, and I'm also not a Danny Dimes guy. Well, I am now, actually. He's earned my respect. I'm a Dany. I'll be rooting for him to this point forward. But I would not be shocked if he played his,

if his best football was still ahead of him somehow. When you play for an organization like that, it is impossible to have success, man. I'm telling you. And for him to come out with class, I would not be shocked if a Dan Campbell-type coach gets a hold of him and builds that confidence back up and remolds him into something.

And maybe not awesome, maybe not an awesome quarterback, but a functional NFL quarterback again. Because he was, that playoff run in 2022, he was a good quarterback. He was an above average quarterback. And I think the right coach will,

we'll take that character and get him back to being what he was and remind him of who he is. And kind of like how we saw, shoot, I hate to always use the lines comparison. But Jared Goff, when he left L.A., left with class was also completely torn down

by the staff and the regime there. and the right coach built him back up. So I think it's possible that we haven't seen the end of Daniel Jones and his best football is ahead of him somehow. I mean, you can see like a Sam Darnold type parallel. Yeah. Something along those lines where, I mean, just even the temperament of Brian Dayball. The dude's always on fire all the time, man.

Just pissed off all the time. You're not going to unlock the best in your quarterback. That's shaky by just having that type of temperament, man. So I'm glad we aligned there. I thought that was going to be maybe a goofy thought that I had, but just a joke of a situation. All right, we got a lot to get to today. We got to talk about the NFC landscape and a whole lot more folks. So be sure to stick with us.

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Brett Whitefield. Glad we got that Daniel Jones stuff off. our chest. I feel better now. I feel a lot better. I also feel better that there's a turkey waiting for me on Thursday. And people's Thanksgiving food takes are all over the place. And you and I talk food all the time, all the time, but I've never had a Thanksgiving food conversation with you. So let's talk about it, my guy. What's what's the best way to prepare a turkey? Let's start there. I'm going to pour cold water all over this conversation, unfortunately. Oh, you're not, you're an anti- Thanksgiving food guy.

Nope, not anti- Thanksgiving food. I'm anti-Turkey. Oh, boy. Turkey is a, how do I describe it? It sucks, Joe. Turkey sucks. I don't care about, you know, if you're smoking it, deep-frying it, whatever cooking method, it's still a subpar meat.

It's better than chicken. I'll give you that. Chicken's terrible. Chicken's the worst. But it still stinks. I'd rather have. What? You're out of,

you're coming in out of control already. Because I've talked to you enough about meats to know that you don't eat any pork. You just said chicken is trash and you don't like turkey. Are you just eating beef all the time? Do you have anything else in the menu? I know you're eating weird animals like elk and stuff like that too. I know that's gone on the menu. Yeah, beef, lamb, elk, deer.

Those are the, but duck. We can do duck if you want to do a bird. Duck is objectively disgusting. It's just a big slime ball. No, not if you cook it right, Joe. Oh, that's what I would tell you about a turkey. You don't know how to cook a turkey. That's what I just learned already in this conversation.

Well, I do want to get to how, because I know you take a lot of pride in the way you prepare the turkey. So we'll get to that. But I'm just, I'm just going to put it out there. My family, we do a prime rib. And then I'm going to do a crown rack of roasted lamb. So, you know, you get the lamb chops, the, you know, bone in. It kind of looks like a tiny little tomahawk. But it's land.

And I do a, you know, inverted, inverted crown with all the cusscus in it. I serve it up with a prime rib. We got multiple, you know, sauce. We got a horserite sauce. We got a pistachio mint sauce for the lamb. It's, it's freaking, it's so good. If you're into like just good meat, Joe, you want to come to my house. And then the sides, we need to debate sides too.

Well, let's get to your, I want to acknowledge that that sounds wonderful. I have nothing against prime rib and what I would call lamb chop lollipops. All right. Those are, those are very delicious. I just I can have I can have here's the thing is I will have all the meats whenever I want to have the meats I have turkey multiple times a year it's not a Thanksgiving exclusive for me so does the trip the fan in Turkey not bother you are you not affected by this or do you like it do you like what did you say the triptophan what did you say yeah triptophan yeah that's not even a word I've ever heard yeah man it's a it's a branch chain amino acid contained in turkey that puts you to sleep oh gosh um serious it's a thing yeah I know I've heard that I didn't know that like What was the name? No, everyone just says, hey, turkey makes you sleepy. You got to come in here with scientific words.

Yeah, I guess that bothers me. Yeah, I guess. Not enough to not eat it. I'll have plenty of turkey and not feel bad about the, the triptophan there. See, my dad likes the turkey because he likes to take the nap watching the Dallas Cowboys. You might not need turkey for that this year. It doesn't take turkey to get me tired, man. I'm in my late 30s.

I got two young kids, dude. It's not hard to get tired. I feel like I eat turkey continuously, if that's what it takes. Yeah, I think with turkey, have you ever had a smoke or a deep fried turkey? Yes, it is the optimal way to cook turkey for sure. So you can at least acknowledge that. So if you're these people that are just throwing it in a pan in the oven, buddy, I mean, you are just missing the mark in a big way. Yeah, I'm, first of all, brine your turkey.

Please, brine your turkey. Don't, don't do just, God, if you don't know how to brine a turkey, it's not hard. Figure it out, you can dry brown it. you can wet brine it. Just do that first, please. And then you got to fire up the smoker. You got to fire up the deep fire. I'm on the smoker kick right now.

And I spatch cock it. That gives you a good more even cook on it. And then I have my own seasonings that I put on it. But like I think you got to prepare it the right way. I think it's delicious, dude. I'm, I'm, you just don't like white meat is what I've learned about you.

I don't like flavorless meat. Like if the, if the flavor contained in what you're eating is purely based on the seasoning and seasoning alone it's probably not a meat worth eating like I'd love the flavor of beef as is I could literally just throw salt on a steak and sear it and it's amazing to me yeah I've done that courtesy of you yeah yeah turkey by the way is bad I'm sorry I said there chicken is bad objectively bad in every way you can't make chicken taste good period you've never had chicken wings literally the my favorite food in the world wings are different bro but that's again sauce

seasonings cooking method that's not yeah You're adding a lot to that to make it taste good. Turkey, what I was going to say is turkey is a big step above chicken. It's not as bad as chicken. And the way you just described that, the smoked turkey, that's the way to go. Even more than the deep fried turkey, bro, smoke turkey is decent. Like, I'll mess with it. You know, if it's available, actually, we might have a smoked turkey because my,

my stepbrother does a lot of smoked meat. So if we have a smoked turkey this year, I'll have some and then I'll report back to you. But, yeah, I'll be sticking mostly with my prime and my, crown rack of lambs all right nothing wrong with that do you do which what makes you happy what's let's talk sides where are you at what sides so i i try to avoid as many carbohydrates as possible it's it's impossible on thanksgiving day though it really is but i'm i'm a mac of cheese guy i love mashed potatoes um sweet potato mash is good um i like a good if you do the green bean casserole correctly. I think that's great. If you're just buying cut beans and or cut green beans and

thrown them in a pan with some cream of mushroom sauce and some fried onions, then you're probably not enjoying that very much. But there's a good way to do green beans. I like vegetables, man. Like I like my wife makes Brussels with like a with like a maple glaze on it. It's unbelievable. A little bacon in there. Do you guys do bacon? or do you do like prosciutto or something like that? Yes. Yeah, okay. Sometimes, yeah, either one.

We've done either one there. I like potatoes. I don't love like mashed potatoes. I'd rather have like a big potato or I like my wife will make a sweet potato casserole. That's actually like really good. It's got pecans on top of it with like, yeah, it's super good. Like I'm into that. Yeah, mac and cheese I do like.

You know, my favorite, and this kind of brings me back to growing up, is I love artichokes. Stuffed artichokes, which is like, it looks like bread crumbs in there and parmesan and garlic. And yeah, you kind of, you just, it's like a, you eat it kind of different. Um, I like those a lot. So it's kind of like an artichoke dip contained in the artichoke, right? Isn't that kind of? Yeah, I think that's a fairly decent way to put it, but it's pretty hardy is what I would say. It's not necessarily like super like runny.

it's not running at all. Do you mess with deviled eggs at all? No, I'm anti-devil eggs. Yeah, I know there's people that love them. First of all, they smell so freaking bad, man. Your house is going to smell just terrible, like a bad perm. So in the 90s, your mom got a perm. Like, your house is just going to smell like that.

So that's a problem for me. So typically the house they're cooked in smells bad, but I don't think they smell bad after. No, not after, but. Right. So we cook them and then my wife does the best deviled eggs on the planet. She makes them spicy. A little jalapeno on top as they're served.

Bro, their money. And it's it's all about the protein for me, right? So we're getting some extra protein. I hit, you know, five, six doubled eggs before dinner. I'm already, I'm already sitting at, you know, 30-ish grams of protein. We're feeling good. You know what I mean? I think your protein, with a prime rib and rack of lambs,

I think you're going to be just fine on your protein intake there, Mr. Brett Whitefield. One thing that was growing up, my dad is 100% Italian. So when we had Thanksgiving, we went to, like, his side. of the family, my grandmother. Thanksgiving a little different on the Italian side of things. Still had your turkey. You had a turkey in a hand, but we also had a side of lasagna. You'd have some type of like pasta that was a side there, like a relish trade that was

like olive heavy. That was a big part of the mix. Blue cheese stuffed olives, dude. Oh, so freaking good. Okay, you're on that. That's a big win. Another thing is very western New York. I don't know if this is a Detroit thing.

I'm curious if it is. People in Western New York are crazy about butter. But like butter that's like shaped into a lamb or like an animal. Have you is this is this is I've never heard of this. It's insane. Yeah. I don't know like if you have like Western New York Thanksgiving, there's going to be some type of butter statue on the table. Really?

Yeah. For what purpose? I wish I had a better answer for you. Do you eat it? Yeah, yeah. It's the butter that you use, butter your roll or whatever you want to do, put on your mashed potatoes.

So it's there just, it's like it looks pretty for a second, then it gets destroyed. Yeah, it's like a lamb or something. Yeah, dude, it's unbelievable. You got to check that out. Does a family member make this or do you buy it? Yeah, you buy it from somewhere.

And as a matter of fact, so for the Chiefs game, the, was it, CBS or whatever, they were in Buffalo? they had a butter lamb or as a butter buffalo actually no one on the set yeah yeah it's like that it's like that common of a thing that it would make an appearance for something like that I can't believe I didn't know about this this is crazy yeah so it's like an ice sculpture but butter exactly

this is perfect way to put it yes yeah so I need to spread some awareness with that were you out of desserts tell me you like pumpkin pie before we do that we did gloss the word something. What? You mentioned ham. We got to talk ham. I know that you're not eating any pork. I already heard you told me pigs are disgusting animals. You can't eat them. I've had this conversation with you. But okay. I know, Brett, you've ruined it for me because I like eating pork. And every time I'm sitting there like, man, Brett Whitefield told me this was an animal full of parasites. I shouldn't be

eating this. But I still, I spoke to ham over the weekend. I've been eating it all all week, man. I eat it. I eat it for sure but the other thing last thing on meat some will go to desserts um turkey tenderloin you ever done it no tell me about that so you can the tenderloin of the turkey the juicest part of the the breast it's really good you can buy just just a tenderloin and it is it's decent but you can season it up you can see it kind of like a filet mignon almost you can roast it like a flay mignon and then you slice it. So in that when I used to host Thanksgiving, I would still do my prime rib and my, my lamb. But then for the people who are religious about having turkey on Thanksgiving like you, I would also provide a turkey tenderloin. A little easier to cook, you know, lower cook time,

not taking up my kitchen and then get that done. You should, I think you should try it. But I've heard, Joe, and I brought this up because I've heard that you can smoke these and they are out of this world good. Yeah. Seems like it would be a good thing to smoke. Yeah, very tender meat too. Very tender, very just juicy. It's the best part of the turkey for sure. All right. Can we talk desserts now? Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Belabor at the point.

No, I'm a pumpkin pie guy, very much. Yeah. My favorite dessert in the world is cheesecake, but I do think that, yeah, I got to have your cheesecake guy. I'm a lot. I love cheesecake. It's actually a problem. If I, like, go to a bakery and they have cheesecake, I almost have to order it if I've

never had their cheesecake before. And it's, yeah, it's the single biggest thing keeping me from shedding the amount a weight I want to shed. Do you like plain cheesecake or do you like it all dressed up? We can do both. I can just rock a straight plain piece of cheesecake with one raspberry on top, Joe. I don't care, but I'll do the funky ones too. Like, you know, I don't really do caramel stuff, but like, you know, recently I had a, gosh, it was like a pistachio lemon cheesecake. Oh, yeah, I did that for sure. Yeah, it was very good. Yeah, so pumpkin pie, it can be an elite dessert for sure. I think I lean towards apple pie.

I think apple pie is more consistently good. But I think pumpkin, the ceiling and pumpkin pie is higher. That might not make any sense to you. I think it's really easy for people to screw up pumpkin pie, I guess is what I'm saying. I think if you get that real earthy, pumpkiny texture and flavor,

not my thing. I need a little bit more sweet and need a little more that smooth consistency. You get that right with the pumpkin pie. Elite dessert. Throw some whip on there. or some ice cream. I don't even care. But I just think apple pie is a little more consistent across the board.

So I tend to lean that way. If I know the person cooking the pumpkin pie and I trust their abilities, I'll go ahead and dive right in and we'll have a great time with that. Yeah, I think trust matters with all desserts, you know? Yeah. That's a big thing for me. The pumpkin pie also has to be cold. Let's be honest.

Like that's, you're going to eat the best when it's cold. I'm with you, though. It does have to be smooth, sweet. I don't want the chunkiness in there at all. man, they're like missing me with that. I would say that the floor of pumpkin pie, though, is higher than apple pie. I think like apple pie, the variance on the crust, I mean, you don't know what you're getting into, man, if that's going to be real flaky or like a little bit burnt or if it's going to be like a full crust on top or like we're going to do like pinstripes

or something or whatever the heck's go checkerboards or whatever. I don't know the words are. But I think that the best apple pie is better than the best pumpkin pie. But I think there's some bad apple pies. Like you could get like the apples are a little bit weird too inside of there. Like they don't have the right consistency. See I lean more than pumpkin. So we are literally flipped. Yeah.

We see it that complete opposite. Yeah. Yeah. The best apple pie is better than the best pumpkin pie. But you think pumpkin pie is more consistent. I said maybe it's just the states we live in. I don't know. I've had some just horrendous pumpkin pie dude.

It kind of scares me a little bit. Well, I think for for me and maybe you're just a little bit more out there like I'm eating the same desserts from the same people all the time. You know what I mean? Like there's not random people preparing food that I'm eating from. So I, maybe there's a little bit more like variance on your menu, I guess. Not a sponsor of the show, but if you had the Costco pumpkin pie, no, it's good. It's, it establishes a good baseline. It's really good. I think maybe simple solution for those listening. You need to bring dessert. Don't waste your time cooking the pumpkin pie. Just pumpkin pie. Just go grab a Costco pumpkin pie. It's huge. It's,

It's cheap and it's really tasty. Most store but pumpkin pies are fine. Okay. Yeah. So it's better than, like, hey, I tried to make a pumpkin pie for the first time. I'm like, no, that thing's going to be too thick. It's going to be too runny. It's, you know, it's not going to be good.

Who, uh, oh, I'll say, is there any other desserts you want to throw out like a, uh, I don't know, like a, a, uh, tuxedo cake or something, you know, like a chocolate I've never heard of that. Chocolate moose tuxedo cake. It's like got the various colors of browns with white. Yeah, sure, that's good. I like, um. Pecan pie, anything like that?

Yeah, I dig some pecan pie. Peanut butter pie is bomb. I like, I like, I like all of it, I think. Okay. That's, yeah, there's no, I don't know, chocolate pie is kind of boring to me. Never had it. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's not. It's not worth your time.

I'm into it. I'm into it. All right. We'll get back to football here on the other side of it. We're talking about the NFC. It was a big week in the NFC. NFC West getting crazier by the week. Sigweather, folks are breaking that down on the other side of it.

It's week three of Canadian tires early Black Friday sale. These prices won't go lower this year. Maybe too long. Freezing. Save up to 50% November 20th to 27. Conditions apply, details online. All right, Brett Whitefield. Last week we spent a lot of time considering the AFC.

It was a big week for the. the AFC with all the games, maybe not to the magnitude on the NFC side this week, but it was a formative week in the NFC side of thing. So let's, let's break this conference down. And I guess let's start with kind of a conversation we did have last week, but like, who are, who are your contenders? Is this just the lions and eagles? Is there another team that you think can get into that mix?

Lions and Eagles are for sure, like sitting here as a lion. guy, right? The only team I'm concerned about right now is the Philadelphia Eagles. However, big caveat coming. If Jordan Love can get his crap together, I think the Packers are super scary because that defense has the potential to ruin your day fast. Xavier McKinney, you know, playing elite ball right now. Rishon Gary's starting to show a pulse. Some of their other guys have really come along. And Jordan Love has just been bad. Since the injury, he just hasn't been the same guy we saw to end the season last year. They can get him back.

That's a scary football team. But other than that, man, the pathway for the Lions Eagles' NFC championship game is pretty clear to me. Yeah, I think the only thing's scary for the lion's side of things is that maybe if you were to extend that conversation, so who's the top four teams? Maybe you would say Minnesota. And now you're talking about two division teams, right? And that's always just weird.

Look at the Browns. The Browns beat the freaking Steelers and the Ravens, right? This division stuff is just always a little bit weird. So I don't think there's going to be any real roadblocks for Detroit. But if you wanted to manufacture some concern, I think you would consider those two angles. Look at remaining schedule two lines of the bills. They got to play. You know, I don't think this Bears game on Thanksgiving Day is even easy.

Bears defense is playing pretty decent. Caleb Williams is turn the corner a little bit here. It's one of those trap games, right? And so like you drop a division game. That looks, now you're sitting with the Vikings and things can get messy. Thankfully, they already have wins over the Vikings and the Packers. But to your point, Joe, it's like with how tight that division is, things could get crazy fast.

Lions are going to want to get that, you know, first round by and get a good seed there. So let's kind of take this conversation now from a divisional perspective, which gets us back to Philadelphia because we kind of focused on the Lions there. I think everyone recognizes them as, I mean, if your power rankings don't have the Lions is number one, I don't know what to tell you. And the chiefs, I had said, hey, the chiefs, until they lose, they deserve it, well, they lost. And then they played a tight game against the Panthers, where the Panthers made like four field goals with inside 35 yards. Dude, you got to score touchdowns.

Gave them all they could, though. So point being the Lions to me are the best team in football. But the Eagles are the team that can crash the party in the NFC. They're kind of running away with that division. As we, Washington, no matter what happens the rest of the way, Washington has had a successful season. but I don't they're not obviously they're not going to chase down their three back in the loss column to Philly they're going to run away with the east what do you think about Washington they're the seventh seed right now is their talent kind of catching up with them is it Cliff like

we've seen Cliff in his offenses start hot and then fade down the stretches it's just kind of some of that too yeah the the Daniel's injury I think I said last week it appeared like he was injured. They've reverted back to like the early season just low A dot stuff. He can't really drive the football. Everything's a floater. He looked a little better in this game, had a couple zippy throws, even that last throw to McCorren had some steam on it. But yeah, I'm just concerned. I think the talent's catching up here. They really need pass catchers outside of Terry McLaren. Noah Brown's a nice, you know, wide receiver three or four. But if he's your two, I think you're in a bad spot. And he's, he's been there too. Diami Brown,

not really doing anything. Zach Ertz is ancient. So I just think they're just not ready to compete yet, to be honest. I think like you said, successful season. Great, you know, great way to start the rebuild off. But they need a lot, a lot of work on defense and offense. I mean, shoot, they let the Cooper Rush Cowboys hang 34 on them. That's kind of embarrassing. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's very embarrassing. And I think to this point, you could talk yourself into, oh, there's seven and four prior to this Dallas game. Their four losses come week one in Jaden Daniels debut against Todd Bowles on the road. And they lose a game to the Ravens.

In Baltimore, there's no shame in that. I mean, reasonably tight game. And you lose a tight game against Pittsburgh. Okay. They lose a game on the road against Philly. Like, oh, I mean, you're not really concerned, but 34 points at Dallas with Cooper rushed. I mean, Dallas is pretty lifeless.

Now, the good news is they get Tennessee this week, and I think Tennessee is playing a little bit better. that's sneaky, decent game. By week, Saints, Eagles, Falcons, Cowboys. And the wildcard stuff in the NFC is pretty competitive. Like they've got Arizona nipping on their heels. They got the bucks nipping on their heels. The Rams are 5 and 6.

The 49ers are 5 and 6. So they're in a decent spot at 7 and 5. But they got to stop this skid right now. They got to go out there and win three or four of these games to close out the year and get to the postseason. Yeah, run that back. Saints, Falcons, Eagles, Cowboys, and Titans, but nowhere near that order. Okay. So you got to go beat the Saints.

You got to beat the Titans, probably Cowboys to end of the season. And get you to 10 wins. Get you to 10, which probably gets you in. Those five and six teams, they got to basically win out to get the 10, right? So you got to just get the 10. I think you're in. Yeah. Go win three of your, go three and three.

Go three down the stretch. Get in the postseason. will celebrate you and we'll be excited for you in 2025. Exactly. We talked about the North. It's the Lions. Packers and Vikings are decent teams, but it's the Lions.

Yeah. What do you can, is like, I know I've kind of asked this question before, but is what's your new concern with the Lions? Like what's going to, outside of injuries, what's knocking this team backwards? I mean, a little bit of past defense, penalties and a lot of like PI calls and stuff like what's what's what break this team up the

PI calls have basically stopped I think week three was the last time Terry and Arnold got one he had 14 in the first three weeks of the season right yeah something something crazy like that there weren't all him but they had a lot that's kind of how they play though right I mean it's they do come up and challenge you I think it they had to buy some some good fortune with the refs to an extent you know what I mean like hey we're going to play press and physical and you got to you got to bury your whistle sometimes because that's just the nature of the way we play that actually is a thing in the NFL so i think maybe uh she used to done that for years yeah it took it took yeah for sure a lot of press man teams do and you're counting on the rest to

allow some stuff to go you know as long as you're i guess for arnold it's been as long as you're trying to play the ball they're they'll bury the they'll swallow the whistle if he's clearly you know if he's no idea where the ball's at then they're going to usually flag him so um anyways i don't think that's really an issue i the issue i the issue for me is you look at the line season at 10 and 1 they've won nine in a row you would think they have a strangle hold on the division right well they don't they do have tiebreakers which is nice but right right now at least they still have one more against the vikings and the packers but the vikings are they keep winning you know as bad as darled has been and we've been calling it

it hasn't really mattered too much in the win loss column packers same thing jordan love isn't playing his best ball but they're still eight and three so the thing that could set them back is Like, eventually, you would assume the lines aren't going to win out, right, Joe? Like, as good as we think they are, there will be a team that, probably the Buffalo Bills. That's a good opportunity for them. I mentioned Chicago this. At some point, though, they're going to drop a game. And then the Vikings and the Lions will be probably tied for first place.

And then they have the tiebreaker. But like, those end of the season division games matter, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And so, like, you know, you lose to the Buffalo Bills, then you go lose to the Vikings. Well, guess what? The Vikings are not going to be in first place. assuming the Vikings win their games that they're supposed to win. Sure, sure, yeah. That's what I think is the biggest hurdle for the Lions right now.

It's just not letting something crazy happen, making sure they're taking care of business against teams like Chicago. You can't go lose a game like that because that really changes the outlook of the division, I think. Yeah, the Lions strike me as a team, though, that is very week-to-week focused. You know, I know that they have their goals, but I don't think anything concerns them more than the challenge that's ahead of them that week. so. Very well-codes.

Yeah, I don't think the hiccups are going to come. I mean, it's in the NFL, so there can be things that don't go according to plan. But I don't know that Detroit's going to get caught up in anything more than what the main thing is, and that's their opponent that week. Can we talk about how good they are on the road? Six and more impressive for a dome team, you know, to go on the road and be able to win games. It's crazy. So when Campbell started, they lost every road game his first year.

And then it took, I think, till like the fifth or sixth road game, his second year, to get their first road win as a team. Since that moment, they're 16 and 5 on the road. That's nice. Over the last two and a half seasons, which is, dude, that's, it's the best road record in the NFL by a lot. So in the south, the, the Falcons had a buy week, so they couldn't disappoint us this week, which is nice after losing three of their last five, including,

I mean, losses, terrible losses, getting smoked by the Broncos, the Denver loss, the Seattle loss at home. They're ahead in this division. They're currently the four seat at six and five. They have the tiebreaker over Tampa at five and six. I think, I mean, this is going to be pretty competitive, I think. bro they have a negative point differential by like 30 yeah it's a bear it's the only winning team record team in the league that has that the buccaneers on the other hand at five and six are they have a

a pretty favorable point differential so even the saints have a positive point differential right so this is this is just a weird super weird division i i feel i kind of feel like joe the tampa bay buccaneers run away with this towards the end of the season and i have to you have an outright better record though that's going to be the challenge they do have to have an outright better record it's a good point man they're just playing better ball right now and mike evans is back gosh it's the schedule is very easy panthers raiders chargers that's their hard game cowboys panthers saints are you kidding me panthers dub cowboys yeah i mean they have five easy games on the schedule. Chargers are tough.

If they win five of six, which I think is totally possible, that's going to put a lot of pressure on Atlanta to not have hiccups when they've had nothing but hiccups. When they still have to play the charges, they have to go to Minnesota. They got their own cupcakes to get the Raiders Giants, Panthers. We'll see what that commander's game could matter a lot. But I don't, I give the benefit that out more to Tampa than I do Atlanta.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. dude short hand like very very short-handed they lost three heartbreakers in a row to the falcons chiefs and 49ers i felt like they baker mayfield played good in all three of those teams short-handed teams yeah he's running with tray palmer and jalen mcmillan and uh sterling or sterling shepherd yeah sterling shepherd that was the other guy right yeah those are his main wide receivers like dude very tough to win and he he got them i mean he was in position to to win that game and all all three of them. So I trust them better,

more than I trust the Falcons right now. The Falcons are the new Seahawks to me. Which gets us to the NFC West, where, boy, for now, the Seahawks are on top of this division at 6 and 5. I mean, the 49ers are at the last place team in this division at 5 and 6. The Rams, what a disappointing performance against the Eagles at home,

kind of showed some warts with that defense. And then there's Seattle who's leading this thing, Arizona who, I mean, what happened to their offense? What happened? Mike McDonald just had all the right answers on Sunday against Arizona's the offense. I want to talk about the Rams really quick, Joe. Okay. This defense, you mentioned the warts.

Fundamentally, I want you to try to explain something to me. Okay. They play the most ridiculous version of this like drop coverage principle in the league. This will mostly cover three, but some cover two and even even some quarters where there, Dude, they're just giving up a ton of quick easy throws over and over. Yet the defensive line is playing this insanely aggressive gap shooting, quick pressure style. I mean, they drafted guys to do that, right? And Braden Fiske, I mean, and Kobe Turner, like, they're just super hair on fire,

going to shoot the gap, try to win with speed, enforce the ball out quickly. So explain this to me. how are you going to coach your defensive line in your pressure packages to look like that while also conceding 10 yards of grass at the line of scrimmage and your coverage unit? I don't understand this, Joe. It doesn't where you need to play some type of press or tight zone coverage if you're going to have this aggressive front. It just blows my mind. We see it every week. It drives me insane. Yeah, so you got to marry up your rush with your coverage.

It's just not, not at all. I wonder how much of it comes from a lack of athleticism with their entire back seven. I think that's kind of a concern. And I think they need to correct that because they just don't have the right mix for that style. It's not bad to have the penetration style front that can get after it, but you are not maximizing that by allowing so much free access. Correct. We had some athletes on the back end.

Yeah, maybe that's their. They rebuilt the D-line in this past two off-season. Now they've got to focus on that secondary, man. They need some pieces bad. And listening to the broadcast of that game, you know, I thought maybe they let something slip there where there was some commentary from the booth that, like, Sean McVeigh was concerned about the game, basically, and that there was going to be some challenges that they couldn't overcome. And basically, it sounded like you kind of let them. that go in the broad in the production meetings yeah and just kind of said you know like i basically we don't have we don't have the trenches to do it against philly and they didn't and they didn't

so they're like an opportunistic team but between this game the dolphins game a few weeks ago i'm concerned about the rams i mean they're certainly there's a lot to be excited about with stafford and cup and puka and the way that they can run the ball seemingly at times what really hasn't been effective young playmakers on the defensive front but like disjointed operation kind of. Yep, I agree. So with that said, man, do we think the Rams are going to be competitive down the stretch? They still have to play the bills.

They have a lot of two division games left, I guess. I don't know, man. They probably go like three and three. I don't think that's good enough. They win eight or nine games. Yeah. All right. So the Rams are, are we burying the Rams then?

I don't think you can because it's still at the end of the day, they're one back in the division. Yeah, all they have to do is a whole off game. They're not supposed to win. They're two and one in the division, too. Yeah, true. I don't think you can bury any team in the NFC West because someone's got to be the four seat. But then also you said someone's got to be four seed. Someone's also got to be three seed with the South, right?

Yeah. Someone's hosting a playoff game here. That's insane, right? Someone's going to bring some NFC North team to their stadium. And just get drummed on the, at home. So you like Seattle or Arizona moving forward? I don't like any of those teams. They're all high variants to me.

You know what I mean? They're all high variants. You feel like the 49ers are just too hurt, though. You know, like what's up with Bosa, core muscle thing, party shoulder? Like, is he good to go or not? Iyook's already canned. Hargraves can.

They lost Feliciano. I don't know. It's like if the 49ers are reasonably healthy, they go to the Super Bowl. if they're not, then they, this is what you get. So I, did you watch the Cardinals game this week? No. So there.

Kyler Murray, out of structure just played legitimately terrible. And I started thinking, I'm like, if he's not doing the auto structure stuff well, Joe, what is, what does he do for us? I mean, it's, is that not a huge problem? Like, he made critical errors out of structure, like a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, horrendous intercept worst interception of the week by far took some some negative plays just kind of just being crazy running around some inaccurate throws i mean they put up six points against a defense that's been getting got they they couldn't run the poll either that was a very surprising i mean i didn't watch the game but i studied the stats on the game they couldn't run it yeah um

our guy joe dolin at uh fantasy points asked me you know what what is kiler murray at this point And I said, Tyler Murray is Bryce Young, if God loved Bryce Young. Oh, boy. Bryce Young, best three-game stretch of his career. For sure, actually. That's true. Sounds like we have a lot of pretenders in this conference. That's what I've learned.

Yeah. Packers, or excuse me, lions and Eagles, we'll see about the Packers and Vikings. Somebody has to win the South. Somebody has to win the West. And can the commanders not screw it up and hold on to one of those wild? card spots. Is the South ever going to be good again? I feel like this has been the thing for five years or since, gosh, since what?

Brady won the Super Bowl and then that team took a major step back. And every year it's been just blah, horrible division. Can't get quarterbacks and coaches right. Right? I mean, just swapping them out like crazy. Very true. Yikes. All right.

NFC, baby. This is the line's time to shine. Things have turned, Joe, because the most cynical Lions guy in Detroit, our afternoon sports talk radio host, Mike Valenti, kind of famous for his MSU rant like 25 years ago or whatever. Anyways, he's declared that the Lions are winning the Super Bowl this year. And he's a lion's hater. Nobody thinks that's a hot take. I think most people think the Lions are going to win Super Bowl. My point is the fact that he's now saying it means he's there.

Like, this is just this is the expectation now. like we've we've graduated from oh this is a cute story nice team to hey expect if they don't win the super bowl it's a disappointing season be careful when your hopes become your expectation though you know they got to be real careful with that i agree i agree with you on that so all right remember folks no matter what develops we will always be your first read thank you for listening we are out