Fantasy Football Daily - Week 7 Game-By-Game Tape Review | Take Talk Podcast

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

Steve O'Rourke (@callmesteveo7) and Brett Whitefield (@BGWhitefield) go game-by-game from the 2023 Week 7 NFL slate and offer insight on what they saw on the all-22 film throughout the charting process! SIGN UP FOR FANTASY POINTS WITH CODE GURRIFIC25 AT CHECKOUT FOR 25% OFF: ⁠https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/⁠ READ DR. EDWIN PORRAS' INJURY [PRO]NE GUIDE WITH CODE INJURYPRONE25: ⁠https://injuryproneguide.myshopify.com/⁠ Want to join a high-stakes dynasty league -- or any other high-stakes league? All new FFPC users get $25 off their first FFPC league of $35 or more, including dynasty orphans, using our affiliate link: ⁠⁠https://myffpc.com/cms/public?affid=fantasypoints⁠⁠ ⁠⁠FANTASY POINTS PROJECTIONS ARE LIVE⁠⁠ FOR ALL STANDARD AND PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS! Interested in playing Best Ball in 2023? There's no better place than Underdog Fantasy. ⁠⁠Use our code FANTASYPTS⁠⁠ to sign up for a new account at Underdog, and not only will you get a 100% deposit match up to $100... but you'll get a Fantasy Points Standard subscription for only $5! ⁠⁠https://www.fantasypoints.com/underdog⁠ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top-level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Yo, welcome in to another episode of the Take Talk podcast. I may or may not have accidentally hit a button. I thought you did that on purpose. I was like, oh, nice. We're launching the intro.

Oh, I just wanted to preview. I was like, oh, how does this work? And then I clicked it and started playing. I was like, oh, shoot. Anyways, that was a smooth transition in. I should have, should have not said. It worked well. But here we are.

We just concluded week seven of the NFL season, Steve. I thought since it was a really light week, we had six teams on by, we could do the listeners, the honor of just going game by game and drop in some notes. Scott Barrett, if you're listening, this can replace our weekly phone call. All right. So don't call me this week to talk about it.

We're just going to do it right now for everybody, okay? What do you think about that, Steve? You good? I love it because, you know, just as we thought that this was a chalk slate this week, of course it wasn't, so there's stuff to talk about. Every game was freaking close except for a handful.

Yeah, pretty. interesting. Before we get into that, though, let's hit some NFL news. I just was reminded too, Steve, that we were going to do a trade deadline show. But you know what? We can do that next week, right? What is the deadline? Deadlines next week, Wednesday, I think. I think it's next week Wednesday at like 4 o'clock. So it kind of works out that, you know, we'll probably have, you know, maybe some news prior and then talk about what's going to happen. The question is, do we want to do we want to wait to record next week and do a hey this is what happened in the trade world let's break all these down or do we want to do a show previewing hey this is what i want to see

happen that's a good question because we could do like a two o'clock show and kind of be right in the midst of the end of it so there would be news to break as we go but i know that last year fantasy points did do a live stream breaking down trade deadline trades i was a part of that i don't know if we're doing that and not again or not this year but anyways maybe if we have have time at the end of the show, Steve, maybe we'll preview some trades we'd like to see. How about that? Yeah. Yeah, I like it. Before we jump in, and we are going to jump in quickly this week, because we got a lot to talk about, I do want to mention there is a new tool on the Fantasy Points website. It is the schedule adjusted fantasy points per game allowed by position tool. The S-A-F-G-A-P-G-A-P-P as I

like to call it. This is completely powered by Fantasy Points data, but it is not part of the Fantasy Points Data subscription. Actually, let me clarify. I think you get it with the Fantasy Points Data subscription, but you don't have to get the data subscription to get it. I think it's part of our lowest tier subscription. It's basically a gift to you guys, if you're not a subscriber, it's a way of us opening our door and saying,

come on in for a cup of coffee. It's on the house, even though it's not on the house. It's just heavily, just insane value. I think it's like a $30 sub. You can use the code, Guarific for another 25%. sent off as well. But this tool is insane.

You can go team by team. It's matchup too. So it's every week. It gets updated. You can go team by team and look at the fantasy points allowed by defense per position. And it breaks it out pretty cool.

So like tight end you have in line and split wide. Split wide means slot or wide. Wide receiver. It goes slot left wide receiver, right wide receiver. Running back is rushing and receiving. quarterback is passing and rushing.

And so you can look at all of these splits. There's an option to do just the last five games. Last five, here we go. Camera. Last five games. If you want to just get those in the sample, it's pretty powerful, though. I just did a spot on John's Serious XM show,

and I used this chart almost the entire time I was talking, and it was great. I didn't have to do any research before I went in. I just winged it, and it was awesome. So I love it. Kind of like how I do this show. Anyways, please go check. check that out. It's awesome. We're constantly popping out new ideas, new tools. I know the data

suite is about to launch an update. Hopefully, by the end of the week, that's going to have two new tools that are just insanely high-powered. Yeah, we're making it happen here. So, yeah, it's getting better every day, basically. Better every day. And that's who I am as a person, Steve. Every day, I like to get up and look in the mirror. The only person I'm competing against is who I was yesterday, Steve. I'm glad that the witness points has taken that on as their identity as well. Love it. Anyways,

here we go. We're going to go game by game. Let's start with the Thursday night football game. The Jacksonville Jaguars Travel to the New Orleans Saints. They won by a score 31 to 24. Steve, notes. Yeah, Christian Kirk might just be the number one in

Jacksonville. That was kind of one of my takeaways. Is that what might be about it, son? we've officially seen the shift of what was at the end of last year. You kind of saw the shift to Trevor Lawrence targeting Christian Kirkmore, and you're seeing it now evolve as the season goes on this year again. And I think it's just that Trevor Lawrence likes to throw the ball over the middle. Christian Kirk can win over the middle.

But it was a good game. I mean, I thought the Jaguars had it in control for most of it. The Saints made a push at the end, but the Saints are a scrappy. team, but I think that, and I think they'll honestly probably make the playoffs. If I had to pick right now, NFC South, I think that New Orleans probably wins it. But I just, it was, at least it was an entertaining Thursday night game for the first time in a while. It was. It was entertaining.

Christian Kirk, by the way, does have the highest target share on the team. But what's really interesting about Jacksonville is they kind of are super-spers. Now, they're not super shredder like the chiefs where they're using 19 different guys. But with their core group of Kirk, Ridley, Ingram, and Zay, all those guys get a pretty steady share of the targets. The top three I mentioned are all right around 20% actually. So, Kirk has just been far more productive on, you know, the touches he's had. His yards per route run is significantly higher than Calvin Ridley's at this point. So you do have to wonder, you know, what's going on there.

I know, so I've been thinking about this from an X's and O standpoint. Steve, like one of my biggest criticisms on Lawrence is that he's just so quick to get through his progressions. Yeah. He plays too fast, to be quite honest. A lot of times we're talking about QB's not getting through the progressions. Lawrence is doing it, just doing it way too fast. He's not patient enough. And I wonder if because Kirk plays in the slot, there's a lot of play designs where,

where he's naturally the second option in a read. And so maybe he's just, you know, because the plays actually developed at that point, if he's just doing more with his bulk of the work he's getting. So anyways, yeah, any other notes from this game? I mean, it was a good game. I think the Saints' offense is like watching paint dry, to be honest with you. It's just, I mean, listen, for the first time in a while,

Derek Carr's ADOP was reasonable. It wasn't completely just checkdowns and deep balls. He incorporated a little bit of intermediate throws. But, I mean, it's just the Alvin Camara show of, I mean, it still is a lot of checkdowns. I mean, what, his checkdown rate was still at, you know, 12.7%, which. Yeah, he had another 12 catches. Yeah, he was right there, like, top four in the league for this week of checkdowns. So that's just like the nature of their offense.

I just don't know. It just doesn't hold up well. There are going to be some games where Camarra is going to break it. There are going to be some games where he gets, you know, 12 catches for 38 yards. We've seen that before. It's just, it's a slog to watch that offense right now. Yeah, it's really bad.

You know, Derek Carr just doesn't look right either. I don't know what it is. Man, the way they're using Chris Oliva is frustrating. Like, there's clearly a difference. connect there between car and olive yeah 15 targets Steve which is great if you're a fantasy guy although he had how many times a card drop back 59 times so that's it was a lot yeah so he's actually right around 25% of the target share which is what you would expect so it's actually not that great but he only caught seven of them for 57 yards that is the least efficient

receiver pass game stat line I've probably ever seen and you know it's seven catches 57 yards yuck Derek Carr still had 14.5% off-target throw percentage this week. So, you know, pretty, again, pretty standard for what he's been where he's, you know, he's airballing 15 to 20% of his throws each week. And that just puts him in a bad position. But the big thing is, like out of this is that Jacksonville getting their run game going this year has been very crucial to the operation of their offense. That's true. that was something that they kind of struggled with last year. ETN was, you know, build to be, you know, this playmaker all-around guy.

You didn't really see it a ton last year, but you're seeing it this year. You're seeing their offensive line move people this year. And it's helping their offense, you know, move a little bit more efficiently. Trevor Lawrence isn't having to put as much on his shoulders. And I think that that's helping him a lot as well. So as they go and as the season goes along, I think that having that run game actually be effective this year is going to continue to help his offense. operate well and you know they're in a kind of a dog division dog being bad dog water i should say and you know it's i think that they get to they're going to continue to run away with things

yeah all right moving on detroit travels to baltimore and gets absolutely curbstom by the baltimore ravens lamar jackson put on a freaking show um i have like two takeaways from this game that i want to discuss and then i'll open the floor to you Um, one, the, the lions aren't going to go very far this year if they can't figure out how to deal with mobile quarterbacks. Now, thankfully for them, there's only one left in the NFC. And the only chance they have of playing that guy, Jalen Hertz, is if it's in like the NFC title game or something or in the playoffs. It's just the playoffs. We don't know how that's going to stack up yet. So it. So I kind of feel good about that from a, from a lion's fan standpoint. But like, man, tarot, uh, I almost said Terrell Austin.

crap. Holy throw back. Yeah. Aaron Glenn, this has been going on since he's been in Detroit. It just super mobile quarterbacks just give him fits. It almost seems like he calls plays a little nervous.

Dan Campbell touched on it a little bit. He said there were plays that Aaron would like to have back. Well, I'm sure there were a lot of them because the game plan now against Seattle was suspect. You go back last year. You know, Hertz and the Eagles tore him up. as well. Lamar, same thing, I think, the year before that.

So it's just more of the same from the, the Lions defense looks great, except against mobile quarterbacks. This has been a theme now for quite some time. So they got to figure that out. Perhaps they go get somebody at the trade deadline that can help. I do think not getting any pressure from the other side, not named Aidan Hutchinson is a problem. But yeah, before I get to my second one, you got anything on that? Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's unfortunately it's like the Lions, even before Aaron and got there. For some reason, it's just the lion's lot in life right now that mobile quarterbacks will forever and always just hem them in and just dominate them. They just,

they look lost when they're trying to defend a mobile quarterback. It's like there's too many keys to focus on for everybody in that defense that they start overthinking. And then all that that's when guys are breaking loose for, you know, 15, 20, 30 yard gains. Yes. And so a lot of people have asked me is my confidence in the line shaken and the answer is really no not for what the expectations should have been for this team i still think they can't confidence that pretty easily which was win the division host a playoff game potentially win a playoff game that was the goal always so i'm pretty steadfast and i think that's still a hundred percent within region likely to happen yeah but going beyond that yeah my confidence is a little shaken and we're starting to get

that feeling in detroit steve where it's like maybe this is the year right not the rule but they make a push for it. They win a playoff game or two. You know, that like maybe this is the year, I definitely feel like if they run into Philly at any point in the playoffs, that's, that's season over automatically. So anyways, other point I had, Zay Flowers, dude. You know, from a fantasy standpoint, we loved early in the year how quickly they got him involved in the offense.

I think weeks before he had a target share of like 27.6%, which is great for a rookie wide receiver Steve. But then after four weeks we're sitting back on, you know what? The way they're using him is so stupid though. A.6.2A. Less than two yards per route run. So yeah, they got him involved.

He's getting some decent volume. But like no high quality touches. Nothing in the head zone, nothing downfield, zilch. While the last three weeks, his target shares remained roughly the same, 26-ish percent. But his A-DOT has almost doubled, Steve.

He's up to 11.3. the production obviously has been a lot better too is yards per route run is way up I love what they've done here we talk about all the time sometimes when you have a rookie that's really promising you just have to figure out ways to get them involved to build that confidence

build that rapport, build that trust and then build on that. We saw the Saints do it with Michael Thomas a few years back. He was an undeveloped prospect but he did a couple things really, really well. In Michael Thomas's rookie season,

they literally just had him do those things That's it. You're going to run slant. That's why he got the nickname Slant Boy. You're going to run back shoulder go balls and maybe some deep crossers. That's it. That's all they used. And they just steady dye to that stuff.

They built the rapport. He developed, became a dominant player. I think Zay is trending in a similar direction. Him and Lamar have a really good connection there. Andrews and Flowers definitely are making Lamar better as well. Yeah. I just really like what I'm seeing in the way they've incorporated him and then built upon that. yeah you can see him start to use flowers over the middle a little bit more which i think is

perfect for him he's you know he's athletic he's shifty get him over the middle and let him make him let him make a play and that's what they're doing my big takeaway from from this game was that this was coming for baltimore i think that a lot of people didn't like either you know they obviously don't always watch the games as close as you and i do which you know i understand but this game was in the future for Baltimore. They had been so close to this type of game. You know, they should have beat Pittsburgh. They should have had this type of game against Pittsburgh,

but their receivers let Lamar down. This week, it was the lion just ran into an absolute juggernaw where they executed everything to perfection. The receivers were getting open. The receivers were catching the ball. This is more, for me, again, my takeaway is that not so much about Detroit, it's more that Baltimore, I think, is a top two team in the AFC. If they keep operating the way they want to like this, where they're getting pressure,

which I was skeptical about the way they were getting pressure, but the way they use those linebackers are the most important linebackers in the NFL, in a position that we talk about as not being super valuable, you know, in the grand scheme of team building. The Baltimore Ravens have built a defense that is, you know, kind of centered around how their linebackers operate. their key in creating pressure, they're key in the way they,

you know, they defend the past. It's kind of, it is kind of crazy just what they're doing and how they're, they've built this defense and how it's operating that it's centered kind of around the production of their linebackers. It's pretty cool to see.

And they, they fly around. I mean, it's a great, it's a defense that just like sticks to their keys. They have a lot of, you know, unknown talent kind of in the back end.

I think like Gino Stone, evolving into what he is has been really good for this defense and just, you know, it's, it's fun to see. And I really think that Baltimore is kind of cemented themselves as a potential like aFC championship run. This could be the year where they finally get rid of that stink that they've had when they get to the playoffs just because of the way this offense operates. Now it's finally hitting its stride. It's finally getting to the point where they are pushing the ball down the field. The passing games become more effective. And the running game is still very solid. and it's still really effective.

Yeah. All fair points. I don't know that I'm ready to go that far with them. I do think they're definitely better than anyone thought. They're definitely better than I thought. That's for sure. I was definitely wrong about them, which is cool. So yeah, the AFC is just so freaking tough, man.

It's hard. It is. It's loaded. It is loaded. It's super loaded. All right. Let's go to the Las Vegas Raiders traveled to Chicago. They got clapped by Tyson Badgant.

Division to Shepard University. I love it. Yeah, I don't really want to say much about this game other than when you look at how the Bears put up 30 points, it's embarrassing. I'm just going to quickly, just for the listeners, to show you how much attention to detail we put into this discussion. This real quickly, I'm going to read you. the types of throws badgant through in this game in order.

Screen checkdown. Sprint left option hitch for four yards. A bubble. A dig across the middle against cover three. It moved the chains, but it was like 10 yards deep. Jet pop pass, speed out, slant, a naked play action that's, you know, turned into a scramble drill, threw a ball at three yards depth. A halfback screen.

Play action boot and hit the shallow at five yards depth. A throwaway. A scramble drill, sideline throw for an amazing depth of target of five yards. He turned down Cole Comet, by the way, on a wide open crosser on that play. A slant for six yards. A slot out for seven yards. A screen. A scramble drill, sideline throw.

This was the deepest throw of the day, 15 yards. Scramble drill, though. So nothing in structure downfield. Throwaway, scramble drill, sideline throw for 12 yards. Another scramble drill for 12 yards. Halfback screen. Screen. Check down.

Check down. Check down. Halfback screen. End zone fade. Check down. Sprint left option flat for a depth of target of four yards. And then a pole lead pitch that went forward on accident. So it got chartered.

This is embarrassing. You gave up 30 points to that. The deepest throw of the day was 15 yards and it was out of structure. Nothing in structure went over 12 yards. Only three passes all day traveled more than 10 yards downfield. I mean, I'm sure you've seen it already, but have you looked at what as A dot was for this week? No. Guess.

I'm scared to. Three. 2.4. I went lower than I thought it would be. It still was lower than that. 2.4. He had 8 out of 2.4, and they won 30 to 12. That is just a gross mismanagement of defense.

And I'm just like, it was two backup quarterbacks. You knew the game was going to be ugly. but I don't think you expected the Raiders defense to collapse in the way that it did. Especially because they had shown up the two weeks prior. Right. Meek Robertson was a revelation. Nate Hobbs is still playing good. All of a sudden you got the secondary that's jamming.

And then Tyson Badgant pieces you up for 30 on an eight out of two? Yeah. What is happening? I mean, yeah, it's just. Some of that. And before we put it all on Badgett's shoulder. is he did something amazing. He did nothing amazing, by the way.

But some of this was Brian Hoyer threw two picks, Aidan O'Connell threw a pick. They were given the Bears some layups with how far they had to travel to score points. Yes. But the Bears didn't do much of anything to earn the 30. That's for sure. No, it's set up perfectly for what they wanted to do.

The Bears came in with an obviously very light game plan for Badgett of like, we're just going to try and keep you comfortable. we're not going to make you try and operate some advanced offense. It wasn't like Stavansky when DTR rolled out there and it was like, all right, here we go. You're going to operate our full offense. Good luck. This was neutered to the nth degree.

And, I mean, he operated as good as you can in that, in that he didn't make a ton of mistakes. He did what he needed to do. And the run game was mildly effective. Deont de Foreman had, you know, he averaged five and a half yards per carry. and yeah, the Raiders defense just looked listless and uninterested. And I think that that's been kind of the story of the Raiders under McDaniels.

And we'll see where it goes after this. I think that it might be, I mean, it's funny because, like, I think that the Raiders don't view themselves as a fire sale. Everybody else views them as a fire sale. We'll see which way they go. But, I mean, it's just a culmination of what this organization has been. the last couple of years. Yeah, I don't want to keep bringing this up because I, you know, it sounds horn tooty.

But I did my, my preseason bet with the staff picks was that, you know, McDaniels would be the first head coach fired. So I'm sticking with that. I think the week after Thanksgiving, I think he, he gets terminated officially.

The problem with, with the Patriots guys is when they, it's not just that they lose. It's that they drive everybody insane along the process. Yeah. And I just think people, when you, it works when you're winning, but when you're not winning, the mentality, the attitude, I just don't think anyone likes it. No one cares for it. These are professionals. These are guys getting paid millions of dollars. How many guys on the Raiders alone make more money than Josh McDaniels and he's supposed to be a superior to them and he doesn't treat them?

Well, I shouldn't say that. I don't know how Josh McDaniels treats them. I just know what other Patriots coaches have done. Yeah. But anyways, I digress. Let's move on. We spent too much time on that as it was. but I had to go throw for throw for badge and things. The most exciting game of the week was the Cleveland Browns at the Indianapolis Colts. They get a one-point victory, 39-38. And there was some controversy here, Steve, because the Browns, it seemed like the refs literally wanted the Browns to win with the way they called it. It was some of the worst officiating I've probably ever seen.

And I can comfortably say that as a guy who honestly hates both teams. So. Yeah, you know, it's bad when I, you know, went to school in Ohio. So I have a lot of friends that are Cleveland Browns fans. And during that game, they're messaging the group chat saying, oh, my gosh, are the reps in our favor? Which, like, never happens for the Browns. So, like, even they understood what was going on that this was that, like, somehow they're

given eight to ten chances. I mean, the big takeaway from the. is that Miles Garrett's a game breaker. The man single-handedly won the game for... You needed this game for that to be proven. You did it? I don't know what to tell you. You did it, but it really just, like, he set himself apart.

I mean, the athleticism of him to jump over the line, not make contact with any of the offensive linemen and block that kick. Are you saying you can't do that? No, I don't... Given the situation, if you were putting Miles Garrett's shoes, you couldn't make that play, Steve? I love the ups for that. It's funny because Garrett has been a guy who gets mocked for his workout videos.

He's always doing box jumps and crap like that. Well, guess what box jump translated in real time. Directly translated. To block a field goal there. So maybe you should celebrate guys getting after it in the off season, the way that Miles Garrett does. Yeah. Anyways. And then just obviously they lost, but the way the Colts and Shane Stike

or running this offense is really impressive. I love what they're doing with Josh Downs. Michael Pittman has become, is, you know, doing better than what I thought he was going to do this year. I thought he was going to be kind of my-year-guised. He's mad. He's mad. Don't say that. He's mad.

You see this? No. Oh, dude, he like went on a long rant with a reporter about how I guess I'm just not part of the past game. I guess it was not an option, you know, felt like he's under-targeted. I think someone needs to remind him that Gardner Minschie dropped back the past. Like he threw like 23 passes. So like he got five,

five of those targets, which is probably under what his career target share is. But still, bro, like it was a weird game and you scored 38 points. Yeah. And you had a 75 yard touchdown. Yeah, you took advantage of the target of one of the targets you got.

Yeah, I don't know why you're complaining. But yeah, I just thought it was funny. You're like, he's exceeded my expectation that I'm like, well, he hasn't exceeded his own because he's mad.

He thinks he needs to be more involved. But it's probably frustrating to see a rookie come in and kind of take over. you know yeah when especially when pitman's kind of lived through some pretty bad offensive game plans there the last few years and then you know you think you're the dude and then my advice to pitman would be to suck it up and you're a team that has some promise you've won three games when you shouldn't have and almost beat the browns that was nice like he's going to be part of the offense I don't know what he's talking about put a ton of

points up on the best defense in the NFL right now the browns are a mystery of what they're going to be this year this defense like it's funny that them and the Steelers are kind of the same as each other. Right. And that they're just, it hoped to God our defense can hold a team to under 14 points and let our offense struggle to what they're going to get. They're going to be competitive at every game because of their defense.

But, man, I don't know about their offense. They're not going to break. Jerome Ford isn't going to break 60-yard runs every game. Don't say that. The fantasy people want to hear that he is going to do that. Because he doesn't get touches in the red zone. So he's going to have to be fantasy viable. Right.

Anyways. All right, we got to move on, Steve. Buffalo travels to New England. And in the Twilight Zone game of the day, Buffalo somehow loses to New England, 25 to 29. Mack Jones had the best game of his career, arguably. Not arguably, he did. 83% completion percentage.

two of his incompletions were throwaways, Steve. This dude's, like, what do we talk? Like, what is going on? I know the bill's secondary is mangled right now, but why could they only score 25 points? Like, this is, you did not expect the bills to lose this game. Nobody picked New England. Literally, nobody.

I don't even think Robert Kraft picked New England to win this game. No. This was, like, everyone just penciled this in as an L. Somehow Belichick continues his dominance over the bills. It's been his entire career. But anyways, floor is yours for mac jones it was they did a lot of rPO dropbacks they did a ton of rPO they got him comfortable that was and that's what he you know that what is what people have you've been

screaming into the into the sun every damn throw was an rPO to be quite honest it made pretty darn close and it paid off that he looked comfortable he never looked you know flustered he never looked like he you know lost his loss getting through his progression his progressions it just like it you dumbed the down for him. You got him into a position where he's comfortable, and he took advantage of it. And that, I mean, we'll see how if they keep doing that, but it was at least nice to see because I still stand by that this is a really good defense, and I really like this defense. And being able to keep the offense on the field allows this defense to play the way it wants to. I thought that Chabriel Pepper's made an awesome play, baiting the sale throw for,

to get the interception on Josh Allen. they, you know, kind of had Josh Allen thinking a little bit too much while he was trying to throw the ball. It just, it was a good game plan from offense to defense. And you know, you knew this team could do it. Because, I mean, outside of their receivers, it's not a completely bereft of talent team. They have talent on the defense. They have some talent on the offense. It was just that they couldn't put it together, but they put it together.

They ran a game plan that was effective for, Jack Jones and allowed him to just kind of play the way he wants to play. And I hope that they, I hope that they continue to do this the rest of the year. I don't know if they will because, you know, I think that they, the Patriots are overthinkers and they try and, you know, they're trying to be the smartest team in the league too much sometimes.

But yeah, it was, it was a good game plan by New England. And Josh Allen, even, I mean, he came out after the game. And he's like, he did the Justin Fields where he's like, I'm thinking too much. I need to stop thinking and start just playing. And I mean, it kind of, it kind of is true. He is trying to be too much sometimes. Yeah, that's a good segue to my only notes of this game, Steve,

is that Josh Allen's got to stop turning the ball over. Two more turnovers this week, one pick, a fumble lost. He's got to stop. Anyways, Washington traveled to East Rutherford, New Jersey, to play the New York Giants. They lose by a score of 14 to 7. If you watch this game, I don't think you're listening to the show. because I'm pretty sure everyone that watches this game is dead. This was horrible.

This was not football in the way we like football. This is, I don't want to spend any time on this game, honestly. This is horrible. Sam Howell, bad. Tyrod Taylor, a little better. They finally got Darren Waller involved, like at a high level. Yeah.

But man, this was a rough game to watch. Yeah. Sam Howell is sacking himself into oblivion. And I say sacking himself because a lot of these sacks are his own fault. Not all of them are on his offensive line. A lot of them are on him. Tyrake. It's frustrating, right?

You can see the arm talent he has. Yeah. Dude, what are you doing? I know his offensive line's bad, too. Let's not put it all. It is. It is bad. Yeah.

But you've got to make a concerted effort to get the ball out faster. They have too much talent at receiver for this to be happening week in, week out. Like the fact that it took him three-quartered. to get Terry McLauran involved is, you know, that's terrible. Yeah, it was like after that first one, too, he's like, wait, you are good. Okay, here's nine-year target for the rest of the half. And they just started force-feeding it to Terry. Yeah, it's two ugly teams.

Tyra Taylor threw, I think he had like a 10, 10.5%, yeah, 10.5%, 10.3% hero throw. Right. So he was, I mean, he's been placing the ball well. In the end, Washington's got to be kicking themselves because this was a half-to-have-haven game. They win this. They're at four and what, four and three? Yeah. Four and three, right in the playoff picture, but they lose a divisional game.

Now they're sitting there three and four. It's season is not over for them by any means, but it's like it's just one of those just super frustrating losses. I can't imagine they're happy about it either. No, and I don't think it'll happen, but I think that they should consider putting Jacoby Bresset in. I think Djokovicc could operate this offense a little bit better. Brissette had the Browns cooking last year. He did. He did.

And I think he could do it even more with this receiving crew. Yes, sir. All right. The Atlanta Falcons, another divisional games. They traveled to Tampa Bay to take on the Buccaneers. This was for Battle of First Place. Atlanta wins that game by 3 points, 16 to 13. Relatively low-scoring game.

obviously I don't want to hit the Bijan stuff because listen we don't know how bad he's had hurt we don't know how sick he was it is crazy it's weird they may be tampered a little bit didn't you know follow NFL protocol I don't even want to get into that let's just talk about the game let's just assume they didn't have Bijan because he was hurt I for the falcons this is a really good win you're seeing Drake London come alive yeah he's a big part of that office now his target share has gone up by like 8% since the first four weeks of the season he's true stepping into that wide receiver one role and guess what

Desmond ridder's playing better because of it imagine that but the other big note here dude is uh Baker Mayfield's kind of cracking a little bit that really hot start he got off to it's fallen apart and the things that I've really noticed like you go into the famous points data suite and you can pull these numbers for yourself

but Baker um so they use play action more than any team in the league and his pass-a-rating from play-action now is just 70.1. Early, that's terrible, by the way. Like, that's worse in the league. It's not good. The beginning of the year, all that stuff was working for him. The other thing is, is he has the highest, or sorry, second-highest pressure to sack

ratio in the NFL. Again, early in the year, weeks one, two, three, even into four a little bit. One of the things that we were all talking about is Baker is really avoiding those negative plays. He's not turning the ball over, not taking sacks like he used to. Well, that's completely flipped on its head. He's taking sacks at a pretty alarming rate right now. I know this week he only got sacked three times, but the pressure, because they do so much boot action, he's not under pressure that much. So for him to be taking the amount of sacks he is, is kind of crazy. So I think you're starting to see the cracks. I'm a little concerned about this offense. That's really

all I have about this game. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't really sustainable. Baker was like the best quarterback under pressure to start the year. The first four games and that's just not a sustainable model to operate. Eventually it's going to regress back to the mean. Desmond River has to stop turning the ball over. I mean, my goodness, he needs to be a little bit better handling the ball. But how many. How many times do you fumble this week?

I think he had three or four. I think he had two or two or three. But I mean, Tampa Bay, this offense is just. they can't run the ball. So they're putting so much on Baker's shoulders. And that's just not the way you want to operate with Baker-Mayfield. You need to have a complimentary offense for him to operate well. And they just don't have it.

They can't run the ball against any team. I mean, Atlanta does have a good run defense. The Lions will be before they have a good run defense. So they've run into a couple stout defenses against the run. But even against other teams, like let's say the Minnesota Vikings early in the year, they couldn't run the ball. It's just it's too. much responsibility on Baker Mayfield's shoulders.

And like you said, and like you said, they have so many play action dropbacks. Guess what? Defense has stopped respecting the run on play action if you can't run the ball. Yep. The, when you talk about to like a really play action heavy team,

I know there's been a lot of data studies done that show you don't necessarily need run game efficacy for the play action to work. However, you do when you get into second and third. and long situations. Because no, your play action doesn't work at all. When there's zero threat of a run game, because that's a thing. Rashad White's averaging like 3.2 yards per carry.

Yeah. He's not even average. He's well below league average. So it is affecting their ability to be affected with play action. So, yeah. All right, moving on. And by the way, we are now past the halfway point. So Pittsburgh Steelers traveled to L.A. for a home game.

Shot out the picture. Yeah, whatever. Rams don't have fans. This is my... No. Anyways, Pittsburgh goes to L.A. They win by a score 24 to 17. You know, Kenny Pickett, George Pickens' connection seems real. Deontay Johnson came back and looked pretty darn good, actually.

It looked really food at the route. Like he always does. I just assumed coming off of the ankle or whatever, he would be a little rusty with the route running. No, he looked great. The other big note here, and I know it's a losing effort, but Pooka Nakua, I'm changing this dude's name. It's now Puka nuke Kua because he's dropping nukes all over the field, bro.

This is ridiculous. Now, he is the one of seven receivers in the NFL that is averaging three yards per route run against man and zone. And I'm just laughing right now because all the first few weeks of the season, I had to read these tweets about people. I'm like, he can't beat man coverage. No, dude, he didn't play anyone that plays man. And now he's played teams that play man. Pittsburgh runs man at one of the highest rates in the NFL and Pooka and took them apart. He had 120 of his 154 yards against man this week.

So all I got to say is suck it. I like it. And it's nice because now obviously, again, losing effort, but having Puka and Kua changes this offense because now, whereas last year when Cooper Cup was out and Ower was not effective in a game, which wasn't often. But when it was, the passing offense went to hell. At least with Pukua, they cannot like this would have if they didn't have Puka

let's say it was just Cooper Cup. This would have been an even uglier game for the Rams offense. But now they have a number two. I mean, 1A, 1B at this point. So at least their passing offense doesn't lose, doesn't fall to the fallout completely without Cooper Cup being involved. But it does affect them. Cooper Cup is integral to that offense and you can see it.

But the Pittsburgh Steelers defense, they are as good as advertised. And I, you know, T.J. Watt is out there making interceptions on a, you know, a play that they set that up. And they impersonating our boy, A.N. Hutchinson. Yeah. But, I mean, they've had Matthew Stafford in hell. This game, Matthew Stafford had a 48.3% completion percentage. And it just, yeah, like, again, it's, like I said, with the Browns, the Steelers are the same way. As long as their defense can hold a team in, the offense is going to. produce enough. I am got, I'm, you know, personally eating crow again with George

Pickens. I did not think he'd turn into what he's turned into. He's now getting separation, which I didn't think that he was, you know, he didn't do that at all last year. He didn't even do it to really start in the first three games, but he's become a separator and that's changed the offense a little bit. Do you want to know why? Yeah, let me know. A lot of people don't understand this concept. I'm not saying you don't, by the way. A lot of people don't. I've been asked, why George Pickens look so much better? Well, it's, here's the thing. they're targeting him on short and intermediate routes now. They just never did that, but he didn't even run those routes.

Last year, everything was a go, it was a post, a short post, or some type of corner sale. That weighed on field, though. Now he's actually getting involved in the passing game on a much larger scale. So what happened is the further, and I've done all of these studies on this, to further the target downfield, the less separation you have on average. And the reason for that is because the DB has four seconds now to recover. where if you put a guy off the line, he's beat. There's no recovery.

It's done. So, yeah, he looks like he's separating now because he's actually running NFL routes in an NFL offense. It's kind of weird how that works. Sneakily a Jameson Williams call up in my head. Jameson is separating. He just can't catch.

That too, but they don't get him any intermediate. No, I don't understand how the- discussion for another day. Like on a shallow, like an actual shallow. Yeah. We've heard, we're the same. is a side rant, but we've heard Ben Johnson and Antoine Randall invoke the names

of Mike Wallace and Santana Moss to compare Jameson to them. Well, Mike, they were both great deep receivers, but they also took screens and shallows and slants 80 yards routinely. So let's get involved there, build some confidence before you're trucking them five deep balls in one game. Anyways. But we digress.

But we digress. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the Steelers are going to continue to defy all odds. They're often just, I mean, it's becoming a theme now where it just kind of comes alive in the, in the second half, and Kenny Pickett makes enough plays. And that's just, that's just going to be how their season is. It's going to be, can Kenny Pickett make enough plays to keep this offense moving? And can their defense hold a team to under 20? And right now they're operating that script pretty well.

Agreed. All right. The Arizona Cardinals. Oh, wait, we can't miss the controversy here. this game ended in controversy also because the Rams were driving or sorry on the go-ahead touchdown drive from the Steelers they got to a fourth and one situation or was this the was this the drive to ice it it was one of the two I think it was it the drive that Iced it quickly looking here yes yes it was so the you know Rams need a stop to get the ball back and try to tie this game up it's a they call a QB sneak on fourth and one Kenny Pickett was two yards short. Very, yeah.

I mean, it was everybody saw it. Yeah, and they spotted him, you know, with enough yards to get the first down. It was not to the two minute warning yet, so it wasn't an automatic review and the Rams were out of timeouts. So it got pushed to no review, basically. There was no chance to review it. They couldn't review it. The booth couldn't review it. So they got completely screwed.

They get the, if they make the right call there, they get the ball back with probably a minute 55 left. Yeah. And a chance to go down and tie it up. It's frustrating when that happens. You're not saying the Rams for sure go down and score or anything like that, but it's just, it's frustrating when they don't get the chance because the ref screwed it up. Yeah.

Anyways. Arizona traveled to Seattle, another division game. They, just like every game this year, Steve, they fought hard in the first half and then kind of fell apart in the second half. Arizona loses by a score of 10 to 20. Let's see how it's get the 10 point win. this was a boring game to watch i yeah wanted to stab myself several times watching it uh kenneth walker looks great so i'll say that um yeah the the the stuff rate is

finally going down you're not seeing him it's not boom or bust with him as much anymore it's getting a little bit better not a time but a little bit it's gotten a lot better i don't haven't looked at it though from this game he definitely got stuffed a few times in this game so especially in that second half um so i'm not i'm not sure how badly that impacted his overall stuff rate, but there's really nothing to talk about here, guys. Like, this is, this game was gross. JSN finally got involved, but so did Jake Bobo. It's got to be frustrating because Bobo's a undrafted rookie of the same class and basically putting up an identical stat line to JSN.

Bobo, by the way, had one of the best catches you'll ever see. Yeah. So that was beautiful. Yeah. Kenneth Walker's stuff rate was 46.2% in this game. Yeah, I was going to say, I'm pretty sure this. negatively impacts his overall score on the year for sure. Yeah, it was, it's just an ugly game.

Gino Smith is kind of getting in a rhythm. I just think that, you know, we're seeing it. He's playing well. Don't mean me wrong. I think overall he's playing well. I just think that, again, he's regressing back to a little bit to the mean compared to last year. And this is just what this offense is.

They're not going to be, it's not going to be, as many, you know, insane deep ball throws this year. And it just, you know, I like to, I like that they incorporated a JSA a little bit more this week. I think that that, you know, if they can, if D.K. MacK. McHaf comes back and they can kind of get all of those receivers going. They can create some issues for a lot of teams. But it's just, you know, their offensive identity doesn't really play to that as much.

So we'll see how it goes the rest of the year. But it's a, they're a competitive team. I think what they've continued to do with the offensive line is impressive, despite having injuries, despite all of that stuff, they're holding up well. And Seattle's a competitive team, and I think that they'll continue to vie for a playoff spot, and they can surprise some people there.

Agreed. All right. Green Bay went to Denver in the Mile High Stadium, and they lost by two points. I've scored 19 to 17. Jordan Love continues to struggle. I got no note from this game, because I thought it was another just awful game, dude.

This was gross. Okay, I have one note. Javante Williams looks awesome. He's bad. In this one-two punch combination they got with Williams and McLaughlin, very solid. I like what I'm seeing there. Now, granted, it's running back,

so it's not like a huge needle mover. When we talk about a Sean Peyton identity-driven team, it's eerily resembling a vintage Mark Ingram-Alvin-Kimera vibe. Yeah. With Javante being the leadback, and he's more of the Ingram role, but like, I still like what I'm seeing. And that is one of the schemes in the NFL that kind of does need some running back production to make it go.

So that said, I like what I'm seeing there. Other than that, I've got nothing, Steve. Yeah, it's just that's what Russell Wilson is. And the Packers, they can't figure out how to move the ball in the first half. They've moved the ball a little bit in the second half each week. but yeah, Jordan Love looks, I don't know, he looks lost out there at times. He did, he had, I mean, he had a couple of nice throws. I will say he had a couple of nice throws down the sideline, putting it in, you know,

in a spot for the receiver to make a play, you know, a couple of times they just didn't make plays. But I think they need to figure out a way to incorporate Christian Watson a little bit more. I think that's a big hampering to their offense right now is that their number one, who's supposed to be their number one receiver is not getting involved. in a way a number one receiver should. Yeah. He's just not developed to be a number one receiver, unfortunately. Like, he's very much in the Jameson Williams wheelhouse right now.

Yeah, you just saw a lot more design targets for him last year, and you're not seeing it as much this year. That's true. Jaden Reed is getting a lot of those potpast type stuff this year. Yeah. I need to do some soul searching there. But all right, moving on. We got three games left.

We're going to get through it quickly here. The Chargers go to Kansas City. and they get beat pretty badly, two touchdown by two touchdowns for a score of 31 to 17. I have two notes from this game. Three, actually. Travis Kelsey, when you don't cover him, it turns out he could still put up 180 yards. Pretty good. I shouldn't say.

Okay, one of those long plays, the 53-yarder, was covered, but the corner on the play decided to dive for the ball instead of go for the tackle, which basically gave Kelsey a ton of room to run. A younger Kelsey scores on that play, by the way, but instead he ran into bounds. The other thing I have here is that Josh Palmer looks like a dude. I've been pumping him up to Chris in our chat for a couple since last year. We're like, hey, I really see something here. Well, he put on a route running clinic in this game.

He was even running the Keenan Allen special, that whip out. That basically built Keenan Allen's career off of it. Josh is running that route, and he's running it very efficiently. he also put on put Brian Cook on absolute skates on what was like a quarter slash cover zero look man coverage one on one

in the middle of the field and Palmer just destroyed him for a big play a 60 yarder I really like what I'm seeing from Palmer I think he's a dude I think he's here to stay is he like the most explosive player in the world nope but he does a lot of things really really well

the third point I have here is the charges continue to be the most frustrating team in the entire NFF both to watch and that's it. That their defense. I mean, there are just so many holes in that defense. The amount of times that Patrick Mahomes had someone with no one within three yards of him was absurd.

And it's finally coming to fruition, but Rashi Rice is watch out for him the rest of it. Watch out for him the rest of the year. You can see that he's kind of the number. He's the number two guy for Mahomes. And I think that it's really going to shine through here in the next couple weeks because his route share is starting to go up. They're starting to utilize him in the offense more.

And I think he adds an element to that offense that was missing at the beginning of the year. They didn't have it. They didn't have a guy that they could rely on it. And I think that as a receiver, he's going to be reliable and he's going to be utilized the rest of the year. Yeah, great call there. Totally agree. I think they found their one.

Oh, by the way, he finally got the snapshot that suggests he's a starter now. Yes. Yes. It's finally there. Played more snaps than him technically, but it was just a handful more. And then the drop off from Rice to the next guy was pretty significant. So he's officially in that top two territory, which is really all we were waiting for. I definitely think sky's the limit for him for the rest of the year. And by sky, I mean, not Sky more because he's no good. Miami traveled to Philadelphia to get just manhandled by the Eagles.

Woo! What a game. The Eagles kind of looked back. AJ Brown, by the way, I mean, he might be the best receiver in the NFL. The only one above him was on the other side of the field for this game, and that's Tyree Kill. AJ is playing insane. He was on my top five lists in the offseason, so I feel really good about that. But man, that dude is bawling out. And there's been moments this season where the Eagles offense is completely stagnated.

and then AJ Brown rescues them with some ridiculous play. He pulls out of thin air. It happened in this game, actually. There was a stretch there where Eagles were not in a rhythm. And Miami was maybe showing some life. And then, oh, wait, AJ Brown's the dude. So my only real takeaway here, Steve, Miami, they're just not as good as everyone wants them to be.

That's unfortunate. The defense lets you down at times. This offense, when you really go, out of your way to force when you have disciplined and you force to it to come off his first read things aren't as pretty stopping that one game too is huge obviously that's what the whole scheme is dependent on is

that really really nice efficient run game while the Eagles D line was like not having any of that I know moster ended up with a decent yards per carry line I think like five yards of carry but he had like a 21 yard run late in the game that was meaningless I don't I don't think I don't think they were running the ball efficiently They knew that too.

They only ran the ball, what, 10 times? I mean, Moster has, I think he was like 9 for 45, so. 945, okay. And I know, yeah, Ahmed got a couple carriers too. And I think the other scrambled by Tua. So, yeah, I digress, though. Eagles D-line is so good. No one's really going to run.

I know early in the year they gave up some runs, but like I think it's starting to come together. Jordan Davis looks awesome. Jalen Carter looks awesome. Fletcher Cogastell, dude. Brandon Graham, not the best pass rusher anymore, but he's a really good run. run defender still.

Yeah. Same with Derek Barnett, who only played 12 snaps, but it doesn't matter. I mean, D-Len-Radick played a really good game. Yeah, Josh Sweat. That, I mean, that's, and that's why the Eagles defense is so good, and that's why they match up with this Miami Dolphins offense so well, is that Josh Sweat and Hassan Redick being able to play that, you know, that outside linebacker position in how fast they are for how big they are,

is what, I mean, that breaks the Miami Dolphins offense, It's because what they're predicated on, like you said, is being able to get outside and use their speed and being faster than everybody and being able to turn the corner. And the Eagles didn't let them do it. The Eagles have two stud fast outside linebackers, you know, D-Ns, whatever you want to call them. And it showed. And, yeah, I mean, Miami, they're going to continue to beat up on bad teams.

But when they face a team that can kind of go toe to toe with them, that's where you're seeing the issues arise. and it's their defense. They need that secondary to be fully healthy. But even then, the defensive line shows some issues at time. They have some really good guys on the defensive line, but they get gashed just enough times that they get behind the six, they're, you know, their run game.

They have to kind of abandon it. And then, you know, making to a pure drop back and be, you know, that guy is not who he is. Yes. Dude, they had Miami's offense, had 12 negative plays, 12, like, plays that went for negative yards, non-penalty plays. That's insane. They only ran 403 place. Yeah.

12 out of 47 went for negative yards. Yeah. What a performance from the Eagles, who, by the way, just traded for Kevin Bayard. One of my favorite deep safeties in the league, this guy's a ball hawk. They have been a disaster on the back end with the safety specifically. Yeah. Now he's going to join Reed Blankenship to make a, decent duo.

I really like Bayard and his fit there too because they, he really excels playing like that ball hawking. You know, he can play too high or single high. It doesn't really matter. But like he is very, very good. So he'll give them a little bit of what they lost with CJ going to the

Lions like that. He'll give them that back. They haven't had that in the back end yet this year. Also communication. They've had a ton of communication breakdowns probably because they're trying all these young guys or undrafted guys, whatever. So now, by the way, Terrell Edmonds wasn't undrafted, but he plays like an undrafted guy, so I always throw him in that bucket. Yeah, I think the communication on the back end

improves dramatically as well. Yeah, this benefits Bradbury and Darius Slay, more than anyone, obviously, because that's where and when Darius Slay has been a, I mean, he's always been an elite corner, but where he's been his most elite is when he has a guy in the back end who he can trust wholly. And that allows him to kind of start. start to jump the ball a little bit more, be a bit more aggressive. And he's he's had to, you know, pull that back a little bit this year. And I think with Byard coming in, he's going to able to, he's able to crank that up a little bit more. And so is Bradbury. They're going to be able to be able to be more. They're going to be able to jump routes a little bit

more because they know they can trust the guys behind him. And so I mean, watch out for this Eagle secondary to really come alive in the second half of the year with Byard coming in. Once he, you know, once he gets kind of integrated and like good to go in that defense. Final game of the week, the San Francisco 49ers travel to Minnesota, and they lose 22 to 17. And so now you have a really interesting situation where the Detroit Lions lost this week, the Buffalo Bills lost this week, the Miami Dolphins lost this week. The San Francisco 49ers lost this week. Like it's kind of a mass unit. We did not expect all of these first-ish-place teams to lose.

And here we are. Here we are. So this game, though, you know, I think a couple things for San Francisco got exposed. One, Brock Purdy is finally getting that turnover regression we knew was coming. Yeah. Put the ball in harm's way.

Enough. Eventually, those passes will get caught. And by the way, both of this picks were ugly. Bad. Bad. The other thing I've noticed this a few times this year now,

and it's hard because they've been so dominant. But when you can pass protect against the 49ers, they are they're getting exposed yeah the Vikings happen to have one of the best book and tackle duos in the league with Christian Derrissau and Brian O'Neill they showed up Boso was pretty much a non-factor most of this game

Eric Armstead was meh the other they got some young edge guys too that get rotation in there Javonne Hargrave didn't do much when you can pass protect against these I don't think Cousins was sacked one time actually which is crazy because you know they have a lot of like i would say high t ttt concepts in that scheme so to not take any sacks

is pretty nuts and my other note here is that jordan addison is awesome he looks really good the number one knock on him coming into their i sashae through the pre-draft process the number one knock on jordan addison was he wasn't big enough to play on the outside and hold up on the outside of the NFL, probably a slot only guy. His weight adjusted 40 time wasn't good. Well, guess what? He looks strong. He looks fast. Amazing stuff. He had two plays in this game with physicality that really stood out to me. Obviously, the contested catch with Chavarius Ward over the middle of the field. It was awesome. It turned into a touchdown, a 60-yard touchdown, actually, where he basically stops the interception, rips the ball out of Chavar's words and deals with the contact. Really nice. The other one was,

there was like a 20-yard pass on the sideline. It's like a sale concept where he's getting pressed. It's from a tray formation. He's in the slot. Getting pressed by Isaiah Oliver, who is a big corner. Yep. Super physical corner.

Almost looks like a safety. He's so big. Addison gets off press really nicely. Hits him with a violent cut upfield, which then invokes a hold from Isaiah Oliver, draws the flag, still plays through the contact to generate several yards of separation and catches a ball for 20 yards.

We'll take the yardage, penalty declined. Like, Addison looks really, really freaking good. When Jefferson comes back, this offense could be scary because Addison's developed pretty nicely in his absence. Yeah, this is a big game for him because those San Francisco cornerbacks are really physical. Charveri Swartz, one of the most physical corners in the game. And, you know, he was able to beat it.

He was able to shine through when, you know, he was fighting through contact the whole game. game. I thought this was T.J. Hawkinson's best game of his career. All around best game of his career. He manned up Nick Bosa two or three times in pass protection and won. But the Minnesota Vikings offensive game plan was so good on how they stopped the pass rush. If you watch, they had a tight end, you know, they rarely went with like an, you know, no tight end formation. Rarely did they go like a 10 personnel or anything. They almost always had. had a tight end at the end of the line.

And they were chipping Nick Bosa almost every single play. And it threw him off. And it helped create a good situation for their tackles where, you know, Nick Bosa was, he was getting chipped. They would have their tight ends run him off before they got out on a route. And that really, it helped keep that pass protection clean and it helped keep Kirk Cousins cleaned. I thought that it was such a good game plan.

What Kevin O'Connell did to help, you know, Kirk Cousins have the time to be able to drop back what, I mean, he dropped back, you know, 40 plus times. He threw for 378 yards. It really was the fact that he was able to be kept clean. And I thought that Josh Oliver and, or not, yeah, Josh Oliver and DJ Hawkinson played a great game. And they really sucked to their responsibilities in this game. I think it was key to how they, you know, how they operated on offense. And I just, I, you know, T.J. Hawkinson, his blocking was touted coming in. And, and, you know, and, you know, it had been an issue, you know, through his Detroit years, it was kind of an issue here and there when he's been, as he's been in Minnesota. But he really held his own this game and it really

helped his offense, you know, fly this week. He was so integral. And, you know, his stat line wasn't great. I think he had, I mean, it's not like it was bad if he had like five for 56 catches. But, yeah, I just thought his past protection in this game was awesome. And I was really impressed with how he held up against Nick Bosa. You said Hockinson was five or 56? I thought something like that. You ended up with 11 for 86. So not Christian, but still a ton of targets.

Yeah. So, like, again, I thought it was his best overall game of his career. He may not have been these amazing touchdowns. It may not have been a ton of yards. But he did exactly what he needed to do in this game. He was, I mean, they were using him primarily as a checkdown receiver, the entire game because they wanted to hem in and have him chip Nick Bosa constantly. and it worked and it worked really well.

Right on. Also, the Vikings guys, they're now three and four. The offense is still playing at a high level. They're clearly not going to change what they do. They want to drop back and throw the ball. They're a pass heavy offense. Their pass rate is roughly stayed the same since Jefferson's been hurt. The defense, guys, has found their identity.

Okay, first few weeks, my big criticism is we don't know what they don't know what they're doing. Flores had no clue. I don't necessarily like the personnel still. I think the personnel's garbage. Flores is going to get the most out of it. They've developed this identity where it's, we're going to blitz you, we're going to force the ball out quickly, and we're going to tackle. That's what they're doing. They're doing it pretty well right now.

The last few weeks, you're just seeing tons of zero. They'll line up. They'll show quarters too. And then, you know, quarters is an alert away from becoming, man, every single snap. So, they throw it too high. But they're using three safeties on pretty much every snap. Mattelis, Bynum, and Harrison Smith. Mattelis and Bynum kind of rotate who plays in the slot, who's back.

But they really just like to walk both those guys up a lot too. And they're both in line of scrimmage. You don't know if someone's blitzing. Are they dropping back? They'll rotate into too high. It's really cool. But a lot of cover zero, a lot of blitz happy stuff, which is what Flores has kind of built a career on. He learned that style in New England when they used to blitz like,

crazy. Definitely, definitely cool, though, because it's really tough when you're getting destroyed in the past game and you don't have an identity, that's frustrating, right? But at least now they have an identity. And sometimes it doesn't work. Look, they're going to give up some big plays here and there. It is what it is. But sometimes it does work.

And it's when you're getting, you know, third and 15 and you have seven pass rushes coming at you. It's scary. Like that ball's got to come out quick. You're likely not getting a first down. Yeah, they really test the rules of the offense. line. That's, I mean, that's, they put the offensive line in conflict. They put the quarterback in conflict every single time because they, you really have to think through how you're out, how

you're designing the past protection each play and where you're directing it, how we, identifying the blitzers who's coming, who's not, uh, Bynum's become really good at kind of running that robber role a little bit. You saw it in this game. He's, you know, able to kind of play below routes and jump and jump it a little bit. But yeah, they blitz it like, they blitz it like above a 35% rate. It's crazy. But It works. It's working. And yeah, there are going to definitely be games where they're going to give up 35 plus. It's not going to happen often, but there are going to be some teams that are going to be able to protect against this. And it's going to happen.

But they're a frisky team. I think that they are super frisky. Yeah. And I'm saying, watch out. I mean, I've seen it a couple times and I think I agree with it. But this, I mean, this Minnesota team might be better than last year's Minnesota team. Whoa. I've seen a couple people, folks.

I've seen a couple people, you know, put it out on Twitter. And I think I agree that this is a more sound of team as a whole. I can agree with that. They were last year. Because last year they were getting gashed in the past game. They're not getting gassed as much because they have a little bit. They have a more sound defensive strategy. And that it's helping.

And I think that, yeah, this team, they could find their way into nine to ten wins. just because of the way they play defense and just because of the way that they test the protection rules of offensive lines and offensive line plays a little bit down this year. And so that's where they're going to kind of, they're going to excel because of it. Yeah. Listen, I'll say this.

They've won three of their last four games. The one loss they had was to defending Super Bowl champions, which they only lost by seven points. And they had the ball with 20 seconds to go in Chiefs territory, driving on the field with a chance to tie that game up. Now, it didn't work out for them. My point is like, you can sit there, say, oh, they beat Carolina and they beat the Bears.

These are bad teams. Well, they also almost took it to the Chiefs. Yeah. And they just took it to the 49ers. So what else? Like, I mean, lions got to be careful with this, too. I couldn't agree more. Yeah. They better win

both of the games in Minnesota. That's what I got to say. Is that the Vikings could be a sneaky pick. I think the sneaky pick to win the division. I think the lines are like minus 550 right now to win that division. I don't, I don't know what the Vikings odds are at, but...

I might toss a bet on that. I'm going to put a flyer on it. I'm going to put a flyer on it. Well, just for the emotional, you know, recompense, if the lines fumble the bag and Minnesota wins, at least I'm going to get paid for it. Right. Heck yeah.

So, anyways, that is going to do it. We are the TikTok bros. We are going to take off, but like, go to fantasy points.com. I say this every week, but so much content coming out. The new tool, if you're a subscriber, think a subscriber at any level you get the new tool, which is not on the data suite. It's actually on the homepage.

I think it's in the research section. Phenomenal tool. It's game changing. Everything we do is game changing. Yeah. I mean, I utilizing the tool this week, I built out a parlay for the Minnesota San Frane game, and I hit a plus 2,400 parlay on it. Heck, yeah, dude.

That's all because all because of the tool. 100% because of what. You got a drop us in the chats, bro. Yeah, so it's the second one. I hit a plus 6,000 a couple weeks ago. To last week, last week actually in the Tampa Bay Detroit game. Nice. I'm not all because of the tool.

I'm admittedly not a parlay guy, but my prop bet success rate the last three weeks is like 96%. I think I've missed one prop. And I'm betting volume too. It's not like I've done like two props and I'm hitting them. I think each the last two weeks I've put at least seven or eight props in and I've only lost one. Yeah, I do props and then I'll throw put together one parlay based off of research. That's awesome. Well, you heard it here, guys.

Use the tool, build some props, win some money, pays for the tool. Exactly. We love you and we are out. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com.