Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Falcons Rolling, Chiefs Surge, and Rams Stun Eagles

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Welcome to The Schwartz Football Show as we break down the biggest takeaways from an action-packed week of NFL action. First, we examine how the Atlanta Falcons dominated the New Orleans Saints in every phase of the game. Next, we analyze how the Kansas City Chiefs found a way to overcome the Las Vegas Raiders, while the Los Angeles Rams pulled off a major victory against the Philadelphia Eagles. Then, we dive into the Jacksonville Jaguars' early-season struggles to pinpoint what is going wrong with their offense and defense. Finally, we share our overall early-season reactions to evaluate what went right, what went wrong, and which team trends are truly built to last.

It is Tuesday, October 6th. I am Jeff Schwartz. That is Mitch Schwartz. This is a Schwartz football show. We're here to recap week four in national football. You potentially look ahead to week five. We have so much to get to. We have the Chiefs, of course.

They're now four and O. A lot of stories around the NFL about teams are not doing as well, including the charging Texans. And we're going to kind of recap where we stand with some of our preseason thoughts, Mitch. We got right when we got wrong after a month of the season. How you doing, buddy? Did you enjoy the beatdown that Falcons gave the Saints last night?

I did. Yeah, I liked that I got the time. turning off by about 9 p.m. I was very tired and got to go to bed and not have to watch the game. There are days out. It turns out having your starting quarterback is actually important and making a proclamation about how good or bad a head coach is when he's dealing with a third string quarterback might not be the way to go, especially when he's taking over a new team.

That's a good point. I think he can still coach and Penn X looks pretty good. You know, when he plays, his team score a ton of points, college the NFL. They've always done that. We saw it last night. We saw it the week before. He's got some limitations, but when he's got the weapons going and some protection, which you had last night, he's made a lot of good throws over the life when he's healthy.

So Falcons, big win, Saints seem like they're one of those teams. Everyone was high on this year, Mitch, that might not be as good as we think. And that division is still a stink fest because someone has to win. And if the Panthers played two good games in a row, maybe be them. But the Falcons look good right now. The Bucks are dead, obviously. And the Saints feel very up and down. Did you know they've had two basically Katrina,

Memorial games and both times the Falcons beat the share of the Saints in both of those games. So maybe it should stop scheduling the Falcons to play that game. I did not know that. Peter Shrigger is going to be devastated. The joke there for people that don't know is he used to go on with Bill Simmons, you know, pretty much weekly. And he would talk about like the funniest one. I mean, I say this in a way.

He talked about the giants doing the 20th anniversary of 9-11 and they were going to be supercharged and motions would be high and then they like went out and got smoked. But he always plays it until. like the emotion of the situation and it's going to have a huge impact. I'm like, the players don't care. Like, they're not part of the situation. It's definitely a college football thing. Like college football, I think sometimes that like sort of does matter, Mitch,

because they're 18 and 22 year olds. A little older now, of course, some of those guys. But, yeah, the NFL, why do the Falcons or Saints care that much? None of them were in the Superdome when this happened. They were 20 years ago. Some guys were like two. I mean, like, it's just, like, I know Drew Brees was there. and I know Gleason was there

and like they did the whole thing like I get that part of it how poor But is that bigger than just the general idea of a Monday night football game? Like you're already elevated You're already heightened it's already prime time So like if it's another two to three percent That's not enough to tip the scales

Definitely not And now again they're now O and two to the Falcons And two blowouts in both of these games So obviously you know They'll show to do it in 10 years from now They'll play the Falcons again You know you was probably more motivation honestly

Is the Falcons did not want to have this game again. They didn't want to be the team again. Like that to me is more motivation. Maybe on that side of things, there's a little bit of validity to like, were the team again that's playing this game to commemorate what, you know, the rebirth of the dome and maybe they're tired of that.

But of course, in the end, doesn't, doesn't quite matter. I just pulled up social media, by the way. So I was looking up the, the, I was looking up the dome anniversary thing to make sure I was right, which I was. And the first clip I see, is the Chargers fullback of tight end

just tripping Roshan Slater and then the defensive end just murders Justin Herbert. So that's fun. We'll talk about the Chargers in a few minutes here. Let's get to the Chiefs Mitch. They beat the Raiders,

Good win, 4-0. But really the story from that game is that the left guard, Kingsley Sue and Mattia was benched by Andy Reid for the whole game. Now, he did dress, he wasn't on the sidelines,

but did not play the entire game. And let's start with that. Not really about the Chiefs win the game. their 4-0, good for them. They won. The Reddust seemed pretty feisty, but the Chiefs just clearly better than they have been in other years.

So Kingsley was benched. And the reaction was quite predictable, Mitch. A lot of anger, Andy Reid, right? How dare they bench this guy? You have to protect Patrick Mahomes. You have to be able to do this. Well, a couple of things here, guys. First of all, the NFL views backups

a lot differently than you do, right? If you are dressed on Sunday, you are expected to be able to play well. You might not be, Mitch, but the Chiefs view Caliendo, maybe not as good as soon, Matia, but like, what if Sumitia got hurt to first play? He had to play anywhere, right?

So there's a conference in backups that coaches have. The public doesn't have. Okay? So I've been that guy. I've been to backup before. I've had confidence to myself. Like, I had to go into games. Coach, I have to trust I can do it.

I have, believe it or not, kind of gives a backup. I mean, we can, I'm going to push back a little bit. I think coaches are realistic knowing what a backup's going to provide. Like, they don't necessarily expect the same level of play. And they wouldn't be the backup if they could give the same level of play in most cases as a starter. They would be a starter. So I do think there is a tempered expectations for certain guys and Calliando specifically is the seventh O-Lignment. Josh Simmons is not playing right now, which means either Khalil Benson or Jalen Moore is the six-o-linman. They would probably be playing the

interior spot vacated by Kingsley. So Caliando is actually the second interior option off the bench. But you can continue your intro to this point. Okay, besides that, the, he was benched for reasons we don't know yet, right? They may never come out. But the fact is, guys, is that Andy Reid did not do this benching without thinking about all the things that Mitch just mentioned, that you've mentioned in the internet that I know about. You know what hardest to get benched Mitch in the NFL, how many things you have to do to get benched as a starting offensive lineman. Anyone, it could be a starting wide receiver, a tied end or a different event. For a whole game, too, not just a drive or quarter.

So it's something that built up over time. And this was a message sent to Kingsley that your job is not safe if you cannot get your shit together. And part of being a pro is getting your shit together, right? Mitch, look, I could not imagine being late to one meeting in my entire. I don't know if you still get these. That's one of my favorite things when you criticize players who are missed meetings or late. People are like, well, like you bet you never missed a meeting. No, I fucking haven't.

I was on time to every single meeting I was ever expected to be at. I had one time in college where I almost missed a 6.30 a.m. workout did the whole thing where I set the alarm at the phone dial. I don't know what happened. I woke up and I got a bunch of calls from the guy I was supposed to pick up and I made it to the facility in record time, picked him up and we made it. That was the only time of even come close to not making a meeting on time. I didn't leave the hotel on Saturdays to go get food the way your fat ass did because I was scared about getting back to the hotel on time because we grew up in L.A. and I'm terrified of traffic. So I never left the hotel because I never wanted to be in a situation where I got stuck in traffic, not knowing what that was going to be like coming back.

No, I never missed a meeting. It's not hard to not miss meetings. Correct. Even with Tom Coughlin, our meetings were five minutes earlier technically, right? So you'd be on your phone taking a poo. You'd be on your phone taking a poo and you're like, oh, six, fifth, oh, shit, three minutes. Like you did tell you. You know, you have to do the math in your head.

Like you were never late, right? And so the idea that, you know, you're late to a meeting. you're late to this and that, you're disrespectful. We don't get it. We don't know the reasons why. But it takes multiple of these strikes to get suspended for a game, essentially. And I think the anger should be to Kingsley for forcing anybody to do this. Who is, I think, suspended one player, Marcus Peters, I think in his time.

Like, that's it. It doesn't do it. You play with them longer than I did. So go ahead. This is extremely rare for him to do. So something had to have happened, whether it's an accumulation, whether it's being extremely late to, like, the bus. us with the plane or potentially, you know, not going to the night meeting.

I don't know. But something happened to frustrate the coach into feeling like he needed to send a message and to Bench Kingsley. Now, the Chiefs fans in particular have talked about the last few years. We need accountability and things seem too lax and too loose. And Nagy can't control the offense and too many penalties. And now the head coach disciplines the guy. And the reaction is, well, he can't do that because he's letting the quarterback get killed.

That is not the way discipline works. you make the decision to discipline a guy because of his actions and because it needs the message needs to be sent. If you base that off of the backups play or the team you're playing or the situation, then you defeat the purpose of the discipline. You prove to them that they can get away with stuff. And at the situation is so big that they need them, they're not going to get punished. So, yeah, the anger and the Iyer should entirely be at Kingsley for doing whatever he did to feel

like the coaching staff needed to, you know, basically like he said, suspended for the whole game. Now, he was dressed out and pictures, and from what people are saying, he had his helmet on the entire game. It's being a sad little puppy on the sidelines. It is not fun and not comfortable to put your helmet on and to wear it for four straight hours. It's really funny that that's what ended up happening. But yeah, so the other part of it is I put out the video, Caliando did not play that poorly. He had a couple bad plays that happened to be splash plays. But again, this sounds derogatory, your seventh alignment.

your seventh alignment is going to give up a pressure or a sack. That's going to happen. Your seventh alignment is going to not be able to reach a three technique on the front side of a shotgun outside zone. The $23 million guard missed more of those blocks than the left guard did that game. So stop with that. He had a screen where the three tech didn't take the cheese and didn't chase the quarterback. He tried to stay on him.

He tried to run him past the point. The guy threw him late. It looks bad. Still a heads up play, trying to make it right. Those were his bad plays. Took a couple bad angles on the backside of runs. Still kind of got to his guy. Like, that was his game.

Everyone's like, Kelly, you know,'s getting the quarterback killed and all the stuff. That is not happening at all. And again, that's separate from the fact that Kingsley screwed up and got disciplined. So, yeah, it was a bit of a frustrating day or two to see, you know, people's reactions to what happened. Like, the anger, as you said, should be at Kingsley. And Coach Reid's words were interesting, too, saying, like,

he'll be better for this down the road. You know, when the wording first came out during the game, like right after the first drive when people are like, huh, Calianda's playing, not Kingsley. The reporting said it was a coach's decision, which in my mind wasn't disciplinary. I was like, did they bench him for his play? You text me and said he was bench. I was like, you're like, what, what happened? I don't know. I was because to me, just say like it's a disciplinary issue, not it's a coach's decision. So then you kind of figure that out after the game, Callianda says he didn't know about it until Saturday, which, you know, kind of informs us that likely he missed either walkthrough meetings Saturday morning

and or he was late to the buses or plane and or he was late to the night meetings at the hotel. I don't know exactly. I don't have the inside information on that, but something obviously happened that Saturday. And guys are late. I'm not going to say all the time, but more often than people realize coaches, especially Andy Reid and the Chiefs,

you keep things in-house. Guarantee guys are missing meetings or not missing late to meetings and getting warned or getting fined. Like those things don't need to be public. They aren't public. Coaches handle that in a house. Usually it doesn't escalate to the level of having to bench a guy for, you know, a drive, a quarter, a game.

So whether it was an accumulation, whether it was like holding up the plane when you're trying to leave, whatever it was, it was obviously large enough to warrant this kind of reaction. And this is what Chiefs fans had wanted. Accountability. You're not going to mess up. And again, the wording that he will be better for this down the road, you kind of pointed at the professionalism aspect of it.

It might be, you know, an accumulation of smaller things. It could be one bad one. But obviously they think this is a message that needed to be sent and that whatever the behavior is needs to change and that if it does change, he's going to be a better person, a better player and more productive for the team down the road. So people will push back Mitch and say, well, you could find him. I mean, you could, certainly. We don't know that they haven't.

We also don't know that they didn't find him in conjunction with the benching. Yes. And there also is, I believe I'm correct on this. You correct me wrong, but there is a cap on the fine, right? Like, you can only find a certain amount of money for certain offenses. So like, yeah, I think so. I think it's all CBA negotiated. But again, I was never late and I didn't miss a meeting, so I don't know.

I mean, Tom Coughlin would tell us all the time, like, you guys negotiated these fines, not me. So I'm just charging you what's in the CBA. So, but again, if it's like repeated, could you argue that that's like conduct detrimental? You could. Sure, you could. Yes. So maybe then that is you're able. able to find a larger amount.

Sure. And again, if he learns from this, I mean, dude, just be a pro, man. Be on time. It's not that hard. Like, again, this, if this Saturday was the last straw, that's probably the third or fourth time it's happened, right? And I just, I still get like once a year a nightmare about missing a meeting, brother. I just don't.

I do too. Well, there's also, there's basically the Cardinal Sins. The worst thing you can do is be late to the game. Like, if it's a home game, you have to be there within two hours. If it's a road game, there are two flights of buses. missing those, not being able to get to the game on time is the worst thing you can do. Then you kind of backtrack, like, what's the next worst thing? Being late to a practice or missing the night meetings at the hotel or being late to the airplane leaving for a road game.

So like you assume it's within the world of those things happening. Because being, you know, a few minutes late to meetings here or there that happens. Like guys go out Friday night. They come to the facility Saturday morning. Sometimes, you know, you can tell that they had a nice night, even if they're on. on time. But like those things you do get talked to and all that. Like you're not going to suspend a guy because he showed up, you know, feeling it from Friday night. Um, so yeah, it's just like he had to have done one of those things that's, you know, the one thing you don't do, whether it's making

the plane delayed or missing a practice or whatever. A plane delay would be bad. Speaking about hotels quickly, did you see the story that Colorado, that some player left his entire like opening script notebook is like a place in the hotel? And, and And Texas Tech fans found it and tried to get it to the team but never happened. And then they showed like play one was like the play one they ran the game. I cannot believe someone left a 25 page like opening script and game plan manual. Did they have them? Was there a name on it?

Yeah. It said like Colorado versus Texas Tech. No, no. The player. Oh, I didn't see that. No, I didn't see that. Because coaches, at least, I mean, coaches have these horror stories or these awesome stories. and they'll like your first 15 or like certain game plan things,

they'll put your name on the page so they know if like the first 15 gets out, someone finds it, that it's you. And talking about that specifically, whenever you were in New England, you were told your playbook must be on you at all times. Because I think Robert Kraft owns some of the hotels that teams stay at. And, you know,

certain hotel staff might end up in rooms and look for things. Oh, yeah. When we played New England, you were not allowed to leave a trace of anything in the hotel, on the locker room. There were special sweeps, special checks, all those things. Because, like, you know, typically you feel comfortable to leave your backpack with your playbook in the room if you're going to, like, go down and grab a snack back or, like,

go to do something or go to another guy's room. But, like, no, you were literally, playbook must stay on you, anything with game information at all times regardless of where you go. Yeah. So Colorado are not great for the buffs there. All right. Kansas City, four knows we know in the AFC. they may or may not be the best team, Mitch, as we speak right now.

But are we taking Jacksonville seriously enough? Because all Jacksonville has done for like 14 straight regular season weeks, Mitch has won a ton of football games. For this year, they basically have played 11 great quarters and they played one poor one against Denver. I was right, by the way. And otherwise, they played very well. Are we taking Jacksonville serious enough as a contender in the AFC? No. They are, you know, if not the best overall team in the AFC.

one of the top two right now, and they are legit. You know, I came into the year in the South, we'll talk about the Texans. I was more pro-Texans, a little bit more anti-Jags, and everyone was talking up. You know, the second half of the last season for the Jags, and that's maybe their truer ability. Obviously, you know, having a year of Liam Cohen's scheme and the transformation of Trevor in the second half of last year, the defense kind of coming alive. But those things, to me, kind of scared me off because I would want to see a little more. more consistency, like a little bit more, you know, the Texans defense, like, kicked ass all last year into the playoffs, all that stuff. It was just the quarterback spot. But no, I don't think,

I think it's also just part of, like, Jags history that they haven't really done a ton. And the one time they were, like, pretty good was like Bortles. And they ended up squandering that opportunity in the AC championship game. And I think it was 2017, maybe. So the times the Jaggs have been good on the past, like the defense has been incredible. And the offense has been holding the back a little bit. And, And now that's flipped. I mean, the offense looks great. Trevor Lawrence has ascended into the person that everyone wants Justin Herbert to be. There we go.

Maybe there's some parallels there. But the defense is starting to come alive. Like that was always my argument with Jacksonville's defense is like the pieces are there. You had high draft picks across the entire D-line, you know, Josh Heinz Allen and they sign Armstead and stuff. So, yeah, that team looks complete. They look well-coached. They've got a great offensive, you know, play caller and designer. quarterback's looking as good as he's ever looked.

They got some weapons on the outside. Brian Thomas Jr., if he's coming around too and starting to be more productive and more reliable. And then the O-line's also performing pretty well for the most part as well. The offensive line, to me, that's a story on offense. Like, there's not a group that was projected to be very good. I don't think, right?

You look at previous projections, but they're playing feels like much better than we thought they would, Mitch. I mean, it's what? It's Harrison left tackle, pregnant on the left guard. He's had a good start. What? He's had a good start at Guard. Yeah, as someone who watched most of the Stapson,

I'm not surprised, but it's a pretty unharalded offensive line, and they're playing very good football. If they can keep it up, this is a team that potentially will be the one seed in the AFC at the moment, especially with their division games. You know, I was going to say, it turns out that division's maybe not as good as we thought. So, yeah, I don't think we're, to answer the question,

we're not taking them as serious enough if they had, you know, Broncos or Chiefs or Patriots or Bill's, like one of the more well-known national names, and we had maybe higher expectations of them. We'd be talking about them as potentially, again, class of the AFC might be the best, you know, overall team and football in terms of how well they're playing on both sides of the ball right now. Any irony to the fact that as soon as a clock turned to October, the Patriots lost their first game, excuse me, the Patriots, the Bill's lost their first game after we talked about how much, how they're, you know, September champions.

No irony. Just, you know, it's, it's, I don't really bash them too much. Like, again, I am always like pro QB. I like guys to be good. The Josh Allen flopping is out of control. I don't know if you saw that clip. Oh, I saw it. The, I'm just going to chuck the ball backwards underhand and not going to get.

I mean, this has kind of been Nick Wright's point, and he's made it very well on a lot of different platforms. Like, the anointment of Josh Allen, despite not having any of the accolades that, any of the guys who get put into that top spot is very odd. And it's like this media campaign to do it. Now, to be fair, an excellent regular season quarterback, an excellent quarterback overall, but he's played his worst in the playoff games.

They haven't advanced. They've gotten beaten by superior quarterbacks, but in Mahomes most notably. And so it just, I don't know, if he was someone else, he'd be getting criticized a lot more. It does seem like he gets a little bit more of kind of the slack from the media. I know we kind of joke about Ballard and how does he have a job, but like Allen's kind of put in that bucket where it's a bit of the media darling

and things are let go. And yeah, that was an unexpected outcome. I didn't think that they'd turn Drake May back into a real quarterback. And I thought they'd be able to win that, you know, pretty convincingly. People found our clip about the Patriot's offense. What now, guys? It's one week. They changed their offense and they started to play real football and not have to protect

the quarterback in the O'Line. Wow, it turns out that works. The bill's defense right now is not good. The success rate against them, week 1, 48%, week 2, 48%, week 3, 46%, than 51% last week. So again, another problem for the bills. They're consistent. They are consistent.

There are a lot of consistently bad. There's not some bad defenses so far this year. They're like really bad. Like the lion's defense, Mitch, is really, really atrocious. Like all times. Did you see the thing on Twitter of the DC covering his mouth of the playbook? And someone's like, no one cares about your play calls. That was awesome.

It's so good. He covers his mouth. He has a big, like, lion's logo with the area code on the back of his play sheet, holds up to his mouth. And I love, like, that's not really defense corner thing all that often. Like, Spax doesn't do that, I think, ever when I see Spax on sideline. These guys who, like, aren't defense a call short, too? Like, who's reading his lips? Well, they're also after the fact.

So the offense sends on the personnel, and then the defense has to make the call. So, like, you don't have much time. The quarterback's already calling the play. Yes. And typically, you're probably under the 15 seconds at that point anyway. Like, you just don't have a ton of time to catch it and relay it. So I, yeah, defensive coordinators, it doesn't really matter what you call. From one bad defense to one bad team, Mitch, the Eagles lose to the Rams blowing a lead. The Rams are better with the entire game. The Rams should have been up in that game. The whole game, they played like shit. We could talk about the Rams in a few minutes. But Mitch, the Eagles are in a very, very bad place right now.

it's getting to a point where the coach is not going to be the coach. Well, I think after the season is for sure, but if he makes it the season, who knows at the moment, when you watch Eagles play, what do you see with this team? Because they are just an absolute mess, man. Mess is a good way to put it. That felt like the disappointing bowl.

And then, you know, Lane isn't playing, and we know the splits with the Eagles when he's not on the field. And Landon's out. Jurgens has moved to guard. He's not playing well. Turns out now he has a concussed. It is, I know we'll talk about this later with the Packers too, but like when your O-line flips from elite to below average and you're paying them a lot of money and you're relying on them and all of a sudden they become somewhat of a liability like that changes the tenor of the entire football team. D-line is not performing as we expected. Defense isn't performing. Cooper's had a down year. The quarterback's obviously not the answer. The scheme is not the answer.

It's, you know, Seguan feels like he's starting to break down a little bit. There's just not. much positive to take from it other than, you know, let's start our search for the new up-and-coming head coach because it feels like Seriani's gone. It feels like they're going to move on from Hertz and they're going to probably have to start fresh. I mean, I can't imagine Lane plays another year. You know, this year, it seemed like he was talking about retirement. Yeah. So whether they had move on from Dickerson, whether they got to, you know, figure out the Juergens role, you know, the O-line is going to be much downgraded in years, in the future years compared to previous years.

Again, probably new head coach, probably new quarterback. You're going to have to rely on that defense to kind of pick up the slack. And again, that was one that for so long, we've said the quarterback is being propped up by everything around him. And it turns out like that actually is the case. It is the case because Hertz was bad. Also, the three and out stats, like, what is it, 45, 46% of their drives at three and outs? Like just really terrible offense.

It's, and they were 0 for 12, I believe. on third down in this game against the Rams. His defense is good. I mean, great. Without Miles and whatever you want to save Aaron Donald. And I know that Barkley was out. And then Tink Bigsby, by the way, is now out for a little bit. And then Smith was out.

Like, I get, they don't have a tight. One of their issues, too, is Mitch, they're trying to run a Shane-Han offense without a tight end. That's, like, impossible to do most offenses you need a tight end. But this one feels like very important to be able to have a tie. I just never thought this made sense, the pairing of this offense with what Jalen Hertz is good at. It does feel like this is the end for Syrian.

Well, the shotgun RPO run game spread stuff wasn't really working or making sense either. So I think it just sticks in the quarterback doesn't make sense. I mean, it's so, J.Leharts is such a fascinating player because like legitimately played well in both Super Bowls. Like, like, you're like, three best games are two Super Bowls and an NFC or an NFC championship game. Which is wild. I mean, it's a Nick Foles. Right. Nick Foles did that too, but Nick Foller's not his talent is.

He also had one of the best, like, I don't know if it was eight to 11 games. stretches and was it 2013? Yeah. Or 2012, maybe. With Chip. I think it was with Chip. That was like 13.

Yeah, 2013. That was legitimately one of the best like half season stretches of quarterback play of all time. It was. Do you think Juergens play concussed? Because now that I know he's concussed and I watch this film, it looks like he was concussed. Like that's, um, I mean, probably.

I did see that clip going around of like 16 missed blocks by Cam Jerkins and only like four of them were really bad. Five of them were like good blocks, but, you know, typical state of bashing offensive line men. Okay. So we have many things talking about offense aligned. Let's just start with this, Mitch. The online discourse through four weeks, but offensive line play is worse than I've ever seen before. Okay.

It starts with people not understanding offensive line play. That's fair. I get it. But some of these stat websites that put out stats, it's fucking atrocious, dude. Like, we've gotten very lazy would analyze offensive line play, and we're just using GPS sensors essentially, and we're not actually watching the football. We talked about this before with Cleo Benson in week one.

Like, no pressures. You're like, but he got beat clean. Like, we, I saw this, like, it's the point where it's like, it's just like, I saw when Tyler Guyton one-on-one versus Will Anderson 12 and 0, and you're like, he got beat on the first play, whatever. Without first play, what, he got beat the running back, pick the guy up.

Like, what are we, it just feels like very lazy, Mitch, that we've gone to either AI helping us out or just, GPS trackers, no substance whatsoever, no nuance whatsoever. It's starting to piss me off to see these tweets about pressure stats from a whole different range of websites. And there's not remotely close to what I'm seeing on film. Well, the Protector of the Year award putting out no early pressures or whatever in their stats is just laughable too.

So I would counter that a little bit and say most of the people citing those things are probably not speaking on offensive line play to begin with or watching film or qualified to do it. They are just using what is now available to them, which is next gen stats. I'm saying those stats stink, though. Like they're not indicative of what happened. But I'm saying like it's not that like. No, it's not the user's fault. It's not the user's fault.

I'm more upset at like next gen stance being terrible than someone sharing the stats. Does that make sense? Like I'm more upset that it's not an accurate description of what's happening more than a reporter for a team citing the stats. Does that make sense? Right. So first off, the per game stats, especially on PFF, are bad. And all the people say that, like, you don't want to use it on like a per game basis because the percentages get all weird. And typically the Saturday or Sunday to Monday stats are also not as good until they go back and kind of adjust things. So the way to look at advanced or analytics advanced data, whatever you want to say for Oline play is to look at things in larger buckets over bigger periods of time. So after four weeks, Now we've got a bunch of info, and you can go and say, all right, well, this player is graded at third on PFF. I don't think he's the third best X at right guard. So I'm going to go watch and see what's going on.

Like, you look at it in terms of he's either graded lower than I expect, what's going on. He's graded better than I expect. Let me go see. Let me see if I'm missing something. I do think these things tend to kind of even out over the course of the season. Just we have so little data. And to your point, like the GPS stats and the percentage, and some of the PFF grades,

especially the ones being, you know, done off of the broadcast angle. Like, that's the wrong way to look at Oline play. It's just that that's now widely available and so people can pull from it. There aren't a ton of people, like super qualified to talk on O'Line play. They typically wait until Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

until they can watch the actual film. And it turns out it takes a long time to watch a full game of five offense alignment. It does. For both teams. Like, that's a two-hour endeavor and minimum. And that's not even if you're doing like a super deep dive. So yeah, I would say in general, if you're seeing offensive line stats or offensive line play, take that as like a broad categorization

of what's happening. And if it doesn't agree with what you've seen or what you're thinking, then think to yourself like, hmm, why is it showing that and dig a little deeper? I think that's the best way to consume, you know, kind of anything that's tangible with a line play that isn't being put out there by, you know, some of the qualified people and or if it's being put out within the first 24 hours a game, it's probably hard to take that as the gospel, too. I'm probably how long it takes to watch a game, Mitch, because, you know, I'm on the text thread, as you know, with, like, Thorne and Duke. And, like, on Thursday, I'm already, like, think about the next week.

I've got to do my podcast. Like, I'm, and they're still texting about clips from Sunday because they're still watching the film from Sunday. It takes the entire week to watch the entire NFL offensive lines, all 32 of them. That's why I haven't wanted to do Joe Moore, Ward. I don't want to watch the 32. No, you don't have to do. I know, I know.

I'm just saying the idea is that it takes a long time to evaluate a full offensive line properly and to kind of do it correctly. We'll talk about Joe Moore in a bit. It's not the close, not the same. But nonetheless, Eagle's offense line not very good. The Packers' offensive line, Mitch, is not very good either. Now, it's not a Packers discussion, but there's an overall discussion about how quickly offensive lines can just

flip. you're good one year, two years later you're not. What do you see is the biggest reasons why? I think like the Packers, the Eagles, something, you know, the Lions potentially. Now, they've done a good job of sort of trying to rebuild a little bit, but these stalwart offensive lines

that we thought for so many years were good and we knew we were good, just in two years are not good anymore. Well, it's usually a combination of, like, injuries, free agency, and drafting wrong. And so each team you can kind of go through and kind of pinpoint it, but like if your O-line is good,

for the most part, they're going to be highly paid. The Eagles kind of have led the way for the longest time in terms of paying their O-Lyman and basically paying market rate at all five positions. But you do that when you've got Lane Johnson and Randon Brooks and then younger Laine and Dickerson and Kelsey and Juergens and Center and, you know, Milata. And then, you know, one of the guard spots is a younger guy who's up and coming who kind of replaces the next guard to leave. That is one way to do it.

Obviously, the Packers have done a good job. They've probably been the model for finding guys, you know, after the first round, kind of second to fourth round, especially the tackle position, developing them. But then you start paying guys and you pay, I'm going to say Zach Tom, sorry, I don't know the new last name off the top of my head. But he becomes, you know, a top five, top eight right tackle. You pay a marker rate. He's injured. You take a couple swings that guys you think might be left tackles that are maybe more left guards and they either don't pan out or they're not good enough to play the position. And then you got one or two guys who were highest draft picks,

you know, the center in particular and feels like Green Bay didn't really love having him there. He leaves and haven't been able to replace him. You pay Elton a bunch of money and he's kind of injured a lot and flipping positions and then he leaves. So it's always like to find the right blend of old, young, paid, healthy, not leaving a free agency. It's just extremely difficult. And the lines were good for a while. And then Glasgow, was it gets injured or gets replaced. Ragnow has to retire.

Decker gets hurt and gets phased out in his early 30s. So like the attrition of O-Lines, you know, they're kind of on two to three-year cycles, maybe four years at the most. So the teams that have had sustained success typically have either great scouting, like someone in the scouting department just understands O-Line play and or a great offensive line coach who can kind of keep replenish. the stock. You think of, again, Philly, finding my lota, finding, you know, guys a little bit later, Green Bay as well. And then, you know, you look at like the chiefs. I feel like when I was there, we had a pretty good O line. You know, I was decently paid at right tackle. Fish was paid at left tackle. We had Larry, who was, you know, highly paid in right guard at the time. And then center and left guard, we kind of kept replacing. And then once we left, they did like full overhaul. And the full

overhaul was, you know, two guys in the middle in terms of Creed, second rounder, Trey, who's, you know, first round talent, fellow of six, highest paid left guard and Joe Tooney. They went with, you know, Orlando and Wiley for a couple of years, and they go highest paid right tackle, first round left tackle, second round left guard. Like, you just keep throwing resources at the position, and that's the only way to do it, because not every draft pick's going to pan out, not every sign is going to pan out. And guys that you pay are going to get hurt and they're going to get phased out later in their career. So it is extremely difficult to be that good year over year.

And when it does turn and you feel like you have all the pieces, it feels like it turns real quick. And I think that's the hard part. Aren't the Raiders sort of proof of turning quickly in one offseason? Yeah, it turns out when you don't know the coach's son is not qualified to coach the position, that actually helps. I saw people saying like if, was it last night of Stone Forsyth, maybe it's Sunday night, like if he turns out to play good. ball that we really know. A Brendan Carroll issue. But also the scheme, right?

If you're in a run play action scheme, that's also beneficial O-line play. There's a reason, good or bad, that Shanahan, McDaniel, you know, they haven't prioritized the O-line quite as much as some of the other schemes that aren't as advantageous. And even like a McVeigh,

once he kind of switched to going away from that outside zone into more of like a duo and kind of drop-backy play action, And that's when they double down on the O-line position. And they started to put more money in it. They had two paid guys on the outside, drafted a villa, paid him, you know, got the right guard, paid him. So, like, you just have to throw so many resources at it.

And it's hard to keep up with it over, you know, a five to seven-year stretch. Well, I wrote down an SF offensive line as we were talking because you mentioned it briefly, like, you can scheme your way out of it. Now, the reason why the Niners are able to get away with them because they win first and second down so often, the third down is not third and long. I mean, that's the keys. If you win first down, that allows you not have to pass protect as much. And they do have obviously a Hall of Famer on their offensive line. But they've been good running the football for so many years with subparas. That's not too unfair, but like average at best offensive line?

And they just churn out good offense every year. My question on how to evaluate them is if you took that O line and gave them the 16th best play caller in the NFL. Oh, bad. They would be considered a bottom third offensive line. Absolutely. So that's, you know, I hate kind of talking negatively about other alignment, but like that's the reality of the talent level of that offenseal line and how much that scheme helps them. I absolutely agree.

And, you know, but that's, you know, you're speaking the truth. This is to wrap up the Eagles and Rams discussion here, any concern with the Rams, I just, I don't know, man. They have a lot of guys hurt maybe that's, but I just, I just, I don't know. They lost, they lost an hour's by 20, right? they'll have 30 second half points to Brockos. They beat Eagles, they were better then, but they also sort of could have easily lost that game if the Eagles convert on that fourth down or score a point.

At first, second and goal to one and didn't score points on that drive, Mitch, I think it was. I don't know, man. I like the Rams to win the Super Bowl, but I haven't loved them. Any concern with the Rams? You have to be concerned a little bit, especially given the preseason expectations.

I would say this is a team that isn't going to get the one seed, so they're not going to get a buy. It seems like they probably won't win their division with how good, you know, for the most part, Seattle's been and how good the Niners are despite having substation attack every single player. So they're just a team that like get to December, get to January, get all your guys healthy, and go ahead and make your playoff push. Like you can trust that they're going to go on the road and they're going to win playoff games. They've got the pedigree for that. They've got the players for that. You know, when you are a little bit more top heavy in terms of elite talent and you talk about like a Miles, obviously Aaron Donald, you know,

Puka, like, now I know he's not paid quite yet, but you tend to be more reliant on everyone being healthy when it's not as spread out of a cap or as deep. So, you know, when guys are hurt and, you know, that's always the thing. Like what offenses are going to look great when their best receiver hasn't been playing, when, you know, their best defense alignment's not playing, who's an MVP of the league or defensive player of the league, you know, so you kind of go down that path of like when Jamar Chase is out or Justin Jefferson's out like offense takes a big hit well

if Pooka Naku is out offense should take a big hit as well even if you have Devante on the other side what happens when Nick Bosa isn't on the field or Max Crosby or you know Michael Parsons is a great parallel Packers defense falls apart well if Miles Garrett isn't on the field

I know this is first year but like that's kind of the centerpiece of your defense yeah you're not going to be at your best so concerned yeah a little bit But this is a team that like kind of the way I talk about the chiefs is like, let's just get to December and January, obviously in playoff contention and one of the teams that's going to make the playoffs. Let's make sure Stafford's healthy. Let's make sure Puka and Devante are healthy. Make sure, you know, Miles and Donald and Young are healthy on the D-line.

And we'll probably be okay if that's the case. So this is a wait for the playoffs, get healthy for the playoffs. Obviously, you need to win enough games in the meantime to get there. But as long as they get into the dance and they're, you know, let's say 85% healthier, better, then no, I wouldn't be too worried as of yet. So they host Buffalo Monday night. And then it's Cardinals Raiders, Chargers, commanders, Cardinals Packers. So there's a chance to rip off six or seven wins, you know, right there before they get to the host Kansas City.

Thursday night, it looks like. And then it's the Niners, Cowboys, Seahawks, and then Bucks and Seahawks. So the opportunity, obviously, to, you know, to sort of get, you know, get the thing right and make sure that you're able to, you know, if you get this win this weekend against Buffalo, obviously, when Monday, Buffalo, you feel pretty good about getting that stretch of five or seven games there where you should be the favorite in all of those games. All right, Mitch, we had one month of the season. And the way I look at the season is in chunks. I'm sure you feel the same way. Basically quarters, right? Now, obviously, it's one extra week.

So it's not as clean of this, but, you know, four weeks, four weeks, four weeks, four weeks, right? We've done four weeks now. We know a lot about these teams. They will change over the course of the year, but we made a lot of proclamations about where teams would be, who we liked in those teams, positions they'd be at. I'll start with you first. What is a position you've been right on so far through four weeks?

Not in a ton. Oh, geez. I would say I was more right on the Bengals, like not necessarily just like being a great team. I wasn't like as in on Dallas. I feel like those were the two that were kind of similar. Like if the defense just gets a little better, I feel like there's been some inconsistency there.

And I know since he like changed the offense, they're 50 plus percent under center and somehow they got much worse on under center plays and much less efficient, which is the only team in NFL history to do that.