Green Light with Chris Long - Texans Vault Colts, Seahawks Roll & Bills Battle Steelers | Chris Long Reactions

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Chris Long reacts to the early Sunday NFL games in Week 13. The Houston Texans, in CJ Stroud's return, hold Jonathan Taylor and Daniel Jones in check and knock off the Indianapolis Colts. The Jaguars, with their win over the Titans, and Texans now have made things interesting in the AFC South and closed the gap the Colts created in the first half of the season. In the biggest upset this week, Bryce Young and the Carolina Panthers answered the LA Rams at every turn and knocked off the team many called the best in the NFL. The Seattle Seahawks rolled the Minnesota Vikings, the Buffalo Bills bounced back and knocked off the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Buccaneers got back to their winning ways as well. HELLO, Locals! Green Light is hosted by Chris Long and is joined weekly by Beau Allen, Nate 'Dr. Fax' Collins, Macon Gunter, Stanford Steve + many more athletes and celebrity guests. Subscribe to get in-depth analysis, instant reactions and team highlights | Presented by BetMGM Have some interesting takes, some codebreaks or just want to talk to the Green Light Crew? We want to hear from you. Call into the Green Light Hotline and give us your hottest takes, your biggest gripes and general thoughts. Day and night, this hotline is open. Green Light Hotline: ‪[phone]‬ Listen to the Full Episode and check out all our content: https://greenlightpodcast.org/ #nfl #football #nflweek13 #camward #michigan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're live. Welcome to the recap show. What the hell is this show? Welcome to the reaction. Instant reaction show. Thank you, sir. I wish I had more to react to. I didn't think that was the best day of football. Houston, Houston was probably the biggest, in my opinion, the biggest spot of the day. I mean, the Bill's game was huge and everything, but that Houston game, to me, there are some ripple effects of that game that I think people aren't really thinking about too much,

at least Tony Romo wasn't at the end of the game where he kind of, obviously next week, we have three games, I think, that are going to decide who's got the lead in their division. One being Pittsburgh and Baltimore, which feels like two teams going nowhere, respectfully.

The Packers and the Bears who suddenly are the NFC number one C, right now. And then the third one will be Jacksonville and Indy. And I can't help but think that people are overlooking the prospect of the Texans getting back in this race and possibly winning it. You know, if you're, if you're going to look at, you know, Indy plays Jacksonville twice down the stretch here, but pull up the schedules. I did a, I did a blind poll earlier with the guys in the room and ask them, you know, whose schedule would you rather have? And obviously, the other teams

have a game up. But Houston currently has the tie break with Indy where they to end up in that situation. At the end of the year, they have the home game. So they just, you know, so I'm looking at this thing and I'm saying to myself, you know, you got at chiefs, cardinals, raiders, at chargers those are all winnable games the way the texans are playing right now and when you have a defense like that holy shit cowboy reed just fell in his chair the chair broke a pretty decent chair too damn that's the broken one yeah no you're good player i'm your ass okay i shouldn't say whoa dude fell out of his chair i'm talking about so anyways um you look at everybody everybody's concerned about cowboy reed he's fine

The chair's in bad shape. Holy shit. R.I.B. to that chair, dude. Yeah. Interesting looking chair. Somebody get the gator for that chair. Okay.

So, chiefs, cards, Raiders, charges. That chair is fucked. Chiefs, Cards, Raiders, Chargers, that's the Houston Texans scheduled down the stretch. And then, you know, for instance, you look at Indianapolis, at Jags, at Hawks, Niners, Jags. So, you know, some tough games for them. I'm not saying the Texans are going to do it,

but I'm not saying that at 2 a.m., I got back home from the bar last night and didn't put in Houston to win the division at like plus 700 odds or something like that. I don't remember. It's a little hazy. The guys saw my ticket here, so I'm not bullshit in you.

I just had that intuition last night when I got home from Dirty Nellie, celebrating a Virginia victory over Virginia Tech. Commonwealth Cup. Yes, I was 0 and 4, but I didn't feel 0 and 4 last night watching that game. We damn near shut those boys out. We have a quarterback that looks like an accountant, and he sought contact at the pylon when he could have just trotted in the end zone to go up a couple of scores in that game.

We absolutely alphaed those guys at home. It was awesome. So I had to go out to the bar last night. But anyways, yeah, put it in Houston to win the division and we'll see what happens. I think what's interesting about Houston is you get CJ Stroud back and he looks fine. Like, you know, he missed some balls. He overthrew some balls. But he looked with the run game, the way it's developed through the year, a little bit more in rhythm to me.

The offense looked more in rhythm to me. I think, you know, it's two sides of the story here with the cold side of it being, you know, they don't have pass rush. And we talked about manufacturing pass rush, but when Sauce Gardner leaves a game like this, you know, you lose half of that coverage equation. And you're also kind of thrown off your game because of the fact that you have been running a ton of man

since you acquired Sauce Gardner, and now you're down Sauce Gardner. So from a game plan standpoint, you lose him, right? You also have a quarterback with a fractured fibula, which not for nothing is a funny thing to get out. You know, I know the agent. has to get that out so that people know that Danny Dimes is playing hurt. And Danny Dimes through some beautiful balls in this game.

Like, honestly, he's doing a good job, toughing it out. And in the second half, he came out and threw some nice balls with touch. I didn't notice it so much when he was throwing the ball. I noticed it that they're not going to move him off the spot. They can't. And D'Amico Ryan's, there was a two-play sequence earlier in this game when Toto ran. This is the kind of speed bumping. I don't want to assign to the wrong guy,

but Jonathan Taylor, I think, was the running back in protection, and he just fucking, it was like he wasn't there. And then the next play, Will Anderson's big ass is standing there, and he's parking his F-350 in right over the center, Bordalini, and it was just an ugly deal. And that was indicative to me of, hey, I'm a coach who knows that the opposing quarterback has a fractured fibula. And you could also tell the way Shane Stuyck and called the game, right?

But now this is a couple weeks on end for Indianapolis, like going back weeks now. They hit the sixth turnover game against Pittsburgh, who's not a very good team. I'll get to them in a second. And, you know, off of that, they go to London, and they don't convert a third down for eons. And you end up in a game like this. And, you know, Houston's defense just looks like, looks like they kind of got your number. I mean, Jonathan Taylor's held to a pretty modest. the day's work.

And I think more than anything for the Texans, you know, they come out. And I think Indy, in this game, if you're Indy, you want to start fast, right? You want to get out to a lead. You know, Texans probably not built to come from behind, although the passing game looked better and you can't plan for the Sauce Gardner injury. But, you know, Indy comes out and they fall flat on their face, the first three possessions or whatever it is. Well, I think Houston has done a good job of this in a couple games this season where they get

the ball early. One of them was Denver where they were just dominating time of possession. and getting into the red zone and not scoring. But today they were actually able to punch in a couple of those opportunities and the second possession of the game for them, the first one for them personally. They took the ball for like, I want to say six, seven minutes. And, you know, that sort of thing can stabilize an offense like that.

So I love the fact that they were always on schedule today. I don't feel like they took a lot of negatives. That's just a feeling I have watching them. That helps the passing game. That helps the run game. That helps everything. And so, you know, staying on schedule is big. Also love the look getting Nick Chubb out on the perimeter and in the red zone.

You know, I like seeing Dalton Schultz blocking his ass off down in the red zone. Like there were some good things going on for that team that customarily had a lot of trouble there. Now, you did have the fourth and one. And I think the third and one before it where your quarterback sneak in into a pile of bodies and you can't move anybody. And that's a problem. But you saw, you know, it was a bad day for quarterback sneaks generally. you saw Indiana Jones not being able to take quarterback sneak, presumably because of his fibula,

and you've got somebody else taking the snap and you fumble it. And so there were some got-of-habit situations that early in the season, when we talked about Indianapolis being very good in those moments, they were not today. And do I worry about indie? Yeah, I do worry about indie at this point. If Daniel Jones is compromised from a mobility standpoint,

you know, I've always worried about the lack of pass rush there. If you have two all-world corn, corner is great. But if sauce gardeners calf lingers or whatever it is, then that's going to be a problem. Because they don't have DeForest Buckner, who they missed dearly. I mean, we were talking about today, not a world beating run defensive team before this stretch. But I always felt like with default on the field, they could create negatives on first down with defo and still on the field. Now you're down one of those guys. You don't get people behind the sticks. You don't have one of your great corners out on the field. Those edge rushers that are pretty good.

it kind of becomes a glaring issue. And so I do have worries about them. But I can tell you I don't care much about this game. If I'm thinking, I'm like, there's people here that are like, why are you talking about the AFC South? It's just an interesting race to me. The Jags absolutely curb stomped the Titans today. And they will meet next week. again, for the temporary first place spot because Houston's coming for it.

They just are. I just have this feeling. Maybe they won't. Maybe they'll regress and become the team they were for most of the season. But can you imagine Texans fans, and the offensive line did a really good job today. That's another thing that, like, it's nice to see. And the young receivers are growing up. So this is one of those things that, you know, maybe they can get better.

you were down like if you're a Texans fan you were down to the jags like multiple scores and Damico Ryan's and the owner ladies behind him and she's staring a hole in the back of his head and they found a way to fucking win that game and now here they are they were on live support so um by the way Aziz al-Shayir left for a moment we feared concussion here but then we quickly realized that I don't think he can get a concussion. I don't think Aziz Al-Shayor gets concussions. He's a hammer, not a nail, dude. Also, I imagine a scenario where they're like,

all right, Aziz, you have a concussion. And then he threatens the concussion evaluators and makes them put him back on the field. He's just a fucking dog, dude. And they absolutely need him out on the field. He is just an absolute run-and-hit, tackling machine, tone-setter for that group. the tax men some do some dues we're paying taxes out there today bad drop by josh downs late in the game

josh downs has some great moments had some really bad moments they need the consistency they just shipped the guy out of there who's not consistent nadie mitchell they need josh towns to be the you know in a game like that and i turned to the guys in the third quarter when he was making play after play i said you absolutely need a guy like josh towns in a game like this you need to make that catch the of the game. So, what are the other deals? We're moving early to late. So we'll get to the Steelers in a minute.

But the Panthers, man, I got to talk about the Panthers shocking the L.A. Rams, who are a juggernaut. They looked like it last week. Most weeks, they look like getting Matt Stafford's on this MVP tear. And this is the quintessential NFL football game.

Double-digit line, right? Rams just absolutely smoked the bucks at home. I left it halftime. I was there. I left at halftime. I just wanted to go home. I'd seen enough. You know, I said to somebody after that trip, I was like, you have to see Matt Stafford play football in person. I played against them, but like to see it from a suite or see it from like the upper deck or something where you have vantage point and you see the way they create space and spread the field. You're like, man, I have a hard time imagining anybody beating them

the way they're playing. Okay. Just smoked the box at home. Panthers looked off rhythm on Monday night against the San Francisco 49ers, who, by the way, are playing better defensively. Sal is a great coach. And then you had this today. Quintessential NFL game. You know, sleepy moment, trap game, whatever you want to call it.

Like, you can't get beaten this league by anybody, pretty much. And there's always an oh shit moment for a team that's favored heavily when they go on the road and they end up in a situation where, like, you know, you end up to be a. in a trap game. You know, it kind of feels like somebody shut the door and you got to fight your way out of the bar. Like, you know,

sons of anarchy type shit going on on the road for the Rams. And that moment for me was when Stafford threw that pick six, you know, it's, he threw that pick six. I think it was the possession after the pick in the end zone. And before that pick in the end zone, which was preceded, by a Derek Brown tip.

The down before that interception, he's throwing the ball to the pylon. And I think it was the flat player just got good depth, and it wasn't there. He threw it anyways. And it could have gone the other way. And even the ball he threw to Devonte Adams, down in the red zone for the touchdown on the RPO,

looked like it was a little shaky. There was a ball late in the game where Pooka Nakuas running an out. It's a key third down, and he puts the ball on his inside shoulder, not away from the defender in harm's way. And, you know, it's just one of those games, and we've seen a couple of them this year, as good as Matt Stafford's been. I think about, like, much of the Eagles game, I remember him missing balls. Like, he was just a little bit off. It was one of those days.

He was a little bit off. The Panthers made him pay. My Mac battery is low. So, Cowboy Reed, if you could, if you can still walk, come over here and make sure that's plugged in. so we don't get a sudden power issue here. But I just thought it was like one of those beehive situations where you fuck up once in the red zone, okay. You fuck up twice and you let the other team score on defense at home

at Bank of America Stadium, which was loud. Dave Canales said it was wet and they were loud. That was the direct quote. And watching on TV, I was blown away by not only how hard it was, raining at times in this game like you always talk about the movie the fan which is a cult classic it's a baseball movie um i think it's robert deno yeah robert de nero wesley snives that's that's that's the i'm db on that thing but anyways there's a scene in the movie where they should be fucking they shouldn't be playing through this rainstorm in san francisco and snipes is up at bat and like you can't even

see a foot in front of your face that's what i felt like it was in the third quarter and you're in a dog fight with the Panthers. And it's raining cats and dogs. And Bryce Young is, the prince is driving the ball down the field over and over again. And it felt like the Panthers, to me, were content getting to fourth and short all day long. They were content pushing the chips to the middle of the table and saying,

fuck it, let's just do this thing on fourth down. You found yourself in a ball game with the Rams. you can do one or two things you can play it safe or you can go for the jugular they went for the jugular all day long Bryce put his balls in the wheelbarrow and they threw the ball and fourth down dude they ran the ball on third and three third and four all day and you know there was the drive in particular out of the half where it was it was coming down and they just found ways to make it happen you the the 24 21 the touchdown that they go up 24 21 it's a dime to come poker, you know. And I think, I think that's, that's your moment in the second half where it's like, damn,

okay, we, we really have, sometimes you assume your team's so good, you can just fight your way out of it when you're on a team like this. And this was the day they couldn't because the other guys were, they were playing ball, man. And, you know, even when Puka caught that ball with one hand before they go up, um, the final time, 28, 20, you know, whatever it was. I lost track. It's too much, too much corn in this game. But Pooka had that incredible one-handed catch.

It's probably the best one-handed catch all day. I thought Brock Powers had an incredible catch in the end zone. That was insane. Kenny Gainwell had a great catch in that 4 p.m. game. But this was a fucking catch. And it's the kind of thing where if you're the Panthers and you don't have good vibes on your team. And that dude catches that ball on the sideline. You kind of feel like, it was fun.

It was fun Cinderella story tonight. But we're going to lose this game because these guys are just that good. Well, they took the ball and scored. Bryce Young took the ball and scored, and they did it again on fourth down. And Coker really helps. Getting him back really helps. Tett McMillan's a stud. You know, I think it's funny with the Panthers.

Like, they've been underdogs in pretty much every game they played in this year. And they found ways to beat teams like Dallas, Green Bay, the Rams. What do you do with this team? The quality wins that they have under their belt without the household names. on this football team with a quarterback that everybody said was a bus not me i like the guy i've been consistent on that every two weeks you hear me talk about it every two weeks you hate to be the team that plays two weeks after the panthers have a good football game because that's kind of who they are right now they're just up and down and up and down

and that's part of growing up as a team when this team grows up i really do believe in the quarterback you have to you have to consider where they are dude i mean just they're not supposed to be in this thing and they're in this thing um underdogs in pretty much every game this year and it was funny you had this i saw a funny mean because i love panthers reddit because you know i like fans that are like happy to be here man you know like it's it's not a doom and gloom thing they're used to be in panthers fans right just like that stadium to me has probably been empty for you know the vast majority of the time since cam newton was there and uh today it was raucous man you could feel it. So there's got to be a lot of excitement, but I always go to Panthers Reddit to get a

good chuckle. And there was a funny little meme. And it was like a banner. And it said NFC South, 2,025 division champs, 3.45 p.m. to 350 p.m. because the bucks found a way to pull it out against the Cardinals. So hey, Panthers fans, like, I don't know if this is your year, but you are building something. And I think you can see the vision with the big receivers out. outside. Now it hasn't hit it a 100% clip, but like McMillan's a big body. Xavier Leggett, who hasn't figured it out yet, is a big body. Coker's a big body like and Young talked about that. I trust my guys. There's no big conversation, no big hurrah. Again, for me, I'm super grateful to have guys like that on the perimeter that I trust in need to have situations and fourth downs.

Trust them with one-on-ones. Trust them with 50-50 balls. Trust them if they're more open, whatever it may be. And he has trust for those guys. And I think he's trusting those guys. And I think he's earning the trust of his teammates in the process. I mean, it was a big game. They didn't have J.C. Horn. They didn't have Moorig out there.

They were missing guys. And to finish it with a Derek Brown strip sack like that, those are the plays you live for as a defensive lineman. Wanham picks the guard. Brown works off and takes the ball off of Stafford. Do you know how fucking good that feels? A home game, it's raining outside. People are loud, dude.

You're just, you're a picking shit. And all you do when you put your hand in the dirt in a situation like that, as a defensive lineman is like, you're playing the lotto. Every play, you're like, it could be me. If he just pats it one more time, I can be the hero in this game. And over the course of your career, even if you have a really great career, like you don't get a ton of walk-offs. And that wasn't a walk-off because Bryce Young had to go hit a third and six to a

Coker, but that's, that's a DeLyman's dream right there. I mean, you just feel like you're in hero mode, dude. Derek Brown, whatever he's doing right now, he's, he's feeling good. And, and, you know, they had some guys down and they got it done. I see the vision. I do. I see the vision. Welcome to the Greenlight podcast presented by BetMGM. If you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code Greenlight and you will get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wage. with BetMGM. Just download the BetMGM app and sign up using bonus code Greenlight. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.

If that bet loses, you will receive up to $1,500 in bonus bets when using bonus code greenlight at sign up, then get access to second chance promos, odds, boost, tokens, same game, parlay, as bet MGM, original bets, and so much more. BetMGM, make it legendary. Niners and Browns, we'll talk about this tomorrow. You know, the reason I gave out the Niners is because they're just an adult football team. Like in a situation, we've got 30 mile per hour wins. The weather night might not be perfect.

Although chalk it up to the many games where you see the forecast on Friday, you're like, they're not going to be able to see each other. And then you, you know, you see whoever it is down on the field doing the whatever it is. And they're like, yeah, it's pretty clear down here. Like, it's not going to be a problem to throw the ball 12 yards today. It's not going to be a problem to throw swing screens and dump downs and, you know, work the ball down the field methodically. And so I just felt like, you know, the Niners, as bad as Brock Purdy was on Monday night, again, this is the NFL. That was like six days ago.

Might as well be eons ago. All we have to do is run our offense. Keep Miles Garrett from killing us. I said last week Miles Garrett is going to break the sack record against Tennessee. I told you're going to have one or two, probably one against the, the Niners today, he had one. And I think next week he breaks it with a hat trick. And he might have four.

He's going to have 26 sacks this year. 26 sacks. Do you know how hard it was for me to have 13? I still have my jersey. 13 sack. You know what I'm saying? And I was like, oh, it's a 2 and 14 team. Really hard to do.

this guy is playing in the Bermuda triangle and he's going to have a quarter of a hondo this year and when you play the Cleveland Browns not taking anything away from the other players fly on the wall I want a super cut of the first five minutes of every offensive coordinator's preparation the first meeting of the week when they go to play the Browns

it's quiet the OC walks in the room. There's probably some variation of a Miles Garrett player or Miles Garrett picture. A picture will do up on the projector. And that's the first fucking thing we're going to do is we're going to try to keep this guy from wrecking the game. He wrecks him anyways. He's that good.

I think we've seen enough. Right? I don't care how bad this team is. He's a defensive player of the year. He's going to break the fucking he's going to break the record. Somebody says it's not better than LT. I don't want to take anything away from LT, LT, LT, you know, it's different eras. But if you put Miles Garrett on an NFL field in the 80s,

the National Guard would show up. I'm just telling you, there would be legislation. There was guys in the 80s that some of them looked like, yeah. So Miles Garrett would probably, and I know back in the day, they didn't throw as much. And I saw Lawrence Taylor. He was unbelievable. But like to definitively be like he ain't Lawrence Taylor.

It's like the Aaron Donald thing. It's like it's all different eras, man. I saw Lawrence Taylor chase outside zone away down from left outside linebacker. And he, instead of chasing it down on the backside, he ran the front side and made a TFL. Dude, it was fucking crazy. No question. Not taking anything away from LT, but I think he's in the numbers don't lie, dude. this guy's going to have 26 sacks in the NFL this year.

It's wild. It's a wild deal. Wild deal. And, you know, the other thing I want to bring up about the Browns is inevitable that we were going to talk about this is the Malachi Coralie fucking kickoff return. Dog, what are you doing? I have not seen. That's me high one in the morning playing madden.

Dude, he caught the ball and toe tapped it. like, you know, a smart player, he puts one foot out of bounds and one foot inbounds and catch the football. I just am a dumb D-N. And I see that shit all the time on TV. And I'm like, do that thing, do that thing. I know do the thing. You got one job.

Guy toe taps a kickoff return. And then they muff a punt return. It was awful. So, yeah, I mean, we're going to talk a lot about, you know, Shador Sanders and the rookie quarterback and everything. I'm going to treat that situation. like any other situation in the NFL, which is that there's a backup quarterback in the game.

And that's not to be reductive or disrespectful. It really, it's his second start. And I thought he did some good things. And I thought he did some things that confirm suspicions. But we will ride the wave with the week-to-week thing with Shador Sanders. And I will talk about it every time we break a Cleveland game down. but you know like i i just am not a fan of like blowing up the discourse to being the front page thing it's just we don't do it with anything else um it feels like yeah it just feels like and it feels like

a trap so i just want to see the kid i want to see the kid grow week to week um i don't think he i don't think he was sabotaged today i don't think it was anything like that i think he's he's playing quarterback in a fucked up situation. And that's why there's a long list of quarterbacks on that list of Browns quarterbacks, you know, since 2000, where the guys have the, you know, the jersey with the, with the 50 names duct tape on the back. Like, hopefully he's not another one of those names, but it is really hard to play quarterback for that team.

It just is. And it's not personal. So next week, they get the Titans and he may well end up getting a W again. So we'll see. We'll see. Anyways, I think the last thing I want to talk about in damn, I missed my chance. It's that game started, Cowboy, 819, the game started. Broncos Country, let's ride, closing out some teasers.

This is just not a great day of football. But I want to talk about the Steelers and the bills. I'm going to be very honest about this game. I know I'm supposed to come out of it. And I'm going to come out of it and say, like, hey, Josh is, that was, one man banned Josh, right? Like, they're not going to ask him to throw the ball 50 times. He ends up being the difference of the game with his legs, right?

Like, just being able to convert, just being able to churn for the extra yard or two. And this is one of those burn the ships games, right? Like, usually in the Joe Brady area, you're kind of like, okay, Josh, we don't, we, we don't want to run them all game long. You know, this isn't, you know, we need to pick our spots. This is a game where you can't lose another one. And you're down two tackles. you know, left and right tackle.

You're down Dawkins, you're down Spencer Brown, you're down your number one pass catcher in Kincaid. I'm going to be honest, like I did not see the path for them to win this game. You know, somebody asked me like, should I bet the bills? I'm like, no, I wouldn't bet the bills. I'm not saying I'm betting against them because they're playing the Pittsburgh Steelers, but I would not bet the bills today because I have no fucking clue with those edges and with this defensive line how Josh is going to,

to be able to pull this one out, right? Josh Palmer's down, right? So they got to throw the ball, Keon Coleman in key situations. You know, that's been a whole thing. Shakir's the guy, you got to take them away. When Cook fumbled that football and Rogers, they go in and score, they go down seven to three and they're seven nothing,

and they drive all the way down the field. It's fourth down, and I'm like, you got to go, right? Because you got three timeouts. You got them backed up. If I was head coach Sean McDermin, I'm going. agree there. I wouldn't use the timeout beforehand because I still want to, you know, 55 seconds to go, you don't, you don't get it. The Pittsburgh Steelers are not going to do anything, you know, in the shadow of their own fucking goal line. They're, they thought they were playing a bunch of

2016 football games this year, they were sorely mistaken. They're not built for this. So they're backed up. You got three timeouts. Even if you don't get it, you can force them to punt. You can still get a field goal before the end of the half. Like, that's the way I think. So I'm glad that he went, but then the execution is off this pre-snap penalty. They got a kick, and I'm thinking to myself like, damn, if they go down 14 to 3 in a game like this, if the Steelers get the ball out of the half and drive down and score a touchdown, because the concern coming in this game for me was, you know, with the bill's linebacking core, the way it's looked with Bernard out for whatever that's worth,

this is going to be a game where they get peppered with play action with RPO's, You got people running around like mad dogs and meathouse. It did not end up being that thing. And part of the reason it didn't end up being that thing is because I thought the Steelers had to get really one dimensional as the game went on. And the second half was just played in the Bill's kind of wheelhouse in this situation. I don't know if the bills have a defensive wheelhouse, but like it doesn't matter who you are. The Steelers are not built to come from behind. And Joey Bosa, the first play of the second half, I talk about like what it means to be a mercenary pass rusher.

You know, like that is absolutely why you bring him there to make a big play. Now, he's made some big ones so far this year for them. But that plays huge. And it kind of encapsulates the whole day. You know, you force the fumble on the road. You pick the ball up. You run it in for a touchdown. You diminish greatly the Steelers' chances of winning that football game.

Mathematically by scoring on defense. You get a 7-3 lead. And not to mention, Rogers gets up and his face is bloody. And I'm not going to lie, when you're a defense, of linemen. I'm not saying hurt the guy. I'm not saying you root for anybody getting hurt, but like, you, you sacks somebody and they get up in their face is bloody. Like, that's kind of fucking cool. Did I say a bad thing there? I think it's, I mean, like, to me, I'm like, we just came in your house and took your shit and your quarterback is bloody, bro.

That to me, that that's, that's a huge rush. That's a rush that changes, you know, the bill's fortunes. And you end up in that game kind of cruising from there. It just, the Steelers are two. Here's what I'll say. The bills, half the league, would have felt pretty good about beating the bills in the current state they were in today, down all the guys they were down

and the way they're playing right now. And I think half the league would have had a good shot of beating them. The Steelers, the reality is, and that's why this breakdown is about the bills and like Josh was gutsy and everything, and it's fun to watch the big man play football and run around and pump fake people out of their shoes.

and drag a pile and mix it up with Cam Hayward, and that's all cool. But I think the point of this game in talking about this game is the Steelers are not a good football team. They're just not. They're a 500 football team. They're lucky to be 500. They're not going to be a factor in the playoffs. If they get in the playoffs, they will not be a factor. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

But what evidence have they given us that they're going to be a factor in January? And honestly, I feel for Aaron Rogers. I do. I did not feel for him last year. In New York, maybe it was because of, like, the McAfee show, or maybe it was because of, like, you know, I thought he was kind of, I don't know, mean to a guy about a red line. Like, I don't know what it was, you know.

But this year, I feel bad for him because if he was in Minnesota, he would be lighting it up. I believe that. I think you would be lighting it up. And I think the Steelers have vastly underperformed on defense. You talk about we haven't even gotten to this. You give the bills a lead. They're going to grind you in a nub.

They might not give the ball back. That's one of the best things they do. Run the football. They ran for 250 plus yards. Set a record at that stadium. I mean, that's a bad deal. You talk about coming to your house, your quarterback's bloody,

you've given up a fucking quarter mile on the ground. that's a physical football win for them. And, you know, Josh throws the ball 20 times. It's kind of like when they go beat up Dallas. They beat up Dallas at home a couple years ago. They think he threw the ball 17, 18 times. Whatever the situation demands, now the bills have been wildly inconsistent.

I still want them to show me a lot more than beating the Steelers. Just beating the Steelers is, but they had to do it and they did it. But the Steelers are not a good football team. And the worst thing about the Steelers is the Steelers are stuck here. Rogers is on a one-year deal. If I'm Rogers, I don't want to come back there. I don't want to come back there. When I'm not getting hit, the fucking left tackle is tackling me running off the field.

I got no receivers, really, that I got a good rapport with. You know, every time. And the longer I've covered football since I played football as I've learned more about the passing game, right? Where I noticed things where I'm like, you know what, that guy isn't in the right place. It's not all in the quarterback all the time. So, you know, I don't think that Aaron Rogers at this stage in his career should be somewhere like Pittsburgh. And if he wants to play one more year, I would much rather see it be Minnesota. And I'm sorry to be having an end of year conversations about Aaron Rogers or about the Steelers, but like they're not a good football team.

And so I'm just, I'm not going to be one of the ones that keeps saying, well, like, you know, if they do this, if they do that, they're not a good football team right now. And I don't know, man. I doubt Aaron Rogers would argue with that sentiment. You know, like he knows. I think the guys on defense, though, I don't think they're a particularly good football team. And it sucks for football. And what sucks for football is,

I don't know how they're going to fight their way out of this because Aaron Rogers is playing them to eight wins for sure. Like they're going to win eight wins. They're going to win eight games this year. And then, you know, they're going to be sitting in the middle in purgatory. And they got a math. passive payroll on defense and you're giving up 250 yards on ground.

I don't know. Fuck. It's ugly. What do you think Josh Allen and Hayward did? Well, I'll tell you what I think happened. This is a guess. Josh is riding a pile of bodies and falls down and Cam Hayward uses Josh Allen as like a, like a stepping stone to get up, not with his foot, but with his giant hand.

Like I saw him like kind of push off Josh. and I think Josh might have gave him a little a little kick to some area of his lower body. I'm not saying I'm not saying I saw that for sure but like that's the only thing I can deduce because I look back five, seven times and I almost thought Cam Hayward helped him up.

Didn't he help him up? Was that Cam Hayward helping him up? But the way Cam was mad, the only thing I can think of is a kick, bro. I think I can think of as a kick. But I kind of like real beef on football field man like it was you know those guys aren't going to like each other anymore it's kind of fun it's kind of the way it should be um john daly and tiger woods met in charlotte today and and uh and the the small prince took care of business man dude what a day what a day i'm lying that was a

shitty day. I mean, even the Seahawks game where it's like maybe a couple things will happen in this game. Here are the ways the Seahawks game could have been entertaining. One, it's close. Two, Rosner's actually better than J.J. McCarthy. He's not. They don't have any good quarterbacks. Three, Sam Darnal lights them up and it's like a revenge game. He didn't do that. for Brian Flores gets revenge on Sam Darnold. He didn't.

None of the things happened that could have made that game interesting. It was just a totally uninteresting game. It was some great defensive line play with some great defense being played by Seattle, as always. And the game of the day, and I can't wait to talk about it. Tomorrow is going to be Jetson, Atlanta.

Free football up there. Did we forget any football games? I don't want to short my listenership Saints Dolphins, man. That was a drunk-ass game if I've ever seen one. That thing was, that was a

Why no football, dude? Seriously. That was like, I turned it on and I saw a guy running a, you know, football 100 yards, and somebody's like, yeah, this is two-point conversion. And then the Saints, get the onside kick and get stuffed on a fourth and one crazy shit man oh you want me to talk about

bears versus eagles i'm going to talk about it tomorrow but i'm going to tell shit should we do this right now i'll give you 90 seconds on the eagles i get caught in a bad position sometimes because i played for the team and because i do like the eagles and i do i do you know i've had friends on the team and that sort of thing. And I think as an alumni of the team, sometimes you don't want to, you don't want to appear to single anybody out. And there's plenty of blame to go around. But I look at the offensive coordinator. I think that's a problem. And I look at the quarterback and I think the way he's playing right now is a problem. And that's not to say he's not part of the solution or that he hasn't been great in the past. Every time you hear me talk about Jalen Hertz, what do I say? I say he's a winner.

because he's a winner. I need to see him be a consistently great quarterback. That's what it's going to demand down the stretch. And I don't know what's going on behind closed doors with the scheme. I think it's obvious that we've detailed a lot of the inefficiencies in their scheme. But the thing I never know is how much of it is, you know, and you can point to other years where you say, well, it's so variable. If you got a good offensive coordinator, it looks like this.

If you don't, it looks like that. Well, then he doesn't get to be one of those. guys right because we never you know great quarterbacks have to play through their circumstance and if the circumstance you have is to all world receivers outside and sayquan barkley in the back field like the quarterback's going to get the blame some of the time and i didn't think he played very well the other day i didn't when you got a you know a hot in the red zone and dvante smith right there you got to make that throw and you know like it would be one thing if you're winning the game we just keep talk about oh the team's winning the teams

winning the team's winning. I've heard that all year. I love the guys, man. I hope they figure it out. But when you lose a game like that, you know, and we'll get to the defense. The defense is a new problem on Thursday. It's not really like the reason I don't leave with the defense, even though it was atrocious run defense, is we haven't seen that every week. Now, that's going to become a thing where there are going to be certain concepts in that game. Sometimes you play a coordinator that finds your little button and he presses that little button and he presses it in front of the whole world and then other people are like oh that's the button right there i'm going to press that button and uh and that's the thing i worry about coming out of this game is run concepts that show up and

and and make it hard on that defense i just i like listen i got a lot of respect for the quarterback i had a lot of respect for jalen hurts you know i just want to make that perfectly clear i've called him a winner he's a Super Bowl champion you can't take that away from him but this is what have you done for me lately league and he hasn't played his best ball on the offensive coordinator you know and nick foals made this point on his podcast i thought that was was really interesting he's like it is so hard to replace a coordinator at this point in the season you're kind of stuck with what you got now the thing that i think that that they could do to help is uh is they could bring in a consultant you know who is that you know i thought at times that mike macdainiel or some bright mind

that gets fired might be the guy you bring in but you know i haven't really seen that guy pop up on the radar and i don't know who that guy would be um you look at a lot of these eagles coordinators that have that have worked out for them they're not homegrown and you know now you're seeing guys that that uh you know that are homegrown and they're just not working out and so uh it's it's you got problems everywhere the offensive lines in trouble you know you go play Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Cowboys are supposed to not be a physical group, right? They are offensively, but defensive line play, that wasn't the thing they were going to hang their hat on.

And they pressure you into the sun, man. They win that battle. And that's not the way it's supposed to happen. And you watch the run game. There's a lot left to be desired there. So I just think, you know, from a bear's perspective. And somebody said dayball. I've heard dayball.

Like dayball's sitting around somewhere. Maybe they take a stab at dayball. but but uh yeah the thing i never like is like in the beginning of the season they went on this wonderful run last year and it was amazing and i was like fanboy in the whole time because my friends are on that team like some some guys i know and you know now it's getting the point where you know i only know a couple of those guys so in a year or two it's going to be a lot easier to like to look at this thing right but at the beginning of the season you know if somebody in the street came up to me in Philly and like held me at gunpoint was like give me the top five quarterbacks in the USA

and I went like I don't know like the usual suspects like my homes Alan Jackson Allen Jackson uh burrow and like Matt Stafford or whoever whoever would be the fifth like I don't know, that rotates from you. I would have been banged dead, dude. Somebody would have killed me because we get out over our skis, man. And I don't, because this game fucking presumably sucks on TV right now, Reed.

Does this suck? Three nothing to who? Oh, thank God. Oh, they are. I just figure we'll have a little, like, talky time here. And part of it is because I have the cover to have this conversation because the quarterback has looked bad at times. I just think we get so hyperbolic about everything in pro sports. And if we'd all just said, hey, listen, the quarterback's not a perfect quarterback.

You have to build around him, not just with the roster, obviously, because the roster was in pretty good shape when we rolled this thing out this year. And you said, hey, this fucking roster is really good. it's got to be the scheme too, right? And the scheme's got to be dynamic. I don't see them doing the little things, you know, that are creative when I turn on other games, from the route combinations to the spacing to like bunches and stacks to, you know, you know, the predictability. You got C.J. Gardner Johnson talking about predictability.

And then I don't see the quarterback executing sometimes. And so I think it's just fair to say, like, He has to be better. And when he's playing well, he can be the reason you win. He can be a part of the reason you win. But we can't conflate what we see week to week from some of these other guys who just put their team on their back. Like we shouldn't put Jalen in that situation.

And we shouldn't expect him to win in that situation. When the run game is swept out from under him and the scheme's not great, it just kind of looks like it looks like a methodical offense he's a methodical guy who i think plays safe to a fault at times that's not to say he's not brave or courageous love the guy fucking winner he doesn't want to turn the ball over and there are times in the middle of field where i'm like okay he doesn't want to throw that open or he doesn't want to wait that extra tick you know to throw that deep crosser and and you know people say hey, I see things over the middle.

It would be like a skinny post or something or a comeback. Like, I want to see the throws in traffic in the middle of the field. I want to see mesh concepts. We run as little mesh as anybody in the league, right? I mean, probably. So there's just a lot. There's just a lot I want to see that I'm not seeing offensively right now. And the reason I'm kind of having two conversations,

I think it's also an interesting fan conversation and media conversation. a media conversation. I don't want to be the guy from Philly who's like, you know what? I don't think they can do it. But I don't like, I need to see more evidence, right?

The Bears, I talked about the Eagles being in a situation. You watch the Bears' offense. There's people moving fast everywhere, dude. There's people moving fast. There's gap scheme shit going on. There's fucking tight ends. Whamming people.

There's pre-snap motion. It's like a living organism. our offense is on like NyQuil, dude. You know, it just kind of oozes. And then there's like suddenly a big play. You know, you hit something outside of the numbers or you hit a screen to Saquan. But I just, the Bears, man, and any team like them that schemed up well,

you just see a lot more going on. There's a lot more that you, you know, when you watch your play and you're like, oh, I see the intent. You know in that game when the Eagles got to, a manned indicator and opened up the middle of the field and then ran quarterback draw for like 30 yards. I thought that was a great sequence there and I thought that was a nice play call. There was some creativity to it. I watched Green Bay play on Thursday.

Jordan Love had the answers to test almost every play. Now he checked them into some very nice run plays. I'm not saying he's got it on autopilot. But Matt LaFleur in that game created motion, short motion shifts. pre-snap stuff where I'm like okay I know what they're in I know where the ball needs to go um Eagles don't really do that and the quarterback is a little bit conservative and the offensive line right now is very human you talk about the bears though they ran the fuck out of the football you got some big tight end you got some people moving people dude it was it was something to see

and that was my biggest concern coming into the football game. It's like if you wind up in a football game in bad weather, windy weather, what have you, Caleb really puts great, I mean, he puts a lot of zip on that football. He can kind of throw the ball through the wind at the intermediate level of the field. There's a difference in the way the ball was coming off his hand, right? And then also the run game, dude. The run game was just too much. So the bears find themselves in first place.

and they are way about ahead of schedule and honestly dude I'm not going to do the thing where I say they can't do something because after a while you kind of got you know like it's not just who you beat it's how you beat them and the way they beat the Eagles who are a good football team still good football team what we're talking about when I speak directly to Eagles fans is like the standard that we know right because I covered the team like north of nationally like i you know i i lean into that market a little bit there's a standard that's

been set there they're just not playing to that standard are they a tough out are they a good football team yeah they're streaky but the bears came in and they just they were business-like and they took care of it so um i'll give you i'll give you a little bit more tomorrow um so i i don't know since i don't don't care about this game i'll give you guys you got any questions you this is kind of a mail bag maybe a question or two that i'll hit tomorrow um make sure you hit our our line we have a voicemail line um yeah we have a voicemail line uh we want you to leave voicemails we don't just want you to leave voicemails where you get on your soapbox about this out and third you can ask us questions too

the landline is is the locals landline 202 991 0723 Presented by zone. Presented by zone. Or else? Don't worry. He's going to hit me with that chair. It's a 2 o'clock deal. It's a 2 o'clock deal tomorrow.

2 o'clock East Coast. I heard Trevor Lawrence had a good game. Hard for me to watch them all. You'll hear about it from Dr. Fax tomorrow. Somebody said, where's Tomlin coach next year? We're not ready for that whole thing. Say what? There were fire.

There were fire Tomlin chance in that stadium. That's a wild deal. That's a wild deal. Anyways, y'all, we will see you tomorrow. Can Cowboy walk regular? That was a question tomorrow. You don't walk regular? You kind of walk on your toes?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He is, yeah, yeah. All right. Y'all take care.