Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - AFC Squad: Can Cincinnati Bengals climb back into the North?

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

In the latest AFC Squad, the crew runs down the Davante Adams trade to the New York Jets, Amari Cooper landing with the Buffalo Bills, any other teams that could be looking to make some trades at the deadline, and which teams in the AFC that currently lead the division have the likelier chance of losing the division. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What a week for the AFC. Devante Adams going to the New York Jets. Mari Cooper heading over to Buffalo. It's time to get the squad together here on Locked-on AFC squad. You are talking ball with the AFC squad. From the Chiefs to the Bills, the Ravens to the Texans and everyone else around the AFC, it's the local experts of the Locked-on podcast network, bringing you scoops, breakdowns, and the most comprehensive preview of the upcoming weekend for hard-hitting AFC football.

with our harder hitting takes. Buckle up, it's the AFC Squad, and we have a seat for you. No hurt feelings allowed. Squad up. You're part of the AFC Squad. Welcome in to the AFC Squad. You can sit back, grab your favorite beverage, and join us as we get you ready for another wild week across the AFC.

You know, trust me, it has been a wild one. Today's Lockdown AFC Squad, of course, is brought to you by Price Picks. Go to PricePix.com slash lockdown on NFL. You scored a lowercase lockdown on a thought to win $50 in the 1U. play $5. I don't think there's going to be a better week for us than this guys in the AFC as Tuesday was one heck of a day, trade bonanza all across.

Devante Adams going to the Jets, got Amari Cooper in Buffalo. So we have a ton to talk about here on this edition of Locked on AFC squad. I'm Kevin Ostraker. I'm the host of Locked on Ravens. And let's run you through who else we have on screen with you today. We got Tony Wiggins, the host of Locked on Jaguars and also over there on Lockedon NFC.

And we got Jeff Lloyd of Locked on Browns, who, of course, Amari Cooper's now former team. We'll get into that with him. Cody Wark, locked on Broncos and locked on Bo Nix over there. Mike DeBate, locked on Patriots, and locked on Drake May. We got some Drake May moments in that game against Houston, Damien, of the Locked on NFL draft and Chris Clark coming off by the host of Locked on Chiefs. Man, this is a crazy one, guys, because everybody's been talking to, about the Devante Adams situation.

I think some people pretty relieved that it's over at this point. But the two teams from Monday night, and if you're seeing yellow, it might be because of my shirt or it might be because of the game with all those flags that we saw in the field on Monday. But let's start with Devonte. And, Wigg, let me throw this to you first, man, because this is a move for the Jets. They're two and four. Everybody kind of wondering with Aaron Rogers, is this the year?

Well, maybe this is Aaron Rogers team because we know the. relationship those do have. Was this an Aaron Rogers move? And did he maybe force the Jets hand on this one? Yeah, it was Aaron Rogers move. Yeah, he forced their hand on it. And yeah, the Jets are desperate. The Jets remind me of somebody that's at like a horse racing track. They lost every race, but they swear if they get up and leave, the one that they were going to win was the next one. And they asked you for another $100. And I promise you, I got it this time. They chase so much, man they are chasing and chasing and chasing David Harrison somebody I think it was David Harrison

on our show we recorded it may not have been him I don't know at this point this time and I don't know who told me something but somebody told me that they haven't been to the playoffs in 13 years and the next team is like eight or something like that it's like ridiculous yeah see there you talking to me today who said that yeah no no no yeah but I'm just

saying that's ridiculous so I think they're chasing it and and the fans that they bought into it it man whatever whatever they do as long as they throw money at a big name the fans just going to be just as happy and then leave just as sad just like they did the other night when they lost it's just they're not doing things that a good sound football team does man and whenever you see people get this desperate is usually disastrous have have we ever seen anybody recover as fast from a hamstring injury that they can't practice I'm sorry for that Like, you know, you got to New York. Miraculous.

He was good. But Devante was doing high knees on the plane to New York last night before, you know, he walked into Aaron Rogers' office at 1245 a.m. And I found that a little interesting, too, and even on the Pat McAfee show, Aaron Rogers on and all of a sudden, hey, oh, Devante, like, where'd you come from? Like, come on, man. This is, this is scripted television. This is WWE and NFL format.

The fact that Woody Johnson is even going around saying, I make the decisions, you know, even throwing out quotes out there, like, you know, thinking is overrated or something along those lines. This is Aaron Rogers show. He's running it in New York. It's been evidence since day one. And look, I said it as well. You know, they made the change of Robert Sala,

missing all those tackles. Obviously, on Monday night football, man. It just baffles me. I don't think it's going to pay off for the Jets. I think that still, Devante goes from one, two, and 14 to the next, still going to be the same result. I don't have much, much faith in it either, simply from the aspect of, all right, Aaron, who are you going to blame now?

Like you blame Mike Williams for your underthrown pass that was intercepted. You see, he ran the wrong route. The ball was five yards short. I don't really know what route he was supposed to run or how deep he was supposed to break it for the ball to get there to him. But if Devante Adams doesn't add nine wins to this two and four team, you're not making the playoffs. And at the end of the day right now, the way that they're playing, the penalties, the stupid decisions on the field. I think there was a point during the change of the quarters going from third to fourth quarter, fight about to break out between them and the bills. It's like, what are we doing? Like,

what are we doing right now? Robert Sala had nothing to do in any of that. This is still the same football team. And until, until they actually show us that they can be better, I have very little hope or belief that this trade is going to make much of a deal. Well, it's possible. It makes a little bit of a difference, but let's not, let's be honest, they had trouble protecting Aaron Rogers, too. How many hits they take last night? And big hits. I mean, Tyron Smith got him lit up at least twice that I remember seeing. And that that's a game where you have to be able to protect Aaron Rogers. And if you can't do that, you've got a 40-year-old quarterback out there that's good luck

keeping him healthy the rest of the season. It may not matter. Yeah, I think Chris is absolutely right. I mean, you look at the protection that he's getting right now. Believe me, right up now in New England, I'm watching a team that's trying to protect the young quarterback and barely being able to sweep by and do it. It's not easy. When you have a guy that's 40 years old, it's very difficult to be able to protect him from

the aches and pains that he's going to get no matter what as well as the problems that he's going to show on the field. So, yeah, I mean, this one, when you're a jet, you're a jet all the way. But Tony, I love the reference about the horse race because it made me think of Eddie Mush in a Bronx tale and him just, you know, beat, you know, come on, kryptonite. Yeah, I like that. I can definitely see that. Patriots fans will love that analogy when it comes to the Jets.

I can tell you that. Hey, man. I'm glad you're like something because y'all going to like this knuckle upside your head this Sunday over there in London. Oh, geez. Oh, okay. I want to make... I'm just going to jump in on the Adams thing real quick.

Look, the Jets last night had 200-yard receivers, and they got Garrett Wilson going, and Alan Lazard is going. So what about saying, oh, we got to bring in Devante Adams is going to make the difference? All your points are fair and they're correct. You know, obviously, you know, past pro, all this stuff. But are you just going to try to go more and more away from Breeze Hall, who is one of your best playmakers? And Breeze Hall and Brayland Allen are a ridiculously good combination.

So why don't you try to make it work what you have, you know, go out and I don't know. I mean, it's hard to trade for an offensive alignment in season. But one more defender, something else. I mean, in, you know, DeVante Adams, the last thing I'll say on this is, I mean, is this guy ever going to get you passed from anybody else other than basically Derrickor or Aaron Rogers? I mean, it's just been this way since like 13 or 14 since Fresno State. And but, you know, even maybe I don't know what happened. Maybe he said there's no way I'm going to Buffalo, which we probably all think was the case.

That's how the second trade that we'll get to got to. But it was like. It's just so strange. And even for Adams, like what's going to be significantly better? Because if you're going to stop throwing the ball to Garrett Wilson, who should be the main target at all, I just don't know what the judges are doing. Yeah, there's a lot to dive into it too because they gave up a third round pick. And that obviously is conditional.

So it's like, all right, does anybody here think those conditions are met by the way? It's either he makes first team, second team, all pro. He's on the roster for an AFC championship for Super Bowl. Does anybody here believe the Jets are actually going to make it that far here? I mean, Mike Greenberg. That would be for a second round pick, right? Yeah, for a second round pick. Yeah, I don't think he's going to make that,

but the other thing that plays into this is they have Hassan Reddick, who now they're wanting to trade away. And you're sitting there going, how are you going to make this work? You are getting rid of one of the best pass rushers in the NFL, at least he was last year. Who knows whether or not he could be that this year because he hasn't practiced or done anything. So we'll see.

But, you know, I agree with what Jeff said. I mean, you have 200 yard pass catchers yesterday, and you go out and you add another one who has a huge salary cap number that you had to basically go and add two more void years to his deal just to make it work. The thing that kills me is, if you really think about it, they're hustling backwards. Okay, so they'll tell you that they're trying to do all of this because they're trying to win a Super Bowl right now in this window, right? But they're doing everything the teams that win Super Bowls don't do.

Don't do. No, you know what I'm saying? It's like every single thing that they have done, when's the last time you've seen the championship team have an interim coach over there? And then they demoted the offensive coordinator after they fired and walked the dude out of the building. And their quarterback shows up on Pat McAfee every Tuesday,

smiling. They're doing God knows what with the new wide receiver standing behind and her full ball. Come on, man. Did you see how he was looking? He was looking like, this was coming. This is what I wanted. Like he was there.

It's like you can't. tell me you're doing all this to win it all when everything you're doing is conducive to you not winning at all. That's the weirdest thing. It's really self-ratio and it's hustling backwards. And it's crazy too because with that Hassan Reddick, Jacina Anderson reporting that if the Eagles trade him to an NFC team, the conditional pick the Eagles will acquire in that deal is a 2026 second round pick, something that is just crazy. And look, if you want to trade him out of the conference, I mean, obviously we're looking at Detroit, maybe, as an NFC pair for Asan Riddick with Aidan Hutchison going down the moves and pass rushes.

Well, there's a price to pay if you trade them outside of the conference. But we have another trade to talk about here coming up in the second part of the show. And Jeff Lloyd of Lockedon Browns will be helping us break that one down. Amari Cooper, the Buffalo Bills. So be sure to stay to me. We have so much that I've been to here on Locked on AFC Squad. First, this show is brought to you by Arena Club. And man, for most of us,

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All right. Back here on Locked on AFC squad. Kevin Ostriker, still here with all of our local expert, AFC hosts, breaking it down for you. We talked about that to Vante Adams deal in the first part of the show. But man, the AFC was not done dealing as the Buffalo Bills saw their division rival make a move. And they said, we're not letting you have the fun. We're going to overtake you today. And they acquire Murray Cooper from the Cleveland Browns, a third round pick, a late

round pick swap in that deal. They seem to be poking around Devante Adams guys. So I don't know if this was a, oh, they felt they fell short for Devonte. So let's just go to plan B. But Jeff, there was rumblings around to Marikupa for a while about whether the Browns are going to move them or not. They make the move. For your side of things for Cleveland before we get into Buffalo, was this a necessary move?

And did this shock you a little bit with the timing? I think the timing didn't shock me. Look, this has been going on all since last offseason. wide receivers were cashing in. Amari Cooper with no future to his contract, obviously was well within his right and certainly deserved, hey, where are we going? Am I going to get an extension here? Had two fantastic years. This is one of the best moves Andrew Barry made was bringing in Amari Cooper. They had no inkling whatsoever to extend this relationship after 2024, even so much so that they were working out deals trying to get Brandon Ayyuk where they agreed on trade

compensation and even agreed on money, Brandon Ayut, just said, I'm not going to Cleveland. So then you have to go back to Amari, you know, kind of like when you step out on your old lady type of thing and say, hey, look, you know, we're going to make this right. So they made the money, you know, almost all of it guaranteed as quickly as possible for 2024. But it also gave them the back out of, hey, if it doesn't go well, and nobody thought it wasn't going to go well. So they backed out. And now they're one and five.

And all of a sudden, because he doesn't have much money on his contract coming to him at this point they paid almost all of it, you get compensation. They get a third round pick, which surprised me, because I was hoping originally maybe it'd be a second round. The way he's played this year, there's been a lot of drops. Look, Amari's always dropped the ball. It's always been one of the things where he's really good, but he does drop a ball a lot. Some of them were key and actually changed games, some of the balls that he drops. All of a sudden, you're one and five. But the problem is, you also have a bunch of young receivers. Cedric Tillman. Jamari Thrash has not dressed yet. Elijah Moore is in a contract here.

You have all of these guys. You want to evaluate them. So if you thought you were in it, it was fine that Amari Cooper was getting 12 to 13 targets a week. But now that you're one and five, you're getting basically you want to see these guys and how much do we have to do? Jerry Judy, you know, the Browns are paying him like he's a soft one.

Ideally, he's a two. They don't have an idea either way what he is to this point. So they have to evaluate these young receivers. And look, at one in five, regardless of who plays quarterback for them. That's a whole other story for another day. That'd be a whole other hour episode, obviously. But they needed to make this move because they need to start evaluating for next year

in the years to come. They need a lot of things, this entire team collectively, every positional group is underperforming compared to where they were last year. So that is, as much as the quarterback is the problem, every other positional unit has been an issue as well. Yeah, I mean, look, Cleveland's mess is Buffalo's gain in this situation. feels like there is so much going on right now there. As Buffalo saw an opportunity and they got it.

They took them. But, man, Chris, let me throw this to you because I think for the chiefs, Amari was a name that was maybe mentioned about, oh, could the chiefs go out there with the she rice going down for the season, some of those injuries? But now he goes to a team that Kansas City is looking to hold off in the AFC in Buffalo as they look to defend their Super Bowl title. How do you like this move for Buffalo? And do you think that this is a move that you would have liked to see Kansas City made?

I do think that it's a move that Kansas City should have made. that's one of the things Ryan and I talked about a lot on Locked on Chiefs the past couple days. Actually, even the show that we had on. I tried to. I tried to. On Monday. And, you know, honestly, I look at this, though, in some ways, I know people are going to laugh at this. And probably some chiefs fans are going to get pissed.

But in some ways, this actually helped Kansas City because they went and released NBS the same exact day that they traded for Marri Cooper. And say what you want, he's not a great wide receiver. But Kansas City, he's going to be, if Kansas City brings him back, he can step in and help the offense week one. knows the offense, he knows a role. He can step in and at least raise the floor. I'm not going to say he's going to be a number one wide receiver. That's not his, he doesn't have that skill set, but he can step in and help. So to me, in a way, I think that actually could help Kansas City in that regard.

And I'm not going to be shocked if MBS isn't back in Kansas City. I don't know that he would play against the 49ers, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's playing week eight for this team and maybe even starting to a degree. Wigg, I wanted to ask you something, too, because there's a lot of controversy going on. obviously the Jaguars, the final ways to still lose games, are they planning on offsetting anybody over there? I mean, the stuff that I'm seeing everywhere is crazy because it's like you just lock up Trevor Lawrence for a long term.

It's like, all right, well, hey, now they're not going in this direction. What's going on in Jacksonville? Man, if I knew what was going on with Jacksonville, I'd host the Lockdown Jaguars podcast every day and tell everybody where they can find out what's happening like I do. But I'm being serious, though, man. I don't know. It's weird because they, okay, so they traded Roy Robinson Harris to Seattle yesterday. They extended him in 2023.

This is the first year of his extension. So it's like they're going to have $10 million in debt cap money between the rest of this season and next year. And it's almost like, Tripp Barker can then say, well, it's because we drafted Mason Smith in the second round. But then he doesn't understand. It's like, well, why did you do that when you just gave this dude an extension? And then why did you then go and sign Eric Armstead to all of that money? But you ain't touched the offensive line. It's so weird down here.

Everybody's talking about Christian Kirk. They're saying that that's the dude that the Chiefs need to go get in and all of these other people. People have to understand something. Teams have to have the cash, the room, the available hit to be able to take a lot of these dudes that are going to get paid. Yeah, and the Chiefs don't have that. That's why a lot of people kept talking about Devonti Adams of the Chiefs. I'm like, how are they going to figure that out? But the thing is, I don't know, but if they do start a fire sale,

look for Christian Kirk, maybe Travis E.T.N. That's about it on the office. And maybe even Evan Engel. They may even make him available because they would be having to get rid of some of the bigger salaries if they're going to move in a direction where they're just going to, okay, we're going to wipe the slate clean. And, you know, to convince Trent Barker to do that, he's going to have to cut a lot of people and get rid of people that he signed and he's got a big ego so i don't know man it's

really really hard to figure out what they've got i tell you what they're doing they're losing i was titting and messing with mike earlier about how we're going i just had to try to buck up on somebody you know i was just trying to bully him he knows i don't mean it's the jaguar if they end up winning they ain't going to happen to win but they ain't going to punk nobody right now yeah like a jogger going to walk up if they walk up on you and jump at you like that what you're going to do you just going to start laughing at her man it's like they're like really really bad Well, the last few seasons, Tony, for the first time at about 20 years, I don't have a comeback for that. The New England Patriots aren't exactly bullying anybody anymore.

No one's coming into Gillette Stadium looking at the banners and shaking in their boots any longer. God, I miss those days. But bottom line, you know, they're not happening, you know. That must be nice. To flip back to the trade by the Marri Cooper, the impact for Buffalo, to me, is big. Because when you look at this offense, you draft the Keon Coleman, top of the second round. You have Khalil Shakir, who's more of a slot, Dalton Kincaid. Dawson Knox, I think Dalton Kincaid is the better tagging as a pass catcher,

route runner guy that you can deploy in multiple ways. Putting Amari Cooper in this offense will give Josh Allen a true number one type of receiving. A guy he can rely on down in and downout to get open on a consistent basis. And we saw it against Baltimore. We saw it when teams, if you can score against Buffalo prior to this trade, it was like who's going to get open and create those explosive plays without Josh moving out of the pocket without him doing what he did last night rolling to his right to the sideline and throwing it 40 yards in the middle of the field to a running back by the way not to a receiver so putting a marie cooper in his offense I think you know like Jeff said he has had the the drops got to clean clean that up but I think putting them in Buffalo I think that's a great fit for him and now he gets to really be with a quarterback that can get them accurate passes but also also down the field explosives. The one last thing on that is, is Amari is ideally not a guy that you're going to run out for every rep.

There's been a litany injuries that he's played through over the last couple years. The bills can circumnavigate that. That's fine. They have enough talent where they can say, hey, look, if you need two, three, that's fine. We got enough sets. I want to make sure you're ready on third and seven if we get to that. So that should be something where he steps in and it should go well for everybody. It's a nice move for Buffalo.

And for Cleveland, obviously there were a bunch of reasons that they just had to go that route. When you have a quarterback who can literally escape pressure, run all the way, step his foot on the inch line before the out of bounds and chuck it across the field, you know, you can get away with a lot of different stuff. I mean, with the bills and what Josh Allen can continue to do, and I was watching the Manning cast, Bill Belichick, like, Peyton Manor's like, throw it away, throw it away, throw it away. And Bill's like, that's why you can't let him get outside the pocket.

Like, it's incredible what we're seeing to the degree in which we are with Buffalo. But man, they're so, one week they look great. They look like the best team. And then one week, they, you know, they have a little bit of a letdown. They struggle against the Ravens in prime time. I'm curious to see if they'll stick around a little bit more, right, and build some consistency. I'm excited to see how Amari's going to fit into the mix here for them.

Does Amari Cooper like the oldest young player in the league? I think he, if you think about him, you think he's like 34. He calls every one. Amari is 30, but he's the guy that wears. like the socks up to his knees, the white high top, shows up to the playground. It was like, this dude ain't got no game whatsoever. And he was week two last year. His growing was so bad.

It was Monday night football in Pittsburgh. That was the night. Obviously, Nick Chub went down. Like, they were taking the trip there, and they're like, we don't even think Amari can play. Like, that's how banged up. But he went out there, old man style seven for 91. I mean, granted, they lost the game. But it was just like, but yeah, absolutely.

He is the dude that everybody looks at it. He's got nothing. And then three quarters in and we're like, man, yeah, old man got some game. Josh Allen will take that every day. Yeah, and every single day. Every single day. Here in Baltimore, we have this like age paradox of Roe Kwan Smith. How old do you guys think Ropon Smith is?

He's been in the league. He seems like 37. But he was a baby when he came in. No, wasn't he like a Richard. He was. He was a baby. Just turned 27. He was 26 for a while.

Same draft is Baker Lamar. All those 28. team draft. It felt like he was like 20, 2015, and here he is, man, 27 years old. So those age paradoxes are fun. But we have a lot to dive into our Locked on AFC Squad. Coming up, we're going to be diving into some teams that could be on upset alert this week, as well as which division leader is not going to win their division.

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Back here on Locked-on AFC Squad with your local experts from the AFC diving into everything. And, Wigg, I want to give you a shot of redemption this week because if you remember, last week we had a conversation about which team in last place was the most likely to win their division. and you would say Jacksonville. Do you remember that? No, but I believe you. If I said it, go ahead. Yeah, I'll take it.

Are you still on that train? I don't remember. I don't remember saying that, but I also don't remember what I ate for breakfast this morning. So, you know, I'll go ahead and believe it. Are you still Jacksonville? Or are you, look, me reading, I was up,

watching a London game. I was keeping track of your Twitter. It was like a funeral, man. It was honestly, like I felt bad. I felt bad. Are you still on the Jacksonville train? Do you think this season is kind of a wash at this point? Oh, it's the wash. Yeah, it's done. They're not going to do it. I think everybody's going to get fired. They should get fired. And I don't like saying that people should get fired, but the Jaguars people, man, they can't fix this. This is done. It's funny when you, y'all want to see something funny. You see if you can tap into the Jaguars post-game press conference after this game this weekend. And look how. many people look like they don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on, man.

We don't care. I mean, people just don't care. And we've been together too long to be doing this. And Trevor Lawrence just saying, yeah, we just pretty much stink. It's just like a litany of just pity. And no one has an answer. So I think this thing is cooked. We're done.

Yeah. It's, it is rough. You know, I feel like if we're looking at every division right now in the AFC, you know, after six weeks of play here, I don't think anyone's going to catch up. I know that Mike Greenberg of ESPN thinks that the Jets are going to go on the super run now. I don't think that they're getting past Buffalo. I think Buffalo is going to maintain their lead in that division. I would say Kansas City is going to maintain their lead.

Obviously, I think in the AFC West, unless something drastic happens to that team, maybe you can make the argument, can Indie claw their way back? I'm not so sure at this point. So for me, it's like I have to look at the Baltimore Ravens, And it's not because of anything that's going to happen with Baltimore. I just think that you look at Pittsburgh. They got the same record there, a really good defense. Who knows what the hell they're going to look like with Russell Wilson now,

probably taken over a quarterback. But if you look at a division leader right now who may not win the division, I mean, it could be Pittsburgh. But like I said, I think it's too tough to tell at this point. I'm glad that division is in the NFC. I don't want anything to do with that division in the AFC right now. Stay over there, man. I don't want anything to do with that division.

It's, uh, yeah. I, I hear you with Pittsburgh because, you know, that Mike Tomlin, magic rears its head every year. And in Baltimore, we have to deal with it every year of like, this is finally the year that Pittsburgh is going to go below 500.

And then Mike Tomlin like pulls these corpses out of his closet and like makes this team go nine and eight or something. But I think with Baltimore, they're finding their groove. And so I think Pittsburgh will, Pittsburgh will like be there. But to me, I feel like Baltimore will win.

But it's a tough question. Because like, With the Chiefs, they're undefeated right now. And while, you know, Mahomes hasn't looked like the prime Mahomes, I mean, those are defending champs, man. They're back to back. Like, you have to respect those guys. They're room for error.

Yeah. The Chief's room for error. They can make so many mistakes and still win. Like, that's the thing that's so crazy about it. And like, to your point, they're not as explosive. I'd say in the way, like you mentioned with prime Mahomes. And they're doing it. Like, Mahomes is getting contributions like from guys like Xavier Worthy, who's obviously

He got some real legit speed. You got Kareem Hunt on the ground. I just, I feel like this Kansas City team is different. And the fact that they're not as explosive offensively as they were in the past, and they're still winning and they're playing. Spaggs has that defense playing pretty good too. It's just like, man, even when the chiefs don't get, like, they're not better. They're not as good as they were.

They're still better than everybody else. That I think to most teams in AFC is so frustrating. I think, I think, 30 second in explosive plays in the NFL this season. If you would have said that before the year, crazy. You wouldn't think they're undefeated. I don't know you're right, but I don't even believe that. It's so crazy. Y'all know what they look like?

Y'all know what they look like? They look like Brady's Patriots, not the ones with Randy Moss and them. They look like the other Patriot teams, the ones that were before that and after that, they just, I figure it like this, because of their DNA, because they're used to winning and because that psychologically, they know it's not about them turning on and off. It's like what Floyd Mayweather used to say like on Vegas fight night. It's different when you're out there.

And then all of a sudden, all your heroes are out here. And now you've got to deal with me under these lights right now. They just, I think they're up four points every time they walk out of locker. Almost. Yeah. Maybe not Cincinnati or Baltimore teams that really don't care about them like that. But to me, with everybody else, you almost know, you almost just get this feeling that if it's close. And then, you know, you got to talk about the refs, too.

But I ain't going to pull that on you, Chris. You know what I'm saying? I ain't going to pull that on you. But what I will tell you is this, just like in hoops, the most aggressive teams gets the most calls. And what happens is I think the chiefs are so good and start mentally messing with people late in the game. And then they probably do run up on that little cornerback

and flop a little bit because that's what happens to championship teams. You get the benefit of the doubt because they're always giving you that maximum effort. So they're just special, man. And I almost did this the other day and asked some people on Locked on NFL. All right. Take this dynasty, the best of this Chiefs dynasty against the best of the Patriots dynasty, who wins best two out of three. Now that the Chiefs have three championships and they know what it's like,

if you take the best, if you just try to take the best of each one of those dynasties. And that doesn't include Randy Moss in because they didn't win it. So which, which group of those teams wins two out of the best three? It's tough. I'm like, I want to hear what you have to say about this one. Yeah, I mean, that is tough. That is tough. And I'll be the first to admit it.

And look, I'd love to be the Homer over here and go, oh, you got Brady Belichick. You know, there's no question about it. Patriots take that you look at the Chief's teams and the way they've won. And I'm not just talking offense. I'm talking defense and spags in the job he's been able to do with that defense. That's a tough one. I mean, there's no question about it because you've got two teams that are very well coached. Andy Reid, obviously, he's punched his ticket into immortality, just like Bill Belichick did in New England.

You've got defenses that know how to win, that know the capabilities of their players and put their players in the best position to make plays. And then you've got offenses with quarterbacks that have ice water running through the veins. I mean, this is exactly what good teams do. And Tony hit the nail right on the head. And Cody, you mentioned this as well. that aura that surrounds a championship team. I watched it for a number of years up here in New England. Teams would come in and make the most bonehead moves you never saw coming because they were playing Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots.

They cite themselves out into it and said, you got Tom Brady on that side. You got Bill Belichick. They're going to do something to beat us. We've got to be one step ahead. A lot of times Brady and Bill would wait back for these teams to shoot themselves on the foot before they went and they made these moves. So I see that in the Chiefs. I continue to see that in the Chiefs. They're going to continue to be the top on the mountain until someone knocks them off.

And that's, again, that championship swagger is there right now in the Midwest. And it's not going anywhere anytime soon. You make a great point. There are teams in the AFC that spent close to a billion dollars on free agents in the past couple of years. The Raiders are one of them. Several other teams, the Chargers have done it. The Broncos. Cleveland, do it, you know, to an extent as well, just to chase.

Chiefs and that's the reality of today's NFL. To go back to what you said earlier, though, Cody, about what team could fall off that's a division leader right now. I agree with you about Pittsburgh. And it's not even necessarily because of just Baltimore. If you look at the divisions across the AFC, what division has the toughest division across the AFC right now? To me, it's AFC North. It is the North. I mean, you have, you have Cincinnati and Joe Burrow, who's playing out of his mind. And Jemar Chase is playing very good as well. And yeah, they're two and four. They probably won't be able to win their division. division, but they can make it hard on those other two guys that are trying to win the division.

And that's really what this is going to come down to. And they're playing spoiler alert, playing the spoiler role and knocking one of these teams that want to win a division off, especially late in this season, you know, temperature starts to drop. And then you think that you have it all packed up. And then Cincinnati walks in and knocks you off the perch and either Baltimore or Pittsburgh gets that done. Yeah, and I'll tell you what, the AFC North, that is hard knocks his dream to have

that division come down to the wire because we're getting that in-season hard knocks this year. Look a little bit at the beginning with how that division started off. But I think it's going to shape up to be good. And I don't know how this is all going to work. But if it's like Cincinnati playing spoiler to a team or like Baltimore and Pittsburgh dukeing it out for the top spot, like everybody is going to love that. Cody, the thing I couldn't believe you didn't say, though, is that why aren't you throwing it, you know, Russell Wilson being the starter in Pittsburgh as being the reason that they're going to drop?

Well, I mean, that's part of it. like, like, I trust Mike Tomlin. Like, I'll say the one thing I aspire to have to have in this life, you look at Mike Tomlin late in a fourth quarter, you know, they give up a touchdown. I'll go back to the Cowboys game for an example. They give up a touchdown in the final seconds. Mike Tomlin's over there.

He's still looking calm, calm, cool, collected. Like, I aspire to have that type of level of calm with him inside myself here. But the one thing I can't understand here about Mike Tomlin. And obviously, folks, if you're listening to this and you're like, why are you guys talking about the Steelers? If you want to hear from your Steelers, guys, get mad at them that they didn't jump on this dang show with us to talk about it. Like, you're mad to disappear on your team's feet. Well, guess what?

Tell your host, show up and represent. Why is Mike Tomlin, like at this point, it seems like he's going to be leaning towards going with Russ over Justin Fields? And look, Justin Fields obviously has some areas he can continue to grow up. But, man, it's hard to deny that he hasn't given them the best chance to win. Four and two, you just come on, you know, go on a road game. You beat the Raiders so bad. you've got Max Crosby shoving his coach on the sideline. And all of a sudden now it's like, what is happening here?

Now you have obviously a great opportunity this weekend to continue to extend that streak. But if it's going to be Russ in there, you haven't seen him really since the preseason. What is like I don't understand messing with the chemistry right now. Like if I don't like from Justin, if you go away from Justin now and you go to Russ, you can't go back to Justin. Like that's the craziest thing about me. I don't like it because what you said, one thing about fields, he was able to cover up a multitude of their flaws. They have a lackluster receiver room.

Their offensive line is bad. Like, you know what I mean? You can run the ball, but Justin was a big part of running the ball and creating those extra opportunities. When you have a quarterback with that type of speed running zone read, that backside in has to stay put because you don't want Justin Fields getting to the edge. I'm not staying put for Russell Wilson. I'm attacking Najee Harris or Jalen Warren.

So when you look at what he's able to do, get out of the pocket, get away from facts. This is not prime Seattle Seahawks young Russell Wilson. I'm not expecting him to be able to do those things this year at this age. I do not like the move to switch to Russell Wilson. I'm going off a calf injury. Thank you. It does not make sense to me at all. And then you've got to deal with George Pickens and the emotional roller coaster that is at receiver. This is not that. Mike Tomlin, I'll tell you guys this quick story at the Senior Bowl, not this year, but last year. Being on the sideline watching Mike Tomlin away from the Steelers, he's just coaching like O line and D line.

Like it was just a lot of fun to watch. He was like just being himself, the way he coached, you can see why players love him. But I don't understand this decision because to me, this is how you, I trust him to keep their locker room, but this is how you lose the locker room. Because now if you lose this game,

you lose the next game by going to Russell Wilson, the team is looking at you like, why did we make this change, coach? I mean, that would be like, I lost faith in Russell Wilson, not when I saw him before the game, pretending to actually, you know, simulate a game. But when I saw him in a simulated huddle talking to himself,

like he was talking to other people, I'm like, oh, no, he got no time to have him. Y'all remember that? I'm like, it's some stuff. I just can't get past. Yeah, it was on time. That was against the Steelers. Talking to itself. Yeah, man.

So, yeah, I don't know what. Pittsburgh is doing. I do think that they can go back to Justin Fields. Justin Fields has been been booted and scooted. He got it happened to him in Georgia. They did it to him. Justin Fields used to this man. They can go back to him if they have to. But then if they have to go back to him and he lease him to the playoffs, they got to pay him. Jeff, just pretending to pay attention to us. He don't even know he muted. Look. Jeff is still recovering from the, uh, the Ameri Cooper Tree. That's what that's what that's going on over there. But I think we should all have a, a danger which.

No, just real quick. The thing real quick, Russell Wilson's playbook and obviously the playbook for Justin Fields are drastically different. So how do you just, like you got a role with one. And look, at four and two,

when Pittsburgh brought both these guys in for pennies on the dollar, you said the hope is, whoever we start week one gets off to a good start. And all of a sudden we're in contention. That's exactly where you want to be. You know, so now you want to up the passing game. and slow down the running game, it's a big, big issue.

I just don't know how it works. I mean, you got what you hoped for that one of these guys would get you up to a four and two start. One of them has. And now all of a sudden you're going to change the dynamic. I mean, and then you look at the defense. It's a tough, I mean, look, it's a gutsy call. And Mike Tomlin could look like Mike Tomlin if this works out. But you lose, and then all of a sudden, well, it's what we lost.

But we're going to go back to Justin. and it definitely just, you know, it creates confusion that maybe they don't need because for them, it's, look, this is our team. We'll get to double-digit wins because we're the Pittsburgh Steelers on Mike Tomlin, that's what we do. But now you're trying to maybe put too many, you know, maybe recipes, I mean, too many ingredients are the recipe. The problem is they don't have a receiving court. I mean, Damien, you hit the nail on the head.

I mean, you talk about George Pickens and his issues there. Who they got beyond Pickens? That's their problem. If they were going to go add somebody and people were talking about them maybe being interested to Devante Adams. I know that can't happen anymore, but you can't draw anybody with that quarterback situation. You can't draw anybody to that quarterback situation. That's true. You can't. Yep. No, you are. You're actually right for somebody. You enforceably get him in there. Say you're playing with this guy.

Right. Who am I playing with? My play with Fields? My playing with Russell Wilson? I don't know. I said this before. Right now, it's George Pickens and the seven of us out there for Pittsburgh. Although apparently Wigg is water receiver one. He's not losing out there. I told you, I'm always open, man. I'm always open. Let's go. I'd love to see that. But man, crazy week for the AFC.

And, of course, we'll be right back here for you next week, diving out. I don't know. Hopefully we get more craziness next week because obviously that feeds into the conversation. So to everybody, thank you for joining the AFC squad. We'll be here each week for you. And again, if you want to hear more from your teams, be sure to get those hosts on here with us.

We'll be chopping it up every. single. It means you, Chris Carter. That means you. Call them out. There we go. Chris Carter for Steelers, this talk,

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