NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - 2016 Week 4 Review

Episode Date: October 3, 2016

A room filled with heroes - Dan Hanzus, Gregg Rosenthal, Chris Wesseling, and Marc Sessler – go game-by-game recapping all of Sunday’s action including rookies Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliot carrying the Cowboys to a come-from-behind win over the 49ers, and two of last year’s powerhouse teams falling to 1-3 on the season.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to the NFL Fantasy Football podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL. Visit Toyota.com slash NFL now to learn more. The Around the NFL podcast. Don't afraid to be great. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. My name is Dan Hansis, and I am joined. by a room filled with heroes Mark Sessler, Chris Wessling, and Greg Rosenthal.

What's up, boys? Hey, Dan. What is happening? We have an ornery Mark Sessler tonight, and I love it. Not happy. I'm not loving it because it means Mark is genuinely upset. I don't even want to get into it. Yeah, we have to be careful here.

You've got to be careful. When the quiet storm is raging, you've got to be careful, but the Browns let him down today, and we'll get to that a little bit later. But Mark's a pro. He's going to come and deliver a big-time show like he does every Sunday. I always do. Put the lights on. Let's go.

This is the Sunday night edition of the Around the NFL podcast, sponsored, of course, by Mr. Flames' economics class in the Hague, the Netherlands. For all your economics class needs, go to flameclass.com. That's F-L-A-I-M. uh that's good i'm looking forward to our sales team uh becoming aware of this oh it's a matter of time in 2017 be great we we did mr flame is not aware that we baked in several escape clauses into our contract um so that will be a good little economics lesson for him down the line to impart upon his students today's show however uh breaks down all the action

in the in week four sunday uh from the london game oh uh at wembley stadium all all the way through Sunday night football in rainy Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on a day where, yes, and it's going to be the first game we talk about, where a name that we've known very well for many years, Surge to the quarter poll MVP, first ranking, Greg. Don't make a face like, what are you talking about? Yeah, what is the reference? I'll tell you who it is.

Wes, you say who it is. Case Cab! Ryan! Matt Ryan, baby. I thought it was going, Greg. Matt Ryan's leading the last. league in every category, even sacks. Total months. Interception, sacks,

punt blocks. To be fair to Greg, he's the guy that for months has been calling the NFC South the most exciting division of football and propping up the Falcons. So how does he not know that Matt Ryan was... Good question by you. Good question by Dan. I don't know. Come back to us, Greg. That's all.

I thought you were talking about Aaron Donald. Someone on those fiery Rams. We'll talk about the fiery Rams, too. A lot of great football to talk about. In fact, we have so much football to talk about let's get right into it and again right now we're on Periscope people watching live thank you for plugging in we appreciate you I'm using hand gestures that communicate in the visual medium anyway let's do some talk about football and let's start yes with the Atlanta Falcons Matt Ryan who Greg was not aware of until just now I'm aware of them

I'm aware of them. Atlanta Falcons and Julio Jones became the first quarterback receiver tandem of the Super Bowl era. That's 50 years, folks, to combine for at least 500 passing yards and 300 receiving yards. Marron. And when that happens, you win football games. The Atlanta Falcons blew away the Carolina Panthers 48 to 33. Chris Wesleying, what did you see in Atlanta? There's something special cooking down there and nobody saw it coming.

Well, we said all along this offense has been right there with any offense in the NFL, but they played three-week teams to start. So they face a Panthers defense that was ranked sixth in Football Outsiders metrics heading into this game. Julio Jones had his way with Ben A. Ben Wickery, James Bradbury, Daryl Wurley, whoever they put on Julio Jones, he had his way with him. And then Matt Ryan would mix in a little Austin Hooper, a little Aldrich Robinson, a little Taylor Gabriel, spread the ball around Devante Freeman, running a loose, as always. Peter Gabriel had a nice run. Peter Gabriel. Yeah, the light, the heat, in your eyes. Wow. Very good. Little Uncle Rock there for you. I love it. I love it. Say anything with the boombox?

Way earlier than I expected West to sing in this program. But yes, this was a game that saw Julio Jones go nuts. In fact, let's get his final catch, the one that put him to 300 yards. And it's so funny, it's coming after the most recent game where the big narrative came out of it was, oh, the Falcons have all these weapons now. You don't have to go to Julio, but then they go to Julio like mad and good things happen. Faking the give to Coleman, he's throwing it,

completing it to Julio Jones, 35, 40, breaks free, 50, down the right side line. There he goes. 10, 5, touchdown. One play, 75 yards, and the roof is about to come off the Georgia Dome. Julio Jones, 300 yards at Atlanta Falcons record. What does this mean, Mark Sessler? I think it means that Atlanta has to be taken seriously. Now, there is probably people that remember what they did to open the season last year.

You get out of the gate big, the offense looks unstoppable, then the wheels fall off. They still have issues on defense. There's no question about it. But you have to look at what they've done over the course of the last seven days and say, Kyle Shanahan's second year in Atlanta has made a difference. Matt Ryan is playing better than he ever has before. You've got all sorts of weapons. You look at Julio Jones' big day,

but it was just a couple days ago against the Saints where it was everyone else on their offense who was exploding, so it isn't a one-man attack. And just looking at the drive chart, four drives over 90 yards over the Panthers, one drive of just 75 yards, one play, another five-play touchdown drive that takes under 95 seconds. This has been an explosively quick offense to watch, Chris Wesley.

That's play-calling and it's great distributing from the quarterback who is using all of his weapons. And Matt Ryan's vision and pocket movement have been tremendous issues. And, Wes, what is going on on the other side here? The Carolina Panthers, of course, went 15 and 1 last year, now 1 in 3. What's wrong with the Panthers? This score is incredibly misleading. By the time the fourth quarter started, Falcons had the edge 491 to 141 in yards. 23 to 6 in first downs, and their only touchdown was a pick six.

Cam Newton's offense was not moving the ball. They have no rhythm in their running game. Cam Newton's lower body mechanics, which tend to go in and out, and he's a streaky passer. He avoided that in the second half of last year. They have been shaky this year so far. He's been high on a lot of his passes. There's just no rhythm right now in their offense. And your leading receiver is Fazi Whitaker, Calvin Benjamin, with 39 yards today.

They had, I'm telling you, they had absolutely no offense. until Derek Anderson came into this game. Well, they are now two games back, the Panthers, in this division, and having already lost to the Falcons, this is a race here for the NFC South. The NFC South, the Falcons at 3-1, the Bucks most likely going to go to 1-3, the Carolina Panthers, 1-3, and the Saints at 1-3. So they're in a good position here, and it feels different this year, doesn't it? It does, and yet I do think this is a good example of how the team makes such a difference

and then the quarterback gets the credit or it doesn't. I don't know. I watched the first three weeks at least. I haven't studied this one closely. I don't think Matt Ryan was playing any better than he was in the previous couple years. Really? I thought he's been Matt Ryan. That's insane.

He's been solid and the team around him is playing much, much better. He's been a good, he hasn't been going deep too much until today. I think he's been the best quarterback in the league. He was killing them with turnovers last year. A red zone disaster was Matt Ryan. All I'm saying is he is finding receivers quickly. The running game's been great. The offensive line's been great.

to me he's been Matt Ryan all along and they're catching up to him. I agree with the sentiment that his struggles were overrated the last year and were mostly attributable to his surrounding talent, but he's playing the position much better this year. I'll spell it out for everybody before we move on. Matt Ryan and Greg's next QB index, you know, number 23 to number 27 rate. He was number three last week. That's not my point.

I just think he's been solid. He's been great. He died a lot of deep passes today. What Greg is trying to say is that he's been in the right place with Matt Ryan all along. while the rest of us were wrong last year about him. It is a wildly sketchy conceit. Let's not move the goal pose here. You were kind of off the bandwagon a lot after last season.

There's a lot of time to talk about Matt Ryan because it's one of the most exciting subplots in the league, but we've got to keep moving now and move to our next game. We're going to stay in the NFC and talk about the Los Angeles Rams, who were the laughing stock of the NFL when they got shut out in week one. But no one's laughing anymore, at least not right now anyway, a game that was very close, late in the fourth quarter,

the Arizona Cardinals at home, nursing a three-point lead. Case Keenham leads his team deep into Cardinals territory, and then looks Brian Quick's way in a big spot. Keenham to Quick, the one we always dream about. Keenum clapping his hands, calling for the shotgun snap, goes quickly to the end zone. Quick goes up in the air to bring in the go-ahead touchdown. That was,

J.B. Long of KSWD, ESPN, L.A. Good attribution. With, thank you. With, I was a little surprised. I thought we were going to have a little bit more there, Sid. That's all I had. That was his whole call. And they just shut off the game after that. He's so economical with his words that it caught us off guard.

They just cut straight to commercial after that. They let the crowd noise tell the story. Yes, good Greg. With Carson Palmer in the locker room for a concussion evaluation, Rams linebacker, Mark Barron, intercepted backup quarterback Drew Stanton, this coming after that touchdown to Quick. stealing a 17-13 win for the Rams of the Cardinals.

Wes, the Rams are 3-1, and the Cardinals are 1-3. What the-h-ha-ha-ha-ha. Sorry, I wasn't ready for that. The Cardinals are really slow out of gate this year. All 10 of their first quarter possessions have resulted in punts. This game, I think you can say, is just as attributable. Sure. To the Rams front seven.

And Aaron Donald, best player on the field today. eight quarterback pressures, four quarterback hits, a sack and a half, including a high-low hit that he teamed with Eugene Sims to knock Palmer out of the game. Aaron Donald is running stunts in this game coming off the edge now. You account for him in the middle of the field, and now he's coming out and beating your right tackle. Did that last week, too,

and it just continues a story with this Cardinals' offense. They had so many chances to win this game in terms of possessions in the second half where they had good field position, or they drive past the 50, and you think, okay, it's over. They're going to finish off the Rams here, and they didn't. So I don't want to hear anything about Carson Palmer's injury being a huge reason why they didn't win this game.

By that point of the game, it should have been over. I mean, that's five minutes left, and they had failed over and over offensively. This is supposed to be an offensively led team. They'd failed to put the game away, and the Rams made him pay. Yeah, I'm wondering how teams are going to start playing the Rams offense now. Todd Gurley is averaging 2.63 yards on the ground for carry. And every time you watch the Rams play offense, there's a lot of holes that Case Keenham is exploiting in the passing game,

including this. Brian Quick made a couple of big plays against Marcus Cooper. That cornerback spot opposite Patrick Peterson continues to be an issue. But I want to see if teams maybe start to give Case Keenom a little bit of respect. I liked Case Keenom in this game. He's not a great quarterback. West. You had a great tweet.

You said he was the younger brother of Tony Romo and Ron. Ryan Fitzpatrick in the backyard. He's taking these shots. He's not afraid to dive. He's getting all amped up. Not a talented quarterback or a super talented quarterback, but he made plays time and time again in this game. I mean, we talked about two teams now that are combined two and six

with concussed quarterbacks. And it's such a difference from just a couple months ago in January, where we just probably would have assumed these two would race right back to the playoffs. But we talked about the Cardinals last week going to Buffalo, and we thought they no-showed, but they're going to get right back to good. And I'm concerned. I think it's fair to be concerned about the Cardinals on some level.

I'm not saying the season is over, anything like that. Ariens talked about a team that under his command is won close games, and they're not doing that this season. But where is your level of concern, Chris? You talked about this as a potential team of ATL after what you've seen today. This game reminded me more of early last season when they didn't reach their potential against teams like the Rams last year. Same exact game, a game that they outgained them by a ton and then ended up losing.

You could see some positive traits. They got John Brown more involved. David Johnson still, I think, the best running back in the league. Chris Johnson had some big plays. There are some bright spots for the offense, and to me, the bigger concern is Carson Palmer's concussion and whether he's available by Thursday against on the road against the 49. A short week, which is all of a sudden,

an incredibly important game for the Cardinals who are at 1 and 3 now. And we talked about before this game when they said the check had rolled. over and asked if they car was in trouble then. I said, let's see what happens in this game. Now they're one and three. Their quarterbacks hurt. There's not a lot of good mojo around this team right now. Now they've got a short week. They're flirting with disaster here, Mark Sessler.

Yeah, I mean, and we'll get on to this too. But when you go into San Francisco, I'm not saying the 49ers are a great football team, but they're a much better team at home. They're for some reason a different team at home. And if you got Drew Stanton running the show, that we'll find out what happens to Arizona. And the Rams deserve credit for making the key plays. at the end of these three games.

It's not like they're blowing teams out. The play that stands out to me is the third down conversion from Todd Gurley. The passes behind him on third and long. He makes a good pass behind them. He makes a couple defenders miss. He gets the first down. Two plays later, they score the winning touchdown. That was set up to really be a tie game at that point.

And Gurley, who's starting to make some impact in the passing game now that they're not rushing the ball. If you're the Rams, is tonight the night to announce a 14-year extension for Jeff Fisher? what are you going to do it this was i mean i don't know honestly because he was no one was getting more flamed three weeks ago 21 days ago but you put together a pretty good three games stretch here we got to give jeff fisher a lot of credit too everybody was against the guy after that shutout loss and i'll point out somebody on twitter obviously a rams fan at super noid uh tweeted at me get woke rams are three and one and first in the division you guys better acknowledge this on the podcast oh okay i mean yes this basic knowledge but yes that guy's name i'm blocking him uh

at Super No, I know it didn't seem that that mean-spirited. But yes, they're 3-1 and in first place at the quarter pole of the season. Well, he's right. I don't know you've been Seattle and the Arizona Cardinals. It's not, you're not knocking out a bunch of lightweights. Right, I get it. We haven't really given them a ton of credit or a ton of airtime or ready to believe that this is reached.

Well, we have negative airtime. Right. But the one thing is that this defense has been together for a while. It's a young, young team, but it is not a young defense. This group has been together and they're wreck and shot. When do you trade Jared Gough to the 49ers, maybe before 30s? Thursday. Do not break out the Panic button in Arizona until after Thursday's game. All right.

They'll win that game, please. Well, with Drew Stanton if he's playing? If they're two and three after that game with Palmer's coming today? Absolutely. 49ers. Stanton has looked terrible going back to the preseason. I'll put a sandwich on that potentially. Absolutely.

Let's move on, guys. In the past, playing without Tony Romo and Des Brine would mean doom for the Cowboys. Curtains. Quitons. But that was before Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott showed up. the dynamic rookies led the Cowboys to their third consecutive win, a 24-17 conquest over the host Niners. Mark, this was not an easy one, but Big D got it done.

Well, it's like we just talked about. The Niners really do seem to be a different football operation at home. And this was a different game for the Cowboys because in three weeks leading up to this, they've gotten out to 6-0, 10-0, and 17-0-leads with Dak Prescott under center. Today they fell down 14-0 and had to dig themselves out of a hole. And Prescott played well. He continues to show a lot of poise.

But for me, Ezekiel Elliott, we've talked about him as you argued that he could wind up as the offensive rookie of the year. Forget Carson Wentz. I think it's a fair point by you because Ezekiel Elliott has gotten better and better in terms of his yardage and yard per carry every game. And today what I saw was a running back that grew stronger, ran downhill and gained steam in the third and fourth quarter, and really led this Cowboys team to a win with no Des Bryant on the first. field. He was the difference. Andy's the NFL's leading Russia right now. Sure.

Wow. How about, you know, the other more obvious rookie of the year candidate on this same team? I think if the season ended today would probably get more votes than Ezekiel. How did Dak Prescott look? I think he looked good. I mean, they, it was a weird game. I mean, he, he, he, without, without Brian in there, he favored, you know, Williams. He had looking at, he's looking at basically his tight ends, third and fourth string receivers. They did the best they could. It was the ground game that made the difference in the second half, though. But Prescott, I can't kill the guy. I mean, he's, he's looked fantastic in four

games. Well, he's now gone 131 attempts without interception the most ever by a rookie to begin career. He's careful with the football and I think they've got the offense. It helps that they've got the ground game they do. You know, the defense also clamped up on Blaine Gabbard. After, you know, after the first open, they'd score touchdowns right away. And then at that point, they basically just shut them down. I mean, they got a perfect schedule to start this season with a rookie quarterback four straight teams without great pass rushes in the last two weeks two of the worst teams in the league but doc presco when i watch him he seems like one of the most this is hard to evaluate when you're on the couch but one of the smartest like most advanced

rookie quarterbacks we've seen a long time inserted in terms of changing the plays and poise i don't use the word poise for the rest of the season and i just blew it composed along with cars and wins and it's like i think we're starting to see quarterbacks that don't roll in completely raw, they are being better trained for the NFL than any other time. I'd even say Cody Kessler looked prepared today. It's a rash of young rookie guys that don't look completely lost. Give credit to Jason Garrett, I think, for coaching up this team to three and one. It wasn't a team we thought was too great.

And Prescott's coming from a system in college that couldn't be more different. Their defense has issues, but Mo Claiborne played, I think, the best game he's played in two years too, at a big interception and a huge hit on what would have been, you know, potentially game time, drive by the Niners? We heard that Tony Romo is starting to work his way back now. What if they're six and two? No chance. I think Romo's the quarterback no matter what once he's healthy.

You can do so much more with him. Now, if there's like a week or... Seven and one. If there's a week or two... I think he's the quarterback no matter what. If there's a week or two, he just got back to being ready, but he's only practiced twice. Maybe they're going to wait an extra week or two

until he's really all the way back and he's gotten his conditioning back. I don't think there's any rest. I mean, this isn't Romo playing like last year's Peyton Manning. It's Romo, as far as we know, who's still Romo. But the problem is that Dak Prescott is clearly the future, and so it's just kind of we've seen this, and now we have to go back to Romo and hope that he can continue it.

One note on the other side, the other team, I don't know how many defenders there are who are the absolute beating heart of their defense, and if you take him out, the defense falls apart, but Navar Bowman's got to be right atop that list. And the 49ers, Mark wrote this in his recap, Ezekiel Elliott, it's no coincidence that he caught fire as soon as Bowman came out of the game.

Yeah, Bowman left with a non-contact injury that they're saying looked like an Achilles-type injury as far as we know at this point. And you're exactly right. It caught fire. He caught fire at that point, Elliot. Rap sheet says the fear is that the Achilles is torn. That's brutal for them. I mean, that could not be.

He's their most important player by far. I mean, this is a team that gave up 83 points over two games before today. It's one of the least talented teams in the league already. Let's move on. In fact, let's head over to the throne of sleep. The Buffalo Bills are alive and well. Tyrod Taylor played crisp, turnover-free football, and Rex Rhyne's underman defense gave Jake Briscuit fits

and a 16-to-nothing win over the Patriots in Foxborough. Greg, this is the first time your boys have been shut out at home since 1993. What happened here? Well, the bills came in, and they dominated in every possible way, and I've heard a lot of things on Twitter about, you know, okay, this is what happens with your third string quarterback. It's not about the third string quarterback. The bill's offense dominated the Patriots defense.

The game was won in the first three bills drives of the game. 12 play drive, 10 play drive, 12 play drive. Just staying on the field, wearing this Patriots team down. The Patriots offense goes three and out a couple times. You know, Brisket only threw three passes in the first half because the Bill's controlled things, 16 first downs, the two. Rex out-coached Bill Belichick for a day. I don't think that's that crazy to say. Why is that crazy? It happens. It's football. He, everything that the bills wanted to do they did.

I don't even feel bad about this as a fan because the bills were so much better than the Patriots. Well, and because you've got Tom Brady coming back next week. Yeah, that feels good. I mean, I was getting tweets like, oh, you're going to have so much fun. Don't be such a jerk with the Patriots. I'm not going to go nuts about this game. They're getting out of the four games at three and one, which is what they obviously would have signed off on that. losing 16-0 is a little strange. The fact that they got dominated the way they were, but I wasn't totally shocked that they got beat here.

This was a tough situation with the third-string quarterback. Well, the bigger story to me, because the Patriots will see what they look like next week with Tom Brady, and I don't think this was a great game for them overall, but they've shown enough this year. The bigger story is the bills. The bills who could not have been mocked more in this room, more given up for dead, just like the Rams,

are back in a great spot four weeks into the season. And they're two and two with, they're playing the Rams next week. And then a couple winnable games after that, after two dominant performances against the Cardinals and the Patriots. And I know it was Brissette in there, but whatever. You're dominating another NFL offense. That's hard to do. It was percent, but the, who?

Ooh, slides me off a piece of that Jake Briskey. Probably the last chance we'll ever get to use. Oh, stop. What? He'll be back. Where? He'll be winning a Super Bowl, 2024. Okay.

The linebacker core of Jerry Hughes, Preston Brown, Zach Brown and Lorenzo Alexander has been the best linebacker core in the NFL this year and two of those guys are retreads. Lorenzo Alexander and Zach Brown. We did Zach Brown making a leap three years ago and it never happened in Tennessee, but he's one of the fastest linebackers in the league.

He was incredible. When you watch this game, I know they lost Reggie Raglan. That was supposed to be a big loss. In the end, Zach Brown's been a great linebacker for them. Jerry Hughes is one of the best pass rushers in the league. And oh, by the way, Lashon McCoy is still really good. He is still...

Yeah, people forgot about him. He's still a very talented runner. The numbers don't pop off the screen today. It was 105 yards from scrimmage. He made a lot of good Patriots defenders miss again and again. Credit to Anthony Lynn, too. Oh, yeah? Well, that's, as people were saying on Twitter, you know,

best way to motivate your embattled defense is to fire your offensive coordinator. Genius. Speaking... It's working, though. It's working. Give him credit. One question. Can I have to throw something?

I respect to Rex Ryan. He won this game 16, nothing. This is like something he just sits around and dream. about in the middle of the night, and it happened. But why do you need to get on the microphone and tell people that a source inside the Patriots organization told you that Peret was going to start this game? Why do you need to go there when you're Rex Ryan? Why can you ever just win a game?

You know, Mark, you're always looking for ways to get out of the reg. It's not. It's a fair question. What other coach in the league does this? Oh, he's not like every other coach. That's part of the reason some people like him. He's different. Well, it's also part of the reason that he's, you know, things look good today.

It is a liability when your coach does this kind of stuff. I do love it, though, because here's why he did it. He did it to annoy Bill Belichick. He did it to spice it. He's obsessed with Bill Belichick doesn't need to care about Rex Ryan at all. You don't think Bill Belichick's going to hear that and be annoyed that Rex says he has someone inside the Patriots that he set this up. It's the battle, not the war. Do you think he was always trying to get under Belichick's skin with this line?

No, I mean, it's satisfying, but let's face it, they had a player out. It's just saying they had a player out. We had our team, so, you know, we expected to win. We expected to win. If that's his white whale, someone should tell him how Moby Dick ends up. One last thing about the Patriots, you know, I know people think Rob Grancowski is getting back to the mix. It'd be good to see it. You know, he's on the field playing.

Martellis Bennett at 109 yards in this game. Gronk had one target or one catch. I'm not saying. Why? What happened there? I don't know. I mean, I'm not breaking down the coaches. I assume gronk will be gronk eventually.

You've also got it. I'd like to see it. It's going to, I want to, I'll be concerned about that when Brady's back in the mix and ignoring Robin Gras. Right. Let's see what happens next week. Can we get your hamstring analysis? I mean, considering you have had hamstring.

I have had two hamstring injuries last year. So you can see why gronk might not be gronk just yet. It takes time. Wes's hamstring exploded heading to third base. Mine exploded running to first base. But you know what? We want a, we want a championship. Yeah, but I was a non-factor because.

of the hamster. Okay, well, there you go. That's how it works. So it could be something that haunts him. You think he's super human, and maybe they should have been a little more careful, not putting him on the field at this point, but they're obviously taking some precaution with him. The pats are going to be fine.

And Mark, as you pointed out, this is not trending well for your Browns next week. I mean, it wasn't anyways, but you're getting an angry Bill Belichick team that goes into Cleveland to face a talent poor Brown's roster. Yeah, I might skip that one. Maybe Greg can cover that game. I was already assuming you were covering it. Well, assume not. Let's move on.

I'm going to Jeremy Bergman or something. Bergo. Let's move on to the Meadowlands where Russell Wilson, yeah, the Jets now have a chance here. The bill's losing to get within a game after four at the quarter pole point. Didn't work out. Russell Wilson threw for over 300 yards and three touchdowns. And Ryan Fitzpatrick Marron through three more interceptions as the Seattle Seahawks

push the Jets to the brink and a 27-17 win at the Meadowlands and all that talk about Russell Wilson's ankle and knee. You could see when you watch this game that it did affect him in the sense that he was not looking to scramble. He was not the same as he always was at one point early in the game. Leonard Williams flashed in front of his face. The big cat was. Got to get the big cat back in the neck.

I remember in the 90s everybody was there was a James Big Cat Williams. there were a couple more big cat. Who's the big cat, Leonard Williams? Yeah. There was a big daddy. Big daddy, Wilkinson, right? Yeah, Dan Wilkinson. Big Daddy Carl Harris.

Yeah, the original big cat. I'm pretty sure it's been bandied about. I think it's a coach's term. A scouting term probably gets attached to players and it's a little archaic. Anyway, so the big cat, Lenny Williams gets up in Wilson's face and he's unable to move. He gets flattened like a pancake. But so that element of his game was gone. But I even respected Russell Wilson more after this game because,

forced to be essentially a pocket passer. He shredded the New York secondary on every level. And I really, I mean, he played an almost perfect game. Some of the throws he was making, our dear departed former producer TD used to say that Russell Wilson threw a sexy deep ball. Some of his touch passes in this game, uncoverable. There's nothing you can do about it. And what struck me in the most from this game was how much better the Seahawks were than the Jets.

I thought that, in fact, my lock of the week did not work out because, listen, maybe Wes is right. Don't lock it up. I had too much invested in them being my team, but I really did think the Jets coming off that KC loss were going to play well at home. And I don't even think they played horrifically. I just thought it was a better team bullying them. And maybe that goes a little bit towards all of us being on board with Seattle as the best team in the league before the season started. they look so good in this game. And Kristen Michael, again, did some things.

West, C.J. Spiller, straight off the scrap heap, had a touchdown and looked elusive and fast. So the Seahawks looked very good in this game. Russell Wilson, you have my respect, my friend. At last. Important. Yes, very important. C.J. Spiller's issue last year wasn't just his high end speed. It was that he didn't have dynamic cutting ability.

And when I saw that first 13-yard run that you alerted me to, his cutting abilities back. You could tell it on that run. That's a great pickup for a guy who's sitting out there free for the taking. Well, there's got to be 31. Right. There's got to be 31 other teams saying, wait, he was just sitting on his couch last week. Could we use that? The Jets, in fact, worked him out before he signed with Seattle.

Ouch. But, you know, I'm not saying like C.J. Spiller now is 2012 C.J. Spiller, but he looked good. Now, Jimmy Graham. No, go on. Jimmy Graham. Are you that inspired by C.J. Spiller? Just ignore me.

Okay. He's not playing for the Brown, so he's. Jimmy Graham. In the offseason, West, we talked about Torin-Peteller attendants. This is the year of the recovery from the Torin-Peteller tendon. Victor Cruz looks good in New York. And Jimmy Graham looks like Jimmy Graham, a second straight 100-yard gain. Scary good chemistry with Russell Wilson on two touch passes, like I alluded to earlier. He just looked really, really good.

And if you have actual Jimmy Graham in that offense, which we didn't even have last year, they didn't have things together before he got hurt last year, it gives them a whole other dynamic that makes them even more. dangerous that that is a game changer and that was when i watched that game finally over the weekend what really stuck out to me is their day their offense is totally different with jimmy graham being who he was i mean he was making some physical which is bizarre because last year their offense didn't take off until jimmy graham was hurt and marjohn lincoln's out of the lineup and it's especially useful now because they're not really getting much out of tyler locket they're not playing

him a ton which i'm a little surprised about but graham is making physical catches and that that offense it might do them a favor to have Wilson playing from the pocket for this part of the year. Can I ask you a question, Dan? I'm not jabbing at the Jets on any level because there are only so many quarterbacks to go around. But I feel that in general, when we see a mid-tier quarterback have a big season like Fitzpatrick last year, the caution has to be, we can't assume that's going to happen twice based on the history of not just Fitzpatrick, but players like that. We're seeing mid-level quarterbacks play well right now, but those teams still need to go get a better

solution at that position. Are you looking at Fitzpatrick's differently now? Do you think he can get himself out of this? Yeah, I still think. He's in a slump. He went through a slump last year that he came out of. It doesn't help that the schedule's been terrible. Or that Eric Decker's out. And Eric Decker who might be out for the year now. I don't know if he had a slump where he had four touchdowns and 10 interceptions in four games.

He's got a one to nine ratio in the last two weeks. He's undeniably struggling right now. But I'm not ready to throw in the Talon Ryan Fitzpatrick. And again, the Jets were in a weird spot in the off season because there wasn't a great option out there. Of course, of course. And you didn't want to turn to Gino Smith. And the Jets, and this what drives me crazy about the Jets, even if they wanted to say, okay, it's not working with Ryan in year two, let's get a young guy in there.

They can't even do that, even though they have two young guys on the roster. One's hurt, Bryce Petty, and the other guy is a total red shirt project. So the Jets are kind of in no-man's land, a quarterback, which is not surprising for a team. I wish Hakebberg would actually have to walk around wearing red clothing all the time. And I know where Grace is going to go here now and he's going to say, But let's put in Gino Smith. Nobody wants to see Gino's. I wasn't saying that.

I'm saying they, we'll see how Hakenberg's career goes. But I think in a league where a ton of rookies and first-year players at quarterback are playing and playing well, then you have to take some of the blame for having a red shirt quarterback that you take in the second round, two rounds ahead of that. I don't think you could do it. I don't think you could look at it that way because he was drafted as a total project, that guy that needed to be reworked from the ground up. Well, why in the second round?

I guess. Not to pile on. Yeah, what are we talking about now? I mean, yes, that was a questionable pick. The same thing's going on with the Rams. Sure. Right. Yeah, it's a league-wide thing.

It's not just a Jets thing. They just have a lot more way to go in development. It felt like you were... You guys want me to admit that the Jets' quarterback situation is terrible? Congratulations. I admit it. What do you want from me? To be fair, Dan, I don't think that we're actually picking on the Jets at all.

I talked about a lot of teams in this position. There's always a group and the Jets are one of those teams. That's all. Yes, the Jets have an issue a quarterback. Let's see if Fitzpatrick comes out of it But I don't know if he is going to have a chance Because the schedule gets worse Back-to-back road trips

Pittsburgh in Arizona And the Ravens And then the Ravens Let's see what Keith Hansis had to say this week The anger is starting to get through I think with him too His name is Keith He's dad

No doubt about it He's a big Jets fan What is he going to say About the name today What is he going to say About the game today Is the review of today's Jet's game

The Jets were totally out-blast, out-played, and out-coached The jet offense was tentative Fitzpatrick, although he played better this week through three picks including the one he telegraphed to Sherman That was the game change at the turn of the game

Jet defense was shredded I don't know where the Jet defensive coaches are because they must have not been watching the same game that we were watching because they made no adjustments. They were absolutely out-coached terribly. And lastly, the two consecutive timeouts in the fourth quarter, that was an embarrassment to the team that they did that.

I mean, come on, let's go. Where are you guys? All right? So, terrible game for the Jets. Thanks. Bye. I've heard that tone from my dad when I was growing up if I did something wrong. where I brought home, or he got a homework report sent to him in the mail.

Not for a B-minus. You don't want that, no, no. That, no, a homework. Did they have homework reports for you? Sure. No, homework. Greg, with a shaky callback on a bit there. Keith weighed in on his entrance music?

Yeah, he likes it. He's all in. He's got to be honored, right? Yeah, he's really into it, but I think we might be in the midst of a flame-out jet season, so we'll see what happens. Well, there was a darkness to that call. I mean, compared to even. when they lost week one, there was some

bounce in his step. They played well against a good team. This ventured into grim territory is a little concerned about your dad. Yeah. Yeah. It's not easy. It's not easy being a jet fan. Let's move on. Michael Crabtree's 23-yard touchdown reception. His third of the day from

Derrick Carr put the Raiders ahead and the defense followed with a score, followed that score with a stop, ensuring a 28, 27 win over the previously undefeated Ravens. Let's hear what that game winning touchdown sounded like Lassid. Car in the gun, two by two.

Derek low snap. Derek looking. Derek and a lot of it for the edge zone for Crabtree. Did he get both feet down? Touchdown! Raiders! Oh, Michael Crabtree did it again. Oh, my.

His third touchdown of the game. Greg Papa of KGMZ. The Oakland Raiders, my nominee is the team of ATL, our 3-1 with three road wins all on the East Coast. Even Lil Debbie chimes in today. So you still don't know who the team for the show should be? Oh, I know who should be. What do you think, Greg Rosenthal?

Anything that gets Lil Debbie back in our life, rapping about the Raiders. I'm all about it. Greg Papa is the official announcer of the round the NFL podcast. That much is for sure. Oh, that is an awesome. I mean, they're so excited because they couldn't be bigger football fans and they have had nothing to cheer about for about 15 years,

and they finally got a team that can win some games on the road. Three road wins. We mentioned in the preview of this game that Derek Carr is the hardest quarterback to sack right now. He's also not turning the ball over. He doesn't throw interceptions anymore either. So I think you see that, and then you see what he did today in the red zone.

I believe they were three for three in the red zone. That's a good quarterback coming together right now. It's a game the Ravens are going to be kicking themselves that they lost. At home, they have 20. 25 first downs to 13 for the Raiders. They outgain the Raiders by 150 yards. But the Raiders, to this point, except for the Falcons game,

have managed to be the better team in the fourth quarters of all these games where now they kind of, you get that feeling. Like, we're going to hit the plate at Crabtree. That was a beautiful throw and an incredible move by Crabtree. I don't know who he destroyed on that route. Cherise Wright. But if you love route running and route trees, And I know Maddie Harmon of the fantasy team, he could write probably a long form about that route that Crabtree ran for the third touchdown because it was so gorgeous.

I mean, this team and Wes, you pointed out how they were badly outgained as well in this game, 412 to 261. But that's another reason why I love this team and why I really do believe that they are a great nominee for the team of ATL because they are scrappy and they fight and they have now two of these great comeback wins. This time against an undefeated team. The Raiders are an exciting team, and that fan base is finally having something to get pumped up about. On the other side, the Ravens, you mentioned they have to be kicking themselves, Greg, but they have some great takeaways from this game. Terrence West should have been starting in week one. He goes over 100 yards today, look great in the second half of this game.

Steve Smith has no business, that 52-yard touchdown at 37-year-old coming off in Achilles, making that play. It's phenomenal how well Steve Smith is playing. Well, and these are two players that other teams didn't want at some point, and the Ravens have done an excellent job year after year of taking other people's trash. Terrence West was left for dead. The guy should have probably been starting earlier.

I think that was a respectful nod to Justin Fawcett, but they've got a good running back who looked nothing like this at his last two stops in Tennessee and Cleveland. And Kenneth Dixon is coming back too. That could be a good one-two punch. They didn't even have Foresat active for this game. It didn't deserve to be. And the mental toughness of the Raiders who, you know,

right before this drive happened, And everyone that was a Raiders fan and I saw some tweets out there, they were like, I can't believe the Raiders just chunked this game away so quickly. Chunked. The Raven scored two touchdowns out of nowhere in the fourth quarter in about two minutes.

And for the Raiders, just to be mentally tough and then go take it anyways, is impressive. Against a mentally tough team like the Raven. Yeah. This is a really good win for the Raiders. And the Ravens are still in good position. And this is almost maybe everything kind of averages out in the end. The Ravens stole a couple of games earlier in the season. Now they got one

stolen from them. But you got to, these teams, these are both potential playoff teams. Maybe one of them could fade, but they both look good to me. I watch this game. This was a good game. And the Ravens are a three-in-one team. They're not a four-and-o team, no matter how it played out. So they're in a fair place. Let's move on, gentlemen, to London. Hi, everybody in London. We have a lot of fans in England, which is in Europe. Hashtag geography. Nailed it. Blake Bortles

threw two touchdown passes and rushed for another. And the Jaguars defense made a final fourth quarter stop to clinch a 30 to 27 win at Wembley Stadium. Here is the call from Bob Lammy or Lammy of WFN. I hope it's Lammy versus Lammy. ESPN 1070. The Colts broadcast calling the last effort by Andrew Luck to get this team to victory. walk out of the gun takes the snap he looks he steps up he throws the ball is

dropped by dwayne allen and jacksonville wins poor bob lambie the main reason i even pulled him up is because he after they outlasted the chargers last week he dropped an accidental f-bomb live on the airwaves uh wanted to see if he'd do it again he didn't imagine but he was a brother-in-arms to you yeah well you know he's a professional uh but yeah so the cults now fall to one in three The Jaguars finally get that win, and the Colts are just a mess, Greg. They are, and they're going to be kicking themselves. These two teams really went back and forth trying to blow this game

and terrible game management. Andrew Luck watched his teammates drop at least six or seven passes. Anthony Costanzo was terrible at left tackle. The guys that they've paid a lot of money to are not playing well. Robert Mathis is not playing well for them. And the Jaguars, I know it was ugly, but they needed this win so badly. And they were up 17 points in the fourth quarter. And Gus Bradley and this team basically had a tutorial on how to blow a game in the fourth quarter

and some of the game management stuff at the end, which gave the ball back to Indianapolis, was so bad. They have to be breathing a sigh of relief because they needed this and maybe they can start playing better. I don't think it was a well-played game in just. Greg and I were texting at around six. I got, for some reason, got up at 6.20 in the morning and took a quick shower to watch this. The first half of this game... Tell me more about the shower.

Very nice water temperature. Cleanzed my entire system. It was great. Whoa. Something for the female listeners, right there. Not really. Don't think that's going to be doing much with anyone. But honestly, the first half of this game was one of the worst halves I have ever watched.

and I could only feel for the fans in London. That's right. I could only feel for the fans in Wembley because the television broadcast also, and this is a minor annoyance, most people wouldn't care about this, but whatever CBS was doing with their sleepy announcement of this game,

the sound was tempering Wembley to make it sound like people were watching golf. Wembley is an incredibly loud stadium when you're there in person. It's a great place to watch a football game. This broadcast made it seem like it was a poetry reading. It was ridiculous. Well, it was a bad game.

I don't know if London, then these games are so that's amazing i don't know if it's because these games you know because of the time change they get there on friday who knows they're doing event saturday it was sloppy drops penalties not a lot of offense even the jaguar's scoring drives were penalty driven with three minutes left in the third quarter i'm going to give you some cold stats at that point in the game they had 88 total yards and 73 penalty yards at that point in the game andrew luck had dropped back to pass 20 times, the Colts had gained 10 yards on those 20 dropbacks. So the Jaguars were playing Gus Bradley's dream game for three quarters,

kind of strangling the ball, you know, some five-minute drives on offense, playing great on defense. It looked like everything they wanted to be, and then kind of everything blew up in the fourth. It feels like we've been watching the same movie for four years now. The Colts can't run the ball. Andrew Luck takes too many hits. They don't move the ball until late in the third quarter or the fourth quarter,

when they go no huddle up tempo, and that's what they need to make their base offense. Well, here's the thing, though. They don't know what they are because they're so afraid that their defense is bad that I think they feel like they have to run the ball to protect Andrew Luck. And that's the thing. They have run the ball really well in the first half. They've been trying to do that for four years, and they've never once protected Andrew Luck. Right.

So I don't think there's an answer to it. They're trying to keep their defense off the field. They've actually, Gore's had two big first halves in a row. and it's like it doesn't It doesn't really matter Than he did last year Right it doesn't really matter Because they are a passing team

That's when they're at their best Is when they're in the hurry up Did Gus Bradley save his job? Yeah for the rest of the season I don't think this was a team That was going to fire Gus Bradley midseason Largely because unless you're enamored By Doug Marone

There's not a lot of people that you shift Into the head coaching spot For the rest of the year Well they have the Bears and Titans In two of the next three games too If Dwayne Allen didn't drop that pass And the Colts after a game

another game management mess up by Gus Bradley in the final two minutes blow a 17 point fourth quarter lead and they go on four I'm just saying technically when you bring do interim coach there needs to be a logical person it would have to be Doug Morone I think I mean they had a drive that took eight seconds off the clock with about two minutes left that included a one yard out to Marquis Lee also one albino tiger one thing marked Doug Marone does not want to move up he doesn't want a battlefield I think he's probably perfectly happy He leveraged six figures in the shadows.

No, he said, I'm the head coach of the bills. Now, I don't want to do that. I want to be the offensive line coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars under Gus Bradley. Much more preferable. That was his call. Certainly not the first year we took it to the limit. Have you, though? I don't think Blake Borders threw a single pass that went over 20 yards today either.

I want to hear about. They're like coaching around Blake Bordles at this point, which is the reverse of what he was last season. I want to hear about Jags Ladies' Beach House again. It's not in Miami. It's kind of a little outside. On the beach. By the way, this periscope thing, periscope thing does not work out in the studio.

Parascope those showers Sunday morning. That's all, Mark. Would you be up for that? Definitely not. Nor do I think anyone who has periscope would be up for it. All right. Fair enough. Just spitfall in here.

Moving on. Find different programming. The Chicago Bear has got 111 yards on the ground from Jordan Howard. And can I get a home improvement for that one? No. And 111 yards through the air. from Eddie Royal in a 17-14 win over the Detroit Lions. Mark Sessler, how did John Fox's team bring Matt Stafford back down to Earth?

Well, the one question we raised about the Lions last show, we've had people pepper us with tweets, make the Lions the team of ATL. Their offense is so exciting. It's because every couple of weeks you get this. And I think that the Bears, Vic Fangio is an underrated defensive coordinator who is doing as much as he can with a banged-up defensive roster. and befuddled Stafford for almost the entire game until they scored a late touchdown.

And on the flip side, Brian Hoyer, who is... Cleveland Springste. Well, we know what he is, but you know what he is? He's better than Jay Cutler, frankly. I'm not saying from a skill set angle, but he did not make mistakes today. And that's the opposite of Jay Cutler. Was he better last week?

He has a 103.3-3-passer rating to Jay Cutler 75.7. And this is... It's just like, what was it, three years ago? Josh McCown came in and outplayed Jay Cutler. Well, it's kind of a paraphrasing of Bill Parcell saying, if you have Jay Cutler and Brian Hoyer as your quarterback so you don't have a quarterback. What do we even argue about it? Because neither guy is really going to take you to the promise.

It's a fair point. The one thing we just talked about a Ravens team that self-scouts well, and yes, they started Terrence West this week, and the Bears started Jordan Howard, and why did it take so long for both teams to make that decision? But I will say this. The Ravens have a great track record. that the Bears couldn't have seen that Jordan Howard is a bigger, fiercer, better running back than the boring crew they had in front of him up till now.

Then I question everything that's happening in Chicago from the GM to the coach. No, because this bit, look at Bears fans, there's a bunch of good franchises out there that are crap right now, and the fans have to deal with it. Longtime fans were fathers pass it on to their sons, Jets, Bears, Browns, other teams, and it's frustrating to watch Chicago do what they've done. Today, they snuck it. I wouldn't say they snuck a win, but this is going to happen at some point. Leave it to the Lions to blow it.

Such a disappointing start for the Lions. I like it work. Well, listen, I read Kevin Patcher's write up, and I could see he's a Lions fan underneath it all. And like, why is he often in a bad mood? I think I understand why. Why is he lifting weights that are way beyond his body capacity? Because he's got rage. He's got to get it out.

It's like Incredible Hulk's a girl. He's got a right to be rageful. I mean, they bench Golden Tate for Andre Roberts for seconds of this game. He had four targets, one catch for one yard. It's brutal that this Lions team is one and three. They should have beat the Titans, and then you go to Chicago and lose this game. You had it all open for you to have a nice start to the season.

That's what bad teams do. They have one bright spot. Carrie Hider. Oh, baby. Up to five sacks, one in each game so far this year. The first player since 1983, William Gay, for the Lions to do that. And the first woman to play in the NFL. Carrie Hider?

Yeah. He's not a one. woman. Oh, okay. I will dig in on my tape a little bit next week to rectify the male female issue there. Let us know what your findings are. Okay. Well, I already know what I need to find out. That's a man. Moving forward. So far, so good for Bill O'Brien as the Texans play caller, Brock Osweiler threw a pair of touchdown passes. And Lamar Miller went over 100 yards total in total offense and a 2720 win over the Tennessee Titans. Chris Wessling. There was no post-Jay hangover in Houston on Sunday. No, there was. If they controlled this game from the outset, let the Titans back in a little bit with DeMarco Murray. But Will Fuller, the difference in this game. He is, to me, he reminds me of a kind of a mashup of Deshaun Jackson and Percy Harvin.

He's a bigger Deshaun Jackson, and he's got the speed. They put him on a punt return, and he had the difference-making touchdown right there with the game on the line. How'd Marcus Marietta and Osweiler look in this game, Battle of the young AFC south quarterbacks? It's a big game for Osweiler. Osweiler came out and had a really impressive opening drive, looked better. Still looks like Brock Osweiler, but he looked much better this week. Marcus Marietta looks the same as he has the entire season.

He threw another, you know, head-scratching interception, throwing across his body on the run. And maybe Delaney Walker should have made a better effort for it. But Mario da, they tried a few downfield throws this time, and he hit one to Richard Matthews, but it's still a passing game where he doesn't look comfortable. I know the Titans say they want to be this smash mouth type team, and they've done it well for brief stretches,

but they need Will Fuller. They need to go do what the Texans did last off season, which is add speed and downfield elements to their game, because you can look pretty running a disguised running game and dress it up and drape it up in a bunch of interesting pre-snap movements. But bottom line, teams are seeing right through that at this point, and for weeks in a row, it's the same thing with the Titans. The complete reversal of any preseason narrative,

the Titans are the ultimate case here because not only was Mariota looking good, you had this idea that this one-two punch in the backfield, Derek Henry, three attempts for nine yards. Was that game script or was that just poor usage? I think they see DeMarco Murray as one of the best backs in the league. Which he is. And they don't want to play Derek.

They should be playing Derek Henry Moore. They should, but the running backs are not their problem. That's for sure. The DeMarco Murray move is a home run rate. now. I mean, he's playing, he's playing fantastic. It's their defense. It's the passing game. It's everything else. The coaching. Let's move on, guys. The Washington Redskins jumped out to two-score leads survived. A brown surge, then took advantage of several Cleveland miscues and a 31-20 win in where, Greg? Landover, Maryland. Very good. Landover. Mark, Washington has righted the ship

after a terrible two-week start. Are they any good? Well, I'd be concerned about the Redskins for a variety of reasons. They looked in the first couple minutes of this when they jumped out to this 14-0 lead. This was in a seven-minute stretch where Jordan Reed had two touchdowns. And I said to Wes, game over, because I thought that Washington... For a second, I thought this was up in the air here. Well, and Cleveland climbed back into this and killed themselves with turnovers.

But the Redskins, when they can fry a bad secondary, they can produce yardage. points. But Kirk Cousins, I think the Cousins in the offense, he threw a terrible pick on the next possession that allowed Cleveland, which had scored previously to tie to drive down the field and tie the game 14-14. Suddenly, this was a game. And if you're the Washington Redskins and if you're their opponent, you want to find out how to beat them, you run at their soft-bellied run defense. Isaiah Crowell, who was not a very good running back last year, is a completely different player in Hugh Jackson's offense and was the centerpiece that they just hammered at Washington's defense over and over.

I've never seen a Browns running back have that much space to run with. That's a big issue for Washington, but they took care of business. Cleveland killed themselves with three turnovers in the second half when they had a chance to take command of this game. And they're a young team that does not know how to close. They have to learn how to close games. They have the lead going into the fourth quarter. That's right. You know, the Bills and Redskins are linked to me in that after week two,

both were huge storylines as teams that seemed to be teetering on the brink of just a complete disaster. season. Neither team has lost since. And the Redskins, you know, you can't go crazy. No lollipops for beating the Browns here. But again, they have now crawled out of the funk in Kirk Cousins, like Mark said, who played well in this game. He was a guy that was getting like, you know, talk from his own team that was getting out into the press.

So that shows a little bit of fortitude there to test it, to test, what do they call it? Testicular fortitude to quote Gorilla Monsoon by Kirk Cousins. I mean, Cousins, I don't want to, your point is. taken. I don't want to say he played well. I think that his numbers look better than what he was. But that said, Matt Jones carved up Cleveland in the second half. The Browns are short-handed. They're just not a very good team on defense when in terms of star players. They have none. I think Matt Jones has run pretty well. They need other players like Jameson Crowder and Matt Jones and Jordan Reed and Sue Cravens on their defense to be special because it's like we

know who Kirk Cousins is going to be. It's not like he's going to suddenly change and be way better or way worse. He's there. He's there. If I told you, though, that Cleveland would have held James and Crowder and Deshawn Jackson to combine three catches for 26 yards. I would have liked Cleveland's chances to hang around in this game, but it was Jordan Reed. Cleveland's one of the worst teams in the league against tight ends, and they used Jordan Reed the right way today. This is the most frustrated I've seen you after a Brown's loss, probably in a year and a half. Yeah, I was surprised. I thought the same thing. When I look at the team, Terrell prior is must-see TV. Isaiah Crowell, I believe, is second in the NFL in rushing. Duke

Johnson is one of the best third downbacks in the league. Gary Barnage is a Pro Bowl tight end. Corey Coleman is a dynamic young receiver. I think for the first time there's really some promising signs, at least for the offense. Yeah, I'm not like, I was seething in the newsroom largely, and this is just an honest comment. It's a hard place to watch football when your team is going through embarrassing stretches, and there's people all over the place. You three know not to say a word to me, but it's just general. I get it. It's just basically that the environment we're in. But if it were real life, if you were at home, you turn the TV off and go, take a long walk.

You got another six hours of raging through games and analysis where it's like your day has been spoiled. And I'm not upset at the Browns because I agree with you. Hugh Jackson has done a good job coaching. But he didn't get out coach today. But the turnovers, when you're a team with out-star players, you have to play perfect football to beat teams on the road. You can't give up turnovers. You were annoyed by that fumble call. Well, the fumble call to Duke Johnson is very suspicious.

I'm annoyed because, you know, you could have Corey Coleman on the field. You could have Josh Gordon if he had his life together. It's like potential being taken away week after week. You were angry today. Well, I'm how much, because you know what? People are like, oh, that's a pretty good game. Like, how excited am I supposed to be about being 0 and 4, the last winless team in the league?

If you're a fan of that, it's been too long. My theory, yeah, and also you locked up the Browns this week. Well, right. You thought this was going to happen. And I, listen, all I did was right back to Redston's fans, good for you. I'm happy for you. You won the game. Congratulations.

But, you know, I mean, come on. Give me a break on Twitter. Well, we haven't. Am I crazy that? Love you, Mark. Yeah, the tweets, I think, is what probably put it over the top. Have we even had a show since Josh Gordon checked himself? We have not.

Rehab. And then probably just. Oh, we did. It happened live. Mark broke it. Just this biggest story. That's right. That the Brown's plans to release him because that is a significant chapter ending.

in Gordon's career. Well, I don't think they should. I don't like that. But that's our report. You want to talk about it? He'll wind up on the Ravens and go for 2,000 yards. Like, I can feel it. That's the N. Rappaport's report.

The Browns gave this guy so many chances. It's just that he's going to fold right into another organization. And that's the fear because it's out there as a real fear. He's still in the preseason, he looks unbelievably awesome. Or he never plays another snap because he just can't get it together. Or he, and I know, whatever, we've discussed the Browns enough. But, I mean, it's, there is a fear. fear of that, yes. Let's move on, guys. Drew Brees through two touchdown passes in the final

five minutes of play, rallying the New Alden Saints to a 35-34 win on Sunday against the San Diego Chargers, the Chargers who cannot close a game. We're going to talk about a team that can't close. Chargers blew a 13-point lead with two killer turnovers in the second half. Mr. Rosenthal, Greg Rosenthal, are the Chargers the best one-and-three team in NFL history? Sure. Absolutely. They're the most frustrating team. I think there could be in the entire league to root for right now. And there's plenty of candidates. He says this to Jets and Browns fans. I see his point, though. No, but it's from another angle. The Chargers, I was banging this drum last week. And then what do they do? They got a 13 point lead with the ball, not just in the second half, with seven minutes to go. You got the ball, you got a 13 point lead, and you're playing backups all across. the field for the Saints. What do you do? Melvin Gordon fumbles the ball. You give up a touchdown.

Okay, we're still up six. We got the ball. There's under five minutes left. The very next play, Travis Benjamin catches a Philip Rivers pass with no one around him. He just drops it like he's got money on the game or something. Whoa. Whoa. Be smirching. I'm joking. You said like that, not that that's the case. Yeah, of course not. He was really distraught after the movie. I don't know, bro. He was on the, he was on the bench with his head and his hands. I mean, it hurt him and the saints of course he wasn't on the phone with his booking no the saints of course go right in uh for a touchdown even with all that you get the ball back to philip rivers plenty of time left a time out only need a field goal to win they go backwards and he winds up throwing an interception

the way they lose these games is is just unreal so we can't even pin this one on mike mccoy's penchant for following the mike mccarthy game plan with a lead i've heard a lot of mike mccoy like You got to fire him now. It's like his two players fumbled. And the problem is his defense, and John Pagano has been there, I believe, the whole time with McCoy, has a penchant for never making a stop when he could. It's not like they had to give the Saints those two touchdowns. If your name's Pagano, your job is on the line.

Well, and you don't fire Mike McCoy when that would make Ken Wisenhunt probably your head coach. What does that solve? I mean, now, I'm saying. You could put, I mean, you could put together quite a painful sizzoril of bad losses. The last two years for this team. The Phillip Rivers era, and some of it goes on the quarterback, of course. Not in this game. Just, you know, this team has had so many terrible losses.

Like the last two years, we're going to go back to that New England playoff game. Some of those playoff losses to the Jets. This team knows how to blow a game. My God. It's crazy because they could be four and oh. Greg, one thing, because we saw, you know, New Orleans get carved up through the air and on the ground against Atlanta, which is obviously a very good offensive team. but I'm looking at Melvin Gordon, 19 carries 36 yards, and a 1.9 average.

Two touchdowns, that's fine. I'm sure that came in, what, short yardage work, whether, but what happened with him today? The Saints' defense held them to 346 yards. It's not like they kept them off the scoreboard or anything. So I'm not going to give them too much credit for that. They did make the stop when it mattered. The defense helped win the game, the second half, which is saying a lot. After giving up 34 points.

Yeah. Well, but when you're talking about the Saints, though, this is progress. That's a big step. Monday night, they were an embarrassment in their own building. To say the least. And now they... West is making a face. Your intensity mark is scary.

Nick Clarely's like the stay puff marshmallow, man. The bigger he gets, the heavier he gets, the more intimidating he is. And what might be the final... That's true. Bringing Nick Fairley to New Orleans has been a move... He swallowed the skipper. We give him a lot of... We give the Saints front of us a lot of, you know, a lot of guff around here.

But it was a move of evil genius. let's let fairly go to all the New Orleans restaurants, stick a feed bag on him to whatever he wants and suddenly he's... Now you can't block him, he's 400 pounds. That's who he was always going to be. They're just letting him embrace his destiny and away we go. That's team building in New Orleans.

Let's move on, gentlemen. The Denver Broncos are 4-0 and cruising, a easy 27-7 win over Greg's Boys, the Bucks were in trouble in Tampa, a game in which Trevor Simeon of the Broncos went down with a shoulder injury, Looked serious, but it looks like they're saying it's a day-to-day injury, and he could have even gone back in this game if it wasn't a laffer.

But Paxton Lynch stepped in. Looks like he fared pretty well. And the Broncos just kind of cruise against Greg, a team in Tampa, which might not be very good. They don't look good at all. And this is going to be remembered by Akib Talib when he retires. It's probably one of the greatest moments of his football life. I mean, he's had some great ones.

He won a Super Bowl. but he had two interceptions in the first 20 minutes of this game that were both incredible interceptions where he baited James Winston into making bad throw. The Broncos scored two touchdowns on short fields and Akeep Taleb, a guy that got drafted there, had a lot of ups and downs with this organization. That's what happens when you give up on troubled players.

Well, they had no choice. In Taleb's case, they really did have no choice, I believe, with the circumstances and everything around him and everything that happened, but to go back in there and basically serve your team up to win, that's pretty sweet for him. Well, first of all,

we couldn't have been more wrong about the Broncos in August. This is one of the best teams in the league and we picked them not to make the playoffs. Also, thank you, by the way. Summertime hot takes. Thank you, you geniuses for not taking me up on my Broncos

will not make a playoff bet. I'm already going to be out six sandwiches because of the buck. Well, at that time, maybe we took pity on you. At that time, we were concerned that not only Mark Sanchez would start games, but a guy named Trevor Simeon that none of us trusted,

and Paxton Lynch, who people said was not ready for prime time. Instead, John Elway, perhaps the best general manager in football right now, has found not one quarterback but two. John Elway, pulling the strings. And Gary Kubiak. Now, John Elway made that higher, which was a very surprising higher at the time. Gary Kubiak gets these guys ready to play. Let's hear about Paxton Lynch.

You were saying in the newsroom, you don't know if. Maybe they say Trevor Simeon, sit this one out. Greg in the newsroom called Paxton Lynch, in quotes, the best quarterback he had ever seen. That's true. He has got a live arm that you don't see. I don't know. He might have the biggest arm in the NFL.

He's certainly in the mix of just fastballs. I mean, just the ball coming out of his hands is incredible. Does he give that offense something they don't have when Simeon's in it? Sure. I think he's going to be able to push the ball down the field. He looked pretty comfortable under center, which he didn't do a lot of in college. He also missed on some three. for sure in this game. All I mean is that I don't think Gary Kubiak is going to mind having him

in the lineup. If Simeon's kind of iffy, let's give this guy some game reps. I don't think they minded this situation at all. He comes in with a couple score lead. It's an easy situation. Let's get our first round pick in the mix. Yeah, it's the new model with rookie quarterbacks. Not we sit them for three years, but we sit them for a month and a half, get them practice time, get them acclimated with the NFL, and then they look ready to roll. Well, I think the one thing we have learned is that there is no one way to do it. It totally depends on what they did in college. And I understand Jared Goff, who didn't even go under the huddle and took all his plays from a cue card on the sideline,

is not as close to a guy like Dak Brascott or Carson Wentz. And for the Broncos, it's kind of like, who cares who's that quarterback? They proved that last year. They won a Super Bowl with some of the worst quarterback play in the league. Their defense is so good. It's incredible. I mean, it's one of the best defenses we've ever seen. last year and they've probably been better this year.

Derek Wolfe was insane in this game. I think five QB hits was all over. And that was the other part of the logic going into the season that the defense rarely does a historic defense go back to back like that and looks like they have not lost a step. So the defense is just as good. They're better. They're better.

And C.J. Anderson looks like he's the good C.J. Anderson this year. Add it all up. Broncos are four and O. Added up. All right. James Winston, by the way, way too many turnovers. Well, it doesn't help when you don't have Doug Martin in there and Charles Simmons was banged up today. That's the, like every quarterback that plays the Broncos, he was a pinata.

I think he was hit 13 times the first 29 times he would drop back. Well, I think we found out that Charles Sims is a 1B like we expected. He's not a guy who's going to. You won't be the brother. He is a one-horse runner. He's a Robin, not a Batman. He's hurt them the last two weeks. He's made boneheaded plays, bouncing it, he fumbled again this week.

He don't saddle Charles Sims up for 20 carries between. the tackles, you get them on the perimeter. I'm sorry, Greg. What about the bucks? Are you feeling down? Look, I'm going to be watching this team and be rooting for them. They're not a team that was ever going to win 11 games. They're never going to be the team of ATL anyway.

You can come over to my house. I'm going to turn the lights out, sit in my backyard and drinking an entire bottle of wine. Did you feel Mark a little justified in your viewpoint on the Buccaneers in their stadium after all the tweets you got today? I did. And, oh, by the way, two weeks in a row, you have to postpone the game. game because of weather? Slow down Tampa with your weather. Can we get it together? Either it's ridiculous sunlight on the field, which is impossible to watch, or you're delaying the game because of thunder and lightning. Well, you want to talk about ridiculous. No, I think this is logical. Let me

just make a point here. You guys are ranting and raving about the sunlight in Tampa. Now you're ranting and raving about the lightning in Tampa. Yeah, that's right. We're upset about both. You know, pick a lane. I don't even care about the lightning. I vote for more rain in Tampa. Yeah. I never had that big of an issue with the sun. It's just that their road uniforms to make me physically ill. All right, let's move on. Which takes us to Sunday night football. Oh, Sunday night.

Yes, in front of Al, Chris, and the world. Bob's there too, a half time just for a little bit. Did a great job tonight, Bob Costas. Yeah, Bob Costas was there too. He's under contract. Phenomenal job. The Pittsburgh Steelers whooped up on the Kansas City Chiefs. Let's pull back the curtain a little bit.

We're sitting here. We taped the first part of the podcast, the main part of the show, where we went over all the other Sunday games. Usually we settle in as a group and we enjoy the second half of the Sunday night game and we come back after the game's over and knock it out. But it's 36 nothing at one point, and we decided, you know, it's a fourth quarter. Let's just record this damn thing. Let's get out of here.

Let's not give the Chiefs the respect of waiting until the end of this game. So as we speak, it's 36-7. with 11 minutes to play but what else do you need to know that the Pittsburgh Steelers dominant five touchdowns from Ben Rothelberger in fact 36-7 looks too close how do we figure out these teams

the Steelers I believe had gone 13 straight possessions without scoring a touchdown before they went five straight possessions with a touchdown in this game and I can't figure out who these teams are well it's impossible to gauge emotion from a football

team and it's like you don't put that into the analysis before the game. But whatever the Steelers were coming off, a big physical win at home against a division rival, they really wanted to beat Cincinnati. They didn't have it the next week. And it seemed like they were woken up by that.

And Mike Tomlin was talking about it all week that this is going to be the night that we come back. So they're the Christian, Kristen Michael, a football team? I don't know. I mean, Dan talked about watching. Really, Sidney? I got to hear her again.

why don't we just play that on loop 50 times give the people what they want i mean dan talked about the jets i had nothing to do with no i know going up against yeah i'm sure you did going up against seattle and just saying it's it's a litmus test you're not there yet if you're the jets and i talked about the chiefs before the season uh over confidently as an a fc championship type team that would probably fall but get to the final four well nonsense because no matter what happens from here on out in a game like this you find out that the Chiefs, after all their pretty words and all their off-season constructions, you aren't there. Well, you know what?

You waste three hours of my time. Rough day for Mark. Same thing, though. Sometimes you just throw a game out. And I think that the Chiefs got overwhelmed here. They're down 22-0 in a blink. Throughout the Steelers last game, too. Well, you're also playing in a gully washer.

It's a gully washer, which is a driving rainstorm for people, not from the south or from east Cincinnati strangler but no sometimes you just throw everybody every team deserves a mulligan I think the Patriots can get a mulligan for today sure I think the I think the Jets last week I thought it was a mulligan I think the Chiefs this week

is a mulligan I'm not ready to write them off the Browns get 16 mulligans 16 yes they do you're right the Chiefs it's not the final judgment on them tonight but I already looked at the Chiefs as a team that has refused to enter that top tier of four or five six teams, they're on the fringe, and at some point, you've got to make a statement on the road

against a good other team. It's not a close game they lost. They got leveled. It's not one game, though, that you need to look at for the Chiefs. It's four for their offense. I thought their offense was going to come into this year on another level. I would say their offense has been significantly worse this year than they were a year ago. They only had 10 points offensively against the Jets until late in that game. had nothing to do. A ton of turbos against the Texans. So they need to be an offense first team.

I know that sounds weird, but they need to be better on offense. They haven't been great. Let's see what happens on Jamal Charles. He did get on the field in this game. One carry by the time we were midway through the fourth quarter here. So they're just easing them back in. I know they did damage without him last year. But I want to see how that goes.

I think, you know, on the road, Sunday night, Pittsburgh, Lavian Bell back. Pittsburgh coming off an embarrassing loss. Maybe on Bell, big numbers, just like he always did. Yeah, he looked good. It just felt like a buzzsaw, and it reminded us, okay, the Steelers had a bad week, but they're still the Steelers, and the Chiefs, that's going to always be a hard game, and the Chiefs just weren't up to it. That's why I saw this.

So it just feels like the league, this is something we were mentioning to each other, that whatever happens in week three, week four, has zero bearing almost on week five outside of a couple teams in the league that are extremely consistent. I mean, the results, the pendulum swing from one Sunday to the next is wild. It's a completely unpredictable sport So I'd never like predicting like one game I thought yeah For a second

This game of nothing else Backed me out of thinking Watching last week I kind of was watching this Chiefs team And I saw Tyree Kill Who's really fun to watch And then your boy Marcus Peters Who's really fun to watch

Eric Barry's come out of the gate swinging Looking pretty good this year Travis Kelsey's fun to watch And I had this thought over the weekend Are the Chiefs actually fun to watch And then here we go. Welcome to Greg's weekend. And poor Alan Chris, by the end of the third quarter,

they're connecting Antonio Brown to Arnold Palmer, and then they're talking about Vince Scully, the great Dodgers announcer also announced the catch game. I mean, they're emptying out their barrel for things to talk about, but such is life when the game is this far out of reach. Well, this is where you make your money as a broadcaster. and, I mean, you know, bad ones can't get through it. These two did a fair job, and we won't need to find out if they continue to do it

because we're going to stop watching it with much of the fourth quarter left. The conversation between Alan Chris was not nearly as meandering as the one in this podcast studio for the past hour. Yeah, okay. So enough is enough. That is all of the Sunday action. There's one more game. A game I'm looking forward to the New York Giants of Minnesota Vikings on Monday,

night the next time you'll hear from us will be Tuesday where we'll recap that game preview the Thursday night affair between the Cardinals and Niners and have some more fun like we always do we have fun together that's kind of what we do that's one of our things fun together give us a good primetime game football gods they need football needs it right NFL let's give the fans some some good primetime action hopefully it happens disappointed tomorrow and that's it for today's show yeah oh number I think you're about to do it. I was going to say, speaking of having fun together. Yeah, I was going to say, one last note,

my buddies made a movie, flock of dudes. You've probably seen me honking about it on Twitter, and I know the guys have also tweeted some things out. It's available on iTunes, so you can check it out, and also in select theaters. So check out the flock of dudes on Twitter for any of the information on that. It's a good movie. Very good.

I broke my 10-year drought of not going to theater to see this movie, And I was swiftly rewarded for it. Yes. It was a good movie. Eric Andre is in it. Just a great cast. Hannibal Burris, Jeff Ross, all the really good names in comedy. George Clooney is in there for a couple of years.

Murder's Row comedy. Yeah, no Clooney. I feel like we could get sued for that. Okay. But it's a funny movie. Go see it. Fined. iTunes or in theaters.

That's it for the round of the NFL podcast. You back off, George, if you're just suing a little podcast. We don't need you. It would be great for us to get sued by like a massive movie star. Mr. Flames. economics class takes a really big hit on that one he's tied into this all right that's it this is dan hansis signing up for the quiet storm the mailman the boss and la cid behind the glass till tuesday

Hey, everybody, Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move to Six, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else. It's everything you need to understand the why behind what happens on Sundays. Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Sticks podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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