NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - NFL ATL: Week 4 Recap

Episode Date: September 30, 2013

A room full of heroes, Gregg Rosenthal, Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler and Chris Wesseling break down all of the NFL Week 4 action. Don’t miss the analysis and key takeaways from each game. Join the conversation on Twitter: @NFL_ATL or #NFLATL.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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Welcome back to another edition of the Around the League podcast. My name is Dan Hansis and I am joined as always. by a room full of heroes. Chris Wessling, Mark Sessler, and Greg Rosenthal. What up, boys? Hey, Dan. What's up? Week four, here we are.

We're ready. Sunday night. Nice week. Nice Sunday of action. What's your takeaway so far of Sunday's games? I'm just excited for Mark. I mean, it takes a while. Mark, like, watched last week's Browns win with total stoicism.

You wouldn't have known he was a fan at all. This game, he really would have. and let any optimism shine through until that final touchdown. And now my vision of the Browns on Thursday night football this Thursday NFL network, they win that game three and two in their sole possession of first place. Listen, I think a lot of people, and I appreciate the enthusiasm, but anyone that's lived through the Cleveland Brown's experience for a couple of decades is naturally there's some caution there.

All right, we're going to get into that. But let's, why do we do what we've been doing? Okay, we're going to go through all the games Sunday. As every week, Greg assigns us all to different games. So each of us will talk about the games that we watched closely. And then the rest of us will chime in with, you know, substantial comments or maybe just kind of fill our comments. We don't know what we're going to give you from an episode to episode basis. So we'll see how that plays out.

But let's start with what I think we all agreed on was the best game or maybe the most important game of the day. The Seattle Seahawks down 20 to 3 in here. Houston, come back and knock off the Houston Texans, 23, 20, and overtime, and a game that, you know, changed in an instant on the Richard Sherman pick six with less than three minutes to play. Greg, you watch that game. What did you take out of that? Well, I'm looking at my notes here, and, you know, pretty far down the page, and in this game, I wrote, beat down of epic proportions, most impressive performance by any team this year.

And that was the Houston Texans about two-thirds of the way through the third quarter. The Seahawks had no offense whatsoever. Houston was just dominating the game. And I just didn't see it turning around because the Seahawks had no passing game. And then for a variety of reasons that we can get into, Seattle just pulled off an incredible comeback. And it was to me probably the most fascinating game I can remember this year. to me that was when Sherman also had that when he had the pick six and he ran it back in to me that was the oh shit newsroom moment of the day where

everyone reacted to it in unison and it was like whoa what just happened here this game that the Texans were in complete complete control of all of a sudden it got turned on his head and then it came down to this to me anyway Matt Schaubb your back is now against the wall the world the walls are crumbling down you need to now fix this after you put your team in this hole. And what does he do? He's unable to move the ball at the end of the fourth quarter in overtime and they eventually get beat. In fairness, he played better than Russell Wilson for the whole day. And there were a lot of things that happened. The game turned on Ben Tate's fumble, which set up a field goal to make it 20 to 6. That was midway through

the third quarter. Tate never comes back in the game really. And I think that hurt the Texans. The Seahawks had one of the best drives of the season, a 98-yard drive where they overcame A second and 20, a second and 24, a fourth down near the goal line where Russell Wilson made a defender miss and picked it up. If they tackle Russell Wilson there, the game is over. But people are going to forget after that happened, Russell Wilson threw an awful pick. They had no passing attack whatsoever. So the difference was, I mean, to me it was a defensive win, and it was Shah making another bad decision. He's made a lot of them this year.

This game seems to me like a microcosm of the Texans 2012 season. they fly out of the gates with Cushing he gets injured they fall apart Shob we hear all about we're going to get Hopkins and Ben Tate involved

it looks to me just looking at the box score it was the same old Texans offense that relies on Andre Johnson Aryan Foster and a little bit of Owen Daniels and Shob can't get it done in the end

no wide receiver play plays down the field nothing longer than 17 yards for those guys and I was just taken by the fact that Seattle can win different types of ways. You said microcosma 2012 season.

Microcosm of this season. This is an uneven team, Houston. They're a very good defense. They're not a very good offense, and they have problems at quarterback with the decision-making. And I had said on Friday, I thought that if Seattle went into Houston

and knocked Houston in the mouth and came away with a win, I would feel really confident they were the NFC juggernaut. I still think they're the best team in the NFC, but I really think this was a case where the Texans blew this game rather than the Seahawks won it.

One last point is, Caddle could not protect Russell Wilson whatsoever, and they lost another offensive lineman today. They're missing three or four starters, and I think that's going to be a big problem for them. They have not been able to throw the ball at all this year. That's the second game they haven't been able to protect him, right? The Carolina game, he was under pressure most of the game. Right, and they could do nothing conventionally from the dropback. They had one drive.

They really only had one good offensive drive, and that was about it. Okay, so let's spin through the rest of the early games. We'll start in Buffalo, where the bills gave me my money. my second hero pick in three weeks of the bills. They took down the Ravens 2320. Chris Wesleyan watched that game where Joe Flacco threw a career worst five interceptions and finished 25 of 50 passing for 347 yards and two TDs. Wes.

I think the biggest takeaway from this, this is one of those games where you can look at the box score and see what happened. The bills rushed 55 times for 200 yards. The Ravens rushed nine times for 24 yards. And that was the story of the game. If you want to go a little bit deeper, the Ravens still have issues with their offense. Tandon Doss, who couldn't even make final cuts, joined with Dallas Clark. Both had nine targets.

Clark signed off the couch, you know, in August. So this is a problem for them. They need guys like Marlon Brown and Deontay Thompson to play bigger roles. They couldn't run the ball. And they turned the ball over so much because Flacco was under duress. The offensive line has kind of gotten off the hook. They haven't gotten as much attention for how poorly they've played all year. They haven't passed blocked or run blocked well.

And I think that's just the Ravens' offense is really kind of holding this team back right now. What did you see from E.J. Manuel? It's the same thing he's been doing all year. He's not out of control bad, but they didn't win this game because of E.J. Manuel. He had a couple good connections with Robert Woods, and he missed Stevie Johnson's wide open in the end zone on one play. that was just a horrible throw. All right, let's move on to Cleveland.

Mark Sessler, we touched on it at the opening of the show. 17-6 win. Brian Hoyer secures that starting job now with two more touchdowns. Got to be feeling good now, Sessler, don't you? Sissler. I think the story of the game for the second week in a row, honestly, is Cleveland's defense. I mean, look at Bengals. We're talked about as the most talented team offensively in the AFC North,

if not high up in the AFC to begin with. They were completely shut down today. Completely shut down. This might have been Andy Dalton's worst game in a long time. He got nothing done. He threw for about 69 yards in the first half. Joe Hayden covered A.J. Green like a blanket. And it just, you know, Wes laughed at the game, pointed out that they had,

the Bengals didn't have a run over six yards. I don't know. I guess Cleveland's defense to me looks very legitimate. And, you know, they held the Ravens to a touchdown until they ended up losing that game. They shut them down for, you know, for minutes, almost the first half there. And what I saw today was just a team that basically their offensive, their defensive game plan, they were very well coached. The Bengals really had no answer for it.

Who's a better quarterback, Brian Hoyer or Andy Dalton? Well, I think that's, it's almost an absurd thing to look at at this point because Hoyer has no one. has tape on the guy and but you know what he was very clean today he didn't throw an interception they did what they did last week which gregg pointed out where they went a big long belly of the game without any scoring drives but he opened the game with a nice scoring touchdown and then he closed with a touchdown drive like last week too he just got it done i i've seen too many browns games where they build a lead early and they can't do anything with it with hoyer two weeks in a row they've closed it out and you know west is

established on Friday, AD, which is after Dalton in a way to break down, Dalton, who's a middle of the pack type quarterback. I'm almost, you watch, and I didn't see this game, but I watched clips of it, and from what I'm hearing here, it's starting to sound like, not that Dalton came into the league one way and he stayed that way, are we starting to see, like, real regression in the Andy Dalton experience? I actually, and it's nothing to do with me, you know, being a Browns fan. I really credit this to Cleveland's defense.

I think Dalton will go out next week and have a better game. These two teams know each other really well, and they certainly know Andy Dalton. He's not had his best games against Cleveland. They know how to stop him, but they actually have a pass rush, and they have a defensive line that they haven't ever had since they've come back in the league. That's the difference. At two and two, can they win this division? Is it that crazy?

They're tied for it now. No one looks that good, and can they be in it for the long haul? Yeah, you just said it, because the timing is good. If they're actually, some of their talent is going to come together and play well, the Ravens are certainly beatable. The Steelers look god-awful, and they just whipped up on the Bengals. So, yeah. We cannot emphasize this enough.

The Browns traded away Trent Richardson in a move that they were completely buried for. Everyone thought the team was going to quit. It was seen as a white flag on the season. Now they win back-to-back games. That's kind of amazing that they've done this. I mean, I think they've seen more of Trent Richardson and the cults or any other team in the league. I want to believe that the move was made because they know what they have in Trent Richardson. And listen, they don't have a running back anywhere close to the talent tournament right now.

I mean, they're using some sort of committee to get essentially the same amount of yardage and the same yards per carry. Right. They're winning because Brian Hoyer is playing a lot better than Brandon Whedon did. And in their defense could be a top five group. I think game to game, they've been one of the most consistent, dangerous defenses in the entire league. Jordan Cameron, five touchdowns in September, tied for the most in NFL history for a tight end. That's right. Bronk is the last to do it.

And one other thing you had mentioned, Mark, Trent Richardson. Another very Trent Richardson-like game from him, 20 carries for 60 yards. That's three yards on the nose. He did score another touchdown. But, you know, obviously it's too soon to say whether or not this is who Trent Richardson is forever. but now two games into his Colts career. He's the same guy he was with the Browns. A question out of Cleveland was,

oh, have you given away the best player you've ever had? You know, I think a lot of people inside the team and Browns fans didn't see it that way. It reminds me of when I was around 18. It's a long time now. Well, this was a while ago. But I had a girlfriend that I thought, listen, I've never had another girlfriend.

This must be what it's all about. And this is irreplaceable. there's no way I'd part ways with this. But then it's, you know, it went south quickly. And I made a decision to dump her. And I thought, you know, what will happen next? It was actually one of the great moves of my life. Horizons open up.

That's where we all with Cleveland. This is similar. Very similar. This is similar to a really bad movie I saw last night, Don John, with Joseph Gordon Levitt, in which he loses love only to realize that he was, is better off without it. You draw my life parallel to that. A bad rom-com.

I'm not sure where to go with that. Let's move on to the next game. Wow. All right, let's move on to Jacksonville. Oh, man, the Jaguars are so bad. They are so bad. They lost 373 to the Indianapolis Colts, a game that really told, I watch this game,

a game that told me nothing about the Colts and really basically reinforce the notion that the Jaguars are the worst team in the NFL by a long stretch. it's lonely at the top of the Gabbard zone and Gabbard Blaine Gabbard was terrible again he averaged he was just a tick under five yards per completion

heading into the final meaningless possession and then he got it over so I think it was about 5.3 yards per attempt and you know this guy is a mess and I don't know how much longer you could stay with him at this point they're just a completely a franchise adrift with him behind the center

and then you have MJD who is just swallowed up hole every time he touches the ball. This is a really, really bad team. And then Gus Bradley came out after and said, we're throwing all our support behind Gabbard. He's still our guy. What's really going on with this team behind the scenes, though? Well, that's what I'm saying. I mean, aren't they, haven't they already come to the decision

that they have essentially nothing at this position? Yeah. I mean, that's where it is now. And, you know, he threw three interceptions, one that went back for a score. He, you know, he was throwing the ball downfield a little bit early on. But once he got hit and he threw the first pick, it was, you know, checkdown central and everything was going for three or four yards. This is a bad team. And one thing I wanted to touch on also before we move on,

because this game doesn't deserve a lot of coverage is Trent Richardson. Scored another touchdown, but 20 carries for 60 yards. So this is against the bad team. He's still averaging three yards of carry, and it's still early to really start to really think, hmm, what's going on with Trent Richardson? But in two games, he has not had a bust out game. It's like, wow, the Brown's messed up here.

To your point about the Jaguars, they've scored 31 points this year. They've given up 129. So they are averaging every week losing by 25 points. I can't remember a team having a month like that. And if you look at their schedule coming up. I can. Who? A lot of Bengals teams to start the season.

That's why he has a portfolio. A lot of Bengals teams to start the season. If you look at the Jaguar schedule, they can very easily be 0 and 8. going into their week 9 by, and then it's time to do the watch. So we'll see what happens. All right, moving along to Kansas City. That's it. I have picked the Giants, by the way, four weeks in a row to start the season.

I am 0 and 4 at those picks. The Chiefs put it on the Giants 31 to 7. Giants 0 and 4 for the first time since that strike season in 87. There were scrubs on the field at the beginning of that season, not this time. Wes, how do you explain it? This is the same formula for both teams. Chiefs use conservative passing offense with Alex Smith. He doesn't do much down the field.

Extremely boring to watch. Jamal Charles carries the team in the fourth quarter. He's become the best clock killing back in the NFL. Three straight weeks he's done this, where he just takes over a drive and they can't stop him. Defense looked great. On the giant side, Victor Cruz is the only guy that Eli Manning can rely on right now.

Hakeem Nix isn't winning one-on-one battles. It's just like last year. and the backfield is a mess and I'm putting that one squarely on Tom Coughlin By the way, Victor Cruz, you know, let's count down with the salsa dance right now. I agree with that. I saw you tweet about that, and it is wrong at this point.

And I understand the game was still close when that happened, so it wasn't like they were getting blown out. But let's win a couple games. Let's win a game. Well, McCluster had one of the best... Start dancing again. McCluster had one of the best return touchdowns you'll ever see and pulled out the salsa dance to mock Victor Cruz.

Good. You know it's a really rough point in the... the season when this Victor Cruz salsa dance is absolutely talking point number one in New York. Tomorrow they've been already, you know, talk about it Twitter. One last thing about the Giants, Brandon Jacobs is the slowest running back

of I've ever seen in the NFL. This version of Brandon Jacobs is, he's just moving. There's no reason for him to be out there. Can I ask you a quick question, though, David Wilson, because it's, you know, four weeks in a row where it's what happened with this guy, looked like a little bit better today, statistically, that's all I saw. But

they've been behind in every one of these games. Is that part of the problem? That's part of the problem, and it's a little bit of the Mark Ingram effect. When he's in, you know he's going to run the ball. Defenses aren't fooled by what the Giants are going to do when David Wilson's in the game. They're using that. Derell Scott's only in on passing downs. Brandon Jacobs only in for short yardage, and Wilson's in when they want to run the ball, so they're very predictable. And I put that on the coaching staff.

They've been outscored, by the way, by 85 points so far this season. So when you're looking at who are the two worst teams in the league, just by points scored, there's no doubt it's the Jaguars and the Giants. And by the way, one of our running features from last year stick a fork in them where we declare teams dead and incapable of making the playoffs. We weren't exactly accurate last year because the Redskins made it and we stuck a fork in them. I say we, but I really mean Greg Rosenthal. And by exactly you mean we totally screwed up and it was the worst possible outcome. But we're going to try it again this year, and there are some 0-and-4 teams to choose from, so we're going to unveil our first one this week, so look out for that.

That should be shocking who we pick. Good tease. Keep people on the edge of their seats. Okay, let's head to London where the Minnesota Vikings and the Pittsburgh Steelers, both winless face-off. The Vikings get the 3427 win. This is kind of how the Vikings saw it entering the season. You got a 70-yard touchdown pass reception by Greg Jennings.

He had Peterson ripping off a long touchdown run. The only difference is it was Matt Castle behind center. Greg, what did you see in this game? Yeah, these are two bad teams. I don't think we need to spend too long on it. And my takeaways were basically that, just that they got to stick with Matt Castle, I think, coming out of the by week. I don't think he played as well as his numbers indicated, but he was willing to be aggressive down the field. And I think it's a really bad sign that Ben Rathesberger played pretty well in this game.

They got a B game from Rathesberger. He threw for a lot of yards, made a lot of great plays, and they still lose. This time it wasn't just the offensive line who was terrible. It was the defense who just couldn't tackle anyone, giving up big wide open throws to Matt Castle, and they just looked every bit like an 0-14. Give us a report on Levi-on-Bill. He looked competent. I wrote that that it was nice to see a competent runner for the Steelers.

Didn't wow you. It looked like he struggled in past protection, but he was a four-yards-per-carry, was okay on the goal line and at least they have someone now. You know, Ian this morning reported that there was... Ian Rappaport, NFL Media Insider? NFL Media Insider Man, Ian Rappaport, reported that there was like a lot of frustration in Pittsburgh, no, not just among the fans and on the streets, which is obvious with Todd Haley, but inside the organization, do you feel like when they come out of their bye week,

is he still with this team? Yeah, I think so. And to me, the frustration probably is with his management style as much as, the plays. The offense looked a lot better with Heath Miller and Bell on the field. If the defense had played like they had the first few weeks in this game, they would have won, but it didn't happen. And Greg, I promise we won't bring up that Rathlisberger was your MVP pick anymore. But I do want to just say one thing. He, you know, Rathlisberger did have his moments. I got to watch this game a little bit, but he did have basically the game deciding lost fumble.

a very flawed team if he was truly an elite level quarterback in 2013 they would have at least one win right now and he has not been good enough. But on that play though, the pocket's crashing around and before he had anything. Hold on to the ball, Ben. Come on.

That game was over whether he held onto it and not would have ended on a sack. But yeah, that was, you have to, even as Big Ben's biggest supporter and this was kind of a vintage game where he's run around doing things, you know, he's still making too many mistakes. I will say if Pittsburgh gets its first,

win against the Browns, I will not watch football again for the rest of the year. Isn't that going to be hard to do your job? We will have to find a new writer. Okay, well, let's move along to Tampa. I would say Tampa Bay, but Tampa Bay actually isn't a city. It's Tampa. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers thought they were going to get their first win. Up 10-0 at the half, they get beat 13-10.

Mark Sessler just does not sound like a very interesting game, was it? Well, I thought it was from the angle that Glennon came in and through three quarters looked, I thought, very technically clean. He looked better than Freeman had at any point this season. They didn't ask him to do too much, but he did what they asked. You know, he hadn't made any major mistakes. What I liked about Glennon in general was that, you know, he saw a lot of pressure, and he got rid of the ball.

He didn't just hang back there and allow them to throw him for six, seven-year losses. But then the fourth quarter hits. and, you know, I kind of, we have to write up our write-ups for these games and get our notes together. I kind of had this thing in the bag. I was like, I know what's going to happen here. You know, this has a certain trajectory to this game. Then everything changed. Arizona scores 13 unanswered points.

You know, Carson Palmer looked like a statue back there for three quarters. That offensive lines a mess. But Fitzgerald, ultimately, I think, beat out Daryl Revis in this one-on-one battle. Caught a big touchdown. They scored another field goal to go ahead. and listen, two interceptions by Glenn in the last four or five minutes of this game looked very Josh Freeman like. By the way, I like our robot terms that we're using to describe people.

Greg said that Levyon Bell was competent. Mark says that Mike Lennon is technically clean. Technically clean, competent. Doug Martin, the third back in NFL history with 26 carries and less than 40 yards. Tell me what's going on there. Well, I think that we've seen him struggle to have one of those games that he had a couple times last year. He just broke away and compiled yardage. He didn't do it today.

But that actually, that's what had me impressed with Glennon early, because they really tried to help him out by going heavy on the ground game. It didn't work. You know, the Cardinals did a nice job stopping him. And Glennon kind of saw through that. He just kind of kept pushing through it and doing his best to move the team. It wasn't a great game for him. but I think they did

I can see why they made the switch if they watched these two guys in practice all season. Cardinals are two and two with three games on the road so far Bruce Ariens serves a little credit here. I just don't see that I don't see that last scene they need to do something with that offense though

their skill players are not really able to do what they need to do because of this line. One last stat to my point earlier on the Bengals Tampa Bay Buccaneers 0 and 4 for the 10th time since the merger which ties the Cincinnati Bengals 10 times they've been O'N4.

Wow, that's pretty rough. Now it's time, always one of the best times of the week, where we head over to Chicago, our Chicago correspondent, with ATL, Kevin Patra, going to take some time off from his I'm in the Friends Zone dinner with Jennifer Hudson. Kevin Patra, how are you, buddy? Let's go, boys. Big day today.

How is everything out in Chicago? It's beautiful. Nice, Chris. night you know how it is i don't actually don't have much experience there no um all right kevin patrick here we go you ready let's talk a little football your detroit lions have another win under their belt wow what's going on here reggie bush continues to be difference maker 173 yards of total offense you take down the chicago bears 40 to 32 what's going on i'm glad you're finally on board with the reggie bush train i'm in i'm fully on board

He was just absolutely phenomenal. He makes such a difference in that offense. I mean, they were splitting out wide because they don't have receivers. His running was ridiculous. The best thing we've seen since Barry Sanders in Detroit. I mean, he's a difference maker in the offense. There's no question about that through four weeks. Better than Artos Pinner.

Just a little bit. Not too much. Just saying, got to give him some credit. I mean, is this a team that you're feeling can win this division potentially? And looking at what the Bears did defensively, what's going on there? Well, I mean, you've got to give some credit to the Lions' offensive line, which hasn't been talked about at all this year so far. I mean, they gave Stafford sometimes.

He made some questionable throws still, in my opinion, but he's progressed. But the blocking for Bush was just, they were just gaping holes. The Bears' front definitely miss Melon today. The Bears' defense is suspect if they're not causing turnover. So, I mean, the good thing for the Lions and the thing I said coming into the season about them, is they didn't win in the division last year. And you can't win your division if you don't win in vision. They're 2-0 both games at home.

They have to be able to win on the road in the division. We know Green Bay is probably a loss. They haven't won there 20-some years. But you've got to win in Minnesota. You've got to win in Chicago. Patrick, from what I've heard and seen on Twitter, this was a step back for Jay Cutler. Yeah.

And, you know, he almost, to me, he looked kind of after the first drive, he looked great. I was thinking, again, like, this is going to be. the same J. Color was in the first couple weeks. He was sharp. He was hitting his receivers getting the ball at his hands. And then after that, after his first interception with Louis Dumas came and made a great place, snatched it away from Alshan Jeffrey. And then he just kind of looked like he was waiting to get hit. Like he was worried about the Lions' defensive line.

And Sue was in his face all day. He kind of worked over Kyle Long there a couple times. He finally got a couple sacks, the first two sacks of the season's strip fumble. He just kind of, the color, just looked to me like he was waiting to get hit a couple times holding the ball a little long kind of escaping the pocket when he had a little time to step up just felt like kind of last year where he didn't trust his offensive line the way he did the first three weeks so you guys have uh Nate burleson on the sideline because of the pizza incident broken arm what uh deep dish pizza deep dish pizza overrated by the way little bit overrated that's an outrage highly definitely it depends where it comes from i guess different

conversations so uh what do they do with the number two receivers bush basically their number two receiver at this point? You know, he only had four catches in the past game. They did split him out wide with and had joint bell in the back in the backfield a lot of quite a bit today. I think they'll use them in that sense. Chris Durham actually led the Lions with receiving in receiving yards today because the bears like they usually do kind of bracketed Calvin Johnson

didn't really let him go off only in 44 yards, did have a touchdown catch. But I think it's just going to be a pedigrew had seven catches today. They need him to step up. Vine's fans hate him because he can't catch the ball, or too many drops, and he fumbles a lot. But he was the key today. It was Calvin, Bush, out of the backfield, and then his third read was tight-end pedigrew today,

and that's what they're going to need in that offense. They're going to have to spread the ball around. All right. Well, thank you, Kevin. Hey, you don't think deep-dish pizza is the best pizza, do you? I do not. I do not. Thank you.

Thank you. Do you think so, Wes? I don't have any problem with Deep-Too. I think it's delicious, depending on where. you get i don't see what all the why would you make fun of it it's good well maybe it's a new york when you go to new york for the first time hopefully for the super bowl you will have real pizza and then there will be no different no way to ever feel unclear on the top no i don't get i don't get on board with this argument that you have to like one and hate the other i can think of a lot

of foods to hate on the as an east coaster i totally agree with dan oh yeah all the way i'm much less i don't know why you have to pick one over the other thank you because one's better than the other. You have to make decisions. All right. Kevin Patra, thank you again. We will talk to you next week. Always good information.

Later. Bye. All right. I can't believe that's a topic that we're not all unanimous on. Let's move on to the late games, and we'll start with a dreadful one in Nashville. My New York Jets went down in flames. Chris Wessling, the Improbable Hero pick there.

He got the Titans. They whipped up on the Jets 3813. But the bigger story here is Jake Locker, who was in the midst of probably the best of, best game of his career, suffered a potentially serious right hip injury. We don't know at this time how serious it is, but it did not look good. And that really casts a big shadow over everything that's going on for the Titans who started out three and one.

I think that's the biggest story of the day. You know, it's too bad that injuries work that way, but this is one of the most surprising teams. And like you said, from what I've heard, it's two of his best games of his career back to back. And if he's gone, it's pretty much, okay, you know, wow, we have Ryan Fitzpatrick. That's that. If Locker was healthy, would it be outrageous to say the Titans are the best team in that division? Nobody wants to believe in them, but they keep out physically in teams every single week.

You know, they are the second. What's what do you like about the Colts going to San Francisco and beating them up and winning today in Jacksonville big? But to your point, the Texans, maybe the third most impressive team in that division so far. The Titans are the second team in NFL history to go the first four games of the season without a turnover. So they're like the opposite of the Steelers. And, you know, as I wrote in the roundup that we have, we have a, what do we call it, the what we learned, Greg? Yeah, what we learn, takeaways from the game that's on our site every Monday morning. You can check it out.

Literally dozens and dozens of takeaways from each of the games. We believe it's one of the finest pieces of content we've. out. But yeah, the one thing I wrote was any goodwill that Gino Smith had built up over the Jets' first three weeks was undone today because he was rattled. He had four

turnover. This is pretty grim. Four turnovers that led to 28 Titans points. He just was completely out of it. And the Jets are in a bad spot now because he is on pace for 44 turnovers. And that makes Sanchez's 26 last

year look amazing. And they don't really have anywhere else to go. Sanchez isn't an option. He's on short-term I-R. You have Matt Sims, but I can't imagine they're going to go with an undrafted rookie that wasn't even good in college.

So it's basically stick it out with Gino-Smith. Why would they want to go with anyone else, though? It seems crazy to me. And I implore you to watch the game tape for this game because it could become a situation where they almost have to do something. If this becomes a regular thing where he's turning the ball over two or three times a game

in deadly spots and not giving the defense any chance, I'm just, this game was bad enough to really make you think that the Jets are in bad shape, potentially. I love the pendulum swings in the NFL. No, I mean, I just, Jets fans were telling me this week, they couldn't have any possible interest in Josh Freeman because they have the next Johnny Unitas under center in Gino Smith. He's going to have five terrible games this year. He's already had two.

It's just, that's how it's going to be. You just hope he kind of learns from him and gets better. And like you, like you two are both saying this week, how much he's shown you, that'll show up to, right? He's made plays. And even in this game where he was dreadful, he made a few throws. But ultimately, when it comes down to it, is he can't have too many more games like this because it takes the air out of the whole team. And it's only going to be a matter of time. You know, we're only one-fourth through the season.

He's had two just disaster games. They made their bed by going with him to start the season. But this was kind of like the dark side. This is the worst-case scenario for the Jets. So what I'm hearing from you is Gino Smith is ultimately going to cost Rex Ryan his job. There's a very good chance he will because if they do decide, and it's probably the smart decision just to ride it out with him because you've got to see what you have. But he is going to make a lot of mistakes this year and he is not a well-rounded player at all at this point and it's going to cost them a lot of games. Real quick, you've got a GM who put everything into drafting Gino Smith and rebuilt their backfield with Chris Ivory and Mike Goodson.

That's three critical skill positions that essentially could be a disaster at the end of this season. Yes. Well, that is something to keep in mind as well. But, yeah, ultimately, to me right now, the big question is what you have in Gino. And if they whiffed on this, they're going to be dreadful this season. So, you know, the Jets, it's always back and forth. Your Jets fandom coming out here. Next week, he's going to be the greatest thing ever again.

I have never been all in on Gino. And if you listen to this podcast, you know. but he's made enough throws to get you a little excited, but this was the bad Gino that you worry about. All right, let's move on. Denver, you know, the Broncos, they are undoubtedly the best offense in the league. They have the best offense in the league, probably the best team at this point. 5220 win over the Eagles.

Manning now is 16 touchdown passes. That's the most in the first month of a season ever. Wes, you watch that game. I mean, who's going to stop this team right now? That was my takeaway that I think we've been talking about this since the preseason that they could chase the Patriot scoring record. Now I'm thinking the question is, are they going to chase the Patriot 16 and 0 regular season record? Ah, so you're in now on the possibility of 16 at 0?

I'm. I'm the week two. 15 straight regular season games they've beaten every opponent by at least a touchdown. At this point, we just want to know if anybody can stay in the game with him. All right, let's look at the defenses they play. That at least has to be a factor. Ravens in week one, good defense. But the next three are three of the worst defenses in football on paper.

Giants have been terrible. The Raiders have been okay, not great, and the Eagles are terrible. Wait a minute. Hold on. I mean, they haven't just played even with it. They have wiped these teams off the grid. And it's not just their offense. People don't respect their defense, and their defense is playing really well.

And then they get Von Miller and Champ Bailey back. And who is the team? team that can give them a game. Maybe it's Dallas next week. I could see Dallas being competitive. I could see Dallas giving them the game. Yeah, I could see that. I think when a team like this is probably going to go 15 and 1 or 14 and 2, it's weird teams that you're not predicting that are going to, someone's going to knock them off that we don't see. Remember when that Broncos team with Elway back in the day? Went into Kansas City. Or was it Kansas City? Cincinnati. Oh, yeah, Cincinnati. It was the weirdest team, a terrible team and just caught him off

guard one day. I mean, we haven't seen any team play close to the Broncos at this point. All right. Let's, well, why don't we just quickly, we'll take a, let's take a look at their schedule to the bike. So I want to see where they can get before that is this computer, which they play the Cowboys, then the Jaguars. I think the Redskins are in there. Dial-up situation. It's not the worst. Yeah, Cowboys, Jaguars, Redskins. Hang on one second. And they're getting two, I mean, if they get two return touchdowns a week. All right, here it is. We got at Cowboys, home to Jaguars, which is, oh my God, home to Jaguars, at Colts and home to Redskins, and then Week 9 by.

You very easily can be looking at an 8-0 team there. The Colts is interesting. Colts and Cowboys are both interesting, at least. It'll be fun to watch. The other ones, they might be in the 60s with their points. Peyton Manning going back to Indy for that Colts game. That will be interesting. All right, so while the Eagles could not get a win,

their division rivals, the Redskins did take care of business in Oakland, a 24-14 win. Greg, you watch that game. The Redskins, by the way, if you need a defense in fantasy, pick up those Redskins because they had seven sacks and a defensive score. Redskins defense on the men, Greg. Welcome to the 2013 season, Redskins defense. You know, RG3 was a little bit better again this week,

but he kind of played the same, I think he has, that he did last week. The difference was Matt Flynn was the starting quarterback for the Raiders, and they couldn't move the ball at all. Seven of their points came off a punt return. turned, they had a drive early in the game, and that was it. And after the game, Dennis Allen basically just filleted Flynn, which I was really surprised to hear. He said Flynn wasn't seeing the field very well.

He didn't play very well, and now we have to move on. And that was his assessment of Matt Flynn. I think it shows you how much Terrell Pryor has won this coaching staff over early. I thought it was being a little harsh because the offensive line was terrible in this game. They lost Darren McFadden and Marcel Reese in the first half. So it's not like he had a lot of help. But he's right. I mean, Flynn just kind of stood there and, you know, waited and that's it.

And now we know why Matt Flynn keeps getting beat out. And you know what? How about Matt Flynn just retire? You know, he's been through a lot. Everything seems to go poorly for him in his career. You got some money. Let's open up a pub, you know, call it Flynn's. You can even have like a drink special, like signifying.

I threw for 480 yards in a game for the package. Every beer costs $4.80. Yeah, well, you know, you take advantage of that, and, you know, you have some fun with that, and you have a nice life because, you know, I don't understand why Dennis Allen is destroying Matt Flynn. I mean, the guy is a limited player, and he's coming in on short notice. What's up with that? I think his destiny is to be the Doug Peterson to, the Doug Peterson to Brett Fav is what Matt Flynn should be to Aaron Roger. Just go back there, be his backup, you know, shoot some, you know, deer or whatever they do, you know, and hang out. Greg Rosenthal, man of the people

Outdoorsman, Greg Rosenthal. All right, anybody else have any thoughts on that game? I'm just glad it's over. Yeah, as we all are. All right, let's move on to San Diego. Well, it's time to buy in on Philip Rivers for MVP talk. It's time. What a game by Rivers.

I watch this one. This is how Good Rivers was. His completion percentage was 83%, 35 of 42 for 400. for 400 yards it's the highest completion percentage for any quarterback in the history of the NFL that threw for 400 yards in a single season game single game I mean he is that locked in right now and basically the chargers are a legit AF

they're obviously not in the Broncos class but they're a legit wild card contender with Rivers playing at this level I thought this game was like perfect storm of two teams that were completely ready to do something very ugly facing each other so one of these teams had to win. You know, the Cowboys, we're talking on this before the podcast,

and I know Greg does not like stats that deal with history, but this is recent. Since 2004, they have been two and one seven times and have lost their fourth game of the year every single time. This was such a Dallas Cowboys game. It really was. I mean, they can't get out of their own way. This is a bad job by the Cowboys because I think everyone should

respect now that Rivers is playing at such a level to where the San Diego Chargers are a pretty good team. But you know what? But you can't pick them again the rest of the year. I will not pick them. This shows the difference of, you know, someone who wants to win the picks pool and someone who gets emotional. I had them as a hero pick last week. They broke

my heart. Came right back to them because I liked the game and bam, they got me. We'll see. If they win a couple more games, I will throw out my claws very easily. You just... You're a man. You just float in the wind. That's a bad job by the Cowboys who had a chance to really establish himself as a real

NFC team and now we think they're the same Cowboys that they've always been and Mark you said you think the Cowboys are going to go eight and eight win the division. I don't see anything telling us that they won't be the same old Cowboys team that maybe eight wins get you in the playoffs and maybe it doesn't and that's where they'll probably end up. So Antonio Gates

is making me it's making me understand just how hard the NFL is to predict. Yeah. He hasn't played I mean he's played pretty poorly and looked slower, and now he's on pace for his best season of all time, after two or three years of kind of looking like he was on the decline? We never know anything about the NFL. I remember in week one watching the Monday night game against the Texans and sending out a tweet,

there was something along because he wasn't moving well. I was like, you know, I think one of the commentators said that Gates is still one of the best tight ends in football. I was like, that is not true, and it hasn't been for a couple years. Listen, he's putting up numbers that he's like one of the best tight ends in football again. I mean, how much does that correlate with the quarterback play. Obviously, it's a big difference with Rivers playing in high-low. Well, we've said every week that he's moving better this year. I think it's health. I mean, he's had so many injuries

and just watching him move. You know, we, and I think that I've probably been one of the guilty parties, so much credit to Mark Trussman for what he's done with Cutler, but what about Mike McCoy? Is he not really, is it because San Diego is a sleepy little

West Coast, California town, not the heart of the football scene, kind of being ignored for what has been a very good coaching job. Well, now he's done this with what, Matt Moore, Tim Tebow, Payton, well, you can't really credit him for Peyton Manning, but... I will. And this isn't the great... Well, he didn't botch Peyton Manning.

This isn't the most talented Chargers group around Rivers either. I mean, Danny Woodhead's making plays. They don't have Malcolm Floyd. It's not really Eddie Royal is making plays for them. So I'm pretty impressed with McCoy. It's a good point. I would say one thing to watch out for with San Diego. Dwight,

they don't have a great pass rush, as we know. Dwight Freeney is really the the guts of that pass rush and he went down with a leg injury today and it's unclear how serious it is, but that is something to keep an eye on. What about Manti? Very quiet. I would have to watch the game again

to get a better idea, but you didn't hear his name getting called on. Which takes us to the final game Sunday night, Sunday night football, Alan Chris, it looked like another Sunday night stanker. Instead, we got some fireworks at the end of the game. Ultimately, though, the New England Patriots, a 30-23 win.

Greg, who is sitting next to, you know, he felt confident, but you could tell Greg was getting really nervous, really afraid, but ultimately the Pats came out ahead, 4-0 in September. It's not true at all. I was the picture of Com. I've seen this story before from Matt Ryan and this Falcons team was very reminiscent of the NFC championship game of week one. And Akeep to leave, I thought it was fitting that he made the past deflection on the final play

because he's been such a difference maker in that secondary. and now they're not a great defense, but they're a good defense that makes enough plays. And Wes, who they call him the mailman, and it's because he knows things, he notices things. Wes, can you tell us a little bit about that last play, fourth down, the Falcons, they needed five yards for a first down. They went to the end zone, incomplete pass. Well, let's set this up with what they did all game. Belcheck is known for taking away what you do best. He took away Julio Jones, and then towards the end he saw that Gonzalez was beating them.

So we saw gunner coverage on Gonzalez, which is two guys covering him at the line of scrimmage. Collinsworth mentioned during the game that he's only ever seen that on Calvin Johnson. We've seen it a couple of times with him. So you got gunner coverage on Gonzalez. You've got one cornerback on Holio with safety help over the top. So Ryan isn't going there.

He's not going to Gonzalez. And then they put Akib Taleb, their best cornerback, on Roddy White one-on-one. Who isn't Roddy White right now either? Right. So to me, that was brilliant defense from the best. from the Patriots, it gave Ryan a look that he didn't really have a great

option. Do you want to go to Harry Douglas? Do you want to go to Quiz Rogers coming out of the backfield? They took away what the Falcons do best. And it's amazing that we were even in that place. I mean, this game was 3013 Falcons, they get a score, they recover the outside kick, they score again. I mean, the game

just spun out of control for the pads, but Talib has become a star player for them. It just shows the close difference in the NFL between, say, a 4-0 team and a one and three team. I don't think this Falcons team is that much different than the team that won 13 games last year, but they can't convert in the red zone.

They were so lucky last year in all these close games, and now this year, they've kind of been unlucky. As good as Ryan played, you know, for some of the game, you made some big plays. Julio Jones, you know, made great contested catches. I think you do have to knock them a little bit for those throws in the final sequence. bad throw on first down just completely didn't give the receiver a chance and then on second down pretty much the same thing didn't give Tony Gonzalez a chance so that's two pretty bad throws in the key spot of the game

to your point on Talib even with Julio Jones catching that bomb late in the game he went over 100 yards Patriots are holding opposing number one receivers to 58 yards per game even with that 100 yard game out of Julio it's not just Talib as a Patriots Homer it's Talib and McCordie at safety he McCordi at safety has changed that whole defense since the end of last year. He's been a big help changing positions. Okay, so that is a Sunday games. We will be back on Wednesday.

We have one more game in week four. That is Miami going to New Orleans. That's a great game. So we will talk about that on Wednesday and anything else that's going on. Until then, this is Dan Hanzas signing off for the mailman, the sizzler, the boss, Kairich, behind the glass, and of course, Lyle, the intern. Until Wednesday. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you.

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