NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Who is the NFC East favorite?

Episode Date: October 20, 2015

A room filled with heroes - Dan Hanzus, Gregg Rosenthal, Chris Wesseling, and Marc Sessler – discuss the latest news from around the NFL including Colts punter Pat McAfee’s explanation of the team’s failed fake punt, and the Steelers planning to start quarterback Landry Jones over Michael Vick in Week 7. Then the heroes debate which teams are the favorite, and which should be forked in the NFC East before diving into the ATN Mailbag.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. The Around the NFL podcast deserves its own a football life. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. My name is Dan Hansus, and I am joined by a room filled with heroes. Mark Sessler, Chris Wessling, and Greg Rosenthal. What's up, boys? Hey, Dan. Oh, yeah.

Another show, Tuesday show. Awesome show. Coming up, I had a, I'm dealing with this sinus infections we've been speaking about as a group. Talk about this more than Mark talks about growing up in London. Or Greg giving to charity. And I just took a cough drop from the war chest in the break room. And I didn't check the expiration date and now my tongue is kind of numb. And I'm concerned.

That's what cough drops do. It's not meant to be your tongue. It's meant to be, you know, to go down your throat. Don't be a weenie. There's something going on. But did you check, as fascinating as the story is, could it get more fascinating? Did you check, did you actually check after the fact the expiration date? No, I don't.

No. I like that you frame yourself as having some sort of potentially life-ending illness that you're battling through, but then you've taken a cough drop to address it. I gobble those past expiration cough drops like their M&Ms all the time, and I'm fine. Well, Wes, you're a better man than I. Subtext, I'm tougher than you. Yeah. All right, Mr. Cincinnati.

I grew up on the west side of Cincinnati, which makes me a real man. My favorite toy was a cinder block growing up. Mark, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I spent time in England as a child. All right, we get it, Mark. But you are true story after this. The beautiful and lovely also shares the same birthday as I. So we get along very well.

Simone, your wife is picking. you up immediately following today's show off to the old L-A-X you go a trip to jolly old England My home, my former home the only place you feel truly comfortable

Do you harbor loyalties to the queen? I have not been there since 1985 so I don't have any fresh contact with I didn't know that. Ween or anything. Yeah, it's been decades.

And you didn't pitch a long form, Mark Sessler returns to his roots. Journeys. I could see that. I can see other people writing that gloviation. But not you, Mark. You're a man of integrity and principle. But you are league.

Connor is already there. Connor or our New Jersey correspondent arrived. He's already using our IM chat client, telling us that he is on the ground. he's landed in the Heathrow Airport and now Mark you are heading there to cover the Jaguars and Bills a game I like to call the greatest

game of all time It is fascinating that we are going to each probably file what seven or eight pieces about two teams well one of the two that gets zero attention and it's not let's not call it the game of the century

but we're going to turn it into that But it is interesting for considering their records I did on the website my watchability rankings this week. And the bills were the number five team because I find them a very intriguing team when Tyrod Taylor especially is behind center. And Blake Bordell,

we've been talking him up for the last few weeks as a very fun young quarterback to watch. So if you're going to watch, you know, teams with not bad records, at least they're entertaining. Sydney behind the glass, starting her transition to a full corporate entity, dropped in a live read in my lap,

seconds before we started. Can we bring back God Save the Queen at a low volume, and I will read this. The NFL on Yahoo, watch with the world. Wake up and watch with the world. The NFL is live on Yahoo for the first time ever. The NFL is streaming a live game on Yahoo. Bills versus Jags live from London, new time, new way to watch anywhere with everyone. Watch with the world.

October 25th, that's Sunday, 9.30 a.m. Eastern 630 Pacific NFL on Yahoo. I don't know. That's it. That's good. I might actually wake up early to watch the world. Well, remember that podcast where we went through all the different countries that listened to the podcast that there are 75 or whatever, more than that, hundreds of them? Mongolia. Indonesia, Mongolia.

This is the one time we can all be watching the same game at the same time in Mongolia. It's got to be big there. A lot of big Telvin Smith fans there. So true. So, Mark, you know, best of luck. Thank you. I'm going to miss you. And maybe we'll get you on the old horn on Sunday to discuss what's going on over there.

Like barring a massive air calamity, I think that that's on the docket. We will speak to him. I think we'll even talk to him Thursday, see what the practices have been like. Oh, yeah. Sounds good. A little press conference time with him and Connor. Are you going to get together with any of our listeners? I think we definitely are.

We have gotten a lot of tweets from people in London and a lot of offers to buy us beers. We're only two human vessels So we can only contain so much beer But we will try to meet up with people And Greg, now I will speak Mark is very intense He loves his job and he takes it seriously It's up to you

It's on you Greg not to overwhelm Mark with assignments over there So he can have fun That's what the whole trip is for As shadowy league figures are listening Thinking that I have to justify The thousands of dollars we're spending on it We finally got him over there

because of this game on Yahoo, really, it's help to help promote that. No, I don't want to hear it, Shadowy League figures. This is an $11 billion mega corp. Cessler can do the work and have a little bit of fun, too. Of course. That's what makes Cessler Cessler. We've come up with a fair plan that will both inform football fans and allow us to see a foreign city. I would expect nothing less.

Cessler's middle seat and coach is what's going to sink the National Football League. All right, Shield. Let's be honest about that. All right, we got. I mean, Cessler, if Cessler, if Cessler, It's my last show, by the way. If Sessler has to, even if he's writing seven stories a day, he's just not going to sleep. He's going to stay out there and he's going to see that.

I think we're underrating the Connor or factor. He's an absolute wild card on the road and an adventure in his own heart. He is an adventure. Connor, like any event I've gone with him, you always have to keep your head on a swivel because he'll just wander off. He does. He's got a lot of contacts, a lot of interests. Mark, I'm going to need you to bring your Instagram A game. Oh, I will.

I have my phone work. I'm expecting lots of posts. I will. I'm in London, of all places. There has been talk that your Instagram game is slumped in recent months after you're getting a real amount of buzz for a while with some of your Rty pieces and some other, like, slice of life type things. I was also, like, largely in the off season where I was, you know, wandering the streets. It's a fair point. That's your chance.

So that's it. Mark's going to be in London. We're excited. Everybody's excited. Today's show is a nice one. Nice big show. We got our Monday night recap, an all-timer NFC East showdown, hammer bang between the Redskins and Giants. We'll get into that.

We'll do a little bit of news. What's cooking around the NFL this week as we approach week seven, we will potentially, we're going to do this in real time this week. We'll nominate some teams for the fork and we'll see what teams will be done. 11 teams in the NFL have been forked so far by our group, which means they have no opportunity to make, I'm going to die. Hang on. Live, live, Hanzas, which means 11 teams have no chance to make the players.

We might add to that list. And then we'll hit the TNF preview, NFC West, Seahawks at Niners, and we'll close it out with the mailbag if we have time. It's a busy show. Mark's got Simone, the wonderful, kind-hearted, talented Simone. Downstairs with the engine on. No, we got a little time.

We can enjoy the show. All right, so let's get into it. Why don't we start, of course, with Monday night football. I mean, we have to. I mean, I would like to say we could just not talk about this game, but we are the Around the NFL podcast, and so we will talk about the NFL game on Monday night. It was a 27-7 win.

the Philadelphia Eagles over the Giants. They scored the Eagles scored the final 27 points of the game after the Giants had a 80-yard touchdown drive to get things going. It was a sloppy game. Turnovers of plenty. Both quarterbacks played poorly. Eli Manning and Sam Bradford. Eli didn't get any protection. Sam Bradford continues to make you wonder if he's the right guy to be in the starting lineup for Philadelphia.

And we had a DeMarco Murray siding for the first time. He went over 100 yards. He scored a touchdown. so the Eagles move into first place in the NFC East, the Giants searching for answers. Chris Wessling, you wrote up our piece on Monday night, the what we learned. What did you learn from this game?

We learned that this was basically a microcosm of every NFC East game for the last 15 years. Just boring, sloppy. I don't know why they keep putting these teams on national TV over and over again to bore the rest of the world. There was a brief window where the Cowboys were fun in the mid-2000s, but that's fair. That's the last time the NFC East was vaguely interesting.

We learned that DeMontre Moore should probably be benched for his mind-boggling, ruffing the passer penalty that really changed the momentum of the entire game. The Giants were cruising out. It looked like they could have gone up 13 to nothing or 19 to nothing. Larry Dinell should not be excused either. He had basically just got the ball ripped out of his hands by D'Amico Ryan's and then dropped a pass. So his shaking hands and D'Montre Moore really turned this game around. The Eagles, I think, have the best defense in the division,

and we like the Redskins early. And that was my takeaway is that, you know, as ugly as these two games have been, it's pretty impressive that they've won two straight games by 20 points or more with Sam Bradford playing terribly. It's another proof why quarterback wins and losses is overrated because Sam Bradford gets a couple comfortable wins and he has not played well in back-to-back weeks.

And yet they're winning games. And for all the heat that Chip Kelly's taken for his office, season moves on offense, he's built a good enough defense where they can lose Michael Kendrix, they can lose D'Amico Ryan's, they can lose Kiko Alonzo, and yet the defense is good enough that it's really the dominant part of that team and it's got them winning some games. They shut out Odell Beckham in the second half when it looked like he was about to have an absolute monster night. But everything went wrong for the Giants after that night. I wouldn't even say they necessarily shut down Odell Beckham and Coughlin said it after the game. They

They never had a chance to get the ball to him because Eli Manning could not get protected. He was getting killed. He was getting swarmed in the backfield as soon as he took the ball. He was sacked four times total coming into this game, was sacked three times in the game, had two intentional grounding penalties and was hit four more times, much of that in the second half. And the Eagles just dominated time of possession in the second half. I don't think their defense was as much of a factor on O'Dill Beckham as just the Giants never had the ball. Although it's a little dispiriting to see Odo Beckham essentially used as a short.

yardage, wide receiver. Like, hey, it's third and one. Let's throw it to O'Dell Beckham. That was their play a couple times. And it worked. But it's seven catches, 61 yards. This is such a get rid of the ball quickly, dink and dunk off into trying to keep their defense on the field.

I get it. It's all worked fairly well for the first month of the season, but it's boring. It's also not right. Unleased the Beckham. I think that hamstring played a factor in how it was used. You almost had one big catch down the left sideline. Then he showed some real frustration with Eli after that. It sailed out of bounds.

sometimes I'm amazed with Eli. It made me think of immediately when that past sailed was the dime that he threw to Mario Manningham in that second Super Bowl win that the same guy can then look as bad as he did for stretches in this game, including on that throw. But again, it's like it's not just Eli. It's the entire offense.

They can't run the ball. They can't block. It was a mess. Oh, what a mess. But watching it, I thought, well, if you put Eli on the Eagles, they win by 40. Because I think he was the better quarter. That's why you can't just

look at the box score because it looks like Eli had a terrible, terrible game, but he played well initially. One of the interceptions was totally not on him. You could have had a big pass that you mentioned to Dinell. I think he's played consistently this year, if nothing else. It's not exciting to watch him. Whereas Bradford, I'm still thinking they should consider going to Sanchez. I agree. I agree with you, yeah. I don't. I mean, it would make sense. I just, I think the Eagles have to figure out if they have a franchise quarterback or not. And if they've decided after six games that Bradford's not then fine go to Sanchez that's not a small sample though six games you're starting to get up there a little bit where it's like if you still don't

think this guy is a guy or he's making the same mistakes week after week I was listening at one point when I was driving home uh last night boomer asiason he calls the game for westwood one he was just laying into Bradford he's like somebody needs at half time going and shake this guy because he was just in a malaise especially in the uh well really the whole game I mean the passes he was missing he just I mean, it doesn't seem like an inspiring guy. Well, it's not the, he made a couple terrible passes the previous week, too. And I have to wonder, if you don't bench him, is it because you think if you're Chip Kelly that there's a amount of time it takes to get fundamentally familiar with this attack?

And we're going to see a different kind of quarterback down the stretch for the Eagles. Because these kind of throws, and he made some of these in St. Louis when he was on the field, too. This just looks to me like the Sam Bradford that we couldn't stand in the past. You guys convince me. Well, they are winning games. I'm just saying, or is he going to bloom, though? They are winning games, and I think they know Mark Sanchez is not a franchise quarterback. So I do think that's why they're doing it.

And if they can find a way to win some games, they did get DeMarco Murray on track. So they had a running game for the first time just about all season, that they're going to try to ride Radford as long as possible. Over the last month, they're averaging 138 running yards per game. I guess they got to Markle Murray on track for the first time all season. His numbers looked okay last week because of one run, but he hasn't looked good. He looked a little better last night. The second half was by far the best he's played in Philadelphia.

I just, whenever, there's no way he can run laterally. He just flat out cannot run laterally. So don't run him laterally. In the second half, they didn't. Downhill runner used him that way, but it's a little redundant with Matthews. But he looked, I mean, listen, maybe he didn't look as good as he did last September and October, but I thought he looked pretty good running the ball. He's averaging five yards per carry behind a bad offensive line.

DeMargo Murray's averaging two yards less per carry. It's funny that both they were touted at Bradford and Murray is this, oh, this is reuniting them in this spread offense that they were electric in in college. Murray doesn't seem to be the better fit than Matthews. I don't care what happened last night. And Bradford isn't necessarily comfortable in this offense either. It's another case against offseason puffies.

We also thought Jordan Matthews, and I fell for it too, was going to have a great season. I still think Jordan Matthews is a good player. He makes mistakes every week. Mental errors, drops. just, he's tough to watch. I wouldn't write him off. Would we label the Eagles the,

not heavy favorite, but a clear favorite to win the NFC? No, I don't think there is a favorite in the NFCs. I think the Redskins are, I've thought all along they're clearly the worst team, but the other three to me are about the same. Eagles are going to get whacked if they make the playoffs. They're going to get absolutely destroyed by someone.

Whoever makes it's going to get whacked. Yep. All right. So that's the Monday night game. Cindy, how are you doing, by the way? I'm doing really well. Thanks for asking. Yeah, what's new? You know, not anything new. I kind of wish it would rain here.

I'm not going to lie. I just, you know, I'm pretty new to L.A. And the sun and I need a break. Where are you from originally? Don't hold your breath. I'm from, thank you. I'm from Utah originally. Okay, so here's the one thing we're hearing about.

El Nino is supposed to drop a hammer, total hammer drop on the SoCal area. So get excited. When we get swept away into the Mighty Pacific, I hope you're happy. I will be mildly happy. Thank you. I hope I'm in London.

This happens. Yeah, all right. Let's do some news. I walked out of the womb ready. Yeah, I said walked. I walked out of the womb ready. These are the times that I'm really happy that T.D. doesn't do the show all the time is that we'd be subjected to some Star Wars if this was the situation.

And I'm sorry about that, Sydney. And I'm sorry, Mark, and that's not a shot at you. or anybody that Star Wars fans, but I just can't escape it. It's got to be dropped on me in the middle of the Monday Night Football game. I can't escape it even when I'm trying to watch football. I don't think it's the first time

that a film has been overly publicized in our lifetime, but it certainly qualifies. Yeah. Anyway, let's get... You seem to have... I think your dislike for it, and I noticed your tweet last night, is in itself interesting.

That there are plenty of things to rail against, and I do find it interesting that this has gotten under your... skin to the degree that it has. I share it with Dan. Someone tweeted out a picture from the NFL media newsroom last night. And it was the entire media group huddled around a big screen during halftime. Like it was the moon landing or something.

Yeah, exactly. Like, we could have Barack Obama speaking about going to war. And I promise you not that many people would have been huddled around the campfire. I mean, give me a break. I think you'll notice I was not. not among. Well, of course. Well, someone tweeted me and said,

I hope you guys talk about the preview on the podcast. I'm dealing with three people that absolutely hate this franchise. And I'm not TV. It's not true. I don't hate it. There's a dislike or disinterest. I dislike the all-encompassing nature of the Star Wars phenomenon that I cannot. I'm not allowed to escape it.

And because you guys love it so much, they're making five straight freaking movies, which means that I got to eat it for the next decade. I don't put myself in a camp where I'm some fan boy either. I'm not, I'm, I got other things in my life to do. Well, listen, I will say, though, I have, I have two boys that are under the age of five and they watched it and that's sort of what I think is what, what proved to me that there's some worth in it. They loved it. It's not about me at age 40. Yeah, but they love everything.

You can show a kid anything on TV and they're going to love it. I think it's a good movie for five-year-old. Oh. All right. Well, let it be. Like we said, Wes and I were on Shaq, and of course it came up. this morning. I hope the movies are great,

and I hope everyone enjoys them. That would be a change. I just wish I could not be so involved with it. Well, I feel that way about 75 things that exist in popular culture. We all have those things, and that's... For you, it's literally just about everything.

You don't like a lot of things that people are like. No, I like a lot of things, but if you're talking about our newsroom, you can't really control. There's no filter. It's just pushed in your... The first two of these movies were great. Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back,

and they've been terrible ever since, so I don't know why everybody gets fired up about him. That's fair dog. I'm just glad this all distracted us from J.J. Watts' disgusting speech that he was making. I mean, walking out of a womb, that's distasteful. Well, he's entering Drew Brees, phony level. Disrespectful. Disrespectful.

Discourse with that. A lot of hot takes. Let's start in Pittsburgh in the news where Ben Rothesburg, he's battling that MCL sprain in a bone bruise. He's missed three games, and it seems like he's going to miss another one. He expects to split some first-team rep, with Landry Jones, but Mike Tomlin told reporters on Tuesday the team will focus on

getting Landry Jones ready for the team's upcoming matchup against the 1-and-5 Chiefs. Here's the quote from Tomlin. It's safe to prepare as if Landry Jones is our quarterback this year this week. He's healthy. Wes, Jones, you said we talked earlier,

you watched this game recently. Jones threw two touchdowns in relief of Vic, who suffered a hamstring injury. He, he guy you think can do well against the bad chiefs team it's an interesting question almost every time we had seen landry jones in preseason action or every time we heard reports out of practice they were as bad as a quarterback could possibly be he looked better than expected he looked poised and comfortable but their second half was about martavis brian making a spectacular leaping touchdown pass and then

outraising the cardinals defense for 88 yards which was most of landry jones yards this was a Martavis Bryant show. Landry Jones is the reason they went and got Vic. They were not comfortable at all with the idea of him being their backup quarterback and he's looked putrid every summer. He was okay in the preseason this year. Maybe I just watched this best game. Yeah, there was one game where I watched him for two quarters and he was okay. He knows the offense, which Michael Vic doesn't. That's the difference. I think they trust him to do more with the playbook than Vic. And that may be a Todd Haley thing as much as anyone else. I mean, how you got to do is, you know, you throw a couple deep balls, but most of it's

going to be short stuff. You let Antonio Brown and Levi-on-Bel do the rest. I mean, Vic couldn't just couldn't even sustain. He should just play like his counterport, Alex Smith. Yes, exactly, because he's got great players around him in a perfect world. I mean, this is a luxury for the Steelers that they could keep Ben on the bench because they've bought some wins here. Watch out for the Steelers, too.

If they get another win with their second and third-trane quarterbacks and then they get Ben back at 5-and-2, 12-4 City. I can't say enough about how their defense has exceeded my expectations. James Harrison, I watched this game last night. It made three plays that changed the game. He forced a fumble on John Brown, forced a holding penalty, then negated a huge pass interference penalty on John Brown, and then had another sack to push Palmer out of field goal range.

He was phenomenal. Cameron Hayward is turning into one of the best defensive ends in football. Stefan, too, it's great. Mike Mitchell came back and played well this year. They can stop the run, and if you can do that, again, against the Chiefs, you take out the run game and you force Alex Smith to do with his arm, Big problems. Has anyone ever had a more odds-defying career, great career than James Harrison?

Couldn't find a team, showed up out of nowhere and became the best linebacker on the planet. Disappeared again, was basically out of football, and now is back to being an impact player? He is so bizarre because he's a 5-11 pass rusher who is just built like a brick wall. He is incredibly strong, and he forced that fumble on John Brown by just basically being made out of steel. Cessler was giving me the suspicious eyebrows. what about James Harrison He will be a really interesting Hall of Fame case one day

He is two-time first team all-pro Doesn't have He won't get in Defensive Player of there I do remember though the one year It was Belichick was at the Super Bowl So I think it was like the last 10 years about I can't remember which one it was

Nightmare But essentially there was a debate about Who should be defensive player of the year And I believe it was the year Palamalu won or Suggs I'm forgetting But Belichick said he would vote for James Harrison He said he would have been my guy the last two or three years

that he's the toughest guy to deal with. And that's saying something from Belknit. He basically ended Mohamed Massacuah's career. He put Colt McCoy into hyperspace and knocked out Josh Cribbs. I mean, he is one of the harder hitters in the league. I think he's the hardest hitter of the 21st century. When he hits you, he's coming with a lot of muscle behind it. What about the boss's hot takes?

Tech. What hot take? Pretty hard hitting. Oh. In general. I was just writing down Wes's hot take. I mean, if that's not a poll quote that they're going to tweet out, hardest hitter of the 21st century, could it be watch?

Or whatever. Well played. That's 138 characters. Perfect. I won't see that on the Sunday email from Andrew Howard. West goes inside football there in a big spot. All right. Let's move on to a little Packers talk.

Eddie Lacey, Fantasy Darling. I think you went probably in the top eight of most drafts. And it's supposed to be a stud running back. barely in the game plan for the Packers in their most recent win under the Chargers. In fact, he had just four carries in the game. James Stark's got most of the work, including a 65-yard touchdown run. And the question is, and Wes, you wrote about this yesterday, what is going on with Eddie Lacey?

Everybody's nervous about Eddie Lacey. Is he hurt? Is he fat? Is he not as good as he was last year? Or is he just about to break out? And here comes Chris Wessling, our night and shining armor, to explain exactly what's going on. Fantasy heads are panicking. I'm stealing fantasy heads from Mark because I love it.

Fantasy heads are panicking because it's always interesting to me every June and July and August when the whole community gets together and decides one player should be the number one overall pitch. That guy's number one. And for some reason they decided Eddie Lacey should be the top pick in fantasy this year. He got anointed for some reason. Really? Eddie Lacey's a great player when he's healthy. And people shouldn't forget that.

James Stark is not going to become the starter in Green Bay. When Eddie Lacey uses the biweek to get healthy, he should come back and be the starter. Last year, at this time, we had the same thing. The running back coach was saying we're going to use James Moore. Eddie shouldn't carry the ball 20 times a game. Lacey was averaging 3.8.6 yards per carry and have one game over 90 yards last year at this point. Right, and then he turned it on. Then he became the only player in the NFL with 100 yards per scrimm.

from scrimmage in the next nine games. So he's done this before. We know that Eddie Lacey, win healthy is an excellent football player. But it's not just health. It's conditioning. And it's a really tricky thing for people to talk about from afar. But I'm going to quote Bob McGinn,

who's one of the best out there and was rating, you know, he does a weekly piece where he rates all the players, which I love. And he said basically the first play of the game, James Stark's in the game, because it's an outside zone play. I believe, or an outside, you know, running play, and he got 25 yards in the play. And they don't think Lacey can make that play right now.

And he said some personnel people guess that Eddie Lacey right now is in about the 260-pound range. Now, I don't know what he played at last year when he was playing well. I wish I had access to that quote when I wrote this article, because Mike McCarthy said conditioning is not in it. And maybe it's not. Maybe he played it. It wouldn't shot, maybe he played a 255 last year and was good at that weight. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if they're changing up the weights. But for him to put that, that some personnel people, right now he's at 260 and that they're using Starks on those different sort of plays, that's an issue.

Or maybe McCarthy isn't going to call him out if there's a conditioning issue too. Well, remember, it was a couple summers ago, and he looked like the Patterson Gimlin film of Bigfoot when he turned around and he see his whole gut show. Ring the West's weird reference bell. I don't even know what. Mark knows what the Patterson Gimlin film is. It's the famous image. He's like, it's about me.

So you're saying, Wes, hang tight everybody. Eddie Lacey is going to come back. That quote about the personnel person believing he weighs 260 pounds worries me a little bit. I'll amend my statement. When healthy and in shape, Eddie Lacey is an excellent football player and way better than James Starr. Maybe he's in shape at 250. It wouldn't be the first running back that had success in the NFL that's done that. It is funny, though.

You do get the occasional like fourth or fifth year running back who's like, oh, no, this offseason I learned how to condition my body. I finally learned how to eat. And then it's like they blow up and they look completely different and faster and quicker than we've ever seen. And maybe Lacey is someone

of these guys that struggles with that and he's still learning how to round into football shape. Mark Sessler, fantasy outsider. Trade Eddie Lacey, yes or no? Well, if you're in a hot... No, I would not trade him. I think here's the thing.

I trade for him. If you're in hot water at this point, then hang on to a player that's going to surge down the stretch. We're not four weeks away from the plan with Eddie Lacey. You've got to be a predator here. Pray on the week.

Pray on these weak-minded, feeble-minded men who are going to panic about Eddie Lacey. That's what Milana Vintraub, our fantasy team, just pulled off, bringing DeMarco Murray in the building two days before his first 100-yard game. And what do we give up? A backup tight end? Are you kidding me? Who did you trade?

Patrick Crolley downstairs. Who is the tight end? Marty B. Marty B. Martellis Bennett. Oh, my gosh. And we have Antonio Gates on our roster, and we have maybe Gronk. Travis Crowell. Harron.

Grand larceny. I was going to say if the cops might come in here and take you guys away, because that is outrageous. You abused a friend of yours. It's wrong that that was ever made. At no point would have that ever made sense. Greg has long lashed us for having a...

You did a good job. Is it like a five-person ownership group at this point? Five or six people. With a consultant. This was, we patiently discussed, Dan led the conversation, but we all weighed in over the course of 72 hours before pulling the trigger.

everyone felt good about it. We're an organization that is absolutely unified from top to bottom. Absolutely. Outside of my complete disinterest. Well, you're involved, though. Five and one with the most points in the league. Finally, in the news, we have a little closure here, perhaps, a little more insight on the, perhaps the most doomed trick play in NFL history on Sunday night.

I'm talking about the fake punt by the cults that was swarmed and turned into a big lightning rod of, criticism for the Colts and they earned it. They should probably just move on as a team. But instead the Colts punter Pat McAfee went on the radio and tried to explain exactly what happened. Here's his quote. The gunner who became the center

all week was Clayton Gathers or Gathers. Gathers. Gathers gets injured in the second quarter. Insert Griff Whalen who had never done it before. So Griff Whalen is now the center in a play he's never practiced before. And it gets worse, by the way. They then the reason this play really went

to hell was because then they added a wrinkle. The play initially was just supposed to be a way to get the pads to freak out and send their defense back on the field, and then they'd snap it and get 12 men on the field and get five yards. But then they added a second wrinkle, which was simply to try to draw them off sides with the snap call or whatever. But no one ever told Griff Whalen about that. All he knew is if someone's under his butt with hands,

once you feel it snapped the ball. That's all he knew. That's the way I go through life. Yeah, whenever someone's touching your butt, you just go along with it. That's not what I was saying. Oh. I was saying you snap the ball.

Anyway, this came from a radio interview. Dead on, Dan. And it was on colts.com. And my reaction was, this does not make the Colts look any better. They should probably just stop talking about it. Well, I mean, are you calling, you kind of calling your coach out when you're saying we didn't practice this all week? He feels bad for his buddy Griff,

who's taking all the heat. They're writing columns seriously in Indianapolis. Bob Cravitz wrote a column, own up, Griff. You know, admit you made the mistake. You know, it doesn't help to just cover it up and just be honest. And in the end, you know, Griff Whalen didn't really do anything wrong. Between treating Deflate Gate like he was the Woodward and Bernstein of Watergate and this, Bob Kravitz isn't really having a great year. It's a Bob Kravitzie unexpected on the podcast, but always well.

Unexpected. You're the one that clearly brought it up just for that reason. Well, I did. Crave it. You know, Woodburn and Bernstein, pipe down. Griff Whalen needs Connor Orr to forget what he's doing in London and get on the phone and advocate for what is the franchise centerpiece of his, what, post-apocalyptic Patriots Madden Team. Terrible job by Connor at a time where his signature star in the cornerstone of this new franchise, Connor's got to get out in front of this. He can't put it in his head in the sands of Normandy. You've got to get in the middle of this. I went back and listened to the show that he was on when he explained Griff as the centerpiece.

And he said that it was to appease the NFL by giving them a figurehead that they could like post a flate gate. And also appease Boston, who likes, according to Connor or Plucky Whites. So, you know, what you got to get out in front of this, as he said. That's exactly what he said. But, yeah, that is exactly what he said. I listened to it this morning. That's on Connor or. Yeah, no, you're right.

I mean, that's a bad job at my car. And maybe you could talk to him when you see him in Jolly Old England. All right, that's what's happening. Stick a fork in him. All right. Let's talk about it. Now, handsome Hank, Henry Hodgson downstairs,

the notorious DOP. He, Greg, you're a guy you don't love, like, structure. Whenever I try to add structure things, you're always like, no, no, we don't need to do that. But I like one idea about this, that Hank drew up. Yeah, area employee wants more structures and more meetings. What kind of group is this?

No meetings, no meetings. You love the meetings. We have forked. I like meetings that are at restaurants and there's alcohol, good food. Henry brought up, yeah, we've forked 11 teams, and of course there are 32 teams, and 11 are out. So that means there are 21 teams still eligible for the playoffs, nailed it. Henry brought up the idea of the fork number to get to by, let's say, week eight, it should be 16 that eliminates half of the league

and then gives you wiggle room on four teams that you're just not sure about and you don't want to fork them because it wouldn't be smart to fork them. It's a great idea. That Henry. 12 will make it. Four, you're just not sure about they're going to be in the bubbles, you know. Makes sense. I'm willing to try it.

Wow. I do think we could hit week 11 and then think, oh, but we want a four. more teams, but I guess we'll see across that bridge, you know what I mean? It's like, that's the thing with the fork. If you're waiting until week 11 to fork a team, it's like, yeah, good onions, bro. But that's still pretty early. I mean, that's 40% of the season left. Anyways, but I like this.

We can try this play. All right, so let's try to get to 16 by the end of, you know, after week 8. That's the plan. And we're about to after week seven. So let's sit. First of all, before we talk about the nominees for this week for the fork, let's remind everyone who has been forked. shame the Cleveland Browns shame the Chicago Bears the Detroit Lions shame

New Orleans Saints the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the San Francisco 14-9ers the Houston Texans the Oakland Raiders the Miami Dolphins the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs wow you should have let the bell in there one more bell would have been good. How could you not know that? You did a fine job. Got to get that last bell in there, but good job. Every thought doesn't need to be vocalized.

A plus job by Sidney. Let's leave it at that. What do you mean? I should just shut my mouth there? You could think it. You could think it in your head. I don't operate that way. You've got to share what's on my mind.

You're a host, so. Sorry, Sydney for sharing how I feel about things. It's all right. It's all right. And wanting the best show possible, Greg. Next time I'm going to count the bells. Get them all in. All right.

Now, Wes and I, while Greg and Mark were in a high-octane meeting about London, Wes and I talked about nominees for this week who should be forked. And by forking someone a team, that means they have no chance of making the playoffs. If we are wrong, we will as a group make a hefty donation to a local charity of the city of that team. It's pretty big of us, I'd like to say. So we're not wrong. Three teams have survived forking in three seasons. Not very good at this.

Two, two the first year, one last year. Yeah. Who was it last year? The New Orleans Saints. No, we picked them to go to the playoffs, but the Carolina Panthers took the fork out of their back. So here are the four teams that we should talk about. Maybe, well, I'll go one at a time. We'll start with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

You know, I've been pushing for this one for several weeks, but I know you guys have been pushing back because you like Bordals, because there is some allegiance. Because the Colts are a bad, bad football. The Colts are not good. There's a lot of allegiance to the Gus Bradley regime at the end of the table. No, I would have forked them last week. Easy. So, yes, so here they are now. I'm still waiting for Toby Gerhardt to break out.

No, he's not. But here we are bad loss after bad loss every week. Now they are one in five. And I know the Colts might be lucky to win nine games, but that's saying that the Jaguars are going to win at least seven of their remaining 10 games. I don't see it. They're not going to win a wild card. We've got to fork the Jaguar.

Stick a fork and, I mean, prove me wrong, Jaguars. I would love to be proven wrong on this one. So prove us wrong. But when you lose to the Bucks and the Texans in back-to-back weeks, is that the two teams they've just lost to? Yep. Wow, that's the worst thing you can do in the NFL. So you're done.

I'll go along with it only because I said I would. I think, well, actually, I think their offense is going to be frisky all year, but their defense just made Brian Hoyer look like Aaron Rogers. I mean, Gus Bradley's defense, like you said, that's the problem. James Winston. I think they're forked. Yeah, I think maybe a new green mark. Yeah, because we're talking about the overall team.

I like Bortles just as much as the next guy, but as a team, what they've done over the last two weeks is forked territory. I think the best way to kind of sum them up is that they're just not there yet. They're working towards something, but they're not there yet. If they were trying to build a resume to get forked, they couldn't have done any better than the last two weeks. Yeah, that's right. All right. right next up the Tennessee Titans at one and four and you know it's who knows maybe Dan

Campbell's lit a little little fire under a Dolphins team that has a lot of talent on the roster but at the same time with a team and tatters the way the Dolphins were to come into your building and hang up banging on you like 37 19 whatever that was that's a bad bad look on top of Marcus Marietta hurt his knee we don't know how serious it is nothing season ending but could be something that bothers him. He's a mobile quarterback. Who knows? Put it all together. I am totally comfortable forking a one in four Tennessee Titans team.

Your thoughts, guys. Well, I think the first thing we have to bring up is what would we be doing by forking the Titans since the Jaguars and Texans have been forked is we are awarding the AFC South to the Colts. I personally am okay with that. I would be in favor of forking the Titans. I just want to kind of point out to the group and the listeners that that's what we're doing. We're just saying the Colts are going to win that division, and that is what I believe, and you guys wanted to be bold.

So I don't think it's that bold, to be honest. I don't feel the same way. I don't see it, though, as a celebration of the Colts on any level. I just think they're, again, lucky to be in the right division, and it's going to get them another banner hanging from Lucas Oil Stadium. I think out of principle, I refuse to award a division in week seven to a team that is just as bad as the Colts are. They're a bad, bad football team, and I don't think they've earned it.

But they managed to win two division games with Matt Hasselbeck. They got lucky. They did, but they haven't earned it. But the point is the trash in that division, defending them against being four is the problem. The Titans might be even more disappointing than the Jaguars. And they are to me because I had much more hope about this team after week one. Titan schedule is pretty easy, but in December...

So is the cults? You go to the Jets. go to the Patriots and you go to the Colts. Come on, this is not an eight-win team. The Colts also play the rest of the AFC South. It's not like just the other AFC South teams have it easy here. Colts are going to go eight and eight and win this division probably.

We're not waving flags. So are you saying what you're believing in Andrew Locke figuring things out eventually. I could see the scenario because they play New Orleans, Carolina, Denver the next year because they're going to lose two, at least two at three of those games. They're going to be four and five. And maybe the division's very close.

Maybe it's the Texans that make it close. But in the end, I trust Andrew Luck to figure things out. I do not. I haven't seen Andrew Luck this year. I've seen some other quarterback masquerading as Andrew Luck, and he's not good. Whoever that player is. At this point, you have to hang your hope on the Titans then. I am willing to do that because I think we are doing what we did with the NFC South last year

and acting like we haven't figured out. We did that in week 10 or something, too. Right. We thought we had it figured out. We forked all these bad teams. We had the wrong one. To me, the AFC South is even worse than the NFC South was last year. The Colts are a bad team.

I refuse to give them the division. I would hang my hell. I'm hoping the Titans show some friskiness and give the Colts a run. And the Colts, the one thing with the Colts, if things go south and the coach is about to get fired and we're getting more and more reports of that, the Colts are heading in the wrong direction. That absolutely could happen.

Right. But Ken Wisdenhunt isn't exactly. Not at all. You can't stand out. You can't really pound the table for any of these teams. All right. Let's move on to the Washington Redskins, There's a team that there's been thought in this room.

There's promise with this team that the defense is good. And when Kirk Cousins is right, they can score a little bit. But, you know, the team that I saw against the Jets, first of all, they're two and four now after Sunday's loss. And they're banged up beyond belief. I mean, they had six inactives in their starting lineup on Sunday. I don't think they can compete with any half-decent team. And by the time they get healthy, they might be two and six.

three and seven. So even in a bad NFC East, I think you've got to fork the Redskins. They're lucky to play in the division where there's no half decent team. You want to fork them. There are one win behind a team that you want to bench their starting quarterback and another team that lost by 20 points to the team that you want to bench their starting quarterback. I think they're the worst team in that division.

Yeah, I think they're the worst. We're supposed to be making decisions and we're obviously going to disagree on how we see the division. I was ready to fork them at one and two, I proposed it, just because I think Kirk Cousins is one of the worst five or six starters in the league. I know Wes and Mark disagree on that, but nothing he has done this year has changed my mind on that. And there's nothing special enough about the team around him.

I'm willing to bet on Romo, Chip Kelly, and Eli Manning, that just between the three of them, they'll squash this lousy Redskins team. Now, the Redskins, they have a very good chance to get the three and four this week and into their buy. They do play the Bucks at home, so that could delay things. But I don't care. I'd still for it.

They start getting all these injured players back over their buy week, probably too it's not the craziest thing that it's ever happened but i'm willing to let me just say this let me just say this i want you guys to try to imagine around new year's day or so a press conference in which a beaming j gruden is talking about a division championship and preparing for the playoffs can you actually see i can absolutely envision that i had that i had that exact vision after they beat the rams and thoroughly killed the rams i cannot see that but it looks like the redskins will stay alive mark yeah i want to keep them i know number one we We want to be bold, and we're heading in the wrong direction here,

but I want to keep them one more week. All right. Finally, I'll throw out the San Diego Chargers, another two-and-four team. The division's gone, obviously, with the 6-0 Broncos team. So then you've got to look at the wild card, and, you know, you got the bills, the Jets, the Steelers, all teams that are in better position than the charges right now. I know Phil Rivers is one of the best quarterbacks in the AFC, if not the whole NFL. But this is a team that's a flawed team.

We've talked about them being the Dalton line of all NFL teams. So it's hard for me to get excited and say, oh, this team's going to win nine or ten games and get a playoff spot. So I say, fork the chargers. Thoughts? I have a problem with that because. Wow. Because if we're looking at the four teams we're talking about today,

they have by far the best quarterback in Phillip Rivers. And the team is competent. They've been in every single game. There's only five winning teams. in the AFC right now. Now, you mentioned the wild card race actually looks. Part of that is there's no winning teams in the AFC South and one of those teams has to get in.

But there's only five winning teams right now and I agree with you because of Rivers. Who's number one in the NFL in total offense? San Diego Chargers. And their next three opponents, Raiders, Ravens, Bears. I don't understand though how we could all be in agreement that they're like the middle of the road team in the NFL and yet we're not confident.

They're the middle of the road team in the NFL with like three backups playing in the offensive line, Stevie Johnson inactive, Keenan Allen misses in the fourth quarter, several players on defense injured. I think that you get three cupcakes and then a buy week. They could be a total different team in a second. Plus, I don't think they've been bad.

They're two and four, and the Redskins are two and four, and I think they've been bad. And I think if you watch every one of their games on balance, they don't look like a good team. The Chargers lost in the last possession against in Cincinnati. They lost in the last possession in Lambo, and they lost a tough game to Michael Vick,

which they should have won, but that was right at the end of the game against Pittsburgh. So I look at that, and I see a team that's pretty good. They haven't bottomed out, and they can still score points, and you talk about the schedule. And you talk about a flawed team. A flawed team is going to make the playoffs in the NFC.

Why do you got to sneak in a cheap shot on the Redskins there? They're a bad team, but so is every other NFC. When have you ever watched the Giants and be like, oh, this is a great team or the Cowboys? No, you're all bad teams. I'm just making a decision who's the worst out of that. I said the Redskins because they're both two and four. They're two and four, and I just supported that two and four team.

And I was kind of setting up a little dichotomy. Why this two and four team? So the only team that we will fork this week is the Jaguars. So long, Jagu. They're landing in London and they're going to find this out. Let me just say. Well, that's a problem. Let me just say.

We wanted to be bold. And I feel some butts clenching now that we're. That's fair. Exercise is continuing. instead of getting bold, we're getting conserved. I think you're exactly right. And this is exactly what we said we wouldn't do. And we just didn't.

You guys all blamed it on me in the past. I'm the one ready to fork some teams. Let's get the forked. I just went four for four on fours. I went three for four. I'm willing to fork other NFC East teams. Let's put, you know, get the for. All of them except the Redskins.

What? That's ridiculous. Your logic is crumbling before us. Why? Why do you guys think all these other three teams in the NFC East are so great? And the Reds are so terrible. But why would the Redskins not get four? but you would fork all the other teams.

Your whole logic is based on them. They're all crummy. Right. Well, I'd do it to prove a point. Just as I'm forking, I'm leaving the Titans alive to prove a point that the Colts are a bad, bad football team. All right. And they don't deserve to be handed a division. See, it's about me.

You know, Wes, it is getting personal now. You're getting fired up about the Colts and the Redskins. That's good. Colts are bad. Those whole teams are in your stable right now. It's crowded in that stable. No, the Colts are not in my stable. Elbows everywhere.

The Redskins are not in my stables. They're just in a horrible division, and you guys love the Cowboys and the Eagles and the Giants. None of us do. I get it. I get it. When you can back a team led by leaders like Jay Gruden and DeAngelo Hall, I mean, that team's always going to have a chance to shine. Well, let's talk in January when a beaming Jay Gruden is giving a playoffs. I was going to say, a mark will be named Queen of England before Jay Gruden is beaming about a division title. Can you save that for January?

Save it. Fox it up. All right. Good talk, guys. A lot of good discourse. That's what people come to hear. They want to hear four regular guys just talking it up, chopping it up, a little NFL. There's nothing regular about you.

I'm the old Zooser. I'm a regular Joe. Third person, regular. All right. Let's move out. Let's talk a little Thursday night football. This is a, we got a little NFC East on Monday. That didn't go too well.

But now we're going to move to the NFC West and hope for a better game. This is between the Seattle Seahawks, who have just come off two of the worst back-to-back losses of the Pete Carroll era. I've got a great stat for you. Let's hear it. No, I want to hear it.

Continue on. The Seahawks are only the second team in the last 50 years to blow a nine-point leader more with less than four minutes left in the game. And that's twice in an entire season. And they did it in back-to-back weeks. It is hard to blow a two-possession lead

with under four minutes to go. And they just did it twice. Can I just say, by the way, that's crazy. They had in the Super Bowl against the Patriots, they could not make a stop in the fourth quarter. This happening twice in succession like this. This is supposed to be, you know, an all-time defense,

and this is not stuff becoming of an all-time defense. I think Earl Thomas has been playing with essentially one arm all. Yeah, everybody's playing with... Played really well against the Panthers. Yeah, he did have his best game of the season, despite being part of the worst play of that game. He played well. Four pass breakups and intercept.

If you break it down, individually. They were without Bobby Wagner. They're not playing poorly. Cliff. Cliff Averill's having a good season. Michael Bennett's certainly having a good season. It's just, I don't know. Something's not worth. By the way, Russell Wilson had a great game against the Panthers. He had a bunch of great throws.

The same thing happened, though, like it did against Cincinnati, where they had, I believe, one first down their last four drives, something like that. See, while you interrupted in the middle of the setup, and then you went running after your comment, so then now it's all jagged.

Well, that'll make sense. Say what you're going to say. The Seahawks are playing the 49ers. Oh. That's all I needed to get to. The Niners who are now two and four, they beat the Ravens, put the Ravens to rest,

much to Mark Sessler's enjoyment. So this is a battle two, two, and four teams. So, Mark, I will throw it to you here. Seahawks, yeah, two awful losses, great pedigree. Any chance they go into the great giant bell bottom and drop another one? The only thing about the 49ers is there are a completely different team in the games at home this season.

On defense especially. I don't see that happening, though, because, you know, and I don't like calling things a must-win game in week seven, but this is it if you're Seattle. You've got to go in and take care of business. And we just talked about the fact that their quarterbacks making good throws. Their defense individually, at least, is playing well. The sum of the parts is much, much more than what the 49ers could offer.

I mean, this would be a stunner to me if the 49ers lost. Well, Kaepernick has done the job the last two weeks. He hasn't faced any pass rush. And this week, you would assume that he does. I mean, he made his cap – last week reminded you a little bit of old Kaepernick because he put the three or four really nice – Well, against the worst secondary in the NFL. Right, but it doesn't matter what secondary is he playing.

He had a 25-yard deep or 20-yard deep out to Tori Smith that very few quarterbacks can make. And then those are the moments you think, oh, yeah. He played okay with the pressure in his face last week, too. I mean, it was his best game of the season. What are we seeing from Navarra Bowman this year? Because there was obviously going into the season a lot of talk about, wow, how amazing he looks and limited time. Is he still close to Navarra Bowman,

or is he a significantly lesser player? He's been up and down. He had 15 tackles against the Ravens, but... And some big plays early in the game where he really read it. His instincts are so good, but I don't know if physically he's as good. Chris Johnson made him look really bad when the Cardinals played them. I think he's been like the rest of the game. their defense lights out at home and struggling on the road.

Well, he, I think he's always been one of the headier players in the league, and you can see it where he'll just diagnose a play and then go, but I don't think the same, I don't think he has the same juice that he used to after the surgery. Antoine Bethay is another guy that they would really love to have the 2014 version of Antoine Bethay back. I was surprised that Joe Flacko made some comments about Bowman. He had this to say, laterally and some of the man coverage type things,

which he's not in a ton of positions to be in some of that stuff you might be able to see the fact he's coming back a little bit so he says he's not the same guy but he's still good and Bowman to his credit he admits he's I'm not back where I was that's the goal every single week to get better I have my top 10 comeback player of the year candidates coming out Tuesday night Wednesday morning

he might be on that nice plug towards the end yeah he won't be in the top eight he might squeeze it a night or 10 It sounds, you know, of course, they had to cut Alden Smith after all that, but they miss Alden Smith. They have no pass right. Well, Aaron Lynch has played great. Speaking of plugs, by the way, Mark, your heroes and villains, weekly column is up. Were you happy with today's edition? Yeah, I was satisfied with it.

Oh, yeah. He finally went after the Cretans that are expecting 60 minutes to start on time on Sundays. It's about time you put that in there. I am annoyed. I got out the double blasters for those. I'm very annoyed with that, the fact that that's still a plug during the fourth quarter of every CBS football game. reminding anyone that's plugged, anyone that's been watching this ancient television news magazine

since the 80s knows that it never starts on time. It wasn't even on the East Coast during football season. It hasn't since like the 60s. CBS wasn't the villain, though, for mentioning it. It was all the people still expecting it. Like someone's like tuning in like, whoa, what? Like you're telling me it's not starting on time. There's no way CBS's home office in Manhattan,

like they don't get a ton of mail every week for 50 years straight. Yeah, by people still sending mail. Right. Exactly. And Mark, or Greg, I should say, your watchability index. This is everything in the index? Watchability rankings. Your watchability rankings, ranking how watchable each of the NFL teams.

A lot of good content on NFL.com. You know, the last thing for this game, wouldn't it be, it would be really interesting if the 49ers are ahead in this game in the second half. Suddenly it feels like this is a really important game. It could be the end of the little Seahawks. not error or anything, but they'd be put in such a hole this season, dead last, couple of division losses, and Kaepernick would complete his revenge tour. You take care of the Ravens who got you in the Super Bowl, and then you get rid of your nemesis.

This season is like the Capernic revenge tour is even a thing. I just made it a thing. That's why I brought it up. If I'm a Seahawks fan, the thing I'm worried about most is having a lead in the fourth quarter. Then you banged, according to recent history. Well, against a couple of undefeated teams. That's fair. All right. Final score. Pick and final score. Mark.

Seattle 24, 49ers, 16. Seahawks 30, 49ers, 17. Seahawks 28. Niners 10. I think it'll be a good game. 2114, only touchdown. Seahawks win, though. No.

All right. So there you go. Thursday night preview. All right, before we get out of here, before Simone comes to pick up Mark, let's dip into the old mailbag thank you to everybody that sent it in at around the NFL on Twitter this first one from bear mallings at bear mallings are there any rosters that would not make the playoffs any rosters if you replace the QB and HC which means head coach with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick that's a great question off the top of my head I'd say no well so what's the

worst team in terms of talent in the league right now. What about? Offensibly. That's interesting. I mean, I was going to say buccaneers maybe, but. Let's see, all right. Weapons on the bucket. Let's use the bucks as a good.

Buccaneer Jaguars, actually, I might say has. If we put, all right, let's use the Jaguars. Tom Brady is their quarterback. Bill Belichick is the coach. They're one of the best offenses in the NFL with Tom Brady as their quarterback. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Julius Thomas, Alan Robinson? Tom Brady?

All right, I think they're going on the playoffs. I think the answer is yes. Yeah, they're all going to the play. That's more weapons than Brady's had most of his years in the wing. I know. I'd say not only going to the playoffs, they're Super Bowl contests. I'd say the Bucks, I guess. But yeah, I'd put him in the playoffs.

Yeah, Tom Brady throwing to Mike Evans and Vincent Jackson and Austin Safarian Jenkins. They'd go sign a slot receiver immediately. That was the ultimate throne of ease question right there. Maybe the Jets still make the playoffs. Sneaky throne of Ease question. The Jets would be the team that didn't make the playoffs. Tom Brady would turn Harry Douglas into a 1,200-year-old receiver. That's a great question.

Although Belich could probably cut half of the players on any other team in the league. Thanks, by the way, for saying it's a great question because it wasn't my question, but I picked it. It was very astute. It had a lot to do with you, Dan. In a way. And you're doing it, you know, you're ill. You're really battling today. Yeah.

Next up, which unbeaten team has the best chance of going undefeated? All right. Let's look at it. The Pats, the Bungles, the Broncos, the Packers, and the Panthers, all undefeated through six weeks. Patriots. The easiest answer is probably the Patriots. We just talked about the coach and quarterback taking any team in the league to the playoffs. What's the right answer because of the schedule?

They also, I'd like to find the future schedule on football outsiders, ranked 20th the rest of the season. which is not too hard. Their big tough game is at Denver, but overall their schedule is manageable compared to some of those others. They're going to be Denver by 30 points. One of the Packers or Broncos will be eliminated from that

after the buy week because they play each other. I like the Packers would be my second pick. Yeah, they have the 25th easiest schedule moving forward. They're not crushing teams right now, though. Yeah, but I think it's a sign of a good team too when you're in a funk

and you're still just taking care of business. They have to play at Arizona in week 16. Yeah. They come out of their buy, which they need, by the way, because they're beat up at Denver, at Carolina. They have some tough games. If they get through those two, you could, the watches on. Throw the Broncos out of this discussion.

They have a bad quarter. The Broncos out, throw the Panthers out. Sorry, guys. I respect you now, but come on. It's been serious. What about the Bengals? They'll go 12 and 4. They'll go 16 and 1.

They'll lose a game inside that division. 16 of 1. West of us still, they get the buy and losing the second in that second round. Isn't Westvis specific to wildcard weekend, though? Yeah, it is. Because it's been in the same place every time. It is, but I think. Christmas was originally Saturnalia.

We can change things. Maybe it's like Hanukkah, which kind of changes depending on the year, right? You know, jumps around a little bit. I don't know why that is exactly, but it does. It's not the same time. You never know what's going to sneak up. Let's offend every faith group with his fengal's analogy. All right.

How is it offensive to point out that Christmas? This was originally Saturnalia. I'm kidding. Mark, it's a little jumpy whenever we go to the theology podcast talk. All right. I'm just saying let's save it. It's a fact. Hanukkah's a different time every year.

Hanukkah. All right, here we go. At GoTrell, flying to London first class, Mark, and have they practiced, and by they, Connor and Mark, practiced their cockney rhyming slang? Definitely not flying first class. I'm in the second to last row on the airplane. I just looked.

You know what happened the best time you were there. Middle seat or no? Not a middle seat. That's good. I mean, that's still surrounded by masses of people. For long flight. Don't have, yeah, an idea of the geography of it. You need to go from L.A. across one of the largest countries in the world, probably.

You got to land. Are you stopping over in New York or something? No, no stopover. You're going all the way? I don't even know that was possible. Technology, baby. What are you talking about? You don't have to gas up to go all the way for,

London from here? Dan's xenophobic tendencies showing itself here. Sorry, I didn't grow up with a silver spoon. I grew up in a coal town. Never took a flight that went 6,000 miles. There's no way that you thought they need to gas up. I totally thought you needed to stop over.

That was the case for years and years, and I had a similar question, was told that it's been, that Virgin Atlantic, for instance, it's been a shop from L.A. for a while. You sit on a plane for 12 straight hours. This is what I do for the, I mean, you can go New York to Tokyo. Do you have a good book?

No stopping. Go over the top of the world. That's all over the point. That's engrossy. You have these things in life, Greg, that I don't have. Money is not something that's... Some of it is by choice. You literally said you don't like going to other countries.

I never said that. I just said I love good old US of A. Doesn't mean I hate anything else. All right, one more. One more. I just like the... For Simone, she's the one that's run... She's the one that's run out of gas.

She needs to gas up. She's added the car on downstairs this whole time. Last one. I just like the format of this. It's not even a question. David Douglas at softcore Dave. Interesting. The AD scale, talk to me.

I don't know. That's it. Talk to me. Well, to new listeners, the Andy Dalton scale, that's the prime meridian of quarterbacks. That's how you measure. If you're above the Andy Dalton line, then you have your franchise quarterback.

If you're below, you're looking for one. and Andy Dalton's MVP quality play has really thrown that into Quest. There's a good chance that, and this is kind of Wessling's domain, so it's ultimately up to him. But there's a good chance if this keeps up. The whole thing either has to be blown up or rejiggered completely, correct? Yes, there is a good chance. We talked about this a Sunday night,

and I said I wasn't prepared to ditch the whole thing just over a six-game sample size because Andy Dalton has had really good six-game sample sizes in his career before. Not this good. No, not this good. That's true. But I fully expected this. The other thing is he's had... He can turn back the podcast to June,

and I was talking about Andy Dalton having a career year. Here's the thing, though. He also has had several moments of this season so far where old Andy would have crumbled. That's why I think this is going to be different. I think it's neck up where he's changed a lot, and it's not just the hair. Well, how about we put a deadline on it? Could be the Alex Smith scale or something like that. They play at Arizona in week 11.

If he gets past that game and doesn't turn back into a pumpkin at midnight, the Alex Smith scale. We'll talk about it. So just be Landry Jones, basically. Are you talking about Andy Dalton or the entire Bengals organization? November 26th. Let's say Thanksgiving will have an Andy Dalton podcast, Dalton scale podcast on a Tuesday. Sounds like a great idea.

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Tune in, everybody. You don't want to miss that one. All right. That's it. For another edition of the NFL podcast, Mark, you have a great time, buddy. Thank you. And I will be calling you in two days.

Yes, it cannot wait for that. until our next show late Thursday night make sure you tune in for that we're going to get through the Thursday night football game we're going to then do all of Sunday so that will be a lot of fun all right so that's it Mark have fun

buddy I will good good luck to you all see you soon all right signing off for the quiet storm the mailman the boss and Sydney behind the glass until Friday This is an eye heart podcast.