The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Did the Jets find an answer, or merely a scapegoat, by firing Robert Saleh?

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

We're used to big news dropping on Tuesdays, but this one was entirely different. The Robert Saleh firing—especially the timing of it—surprised the NFL world, and that's where Robert Mays and Diante Lee of The Ringer begin this episode of The Athletic Football Show. The guys also recap the Chiefs' win over the Saints on Monday Night Football, dig into the Seahawks' run defense and the deteriorating situation in Cleveland, and bat around questions for three good offenses—the Texans, Bengals, 49ers and Bills.Then, John Shipley from Sports Illustrated joins to engage in some franchise counseling for the Jacksonville Jaguars.RundownJets fire Robert SalehSaints-Chiefs recapUpon Further Review: Seattle's run defenseUpon Further Review: The nightmare in ClevelandThe Ball KnowerHouston's early down problemsSan Francisco's passing gameBuffalo's recent strugglesFranchise Counseling: Jacksonville JaguarsHost: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Diante on X: @DianteLeeFBFollow John on X: @_John_ShipleyTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Brought to you by Thursday Night Football Only on Prime Video. I'm Robert Mays. Another midweek show for you guys today. Got a couple different guests. A little bit later in the show, John Shipley is going to be joining us to chat Jags.

John is a fantastic Jaguars writer who knows that team very well. I just wanted to get a sense of where things stand right now. After that 0.14 star, I know they won on Sunday, but how are we feeling about Trevor Lawrence's culpability and all this? How are we feeling about where this team exists under Doug Peterson? We laid out like a three or four-prong plan to potentially, if not fix the Jaguars, then send them in a slightly better direction over the next year. So before we dig into that, though, our old buddy Deont-A Lee joined us to chat about a few different things.

We did the ball knower upon further review all of our midweek segments, but also we had some big-time news to dig into. Shrode before we started recording the show, Robert Sala, fired by the New York Jets. We broke down every bit of that. Why now, what this means for the Jets, where they go from here. We also talked a little bit about Monday night football, but obviously the big news of the day is the Robert Sol firing. So let's get to that with Deante right now. Joining us now, it is our old friend from The Ringer. It's DeAte Lee.

DeAte, how you doing, man? Feels good to be here. It's a little weird looking at these graphics again around the screen for the first time in a little while. But, I mean, I've been eagerly waiting to talk ball with you again for, you know, after a long while of not doing so. So I'm glad to be back. we had an idea that we wanted to do today. It was a defense-centric idea, which shouldn't surprise anybody. It's why we wanted to have you on.

And then we had a bombshell drop this morning and blow up pretty much all of our plan for what this podcast was going to look like. We're still going to get to the categories a little bit later because I want to know what your ball-nower thoughts are. But we have to address the biggest news of the day and probably the biggest news we're going to have for the first couple weeks of the NFL season. Robert Sahl fired as the head coach of the New York Jets after a two-and-three start. shocking, I think on some level, just because this is a team that was potentially going to be playing for first place in the AFC East when they play the bills on Monday. It's not like it's been an utter disaster all season. I actually think that the win they had against the Patriots in prime time was probably the best moment we've had for Jets football. And I don't know how many years.

The defense actually put up a pretty good showing against a Vikings offense that had been pretty darn good over the first month of the season. So there's just a lot to untangle here. when you first saw the news, what was your initial reaction? It's why now, which I'm sure was probably the reaction for most people, right? And what are we diagnosing as a firing issue, the fireable issue, ultimately for Robert Sal is really what I'm kind of boggling my mind about because the things that have really damned this team so far this year to the extent that it has been, it's just been Aaron Rogers not playing up to the level that you would expect for a quarterback of his stature.

And I think a lot of that would ultimately be fixed over time. they've just got to figure out how they want to react to the blitz and how they want to adjust certain things with how they work through their pre-snap operation and getting the ball out of Aaron's hands quickly and efficiently. But if the issue was going to be the defense, the defense has been fine outside of the season opener against the 49ers. So I thought that there was actually a lot more positive momentum happening with the jet season that they were maybe getting credit for in the public eye.

And I'm surprised that now was going to be the time. And if now is the time, why did you open the season with this guy as your head coach in the first place? ton of similar thoughts. I just don't really understand the timing of it. And I want to get to a couple things that were tweeted out this morning, both from the Jets and from just reporters monitoring the situation. Here's the Woody Johnson statement. I'm just going to read it in full for proper context here. It says this morning, I informed Robert Solid, he will no longer serve as the head coach of the Jets. I thanked him for his hard work these past three and a half years and wished him and his family while moving forward. This is not an easy decision, but we are not where we should be given our expectations. And I believe now is the best time for us to move in a different direction. Kind of piggybacking off. Diana tweeted earlier today, Woody Johnson's decision to fire Robert Sala might seem surprising, but Johnson views this team as ready to compete now and wanted to make a move to get things on the right track before it was too late. I don't really understand what that means and what type of right track you're trying to get on.

Typically when we see coaches fired this early, they've lost the team and they've lost the plot. Everything feels like it's completely out of their grasp. I'm willing to admit that we don't know what's going on behind closed doors in the building, but I can only go on what the product looks like on the field. And the product that they were putting on the field does not look like a team that had given up or a team that was tuning out its head coach, especially on the defensive side of the ball. I mean, if you watched on Sunday, they just forced the Vikings into their worst offensive day of the year.

That they were scrambling the whole day. I thought they played really well. And they've been improving at some of the things that had dog this defense. I thought their run defense was significantly better last week and two weeks ago as well. Um, So again, this comes down to what you think Robert Sala is responsible for in the building. And it seemed pretty clear that he had taken his hands off of anything to do with the offense and was focusing all his effort and making sure that this defense is as good as possible. And despite them losing a lot of depth up front, I think that they've played well defensively. And to the point that you were making before you gave Woody Johnson's statement, the AFC is as open as it could as it could possibly be five weeks into the season. The AFC East is still available for them.

Like you said, on next Monday, they're playing for the. the divisional lead against the bills. So I hadn't seen a disaster game. And I think if there was an overreaction to be made, it would have come later on in the year. Maybe you have a cold October and it looks like you're losing your grip on competing for a wildcard spot, let alone the divisional lead. Then I could see them making a quick decision on moving on from Robert Sala. But right now, the defense has been fine.

I think that the offense will figure some things out. And you have to trust the fact that if you hand it the keys to Aaron Rogers, and Nate Hackett that you need to give it some time to sort itself out because this is the longest he's been healthy as a New York jet. So I just don't get, I don't get the timing. And I think that that's reflected in your reaction to the statement as well. You said something that I think is really notable here. What is Robert Sala responsible for? And if you look at the purview of a head coach, a lot of people this morning have tweeted out numbers about what the defense looked like during Salah's tenure. And I think some people have properly responded. That's not what being a head coach is.

He is not the defensive coordinator. You are ultimately responsible. as the head coach for the performance on both sides of the ball. I lived through the Levy Smith there, man. Like I watched what those bear's defenses were. If you cannot get the other side of the ball figured out as a head coach, that is often grounds for dismissal. But are we allowed to put the offensive failings of this team at the feet of Robert Sala when we understand that he only had so much control, I'm guessing,

in naming who the offensive coordinator of this team was going to be because of how much Aaron Rogers dictates over there? So that's the problem here, is that I think you can't throw this at his feet and you can't make him responsible even as the head coach for what the state of the offense looks like when he really didn't have that much control in hiring the people who were going to run the offense. Exactly. And if your issue was going to be his handling of the offense, you know when the time to fire him would have been, it was when it looked like the locker room was going to have a mutiny over how he was handling Zach Wilson. That's when it would have been time to be like, hey, this guy's doing any time this off season. Exactly. And it would have made all the sense in the world.

Hey, you know, head coaches usually only get one shot at quarterback. You drafted a guy, didn't work out. You're bringing in a vet. That means that we're ushering in an entirely new era of Jets football. And I think that everybody would have looked and said, even if you thought Robert Sala was a better coach than the results had suggested, that it would have made sense politically and at that time with the organization. But to give him another shot at this,

you install the guys that you would think would work with Aaron Rogers. and then you look up and say because you lost to the Vikings, an undefeated football team right now and playing some of the best defense in the league, that now is the time to make a move. I just don't get that. This does not square with me unless to your point, there are details that we'll find out in coming days and weeks

that suggest that maybe things are happening behind the scenes that were untenable. I think sometimes we struggle to understand what a different voice can mean for a team. Even if you think the defense is playing hard and playing at a decently high level, maybe they just needed something a little bit different. they needed to hear from somebody different, and maybe that helps jumpstart things on the offensive side of the ball. I don't believe that. I don't think that that's going to be the outcome here, but I'm just trying to play devil's advocate for why they felt like removing Robert Sal

and putting Jeff Obrick into this role was going to get them better results on offense. You just touched on the point I was going to make. I think that what you laid out is a very reasonable way to handle your head coaching position, but if that's the way you were moving, you wouldn't put a guy who's never been a head coach and has never looked over a great offense as your interim head coach in the situation. And I understand why you wouldn't make it Nate Hackett because I'm sure the Jets fans want to hear nothing less

than Nate Hackett being an interim head coach. So I get the idea, but this brings me back to if these were your options, if you did move on from Robert Salah in season, that means you don't move on from Robert Zala in season because you don't have the right contingency plan in place. This isn't Philadelphia, right, where if things go off, the rails. You've got two guys. One that is a potential head coach or has been a hot name before

in Kellyn Moore and a previous head coach in Vic Fangio. And you can hand that off and say, hey, we'll just ride the rest of the season out. This is not that situation. If you were going to bring this guy in, I was under the impression you were bringing him in to let him have his run at the 2024 season, good or bad. Think about the other in-season firings we've had recently. I mean, what it looked like for Carolina last year with Frank Reich. What it looked like for the Broncos with Nate Hackett. Those were disasters. Those things had completely unraveled. You can understand why anything better or anything different would be better. It just didn't feel like that here. And so I just don't understand why you think something like this is going to magically fix things and why you think it's going to potentially salvage what you think is a pretty good roster,

even if there's more to some of those devil's advocate points that we were trying to make. So I just don't know where this necessarily leaves the Jets. I feel like this probably makes the Devante Adams trade more likely because now you're more incentivized to try to salvage what the rest of the season looks like. Do you agree with that? I would agree with that. And I think that now the timeline for that should be accelerated if it wasn't already because the next four games are AFC games. So now you have really kind of pushed all your chips in to say that the rest of October has to go perfectly for this team that they want to contend, you know, to be a top seed in this conference. I just keep coming back to this idea of you knew what you were

getting into. Exactly. You knew what sort of bed you were making. And by handing control of what the offense was going to look like and handing control of what the building was going to feel like to the quarterback, if it went south on that side of the ball, you really didn't have any contingency plans. You didn't have a way out of this. And that's what this feels like.

It feels like they are running a static offense that Aaron Rogers wants to run. It feels like he is just reading things out and playing the position, the way he wants to play the position where it's quick decisions, it's not throwing the ball. over the intermediate area of the field. It's what we saw his last year with Green Bay. It's just now there isn't a Matt LaFleur trying to like shove him into an offense that is probably better suited for success in 2024. He's just left to his own devices.

And I think that that's why we've arrived in this place. And it is not a fun place to be. At all. And even with an acquisition, right, a supposed acquisition of Devante Adams, I don't know if that addresses Aaron Rogers's problem as much as just giving him another guy to target right now. That's it. It's just giving him one more guy that he feels good picking on one-on-one matchups with because he only has one right now and that's the way that he wants to play the position. Right. Exactly. And, you know, watching him, you know, completely turn into a shell of himself

the last two weeks against the Blitz from Minnesota and Denver, even if you get more favorable one-on-one matchups on the outside, the accuracy I saw from Aaron Rogers in London on Sunday doesn't look like a guy who was going to have an answer just because you give him a better ex-receiver right now. We'll keep monitoring this over the next couple of days, as I'm sure more stuff will trickle out about why this decision was potentially made. But definitely a puzzler, and I think that the timing on it is very curious, no matter what sort of explanations they're going to try to give and what sort of spin they're going to try to put on it.

Let's keep rolling here. Let's talk about the Monday Night Football game that was played last night. Chiefs double up the Saints, 2613, a big day for skill position players that were mostly relevant like seven years ago in the NFL with Kareem Hunt and Jujo Smith-Schuster. It feels like the Chief's offense is back. in a very familiar place from where they were for a good chunk of last year. What do you make of this Chief's performance and what it might say about this team moving forward

in a world without Isaiah Pacheco without Rishi Rice? I would say it's hard, I think, to extricate this game from the larger conversation about where this offense is right now. And I've spent a lot of time, and I'm sure you, and I know you guys have as well, kind of talking about how often we feel like Kansas City is just sputtering through games, right? And the success rate looks good. Patrick Mahomes is making the hero plays he needs to on third downs.

But I don't know if that was necessarily the story on Monday night. I actually think that this offense looks sustainable in a way that it hadn't when I was watching it against the Chargers, that it hadn't in weeks prior. And I guess the thing that I'm struggling most with is, is that just because this style of offense matches up really well with the way that Dennis Allen likes to run defense for New Orleans. Why do you say that? I think that what you saw on Monday night was a lot of Dennis Allen trying to play cover one. trying to play matchup-based defense, a lot of aggressive match coverages on early downs to take away the RPO's. And that means that the running lanes to just hand the ball off and get downhill were much more available this week than we had seen in weeks prior. And I think that that's how Kansas City was able to just stay on schedule.

And then when you did get into those obvious passing situations, and this was something that I think is specific to New Orleans, they wanted to drop out, right? They wanted to crowd the line of scrimmage and then drop out, play a lot of soft zone shells on passing downs and see if you can, is Patrick Mahomes to make one of the mistakes that he's been making basically every week since December of last year where he's putting the ball in harm's way. And I just don't think they had the pass rush to affect Patrick Mahomes in the way that you need to if that's your approach. And that's your game plan. So I think that that kind of helped Kansas City find a little bit more airspace to operate under. I don't know if that's going to exist against all the

teams that they play. But I would say if we're looking at this just as a data point for 2024, if you're a chief's fan, this is what you want to see this offense looks like because it seemed like they had an answer for everything New Orleans was throwing at them, even though they didn't put up a bunch of points. I love the run game point. I think that's where this has to start. If you look at the way the Saints were playing them beyond the coverage is they're playing with light boxes on like 60% of total snaps, which is more than New Orleans typically likes

to do. And they were not able to defend the run out of those looks. The Chiefs were able to run the ball consistently when they were given some of those juicier looks on early downs. So if that can be the starting point, then everything else can kind of flow from there. And I think the pass rush point kind of ties into that because this offensive line needs to play really well outside of a question mark at left tackle for us to feel good about this team. Because if you're going to have questions about who the non-travis Kelsey pass catchers are,

and now the whole point coming into the season was Hollywood Brown and Xavier Worthy were going to create space for Travis Kelsey and Rishi Rice. Well, if now you remove Rishie Rice from that, and Xavier Worthy bops up one spot in your past catcher hierarchy, and now he's a piece you have to rely on instead of just a space creator. Or if he's still going to be that, and then Juju steps into the Rishi Rice role, your passing game just isn't the same sort of dynamic that it would have been in ideal circumstances. And if that's going to be the case, your offensive line needs to play better than it did for a huge chunk of last year and better than it did for stretches early on this season. And you need to make sure that you're running

the ball consistently. And so I think that was the case last night. Chase Young was really the only one picking on who was ever playing left tackle. Other than that, there's a lot of room for Patrick Mahomes to operate. So I think that was huge. And if you're remove the running game efficiency and a couple busted coverages that led the juju chunk plays, I feel like we might have seen some of the deficiencies that still exists with this Chief's passing game, but the fact that they could run the ball the way that they wanted to, I think that made everything else just a little bit easier. 100%.

And to the point you made about some of the issues that this offense is going to have, not having Rashid Rice available, you can see that whenever they were in plus territory, which is why they only put up 26 points, right? As they got closer to the end zone and there was less space for this offense to operate in, You saw that there weren't many guys open. It took a lot of Patrick Mahomes scrambling and making guys miss. It took a lot of trick-shot passes and, you know, the offense really bogging down. And they had an opportunity to put up 40-plus if they could have shaken anybody loose.

And this speaks to the fact that Travis Kelsey can still be a productive player, finding holes in defenses, but they don't have guys that win. You know, Xavier Worthy, for all his speed, does not win and does not create space for the rest of his teammates. A lot of the space that's being created is basically from Patrick Mahomes having to, extend and trying to use the threat of the run game when they have it available to them the way that they did on Monday. It's such a good point because in other areas of the field, if you have Xavier Worthy lifting coverage, you can create space for guys who can't necessarily create it for themselves and aren't really good separators. But when the field condenses, now you remove that from the equation, you're asking somebody to win and they don't really have somebody that can do

that. I think that's a really, really good way to put it. On the other side of the ball, what do we make of what's going on with the Saints offense over the last couple weeks compared to what we saw over the first two weeks of the season? I think that what we're seeing is that this offense, the engine of this offense is the offensive line. And as long as they have guys that are banged up up front, they're going to have a lot of trouble creating space for the run game. You saw Alvin Kamara having to fight for his life and he's banged up as well. And this is something I think that was pretty clear to note, right? You don't see the same kind of airspace on that outside zone scheme that you had in the first two weeks of the season. And when that's not there and they can't

keep, they cannot guarantee that Derek Carr can work ahead of schedule. Now you're in a drop back passing game that really reveals the fact that for all the speed that they have between Rashid and Chris Olavay, to the same point we were making about Kansas City, they don't have the ability to go into these three by one sets, isolate a receiver, and have that guy run a dig or run a slant or just get open or try, you know, or catch the attention of a safety to be able to open things up underneath. And that's why I think the Kansas City was really able to sit on some of the things that New Orleans was trying to do. And I think the bigger than this, and this is something that I've kind of been noodling about, watching Steve Spagnolo, I just think the way that he schemes up his

defense is such a nightmare for the way that the Shanahan guys like to call their offense, because you just can't put any stress on their linebackers because they ask so much of the safeties and the other defensive backs in coverage. It's really hard to get those high lows off against this defense. in a way that it's much easier when you're seeing different defenses across the league. Why do you say that? What are the linebackers not doing for the chiefs in terms of where they're supposed to be compared to maybe a more traditional defense? I think that they,

I think the Kansas City just asks their safeties to be more aggressive. And you see more match coverages, which means that now Justin Reed is going to be matching guys up the scene in a way that you don't always see different NFL defenses play because that ultimately means that you're going to play one-on-one coverage. In fact, I would say the reason why you saw that. deep touchdown to Rashid is on a double move because you know you've got one-on-one coverage with the safety and enough protection for that guy to set up a route. So if you're going to attack

this defense, that's how you have to do it. I think that's why the Bengals have found success playing against this defense over years past is because they have a threat on the perimeter that asks for more attention from the safeties and that opens up space in the middle of the field for that offense to attack. If you don't have guys like that and if you don't have the protection to just say, hey, we're going to keep seven guys in and we're going to give you those double mules. We are really threatening the middle of the field. It's different than just playing your kind of garden variety cover three. Your garden variety quarter quarter halves where you get a little bit more airspace and that allows you to kind of expose some of the coverage liabilities that

you would see underneath. Yeah, the removing the run game engine. I think that was kind of the biggest consideration here. And I assume if you look at the numbers on it, I was I was pretty surprised about this. The Saints over the first three weeks of the season, we're using play action on 39% of their dropbacks, which was by far the highest rate of the week. It's at 18% over the last two weeks, which is like fifth or six from the bottom. And I was on with Barnwell last night. We're trying to figure out why this might be the case. And I'm curious what your thought about this is. The run game efficiency hasn't been there. And I assume in their minds, it's like, well, if we're not running the ball efficiently, the play action game kind of gets defanged a little bit.

so we go away from that. We're not in as many advantageous downs and distances, and if you remove one component, then the other component starts to fall apart as well. I think that might be a little bit too quick. I don't think you have to necessarily see it that way, but the fact that when the run game, since the run game has faltered,

they've gone away from the play action game, I think that's led to us seeing a lot of the deficiencies with this offense that we didn't over the first two weeks. The offensive line wasn't good when it was fully healthy. I think that they were just getting a lot of really juicy looks because they were keeping extra guys in protection using play action. Now you have injuries up front and you're dropping back more.

The whole thing starts to deteriorate. And what the Saints felt like last night and have over the last couple weeks, they felt like the 2023 Saints, where you have these dynamic playmakers on the outside, you have a quarterback who doesn't really love when the pocket is muddy and you're not clearing things up for him because you're not keeping extra guys in a block and you're not using play action. And that offkins can look fine in stretches because Derek Carr is an acceptable quarterback. and those two pass catchers are dynamic,

but it looks nowhere near the unit that we saw over the first couple weeks of the season. I mean, you laid out something that we'll get to later in the show when we get to the ball noer segment of this. If you look at the bottom five in teams that run the ball out of 11 personnel, three of those are Shanahan Tree, guys. And what that tells me is that there is a clear divorce between how you look at offense for them when they're in spread personnel versus when they're in heavier sets. And that's what I think we're looking at with New Orleans.

early through the first two weeks. I think I looked and their play action pass rate was like 50% of their dropbacks. That's like 22 not play action dropbacks over the first two weeks. It was insane. Exactly. And that's not tenable because eventually you're going to play behind the sticks. And now that you see them playing behind the sticks, there's not the threat of them being able to get to these diverse outside zone runs.

You don't have as much moving pieces up front. And when you don't have that, you know, in your spread sets, you can't set up the same kind of play action passes that you would like to out of heavier personels where a team really has to honor the fact that you can threaten the edge at all times and bringing guys up closer to the line of scrimmer so that way you can open up those deep overrouts and deep post downfield. So I think that, you know, I think that for this style of offense and I think for New Orleans, it's almost like a meme of what we think of the Shanahan scheme because they have been so dependent

on play action passes to get their explosive downfield looks. I think when you're looking at them, this is a team. team that clearly does not have a way to tie together how they want to be effective with the run game unless they have two tight ends on the field, unless they're in some kind of two-back look. And so that to me, I think, is the biggest, the most revealing factor we've seen over the last three weeks for this offense. And that's going to be an issue for them if this offensive line is not healthy enough to be able to move bodies when they are in lighter personnel. And now you're asking Derek Carr to stand in the pocket, deal with muddy looks and have to throw in

the coverage very often. And that's something we've known over the course of his career is not his comfort zone. It's a really good point. And especially with the receivers they have, like those guys do not want to get into the formation and block. You're not going to be able to run some of the stuff that you want to. And that's fine. Like, that's not how they're built. I still think, though, when it's second and seven, you don't necessarily have to try it out 11 personnel and just say we're going to sling it around. Like that even if it's not the best way to play, I still feel like it's willing to concede. You have to be willing to concede in those moments. Like we should still be playing this way, even if we're in slightly worse down in distant situations.

And I feel like they've gone away from it pretty quickly over the last couple weeks. I agree. And I think that this is something they started playing with because they had such a hard time getting guys open early in the game. You started to see a little bit more empty looks. You started to see them get more five out in the route. You have Alvin Kamara. That's the sales pitch of having Alva Kamara is your three down back. You need to get him out in the route more often and putting stress on defenses to get the most out of the dropback passing game.

And I do think if they're not able to rely on the run game to the point that we're making, then that does mean that you have to play. play a little bit more extreme in the passing game, open the field up a lot more, not be as condensed, play more spread offense, and try to get the ball out of Derek Carr's hands quickly and try to dictate what coverages you see because defenses have to be worried about where Kamar is going to be

within a progression. I was a little bit surprised about the way that Steve Spagnola approached the middle part of this game, because if you look at what they were doing early in the game, there is bringing heat the entire first quarter and the Saints had absolutely no answer. They went away from it in the second and third quarter, quarters. I don't think they blitzed in the second quarter. In the third quarter, I think it was

one time. And then they started to turn it back up again in the fourth quarter. If you look at the numbers last night, Derek Carr was four of 18, four of ten for 18 yards against the blitz. And they essentially stopped doing it for two quarters. Do you have a sense of why they went away from it for a huge chunk of this game? I think it's because you saw a little bit more empty. I think you saw a little bit more of them not playing with condensed sets. And that makes sense. That has been the strength of Steve Spagnola's defense in Kansas City is that seeing these offenses that want to get more condensed that want to set up play action passes and play closer to the core of the formation, that opens up the door for him to send corners and safeties and linebackers off of any edge

that you leave for this defense. And I think that when they spread things out a little bit more, now you're adding the stress that you need to to Spags' defense to make him play a little bit more regulated. So I think that's what it was in the second and third quarter. It's funny that you mentioned that though, because coming into this game, I think the chiefs had faced the fewest number of empty dropbacks in the entire league, because I assume there were some teams who are worried that when we go empty, they're going to try to heat us up a little bit. So try to figure out what you have to do in order to get spags out of those, I'm just going to smash the blitz button looks.

It's an interesting thing that I think offenses are having to work through when they play against this team. It's a unique effect that Kansas City has on teams, right? Both with their offense and their defense, they force you to be extreme because you always just have to consider that they can just push a button that you don't have the matchups to handle. right? And if you do go empty and you do spread it out and San Francisco tried this in the Super Bowl, cover zero is coming. There's going to be a guy running through a B gap unblocked a lot of times. And I think that's probably why teams weren't doing it. And if you actually look at it, they weren't blitzing at a higher rate than any other team in the league when they were facing empty drop back or empty looks, but they just hadn't gotten many of them. So I think a lot of those numbers are fake. So I noticed that coming into the game and the fact that their answer to not get blitz to death was now we're going to spread you out. It's kind of a counterintuitive answer when you consider the fears that some of these other offenses were living with. The last thing I wanted to mention, it was so funny watching this game and seeing them

get four hands on Chris Jones on virtually every single dropback. And the moment that they couldn't, the moment that they either brought five and there were one-on-ones or whatever, like this, the way that the matchups were dictated, he actually got a one-on-one. He blew up the play. So that's where we are right now. If you're not getting two hands on, four hands on him, especially with the state of this interior and how banged up it is, you have absolutely no shot.

This is a guy who is dictating the way that other teams are able to play offense. I guess we shouldn't be surprised about that, but I'm reminded of it every single time I watch him play. And that's what makes, again, to the point of them just knowing their winning formula, that is what makes Kansas City so special and why they're undefeated playing B to B plus ball, you know, this so far this year, it is because they have a guy that on passing downs, they can they can configure fronts, they can configure pressures, they can give different looks to where you're going to have. to deal with 95 one-on-one at some point. And he always seems to make the play that needs to be made when he gets one-on-ones and past protections. The problem last night was no one-on-ones was winning those one-on-ones. When they were bringing four and he was getting doubled, that's just one other thing to keep in mind with his defense is if they can only bring four and Jones is going to get four hands on him every single time that happens, who else is going to win for you? And we don't have a

who back yet. And so I think finding that other consistent presence, and Carl Loftus was okay last night, but just making sure that you're taking advantage of those looks when you're getting them because of the attention the Jones is going to have. I think that's something to just keep monitoring with this defense moving forward. We're going to take a quick break here, and then we're going to get back with a couple of our categories on this midweek show. All right, let's kick this off with our upon further review segment that we're doing each Wednesday here. This is just one thing that over the last couple of days, after the Sunday slate wrapped up, you went back and watched and had some fresh thoughts about now that you've gotten to sit with it a little bit more. So what do you have for me?

It's funny. I was listening to, I was listening to you and Derek talk about the Sunday show and it's probably going to reflect the same conversation that you guys have been having about the Seahawks over the last couple weeks. Oh, no. But I love you, Mike McDonald. I believe you are a forward-thinking guy. I think that you are wise beyond your years. We got to let go of the light box run fits. It's not working. If Tyrone Tracy and the giant's interior office, offensive line is moving you the way that it was the way that they were on Sunday, we've got to come back to the drawing board and maybe play a little bit more loaded boxes in single high.

All right. So I also thought this where it's just no longer feasible, like what they're trying to do and the state of their linebacker play. And I think the initial response to that is, okay, if we can't defend it in light boxes and we can't defend it in two high shells, let's walk somebody down there. Is that reactionary to a point where it starts to sabotage some of the, other things you want to do defensively. Because that was my first thought is maybe they're not willing to do it because

it just if you remove that piece of it, then you can't be what you want to be in coverage. So how can you square them being a little bit more aggressive and forcing the issue a little bit and how they defend the run and how they want to do things on the back end? What you just laid out is the rub of being a defensive court, being a defensive play caller in the modern era because you do have to open the door to maybe risking more explosive offense on early downs. And I know that that has been the meta for Mike McDonald for as long as he's been a play caller in the NFL, is he is not going to allow you to access the middle of the field and get these cheap explosives on early downs because of the way that they play. And this is the same conversation we were having with Brandon Staley a couple years ago.

And that's not to compare this situation to the other because I do think that, first of all, Seattle has been dealing with injuries. This is probably the roughest stretch of their season in terms of games played over days past. I think they had three games in a 10-day period. So I do expect some of this to move out. So the game after playing the Lions is just a guy there. Basically, you know, Detroit beats them twice because they just get run up and down the field. Guys are banged up and then you've got to turn right back around and travel back to Seattle and play again after.

So I do think that I don't think it's going to be as extreme an issue as we've seen the last couple of weeks because they look fine against Miami in New England. But I do think that I do think that you have to be willing to give some of that up. And to me, I think that you answer this by throwing more pressure at the problem. I think you need to see a little bit more designed run blitzes just to try to get run-throughs to get more stuff or losses of yardage on early downs. And now you can get back into these obvious passing situations and you can play some of the unique coverage coverage rotations that you would like to see from a Mike McDonald. Do you feel like you can do some of those run pressures with the structures that they're playing right now? Or do you feel like that that maybe puts you in too precarious?

a spot. I think it's possible. The funny thing about it, the guy who's been doing a lot of this has been Brian Flores. And the issue there is, Brian Flores is an insane person. Nobody runs defense the way that Brian Flores runs defense. So I think it would take, it does take a departure, a huge departure from the way that I think you would like to call defense because they've been able to win with this system in Baltimore, at least, by giving you light boxes and having their defensive interior win against double teams and, you know, create penetra. when they are blocked one-on-one. They just haven't demonstrated the ability to do that yet.

And if you can't do that, and Minnesota has the same problem with this defensive interior, they have just answered it by sending pressure from all different kinds of angles to be able to puncture. Right. Exactly. And I think that if you want to play that way on the back end and it makes a lot of sense to do so, you can play some two-deep fire zones. It's just going to require you, again, running the risk of an offense, figuring you out and running away from blitzes. but what you want to do ultimately, I think, if you're going to call defense that way, is you're just trying to take an option off the table for an offense and live with the risks that come with playing one way and forcing an offense to kind of go to a change up.

It's an interesting way to think about it because I really hadn't considered how Byron Murphy fits into all of this because in my mind it's like, yeah, it's about space eating and like that's the issue that you're having is that your interior defensive linemen just aren't able to win against some of those double teams and your linebacker play is really bad. but if penetration and if disruption can be a path to getting where how you to playing how you want to play in these situations that actually Byron Murphy is actually an answer to that and the fact that he's been banged up over the last couple weeks I think maybe has more of an impact than I've really been giving it credit for I would say so and I think that to that point when he's available I think it allows him to do more upfront period because you know you have a winner up front that's how Baltimore was able to really unleash nomdi out of you get madavike yeah over the last couple of of years is you can give bare front looks. You can give these under and overfront looks with the understanding that all I'm trying to do is place my winning defensive tackle in a spot where I think he's going to get a one-on-one opportunity against the run. And now if you get past, you get to use your unique athletic traits, you know, to get to the quarterback or at least to affect the pocket. But the biggest thing to me is they need to have a guy to run this defense the way they want to that can win on the interior any time you give him a one-on-one opportunity. And they very clearly

don't have that. And that's why the giants were basically just able to walk them off the ball every snap. So let's just say hypothetically, we drop Murphy back into the mix here, and he becomes like a truly impactful player over the course of his rookie year. And you can spend some time and some resources this offseason, actually going out and getting a couple linebackers you feel better about rather than the stopgap options that they had to go with this offseason. Even if that's Tyrese Knight taking a step in year two, whatever. You have better options at those offball linebacker spots plus Byron Murphy. With that in mind, do you think it would be enough that would be enough to solve this over the

course of the next two seasons? Solve or do you think structurally there's something more, there's more going on structurally that we should be worried about? I don't think there's something structural to be worried about. To me, I think the conversation is where is solved for you? Where is solved for Seattle? Because to me, if you can get into that 12 to 14 range in terms of like run stuff rate, right, where it's zero or negative yards, that to me is good enough.

if that means that you're not giving up any explosive passes. I think that that's the delicate balance that you're looking to strike. Right now, they're like a bottom eight team when it comes to run stuff on all downs and especially on early downs. That has to improve. And the only way to do that, I think, is to get the guys that you need at the second level and obviously having your best defensive tackle when it comes to penetration available to you. And it's funny having this drawn out conversation because all of us identified immediately, looking at this depth chart coming into the season,

that this was probably going to be a problem, and they didn't have enough guys up the spine of this defense to make it happen the way that Mike McDonnor wanted it to. And I just think the last two weeks have really painted that clearly. I think that's part of the problem here is that them going through and over the first three weeks and beating up on some bad offenses led us to believe that some of these issues we thought they might have coming into the season had magically been fixed. And the answer is they have not magically been fixed.

They are still issues personnel-wise. And we probably shouldn't have gotten ahead of ourselves and paid more attention. to those worries we had coming into the year. Speaking of worries we had coming into the year, my upon further review this week is I want to talk about the current state of the Cleveland Brown's offense and what's going out with Deshaun Watson. We did not touch on this on the Sunday night show because I didn't get a chance to watch what the Brown's offense looked like down to down against Washington.

I didn't want to come out and just be like, they need to bench him. This is no longer something that you can keep doing until I actually had a better sense of his role in why the offense looks how it looks. So if you look at some of the numbers right now, they're dead last in offense and success rate period. They have a 33% offensive success rate so far this season. They have been absolutely putrid. And going back and watching that game against Washington last week, for the first quarter or so, there was part of me, it was like, yeah, you know what?

There's a lot going on here outside of the quarterback. They're really struggling to pick up pressure looks. They're not running the ball very efficiently. And he had a couple of moments where it's like, oh, there's a deep curl to Amari Cooper on time. That looks okay. and I'm like, all right, there's actually a lot more happening than just the quarterback. And then you get a little bit deeper into the game. And then you get into some of these high leverage moments where there are a place to be made and he just can't make them.

They had a stretch down inside the red zone. I think it was early in the second half where he bailed from three clean pockets on three straight plays. And that's the issue here. I don't think what's going on in the other areas of the offense are good by any stretch right now. I think this looks like an offense that is scrambling for answers and made a ton of changes this offseason in service of trying to get the most out of their quarterback. And they really don't know who they want to be. New offensive coordinator, new offensive line coach, just tons of changes. And it feels like, I'm going to make a bad, bad analogy here.

Because if people haven't seen the show, then there's no way they would understand what I'm talking about. But on Parks and Rec, there's an episode where they try to do like an art project. and it's just somebody is tacking on something different to it and it just looks completely incoherent. That's kind of what the Brown's offense feels like right now. But then you're compounding it with the way the quarterback is playing. So if you're already going to have issues with identity and where you can live and what your strengths are and then the quarterback is not making the plays when they're there to be made,

that's how you go from being a concerning offense to one that just is completely nonfunctional. And that's what the Browns feel like right now. There was a play. It was a second and two. with six minutes left in the third quarter. And they had Judy on a big crosser, and Watson has it. The pocket is a little bit dirty,

and that's part of the issue is that I think that some of the issues they've had in protection are making him very skittish right now. So he's bailing from pockets even when they're clean. But on this one, it's there, right? Like there's a little bit of color that flashes across his face, but if he just settles himself in the pocket,

that crosser is coming in his vision. It's wide open. He turns it down. He steps up into the pocket into pressure. He fumbles. Frankie Louvo recovers and the ball goes back to Washington. I think it's over. I just think it's over. And now I think it's more about having a conversation of why you can't bench him and what some of the outside factors look like and then what sort of what the practical financial realities might be over the next two years. But from an on-field

play perspective, even if we concede that there are a lot of issues outside of him happening with the offense. He is compounding those problems so much that I just don't know how you can keep trotting him out there. Look, I have watched more Tennessee Titans football than I wish to watch. And I thought that Will Levis was the worst quarterback in the league right now when it comes to managing the pocket. Deshawn Watson is significantly worse to me right now. When you look at how long he's holding on to the ball, you're looking at like top five average time to throw, but they're not getting explosives out of it because the guy's arm isn't what it used to be. and he's not willing to take those chances down the field.

And then when you look at the amount of EPA lost on sacks, Cleveland has a 15 point disadvantage on the Titans who are second worst in the NFL. I mean, and it is so clear to your point of high leverage situations, it is so clear if it's second and nine, if it's third and eight or any longer down in distances, they've got no shot because he's not willing to take any contact in the pocket to be able to deliver the ball over the middle of the field. He's not working through adjusting the offense properly to make sure things get picked up. Teams don't have to blitz him anymore to make him uncomfortable.

And that's the worst place to be in an offense that was with an offensive coordinator and Ken Dorsey who was brought in basically to give them an answer against tight coverage, against blitzes, and get in the ball out of this guy's hands quickly and efficiently. And you were seeing even more regression. So to the point that you made of it being over, it's funny, this is like the worst place to be in as somebody who, you know, as people who get. paid to analyze the game because this is like the most reductive point to make period about maybe any team in the league it is so clear to me that this is not viable it's so clear that this offense is going to be bad and will probably continue to get worse over the course of the year because of the play of the quarterback and to your point if you really can't bench him right now where does that leave us with this franchise because i would like to believe that the rest of this staff and front

office are smart and good at their jobs these are guys who have some of the best pedigrees in the league and you're looking at an offense, an offensive product on a week by week basis that is not just untenable, but is actively getting worse every time it hits the field. And what they're doing against pressure, that's one of the numbers that really jumped out to me. It's negative 0.52 EPA per dropback against pressure. That's the second worst in the league. And if you look at just the worst teams in the NFL down to down, that's like double what the New York Jets would have been throwing the ball on an average dropback last year.

It is so, so bad. Part of the issue is even when they're kind of picking stuff up, even when they have, when they account for everybody in some of those pressure looks, any single time the pockets, even a little bit muddy, he just can't deal with it. He's bailing from it immediately, and he's not willing to stand in there and throw the ball. So it just becomes a situation where not viable,

I think is the right way to put it. That's exactly what you said. So now it's like, okay, if this offensive staff, and if Kevin Stepanski specifically, hadn't been able to get workable play from other players, I know Joe Flacko wasn't great last year, and the numbers were bad,

but they are also dealing with like third and fourth string offensive tackle. We have seen them actually put out an NFL offense with other people. If that hadn't been the case and this was a lost cause, then I'd be like, okay, fine. Like, we've probably, this thing is probably just run its course. But they've been able to do that. And so attaching this staff to the future of Deshawn Watson and just saying, if he fails, you fail, it doesn't feel like that's necessary. Like other than optics, other than ownership being like, we made this move, we have to try to do everything we can to salvage this.

you're paying him anyway. And I actually do think there are some pathways. There's a scenario that somebody from Spottrack tweeted out earlier today where if they convert his salary next year and then they make him a post-June first cut in the 2025 off season, then it would be an $80 million dead cap at next year and an $80 million dead cap in 2026. That sounds disgusting. But as of right now, he slated to make $72 million against the cap each of the next two

years. We know that's not going to happen. We know that they're going to convert it. But if you just look at the math, they can probably sustain an $80 million dead cap hit in 2025 and 2026 and still feel the roster. And so I just feel like you need to start considering what that path looks like if guys are going to keep their jobs. And maybe that's like a non-starter. Maybe because he's failing, ownership is just going to say, you need to keep him out there and they're just going to ride that into the ground. But it just doesn't feel like that's necessary.

How, as Kevin's to fan, the defense isn't playing well, and the defense isn't playing nearly as well as it has been in the past. But we know that one side affects the other. Like, if you're a defensive player on that side right now and you know you have absolutely no shot every single time your team touches the ball, how does that affect the way that you play? I mean, we mentioned the Jets and the fact that it doesn't seem like they needed to do something to salvage their season. The Browns need to do something to salvage their season. They need to do something to salvage the defense to salvage the locker room. And I feel like going to a quarterback who actually gives you a fighting chance might be a way to make that happen. You have a $230 million quarterback that can't deal with pressure on one end.

And then this defense is going out and selling out play after play to try to rein in Jaden Daniels. And he's just running by guys and pushing the ball downfield. And I cannot imagine how demoralizing that must be for everybody on this roster to look at a rookie and a roster that I think everybody would have looked at to open the season and saying, this depth chart might be the NFL's worst and it looked like there was an ocean of difference between how those two teams were playing from an effort and execution perspective. And I like what you brought up about the contract because this is something that I've been debating internally for a while is, is it time to just cut bait? Because I think that the way that this contract is structured on the back end,

there was no escaping the costs of this thing anyways. You were either going to be converting this money and dealing with dead cap out into the future and the roster was going to start reflecting that. And we're starting to see, I think, little pieces of attrition here and there because they haven't had an ability to build up a lot of depth on the second team. Maybe any draft picks. Exactly. Exactly. And they haven't had the money to go play with in the first place.

This past offseason was the most cap space flexibility that they've had. And you're looking at the product that they put on the field as a result of it. And it doesn't look demonstrably better in any of the positions that they've gone and attacked over the offseason between free agency and the draft. So to me, I think that, again, this comes back to some of the stuff that maybe sounds a little bit more amorphous to a fan, right, about how you handle a locker room and can you look guys in the eyes and say that you actually care about winning on a week-to-week basis. I don't know how, if you're Kevin Stefansky in this front office, you guys can come into the building week after week and tell yourself the lie that you were giving yourself the best opportunity to be successful with this guy as your starting quarterback because it is very clearly not the case. And I think that's exactly right. And I think that you just need to have an honest conversation with ownership where it's like, listen, if we want to salvage this season, he can no longer be the quarterback. I know that that's going to make you guys look even worse than you do already after having made this decision.

But if you want us to be an NFL level football team and try to save this offense in any conceivable way, we have to try something different. And listen, if they say, sorry, he's going to play for the rest of the season, then you've done what you can. But I think that conversation needs to at least happen if you want to salvage the season. And if you're Kevin Stefansky and Andrew Barry, potentially try to salvage your jobs. All right, let's get to this week's ball knower. For those of you guys who have not listened to the midweek show, I've actually really enjoyed doing these. I like seeing where the guests we have on, like where their heads are at at various points in this season. I'm going to ask you three questions about what you know regarding this NFL season so far.

The first one, five weeks into the year, what do you know you know? know about the NFL. Oh, that's a good one. I know that there's no answer for the Houston Texans early down struggles based on what I've seen on film. I've, you know, being on the ringer show with Shiel Capadilla and Stephen Ruiz, we've all had a good laugh calling Bobby Sloick a fraud and too much with the early down runs.

And I want to say all that criticism stands. But I've been looking at this team on film on early downs. And even when they pass the ball, there are issues that I think are deeper seated than just what's being called from the sideline into the huddle. I just don't think this offensive line is as good as I thought it might be when it was healthy. And I think that that means that for this team to be competitive, we're going to be looking at this team in a similar space as we look at the Dallas Cowboys and Dak Prescott. Now, obviously, Houston's defense, I think, is deeper and more talented than what we've seen from Dallas so far this year.

And I think that gives him more of a puncher's chance in the AFC. But even as, even as Houston's defense is playing lights out against Josh Allen, all four quarters. you still see a tight football game because Houston can't give, Houston can't give C.J. Stroud enough time to operate on schedule and be able to just get the ball out quickly and efficiently. And this was before Nico Collins got hurt, the amount of snaps that end with C.J. Stroud having to take a helmet to the chin to be able to deliver a sail ball or a crossing route. The amount of times he's got to bail out of a pocket just to be able to check the ball down to live to fight to the next play. That's not tenable when you're talking about competing with a Kansas City. To me, that's not tenable when you're talking about competing with the Baltimore, who for all their issues in coverage, if there's one thing that they do really well, it's playing the way that you need to see a team play on early downs. They stopped the run on early downs. And we saw that match up last year. They were able to take away everything Houston wanted to do on first and second down and put C.J. Stroud in the worst possible positions. And now it doesn't matter if you have a number one receiver. We can blanket this coverage and force you and force you to check the ball down or put the ball in harm's way. So that's something I know for sure. It said,

CJ Stroud is basically going to have to play like a quarterback in God for them to have a shot. That's what we've seen basically since after the Minnesota game. And I still just don't know if that's enough for me to consider them one of the top contenders in the conference right now. Do you feel like there's anything that can salvage the run game, like from an architecture perspective? Like if they leaned into some more gap scheme stuff, if they weren't leaning in so far to the zone stuff that we've seen for the first chunk of the season, is there a pathway to a more efficient running game when Joe Mixing gets back? I think the pathway to a successful running game for them would require divorcing themselves from the system that they brought in with Bobby Sloak in the first place. If this was more of a spread RPO attack, I think that they would actually find a lot more success on early downs because now you're basically, and this is kind of unfair, right? Because that means that the answer is I'm putting more on C.J. Stroud to have to get the ball where it needs to go.

But I don't know. That's where Joe Mixing comes from. So he would at least be familiar and comfortable with that. 1,000 percent. I mean, but the undercenter downhill runs, even in week one when it was going well, a lot of that was just Joe Mixing creating. Right. And you can see when they don't have a guy that can create, you know, or be able to make a guy miss out in space to get some hitting yardage. This thing is totally untenable on early down. So I don't think that there's a fix within what they're doing structurally in order for them to play better on early downs. I just think that that's the nature of the way that this offense is constructed right now. Do you think more 12 personnel, heavier personnel, play action is a potential answer here. If you're trying to get more bodies in protection and you're a little bit less worried about some of those protection issues. I was a little bit surprised looking at the numbers.

They've given up more quick pressures than pretty much any team in the NFL so far. And they're doing it. And that's happening without like an astronomical dropback rate. So I just wonder should we be living in 12 and like in 21 like we did last year where, okay, even if we don't feel great about the offensive line, at least we're giving them consistent help and we're trying to get chunks down the field. I don't know if that's the best answer, but I'm just trying to like search for something here. I appreciate the curiosity.

So I actually had true media up and I was typing this in as you were saying it. They lead the league and 12 personnel runs and they're like in the bottom eight in EPA per rush. I don't think that there's an answer for that, right? Like they're 25th in the league right now in EPA per rush and they've got a success rate of 32% right. Like we're talking about this is, these are basically play calls that are not worth making because that's how often they're failing. right so i i just think that this is going to be a team that maybe has to flip its identity and maybe play more to run on late downs right run run versus light boxes run after getting six seven yards in the passing game and that's not natural to the style of offense that they've brought in

with bobby sloic so again we're looking at we're looking at something that i don't think can be solved with the way that they have tried to design this thing even though they clearly i would say have the offensive personnel in terms of wide receiver talent to be able to play that way if they wanted to. That's just not the way that they've designed this thing. Yeah, you'd be stepping outside of personality-wise who you want to be as an offense, and that's not easy for everyone to do. Next one here. What is something you think you know five weeks into the NFL season? Oh, man, this is the one that I really had the hardest time with. And I don't want to plant this fact because I've given Shield such a hard time for this team. I think Cincinnati's going to be

fine. I really do. I think Cincinnati is going to be fine. The fact that you're saying this is a defense guy, that that's how I'm starting to believe it, because you should be more disgusted by this than I think anybody that I know. And the fact that you believe, I think, says a lot. It's just so hard. And I've tried to dismiss them at so many points. And a part of this is schedule math, right?

If you look at like the next four to five games, like this is really light. So they'll have plenty of opportunities to get back to the range of 500. and as long as the rest of the AFC continues kind of, you know, just knocking each other out on a week by week basis, there'll be an opportunity for them to slip in maybe as a six or seven seed. But you look at Joe Burrow playing some of the best quarterback of his life. Like, that was something that I hadn't banked on coming in because I just didn't think that he was going to get healthy and trust his game enough to be able to play at the level that we've seen over the last couple of weeks. But you see him back to evading pressure and being able to throw effectively on the move. that's something that we didn't see last year when all the injuries started piling up,

Brad. You saw a guy that was a little more uncomfortable getting the ball out and having Jamar Chase and T. Higgins healthy, man. Like, there's just nothing that defenses can do with it. And I guess I, I guess I landed on this one because I really just wanted to hammer home the point that any conversation about what they're going to do without T. Higgins is wrong. If what you're talking about for the long term outlook of this team does not involve Jamar Chasing T. Higgins, you were just patently wrong. They've had three seasons now since 2021 to figure out a new identity for this football team, and we have landed with one of the NFL's worst defenses and a team that can still compete against the Baltimore's of the world because

they have this compliment of wide receiver talent. They cannot afford to do anything else because everything else that they've tried has come up, has come up as a zero so far. I'm 100% with you on the offense. I think that this offense is going to be good enough to potentially carry them. And if you look at the state of the AFC, here are the teams that are two games or more ahead of the Bengals in the AFC wildcard race. The Steelers and the Broncos. Other than that, look at the middle tier of the AFC. The charges are two and two, the jets are two and three.

The Dolphins are two and three. The Colts are two and three. For the most part, the Broncos and the Steelers are the two teams that are at least two games ahead of them. They have two more games against the Steelers this year, and they play the Broncos. Here's my question for you. Let's just assume the offense is going to be like a top three offense for the rest of the year. have no problem assuming that. They can run the ball, their quarterback is playing at a high level, and they have arguably the best collection of scope position players in the week. What can we

reasonably assume from this defense as currently constructed? Like what level can they reach by the time we get to a week 17, week 18 game with their season on the line? God, it feels, I hate that this sounds like miraculous given the way that they've looked over the last couple weeks, but if they can just get to like 23rd in the league. Do you think they can? That's my question. To me, that's the issue. You don't even think that's possible. I don't think they can. I think that they sneak in as one of the five worst defenses as a seven seed.

And we just know how this story ends, right? They're going to have to see a Buffalo or they're going to have to see Houston and they just get walked off the field eventually. But I do think that this offense, it's been too good over the last few weeks for me to ignore the fact that they will always have a puncher's chance. And this is similar to the way I feel about the Rams as well. Right. Like as long as a quarterback's there and, you know, for the Rams, this time. to the quarterback plus a head coach with this team is more quarterback plus wide receiver talent. As long as those factors are available, this team isn't going to have any problem competing

on a week-by-week basis. And I'm not bailing on a team that's playing this well on offense, even though I know in my heart of hearts that I can't watch this team when they don't have the ball. The Rams, we talked about this a little bit on Sunday night. The Rams just have a harder path to get there because we mentioned there are two teams that were at least two games ahead of the Bengals and the AFC. Here are the teams that are at least two games ahead of the Rams and the NFC, or at least two and had the wind department.

The bucks, the bears, the Packers, the lions, and the Cowboys. Now we have five teams, and I think that we have more quality teams as part of that conversation. And a couple of those teams you named now have the tiebreaker on them. Exactly, exactly. So it's just a harder path. But I tend to be with you on the Bengals. I think that the offense can get them there as a wild card.

I think it's just a matter of when we think about their playoff chances, how good can the defense be? how not bad can the defense be by the time we get to January? There you go. And can it make that offense worth it? And I have my doubts about that as well. Last one here. What is something you still want to know as we are five weeks into the year?

I want to know whether or not San Francisco can actually get through playing this high variance non-play action football with Brock Purdy. Because so far, I've actually, it's looked way better than I ever would have imagined. And if you were going to tell me they were two and three. And it's not because Brock Purdy has been a disaster. I would not have believed you. This is the first year, at least as long as true media has had play action data available to them. This is the first year in Kyle Shanahan's tenure in San Francisco that they've been under 20% play action rate through the first five weeks of the year. And you can see it and you can feel it in the game.

A lot of this has just been passing downs. We're rolling the ball out to Brock Purdy. You've got to go make a couple pass rushers miss and push the ball deep downfield. and I think that the offense has been much more viable than I would have assumed. But ultimately, I do think that this team is going to have to find a way to get Jordan Mason more involved in the game. They've got to find a way to be able to marry up the pass and the run game. I mentioned it when we were talking about the Saints. I think last in the league and 11 personnel handoffs right now, that's not tenable.

If they're going to live with three receivers on the field and as Brock Pretty to be the guy behind center and have to push the ball down the field, they have got to threaten defenses with those spread looks when it comes to the run game. So why do you think this is? Why do you think they've gone away from some of those heavier personnel looks? And why do you think they've gone away from, I mean, they weren't using play action at a ridiculous rate over the last couple of years. It's gone down each of the last few seasons. But why do you think this one further step has happened when they had the most efficient offense in the NFL last year in one of the best offenses we've seen in like the last five seasons? Why go away from that formula to one that looks like this?

even if it is working to an extent. To me, I really wonder if this is just a matter of Kyle Shanahan not believing that he can execute the outside zone stuff and all the gaps like the counters and some of the more creative runs that he's implemented in this offense unless he has use check and Kittle on the field at the same time or both of them plus another big body. I don't know. And I think that I don't want to put that on him as like it's something he's not capable of because we've seen this team be able to move the ball out of 11 personnel on the ground in years prior, right?

Because they were using. But I guess my question is why wouldn't you just keep trotting out that 21 personnel grouping with use check and kiddle? Like the fact that you have three receivers that you feel good about, it doesn't mean you have to live with three receivers. Like just keep using those guys the way you happen over the last couple years. And if that means less time for Joanne Jennings or Ricky Peterson when he gets healthy, whatever. Whatever. I just don't think that's a terrible downside. I'm 100% with you on that.

And that to me, I think, makes it a Brock Prairie question, right? Like, is Brock Prairie not comfortable living in that world? And I guess for me, and this is for me, I don't know how their dynamic is in the building. If I'm Kyle Shanahan, I'm looking my young quarterback in the eye and saying, hey, buddy, I've been doing this as long as you've been living. I've known this offense. This works, and you've got to be able to get under center and turn your back to the defense to be able to at least be able to use the threat of the run game to set up the play action passing game. and I don't know if this is getting the best use out of all of their wide receiver talent. Like to me, I know that Debo Samuel has had productive games this season so far.

I don't know if the way that they're playing right now makes the most out of a guy like him because there's a lot of bodies that he is having to make these contested catches around in the middle of the field. I think to your point, if they spent more time in heavier personnel, more play action looks, I think that that would allow them to design a little bit more to get the ball into Brandon Ayukes and Debo's Samuel's hands with space to create after the catch. That's interesting. I want to dig in some of these numbers a little bit further.

One of the things that stuck out to me when I was looking at some receiver metrics yesterday, Iyuk is being pressed on like an insane percentage of his routes this year. And I assume that's just a byproduct of teams looking at the way that it was last year where if you're playing off and you're playing in some of those cover three looks,

he's just eating on some of those like vertical comebacks and deep outs and things like that. So I think that it's just a different sort of challenge with some of the details that the Niners are facing on offense this year, or maybe that's driving some of this. But I'd be really curious, like, if you actually got to sit Kyle Shanahan down and just anybody from that offensive staff and ask, why do you feel like this pivot was necessary?

And why do you feel like you've had to take it to this extreme? Again, this isn't like an indictment of the offense or an indictment of Brock Purdy. They've been very good moving the law this way. I'm just curious about what the motivation behind it is more than I am about the actual results of it. I'm with doing that. I don't know, and I don't know how tenable it is, right? Like, to me, the reason why they're two and three is because they've been playing high variance ball, and they've just come up unlucky against the Rams and the Cardinals for the most part.

But I think that that's inherent to the style of play that we're seeing from San Francisco. So you can't just dismiss it as, oh, if they get a bounce here and a bounce here, they're actually four and one. Like, no, this is just the style of ball that they're playing right now. There's going to be more bounces if you play this way. Exactly, which means that this could be one of the most talented teams and one of the most effective passing offenses, but the team is nine and eight because they've caught in some unlucky bounces. And I don't know where that leaves us when we talk about how open this window is for this team to compete in 2024. It'll be interesting to watch them kind of troubleshoot this over the course of the season and kind of poke and proud at the problems and figure out who they want to be by the end of the year.

We've talked about it a couple different times. I mean, watching them play this style is it's just kind of like bewildering. It's just very strange to watch a Niners team play this way, even if the results have been pretty. pretty decent so far. I'm with you. I do want to take a quick pivot before we wrap this, being that we used to be co-workers. I wanted to hijack the show for a second and throw one at you. So I have a question for you to the point that we're having about ball knowing. I'm ready. Do you believe that the bills will be okay? Because I'm maybe a little less sure about this offense than I was when they were tearing up the dolphins and the other teams to start the season.

It is really funny how important Khalil Shakir is to the entire operation right now. That's a problem. If that's the statement you're making, we have bigger problems. But you can't disagree with that. If you look at what they looked like against man coverage early in the season because of what he could do as a separator and on some of those crossers and just being an option for Josh Allen against those looks, if you remove him and now you're working with a past catching group that's Mack Collins and Keon Coleman and Curry. Curtis Samuel, you have nobody that can separate. You have these two big-bodied guys. And you talk to talk about variance.

Like having to live in that contested catch world with these guys, it's just not feasible. So I don't know. I don't know what this past catching group looks like over the long haul when teams start to challenge them a little bit more and when it's not third and four. Because if you can run mesh a thousand times because you're in third mediums and third manageables, that's what we saw from them for the first chunk of the season. They were able to run the ball on their terms and run the ball efficiently. And it was getting them into manageable situations where when teams did challenge them with man coverage because they didn't have a lot of respect for the past catching options, they had answers based on design.

But if you're going to be in third and eight, those answers are fewer and further between. You need some guys who are going to win in those moments. And right now they just don't have any of those guys. I would say, and to me, I think I would feel a little bit better if the offensive line had looked great and wide receivers weren't winning. but the last two weeks, the interior of this offensive line, and this has been a focus for them in addressing what this offense is needed if they were going to let go of receiving talent, was that the guards and center were going to play, we're going to need to play much better in order for this thing to work. And Baltimore and Houston has had their way with the interior offensive line and past protection. Even Spencer Brown had some rough moments over the last couple weeks. Absolutely.

And now what you're doing is you're forcing Josh Allen in a creation mode by force instead of by choice. And we know that that's where the worst of Josh Allen comes up for as talented as he's been. And there was a point through the first three weeks where I was just convinced that this was the best football player in the NFL. But if you're going to take away his ability to work on schedule, which is really what makes him such a unique talent, is the fact that he can play the same kind of dink and dunk game at the level of a Joe Burrow, at the level of some of the better quarterbacks we have in the league. And then he can get into creation mode as well as a Lamar Jackson or a Jaden game. Daniels. That was what made him unique. And right now they can't even access the on-scheduled stuff because they're losing up front. And now you need guys to win on the perimeter to do so. And they just have not exercised those muscles at all. You don't see anything. And anytime you're

finished and plays with curl routes from Mack Hollins one-on-one against Derek Stingley, we're in a bad, bad place as an offense. I think it's such a good point. When you can send him into that frantic mode that we see him every once in a while, you change the dynamic of what this offense feels like. And I think one of the ways that, they were able to kind of tamp that down last year and early this year is we're just going to run the ball. We're going to run the ball a ton. We're going to run the ball as a way to just keep everything on this side calm and keep putting us in advantageous situations where, again, it's not third and eight. We don't have to worry about these blitz looks.

We don't have to worry about whoever the interior guys are. We don't have to worry about Foley Fott-Tacassi pinning his ears back or Danielle Hunter on third and nine. They were out of those situations for the most part. And I think that that allowed us to see a slightly different version of their offensive line. So I think there are a lot of specifics about why it has felt different over the last couple weeks, whether or not they can get back on track and kind of flip those specifics back in their favor. I think that's ultimately what's going to dictate whether this succeeds or fails. To the point, the last one I wanted to make on creation mode right now over the last two weeks,

Josh Allen is only ahead of Gardner Minshu on dropbacks at end outside the pocket in total pass APA on throws. that's an issue. That's something that you don't expect from a guy as dynamic and athlete as he is. And that speaks to the fact that he is not out there with many options to throw to. And he is clearly being pushed away from the way that he wants to play because they've just had issues with winning on the perimeter and protecting him early in the progression. It's amazing how different it has felt over the last couple weeks compared to what we saw over the first three weeks. So where it lands between those two extremes, I think that's going to be something that is 100% worth watching. Deiote Lee, really good to chat with you, buddy. Really appreciate you taking the time to do this. Let people know where they can hear you these days. So I'm now a staff writer at the Ringer,

so you can find me on the Ringer NFL show with Sheila Capati and Stephen Ruiz for every Friday and every Sunday night. I do power rankings for them as well, so if you want to hear me talk shit about your team, you'll find no lack of that in power rankings because I hate everybody. And then I'm on Twitter always at Deontay Lee FB.

All right, buddy. Really appreciate the time. We'll talk to you very soon. All right. It's time for another. addition of, I guess it's kind of quarterback counseling. We're going to wedge this into the framing of quarterback counseling because I want to talk about Trevor Lawrence, but I also want to use this just as an entry point to a larger conversation about the state of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

And here to help me do that is our buddy John Shipley, who does a fantastic job covering the Jags. John, really appreciate you joining us. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it, as always. All right. So I wanted this to be a somewhat Trevor-centric conversation, just in the sense that he's had his struggles over the first month of the season. He has not looked great, especially compared to what we have seen from him for stretches of the last couple years. No matter what you think of Trevor Lawrence, he is playing worse or had been playing worse

over the first month of the season than he had for much of the last two seasons. But I think that part of the reason I wanted to have you on is I wanted some perspective on just the state of what is going on in Jacksonville, period. This changes a little bit with their win against the Colts, but I still still do. think this is just worth visiting and worth considering even after that win. So if you had to just summarize what the state of this franchise is right now, what people want and what we think the solutions might look like, where would you start? I think the solutions that they might look like is honestly, if and when it does come to that point. Because still even, you know, like you mentioned,

they won their first game on Sunday, but you're still one and four. You know, you still have the Houston Texans or more or less, you know, ripping off win after win. So the, I think the changes that you would see is honestly a total risk of, you know, at the top of the brass. I firmly believe that when Chod Khan made his comments, you know, during the offseason, made him to the team, like to their faces in the team meeting room before training camp happened. It wasn't like he said it to media or he made a statement. Like he said in from the entire team with the team brass roster, coaching staff, front office.

You know, he expects to be in the playoffs this year. He expects to win. He thinks it's the best Jaguars team ever. So I think when an owner is making a comment like that, like that and you don't produce, I don't really think he cares for the reason as much or even like a finger-pointing game of, oh, you know, who's responsible for this, who's responsible for that? Because, you know, that always comes with a bad losing football team. And that many times has come with a Trent Balke for an office.

You have got his time in Jacksonville. You've seen reports like that. I think if you're con, you don't really care. what the reason is if they don't meet expectations. And certainly, like now, they're hardly closer to meeting them. It just involves a full-on reset. I think, you know, just a new vision for the team. Because for whatever reason, the vision that they had for the team two,

three years ago when they hired these guys, just has not come to fruition. And I think, like, the first time in his ownership career, he's kind of sick of just being okay, which, you know, he more or less, if they had gone nine and eight with like back to back years with Gus Bradley, he's probably popping champagne. But I think his standards have increased, especially with his off-field, like, investment, stuff like that. So let's dig into why we think those expectations are not being met. Because obviously last year, the offense was a huge issue.

You know, the defense, they fired the defense coordinator after the season. So there are issues everywhere. But their inability to stop shooting themselves in the foot last year, whether it was the run game, some of the turnover issues, the amount of EPA they were losing on screens. So you can throw out any single number that you want. So if you were trying to pinpoint why this office. offense continues to feel frustrating with this current iteration this year, where would you start? I'd honestly, I'd probably start just with a simple fact of where the scheme comes from. And, you know, there's been so much said about play caller, you know, such a who's calling to plays,

is it Doug, is it Press Taylor, et cetera, that I think a lot of people have forgotten that. At the end of day, it is Doug Peterson's offense, you know, a lot of these schemes, a lot of these ideas, game planning, it's originating from him. And I think the big thing with Doug is, you know, when he first came to a lot of Jackson on 2022. He had his bread and butter, you know, his short, you know, quick hitting passing plays, you know, taking the occasional deep shots. But it makes sense why Doug Peterson has dominated the Colts as the Jaguars head coach is

because Gus Bradley's cover three scheme, like makes it perfect for somebody who, in my opinion, ultimately wants to dink and dunk and just be efficient and hit your singles and doubles and the occasional triple and home run. And I think at first, it was probably harder for defenses to defend. but then, you know, after entering 2023, you know, they lose a quality football mind and Jim Bob Cooter, who, you know, I've been told by people inside the building that they feel like they've just have never really replaced that voice, you know, a third voice outside of Doug and press, but really overseeing the offense and its evolution. And I think that's the biggest thing. It's just you haven't really seen the scheme evolve. You know, it's more or less they're running the same things that they've been running for three years.

And it's kind of honestly like a little bit of a, like, offensive Gus Bradley. where they're like, we have our scheme and, you know, if it doesn't work, it's ultimately on the players because this scheme is foolproof. When after a couple of years, it just very clearly isn't. Part of the thing I think is that it's most frustrating about what we've seen from them over the first four games before last week is that I think, for long stretches of last year, people were really concerned about the way that Trevor was playing. And in actuality, I think that the rest of the offense is probably more to blame for some of the issues. But then you go back and you watch that Texans game over again. And there were plays to be made on the field. I mean, the amount of balls that he's airmailing and some of those misses, I think, are getting a little bit worse than they have over the last couple seasons when accuracy issues were a smaller concern, but we're still there.

So how do you square Trevor Lawrence's role in all of this and whether or not going a slightly different direction with those voices at the top and with the people running the offense, whether or not that would get us a slightly different version of Trevor Lawrence, just from a production standpoint than the one we've gotten over the last couple years? Yeah, I really think the biggest thing with Trevor is he's kind of embodied like being a Jaguars quarterback in the sense that, you know, he'll have some games like this past Colts game. Well, he's absolutely on fire. You know, there's a week after, you know, a Texan's game where he's one for six on downfield throws. And then you see him hit the 85-yarder. He hit Brian Thomas Jr. He hits another, I think it was 66-yard to Christian Kirk in stride. And it leaves you thinking, like, where was this the week before, you know, when that kind of downfield accuracy to open receivers probably would.

would have won the game. And I think that is where you can square some of the offense issues that too, is that you don't know what Trevor Lawrence you're going to get week to week. I think ultimately the biggest thing. You know, he is, I think, still in his fourth year, you know, an inconsistent quarterback. He hasn't settled into being that kind of quarterback where, you know, he's going to produce week in and week out, really, regardless of the environment around it. And he, before, I thought, kind of stumped up the Jaguar season so far, where, you know, It was like week one, okay, you can point to some offensive line issues, you know, some play calling stuff. Travis E.TN's fumble.

Week two, okay, offensive line gives up a safety, whatever. Week three, okay, complete onslaught by bills. And then week four, it seems like everybody else around him was playing well. The tackles are finally playing well. The receivers are getting open. The running game was working. And then he was the issue. And I think he just still has not figured out a way to avoid that kind of up and down style.

Peterson, when he talks about it, he almost says, like, sometimes he just gets too amped up. You know, he gets like too excited on the field. He sees an open guy and it's almost like, holy crap, I have an open guy. And he ends up not doing things consistently. And I think it's an excuse to make when you say, you know, he's still young, four years starting in NFL, et cetera, because you're paying him to be better in that right now. But I think ultimately some of the offense's faults are they do lay at Trevor's feet. Because to this point, he has failed to be a consistent quarterback.

week in and we go. Yeah, that's the most frustrating part about it. It actually does make sense. When everything else is going well is when he seems to be playing his worst. And the fact that he does get a little bit geeked up in those moments, maybe is a decent explanation for why we see some of those misses when everything else around him is going well. The problem is if this off, and this offense has been fine, right? It hasn't been a disaster, but it hasn't been great. They're in the middle of the pack and, you know, a ton of metrics right now. They're actually running the ball more official than they were last year. There are some things where you could spin it optimistically about what this might look like over the course of the year. The problem is,

they have been one of the worst defenses in the NFL. They are 31st right now in defensive success rate, and the hope was bringing Ryan Yelson in this offseason with some of the pieces they had defensively. And I know they've been banged up. I know Tyson Campbell's hurt. They've been working through some of that stuff, but one guy and one injury isn't enough to explain what those struggles have looked like for them on defense. So if you were trying to pin down where the defensive issues have started, where would you point to? Honestly, kind of the just entire approach on defense to how they play. Again, they're, you know, they play more man coverage, more cover one to any other team in the

league. They've dialed it back a little bit in the last two weeks, but they've still been completely shredded the last two weeks. Joe Flacco said right after a game on Sunday, he was like, yeah, they played more like two shell defense than they normally played and we expected it and it made us check the ball down some. And then in my head, I'm like, you almost two for 400 yards. What do you mean?

You were checking the ball down. So I think their approach, at least in the early part of the season, you know, they, they were playing nonstop man coverage, nonstop press coverage. And when you're playing it with like third and four stringers, like a third year guy, Monterrey Brown, who he's flashed, but he's still probably ideally a backup. You have an aging guy in Ronald Darby, who he's had a great career. But everybody knows corners kind of fall off around that 30, 31, one season and that's exactly where he's at. Jarian Jones, again, he's been a rookie who's kind of

been thrusted in there. Darnel Savage, who probably is alongside Campbell, their best defensive back, just played his second game because he's missing time. But like you said, it shouldn't be one or two guys that affects an entire defense like that. Their safeties have been really, I think, exposed to an extent in this scheme because you're asking your corners to kind of live on an island to the point where if your safeties make one mistake, if they're even aligned too shallow, enough by two or three yards. You can get beat for a play. That's what happened to him on Sunday.

It looked like Andreosisco wasn't deep enough in his alignment. And next thing you know, he just, Alec Pierce just blows past the cornerback because they're playing man, press coverage on more or less every snap. So I think a lot of it goes to that. They're kind of just being a, we're going to run what we want to run type team where when you lose guys, you can't really do that as much in my opinion.

If you were to lay out what an ideal, let's say six months looks like for the Jags. So we go from October 8th, let's say to May 1st, let's say October 8th through the draft for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Give me like a three or four point plan about what you think is the ideal way for that to unfold. Honestly, the ideal way for them long term. And I don't mean this like as disrespect or as any of people currently in there. But I think the ideal thing long term is to kind of just clean slate, move forward to new ideas. So have a season to where I don't think it's a disaster season, like you win three or four games.

but maybe a seven, eight win season. I think that'd be enough for Shot Khan to say, okay, we have to clean up while still giving some hope for the next season. I think hiring a guy, like honestly, like Ben Johnson, who another offensive-minded coach, a guy who has proven he can get the most, you know, out of the quarterback, I think is the biggest thing that the Jaguars need to look at. You know, Doug Peterson was supposed to be that guy's years of working with

quarterbacks, et cetera. But I think just having a guy who shows each week he can evolve his scheme to the talent that he has. like Ben Johnson, I think would be really appealing. And then free agency in the draft, the two things I'd say is just, you know, finding more blue chip guys, one, and bolstering, you know, the trenches, especially the offensive line. They've had tackle issues this year, and it's not going to change in the offseason.

Cam Robinson's in a contract year. I firmly believe he's not being brought back, even if Peterson and bulky keep their jobs. Anton Harrison, you know, they've talked forever about maybe playing him at left tackle, but he struggled to right tackle for a lot of this. this season. So I'm not sure that's even a route. So finding some kind of offense to tackle. You also have walk a little being a free agent. And then when you look at this Jaguar's roster, like they pay a lot of good players, but outside of Josh Heinz Allen and Trevor Lawrence when he's on, which has not been often enough. I'm not sure how many

blue chip players they have. Now, they look like they have one of Brian Thomas Jr. He looks like a legitimate like blue chip like this is what it looks like type of guy. But other than that, I feel like they just have too many good players and not enough great players, if that makes sense. They've paid a lot of guys great money to just play good football. So I think some kind of way in the draft or free agency, however that looks, it's just adding to their blue chip talent because you see the Texans with a ton of it. And I think if you're going to catch them, you have to add to that. Okay.

So let's do this piece by piece. I think that we've talked about the expectations not being met in the fact that if they do fail to make the playoffs, there's probably going to be changes. So I don't even think it's disrespectful to acknowledge the fact that a coaching change may be on the horizon if it keeps going like this. So you bring in, let's say, say it is Ben Johnson or some other offensive-minded head coach who, if we get some new ideas in here, maybe we can get the quarterback to a place where it feels a little bit less hard and it feels a little bit less volatile. And that's a totally reasonable path. If you win, you know,

six, seven games and you're picking in the top 10-ish, right? You're in the back half of the top 10. If you're, this is so far off, but just, just like a hypothetical exercise, are you picking a left tackle there? Is that, let's tell you, like, the number one thing you can do from a personnel perspective, if the right guy is there to get you where you want to be, that's what you say? I think so. I think so. Like, when they were winless and it looked like, hey, they might get get the number one pick, which they very well still may. I don't think you can pass on like a guy like Travis Hunter, just like bringing him and his brand in with the top pick. But if they're picking like bottom half of the top 10, I think often tackle is the way to go. Okay. So whatever that ends

up being, you need to find a left tackle somewhere. Corner is still a need, but like a blue chip player it's in some area. And I think the other thing that's worth mentioning here, this team for the first time in a while going into this offseason, has money to spend. They have like $54 million in cap space heading into next off season. Trevor Lawrence has a $17 million cap hit next year. So even though he's on that extension, it's still the early part of that extension. You've got some resources to throw around. I would assume that for you, part of this plan is hiring a different person to wield those

draft picks in that $54 million in cap space. Would you agree with that? Is that fair? Yeah, because I really think a lot of the reasons, maybe for some divide the Jaguars that we may have. Like sometimes they just look like a team that operates differently in the offseason than they operate in season. I mean, that's because of my opinion. Doug and Trent didn't come in together.

You know, they came in two completely different times. So yeah, in my mind, we're going to get a head coach or more or less, you know, step for step from the get go, I think would have to be a priority. Yeah. It just seems like this is a building where you can feel that the two sides don't really talk to each other. I mean, both literally and figuratively, those two elements with the person. and the coaching staff are probably not as in sync as they need to be. So you talk about Ben Johnson coming in or just somebody like that. I think one of the beautiful parts of watching the Lions over the last couple of years is you can feel the synchronicity between how they acquire players and what the plan for those players on the field actually looks like.

And getting to a place that looks a little bit more like that, it seems silly to have to say it. But I think for this organization specifically, that would be a huge step in the right direction compared to what we've been seeing over the last couple years. No, 100%. I mean, there are countless examples of it. I mean, them them taking a, you know, a blocking tight end last year in Brinton Strange who, you know, he's not anything like Evan Ingram. So they can't play the same role. So the only way he's really going to play is if you play with two tight ends. But the entire offense is rooted in 11 personnel. So that's just one example. Trapping Trayvon Walker as a three four outside linebacker when he himself has said, I want my hand in the ground. I'm better with my hand the ground. Just those kind of things. It kind of shows you it's like one one guy's like, I'm buying the grocery. no matter what you has me to get, I'm going to get what I want. And the other guy basically just has to cook with what he has. Anything else you want to kind of say before we wrap up here just about what people should know about where the Jags are right now, about why things feel the way that they do, and just some broader context to somebody who's around that team all the time?

Yeah, I will say. So there was a report last week about, you know, about, you know, Doug Peterson losing the locker room after he said something after the Texan's loss where he was like, coaches can't rather and make plays. And I think people were 100% right to jump on that quote. I mean, I jumped on that quote. I'm sitting like in the second row of the press conference. And the second he said it, my like, my like ears are ringing. I'm like, okay, wow, that's one of the best quotes, you know, you've ever given just because it creates a talking point. But around the building, you know, I before I even got into the locker room for the first time last

week on Wednesday, I got a text on like that Tuesday saying, you know, the vibes are surprisingly good. It's funny that that's the kind of message you get from somebody who's there more or less saying, yeah, you'd think we'd be, you know, on five fire alarms right now and everything's burning down. But no, you know, they felt positive going into a week. And being in the locker room last week, I actually felt like players kind of took a little bit of a fence, both on and off record about that kind of report. So, you know, the Jaguars are a madding team to watch. They're extremely frustrating for, I think, media members who are interested in the

sport for their fans for really anybody. But I do think one thing about them is they're not a team that's like ripping apart at the seams quite yet. Now, that could happen, but I've seen a team operate in the locker, not in the locker with this COVID year, but I've seen a team operate in practice and in the media when they hate their head coach. You know, I covered Deer Amier. That certainly didn't take long.

And that's not the vibes I get, you know, from this Jaguar's locker room. So I do think it's a team that like, obviously they've had one of the worst starts in the NFL, I don't think they're just kind of going to go belly up. You know, there are some teams where, you know, if you fall on hard times early in the season, they kind of just throw in the towel, I'm not sure this is that team yet. And that's purely from me being in the building and talking to guys.

They were legitimately like some of them like angry. You know, they'll concede that they haven't played well, that they've messed up and even that some coaches have messed up. But it's not to the point where, you know, the coach is kicking the kicker or anything like that yet. Yeah. And I think that's part of the why this is hard is that people seem to like Doug Peterson.

And I think the play. players seem to like Doug Peterson, and it would be hard to imagine a mutiny around a guy like that. At the same time, two things can be true at the same time. Players can have not given up on the head coach, and you can concede that there may be a need for a different power structure, different people in charge, and just a different voice at the top of this thing heading into 2025. And it does feel like that's probably the direction that we're headed. John Shipley, sincerely appreciate the time, sir. Really always get to chat with you. We will do it again very soon.

Hey, thanks for having me, man. I always love coming on here talking whatever kind of dysfunction in Jabro's half because there's always something. Appreciate it, bud. All right, guys, that's all we got for today. Really appreciate all of you listening. Thank you to Deontay again for his time today. We will be back on Friday with our week five preview.

We'll be taking into the Drake May news, the rest of the week five slate or week six slate. So please come back and check that out for now. Appreciate you guys listen. We'll talk to you very soon.