The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Falcons stomp Saints behind dominant run game, 45-24

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

A strong outing from Michael Penix, a suffocating run game from Bijan Robinson and Brian Robinson Jr, and a Jeff Ulbrich classic. Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman recap the Week 4 Atlanta F...alcons MNF win over the New Orleans Saints.Join The Athletic Football Show Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VJV7zyDwHost: Robert MaysCo-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerSenior Producer: Katy DuffySocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @RobertMaysFollow Dave on X: @DaveHelman_Theme 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Athletic Football Show, brought to you by the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card. I'm Robert Mays. Big win for the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football. Huge night for Bejohn Robinson, that entire run game, a tough night for the Saints Run defense and their ability to run the ball on offense. Just a convincing win for the Falcons for the second straight week in primetime. So much stuff to dig into with that performance and some of the stuff that stuck out from it. We did it all with me, Derek, and Dave.
Starting point is 00:00:26 Let's get to that conversation right now. We like to complicate it on this show because it's fun, right? We appreciate the complexities of football as a sport because there's always a lot going on and it's fun to dive into it. But at its core, this game can be very simple. If you can't run the ball and you can't stop the run, you're going to get your ass kicked. And that is precisely what happened tonight in the game between the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints. That's what's happened to the Saints for a lot of this season. season. And this was about as bad as it's looked.
Starting point is 00:01:11 The way, I mean, it was what, the first or second play of the game? Bajon Robinson does the thing again where he just makes third play the game. Okay. It's a little bit of credit. I'll give him credit for having two decent plays of defense. And then, yeah, third play of the game, he makes a cut behind the line that it only feels like he can always see and make and just, it's one of those things where like sometimes the hole looks so wide open on some of his runs.
Starting point is 00:01:35 But him even getting to the hole at all is kind of the magic in the, the way that he can cut and see things behind the line of scrimmage and then obviously takes off and then it felt like they did that 10 more times for the rest of this game. The Saints' run defense was good last year. It was good last year. It was like the strength.
Starting point is 00:01:53 When you're trying to build the case for why the Saints defense was what it was in the back half of last season when they were like a borderline top seven unit, it's because the run defense was very good. And I know they're a little bit banged up right now. Right? Carl Granderson's hurt. Cade Nellis is hurt. Everybody's banged.
Starting point is 00:02:09 up. The Falcons didn't have their left tackle in this game. We're going to get into that. We're going to get into the state of the Atlanta Falcons roster and why I don't need the tears from the Saints about who's not playing in this game. That performance and what their run defenses looked like all season, Carl Granderson and Caden Ellis are not the difference in you going from what your run defense looked like in the back half of last year to what it looked like tonight. And Derek, rightfully, you pointed this out when they played the Ravens.
Starting point is 00:02:35 And I expected it to get at least a little bit better over the course of the year because they were a very good run defense unit last year, and it just hasn't. So I don't really, it doesn't really matter if you're out a couple starters. It shouldn't look like that. Thank you for saying that. And I'll even add that Pete Werner was like not guaranteed to play in this game. They were monitoring his health heading in. But I felt like I was taking crazy pills to, you know, three quarters of the way through.
Starting point is 00:03:01 It just felt like they kept bringing up how beat up the saints were on defense. And I was like, I do not see the absence that should. should make this understandable. Like every team is beat up. And like, Caden Ellis is a phenomenal football player. But there's nothing here from a personnel standpoint that makes me think it's okay to give up a 58% rushing success rate.
Starting point is 00:03:23 Let Bejohn Robinson and Brian Robinson basically do whatever they wanted to you. Like, this is as healthy as you could possibly expect to be in the NFL in a regular week. And it didn't hold water with me. And I thought it was weird that they brought it up as often as they did. I want to just go through some of the players
Starting point is 00:03:43 on the Atlanta Falcons today that played more than 20 snaps in their front seven. Okay? La Cale London. Kendall Daniels, who is like a fifth round rookie. Mason Smith,
Starting point is 00:03:55 who was traded right before the season in a our trash for your trash for Rooka Roll Road trade. Just that worked out for both really, by the way. Yeah. Zach Harrison and a smart trade, right?
Starting point is 00:04:05 Where it's like, I don't think he fits our system, but he might fit yours. And I think they needed more of a run. stuffer and so they traded for Mason Smith, whatever. So Mason Smith, who was traded in a player for player swap where both teams were tired of the guys that they had. Cam Thomas, who's making $3 million this year.
Starting point is 00:04:22 Yaseer Abdullah, who I believe is still on his rookie deal and is making next to nothing this season. Samson Ebukam, who can't be making any money. Brandon Doralus, who's a mid-round pick. Gervon Dexter, who they traded for a fifth round pick before the season started. Harold Perkins, who is also a rookie, these are the guys who are making up the Atlanta Falcons front seven right now. And I don't mean to poke fun at them. They put on one hell of a performance.
Starting point is 00:04:50 They destroyed the Saints offensive line in this game. They deserve a ton of credit. And you know who else deserves a ton of credit? Jeff Oldbanks won't hell of a football coach. Hell yeah, he is. For two years in a row, for two years in a row, the Atlanta Falcons are trying out all these dudes. And last year, they had better players. Last year they had, we talk about players being out.
Starting point is 00:05:10 James Pierce thing is what it is as to why he's not playing. Jaylon Walker was the best player in this front seven. He has not played it down. He won't play this entire year. David on Yamato was the one veteran they had last year. He's not on the roster anymore. This was a top 10 defense coming into the year, and they absolutely beat the shit out of the Saints today.
Starting point is 00:05:30 They deserve so much credit. Again, getting back to the point at the beginning, at its core, this is a simple game. This is about attitude. It's about physicality. And you watch the way that that group played. Oh, yeah, AJ Terrell isn't out there too, by the way. You watch how that group played.
Starting point is 00:05:45 And it's incredible what they're bringing from an attitude mentality mindset whenever that group is on the field. And you think about what Jeff Oldbrick did with the Jets and what this group looks like. And he just deserves a ton of credit. That entire staff deserves so much credit for how those guys are playing right now. It's really impressive. I know you were focusing on the front seven. but Sidney Brown was all over the damn place in this game.
Starting point is 00:06:09 Like they got a, they got like a sack out of Xavier Watts, who continues to look like a really fun player. Like, and the broadcast did a good job. Everybody knows Bijan is amazing in prime time. This Falcon's defense kicks in to another level when they play in these sorts of games.
Starting point is 00:06:26 I mean, that Bill's game from last year around this time of year is burned into my brain. And they flipped a lot of it over and they're beat to shit. And obviously, the Saints are not the Josh Allen Bills, but they still went into New Orleans and beat the hell out of an offense that has looked
Starting point is 00:06:43 very, very proficient and very exciting for a lot of the first three weeks of the season. I think the world of Jeff Ulbric, man. I love watching his team play. I just can't believe that they, and like this offensive line for the Saints is imperfect and they're a little bit banged up. They obviously don't have
Starting point is 00:06:59 their left tackle either. It's a quarterback that I've joked that is like pretty slow off his spot when he's going to get pressured. But The fact that they were still, it's not even just them scheming it up, stuff like, guys like you mentioned, Robert, Cam Thomas is just like winning clean inside moves on some of these. You see, Abdullah. Yeah. They were just winning, bringing forward the entire game.
Starting point is 00:07:18 They had almost a 50% pressure rate without blitzing in this game. If you look at the next gen numbers, like that, there was some fancy stuff. Like they got home on a couple pressures. They're going to do a little bit of that. But it's not as if this was, we're bringing the house all day and the Saints have no answer for it. this is we're just winning over the course of the game with these dudes. And that's something to be really proud of. Like that that's something that makes me take notice.
Starting point is 00:07:43 Yeah, like they were just really cool. And especially two to kick into that gear, not just with the pass rush stuff because obviously like schematically they do some of that. The Saints, like you mentioned, could not run the ball. And they haven't run the ball at all this year. But this like, if we're just looking at the names on the rosters, you should be able to do it a little bit against this Falcon's front. And the fact that they couldn't really do it at all and continue to end these games
Starting point is 00:08:03 kind of abandoned it and I don't really blame them for that. That to me is like, again, there are so many exciting parts about this Saints offense and team and we'll talk about that. But like you said, if you can't run the ball and you can't stop the run, you're never going to control a game. It's kind of like what the Dallas Cowboys were last year, where they couldn't stop the run and they couldn't run the ball as well as they wanted once they got a little bit banged up. And this is like if you took that roster and made them 30% worse. All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break. When I was excited about what the Saints could do in the NFC South this year, part of the enthusiasm was driven by the fact that I really liked what they did in the passing game last year.
Starting point is 00:08:47 I really liked what I saw from Tyler Shuck. I was excited about what he could do with Olave and Jordan Tyson, even with Tyson getting hurt. Think, okay, you still have a quarterback that showed some flashes as a rookie. Chris Oliva is a superstar. He's playing incredibly well and continues to play incredibly well. You invested in the run game. You put more on the quarterback in terms of how you played last. year. If you look at just run action rate, how often they were running the ball, I mean, this was
Starting point is 00:09:12 an offense that was putting a burden on the quarterback in the same way that the Bengals do with Joe Burrow with a rookie. That just shouldn't be the case. And I expected them to ease some of that this year. You invest in ETN in free agency. You signed David Edwards in free agency. Let's have a little bit more of a cohesive offense where everything fits together. We can lean on the run game a little bit. Losing E.T.N. and Kelvin Banks shouldn't torpedo that entire thing. Like, you still should have a plan. Like you said, Derek, Jake Matthews got hurt in the middle of this game. I know that Bajon is walking through the door for the Falcons, but this is a team that's signed Juan Taylor off the street before the season started and has their backup left tackle for
Starting point is 00:09:51 50 of the 60 snaps on offense, and they're running the ball at will. Like, there's no explanation as to why the Falcons should be able to do that and why you can't do anything on the ground if you're the Saints. Correct me if I'm wrong, but, and I understand it's a big disappointing loss, but Kelvin Banks is the only problem right now. Correct. Like the rest of that stuff. No, I mean the line. I just mean the offensive line. And even H-chan, they weren't using him as much as you would think, given the amount of money they gave him. Absolutely. And so this is, you can try to explain it away because of who's not playing, but one, I don't think that's a reasonable argument. Two, it's a hard argument to make when you look at what's happening on the other side.
Starting point is 00:10:32 Tyler Shuck has currently thrown 180 passes this year. That's got it. Is that leading? I like on on pace stats this early in the season are not worth getting excited about. But like he would be on pace to set like an NFL record. Like throwing more than 700 pass attempts is silly shit. And honestly, if I was looking for copium coming out of this game as a Saints fan, And the fact that this is Tyler Shook's life and he doesn't look completely overwhelmed and like it's breaking him is pretty encouraging because nobody is supposed to throw the ball that off and let alone a second year player.
Starting point is 00:11:12 It's so hard to play offense this way. It's just so incredibly hard to play offense this way. What you're putting on your quarterback and what you're putting on your offensive line. The offensive line is going to look worse when you're doing this to them. You're laying them out to dry. The Falcons defense deserves a ton of credit. but if you're going to play this way, you're asking so much from that group up front. I'm looking at the stats right now.
Starting point is 00:11:35 Tyler Shuck threw nine passes or excuse me. Tyler Shuck threw 11 passes with play action today. 11. That's how many Michael Pennix threw without play action. Tyler Shuck threw 37 passes without play action in this game. I assume a huge portion of those were from the gun. all you're asking when you're doing that is for the other team's front
Starting point is 00:11:59 to tee off the entire game and it allows a group that doesn't have any defined stars and a lot of guys who are waiver claims and low price free agent signings to look like they did and control the game the way that they did today. And if you look at the other side, like what the Falcons offense looks like,
Starting point is 00:12:18 43% play action on throws without play action in this game, Michael Pennix average 2.7 air yards per attempt, which is hilarious. On the game, even with a 50% play action rate, he averaged 2.57 average time to throw. They had four quarterback pressures the Saints did in this game because of what the Falcons' plan looks like and how the quarterback plays. The Saints finished, they gave up 25.
Starting point is 00:12:47 It's not hard to explain. It's just a very easy way to understand how the game unfolds that way. How many attempts in this game did it feel like Tyler Shuck heaving a prayer 25 plus yards downfield with just a red streak darting into the picture to smash him? Especially in the second half, it was every other snap. And you know what this feels like to me? This feels like a lot what happened to the Justin Herbert, Kellyn Moore, Los Angeles Chargers, where they could not run the ball the way that they wanted. And they had a quarterback that like, Dave, I think you make a great point of like them asking him to throw this much.
Starting point is 00:13:21 I think there's like an intoxication of like because Shuck can do it. Like he can live in the dropback world fairly well. But when you're asking any quarterback to do it this much, it's going to be really, really, really difficult. And then putting this on a second year player when your star left tackle is banged up, that's just way too much. And again, it feels like that 20, 23 Herbert season where you're going to have some games and moments where it looks fine because Grisolae is better than most of the corners he's going
Starting point is 00:13:46 to face. And Shuck sees it well enough when like you said, he's not having a red streak cross his face every single time he drops back, but you're going to have these games like this where you get a little bit outgunned, you get behind on the scoreboard early because your defense sucks, and shit, now we're just throwing the ball 50 times
Starting point is 00:14:01 and we never have an answer for anything. Shuck had 39 pass attempts from the shotgun in this game. 39. Tough way to live. That's double the amount of attempts that Michael Pennix had, period, in the whole football game. The Falcons are, I mean, the way that look the first couple weeks,
Starting point is 00:14:19 are we ready to make a real earnest argument that Michael Pennix is the MVP of the league? No, but I'm talking about pure value. Can you really make an argument that Michael Pennix has not been the most valuable player in the NFL this year? I was going to come in here. I was going to come in here and say, my, the Falcons can win the division take from August doesn't look so silly with Michael Pinnox in the lineup. That's silly at all. Why would it be silly? I'm feeling pretty good about that.
Starting point is 00:14:48 Well, I would guess they had the lowest odds. Did they not? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, in the, in the moment, it might have looked silly. Right now, why would it look silly? They're two and two. They're tied with everybody else.
Starting point is 00:15:00 I do want to say, I'm curious to see. So it's Baltimore, Chicago, and San Francisco up next. All at home, by the way. So you got a three-game homestand against some pretty good teams, some teams that we feel pretty strongly about. I'm curious to see how real it is. I'm very impressed by what they've done these last two weeks. And we should, Mia Culpa, because we had a lot of fun joking about the Falcons playing all these prime time games,
Starting point is 00:15:29 they're just nuking everybody in prime time. Like, this is incredible. But they're ridiculous blowouts that aren't worth watching, just like we expected. Yeah, exactly. I do, I want to see it. I want to see these next few weeks and see just how real it looks against some teams I respect a little bit more. But they play the Ravens and the Bears in back-to-back week, so those are the two best teams in the league.
Starting point is 00:15:49 And so that's going to be a really good measuring stick just to see where the Falcons are right now. Sneaking shit like this into the show for the rest of the year. It's good, though. I appreciate after having done the show for two years where it was like, I can't believe in the Bears, I can't believe in the Bears, I can't believe in the Bears. I love just sneaking in like out of the best team.
Starting point is 00:16:08 The Falcons, I think, mindset with this staff coming into the year when it's a first year staff, and it's a weird, season, right, in the sense that they didn't do a lot this off season when it comes to big swings. It was an interstitial year. It was, all right, let's keep our powder dry. Let's figure out who we are.
Starting point is 00:16:27 And then maybe we could be a little bit aggressive next year and we got some money to throw around. The last crew pushed all their chips in, used a lot of resources, obviously, spent a lot of money. Let's untangle some of that. Let's figure out where we are and let's move forward. So the fact that that was the mindset heading into the year, understandably, I think they still believe that division was winnable based on how much uncertainty there wasn't all these other
Starting point is 00:16:50 places. I think that is proven to be fair, right? The Panthers' offense looks good, but the panthers offense has a bunch of injuries. They're an imperfect team. I think the Falcons absolutely can be competitive in that division. If you think about it just in the multi-year view, you have to feel really good about them looking like this as soon as they get the quarterback back in a year where they were kind of in a holding pattern. My weird fear now is that Tommy Reese and Jeff O'Ber Brick aren't here next year based on how the last couple weeks have gone. Like that's a fear I didn't think I would have to have coming into the season. But it might be a little bit quick, but I'm starting to get there with what this team has
Starting point is 00:17:26 looked like on both sides of the ball over the last couple weeks. Reese feels a little premature, although you never know if a guy's got like play calling sauce. Teams obviously value that tremendously. Albrick happens fast. Albrick, I'm all the way there with you though. Like what he did last year, his track record with the Jets when he was under Sala. and now doing this again with a defense that came into the year with zero headliners available. I mean, if he keeps this up even relatively consistently over the rest of the year,
Starting point is 00:17:58 that's pretty easy for me to believe. The other takeaway I wanted to throw in there, I think it's really cool that, obviously, I don't think anybody in the NFC South is a juggernaut. I still think this is a team that's or a division where like the winner of this is probably going to be maybe the three. but probably the four seed. But so often this division has felt tragic. I, like, this is not a tragic division. This is a very exciting division.
Starting point is 00:18:26 Like Bryce Young. The books are tragic. Yes. The team that hasn't been tragic over the last few years is the one that's tragic. Everyone else is very watchable. Ironically, the team that's been the most put together over the last four years is the tragic one. But like all these other teams, even the Saints, even after this shit show, have reason
Starting point is 00:18:43 for, like, optimism. and like I'm excited to watch them play. And that's a cool change of pace. Like this is an interesting division to me, even if I know the teams aren't fully, you know, well-rounded. The Reese thing I'm interested in because like I'm probably with Dave, I think usually these guys need like two years to prove it in some way. But like sometimes they don't.
Starting point is 00:19:03 You got to be a comet for it to be a year. You got to do what Liam Cohen did in Tampa for you to feel really good about it. Where it's like that guy's a maid man. After one year, no questions asked. We'll see what happens with the Falcons and Tommy Reese, but I'm very encouraged by, I think, what we've seen so far. It's been awesome. Obviously, you know, we can throw out the Cooper Rush games, whatever.
Starting point is 00:19:23 Since Michael Penix has been back, they just have a cleared vision for the offense. And I like how they layer stuff. Like their screen game and even going back to Cleveland, these two, Stefansky and Reese, their screen game has been really, really impressive. And you saw a little bit of that tonight. And I just think that some of the ways that they kind of tying together, like some of their boot stuff, like they had been booting and getting some of that stuff to work all game. and then the dots in touchdown, they run him on like,
Starting point is 00:19:47 he looks like he's going to run a corner on top of Drake London running an over route from the other side, and he snaps it back off to the post because it's a good, like, constraint play off of what they'd been doing the whole game. And like them just being able to set that stuff up over the course of the game, it was why I was kind of excited about this staff and this offense going in, and I just didn't know what we were going to get out of the quarterback. But if they have enough strengths from him that they feel like they can build this thing on, I trust their ability to get there. That play is a Shanahan classic.
Starting point is 00:20:17 Oh, absolutely. That's that hiccup play where they've seen them do that a million different times. George Kittles scored that touchdown against the Packers on Sunday night football like 15 years ago on that play or like 12 years ago. I guess George Kittle wasn't in the league 15 years ago. But George Kittles only did in the league for like eight or nine years. It was very early in his career. It feels like forever ago. He scored that.
Starting point is 00:20:40 I mean, I've seen that play a million different times. they were extremely excited about the staff. Just extremely excited about the makeup of the staff. Because this is, we talked about this. This is Tommy Reese's first time from day one as the play caller. They got Tanner Engstrand to come along as their passing game coordinator from the Jets. And I think one of the bits of influence you've seen from that is that, the Ben Johnson system and just like what they were doing with the Lions, there's a lot of pre-snap kills and checks and cans.
Starting point is 00:21:08 And it gives you the opportunity to get into the best play pretty often. And if you watch how often Michael Pennox is getting in and out of stuff at the line of scrimmage, I think that's something they've really been able to lead on. And then Robert Prince came over from Miami, and this team has used a lot more motion than Kevin Stefansky teams have used in previous years. And so I think that there's a lot of stuff that they were able to pull from coming into the year. And they've been able to really build it into a cohesive thing.
Starting point is 00:21:34 And the vision is very clear because I think they have a really good understanding of how they want to play. And I think Tommy deserves a lot of credit for putting that together. in the way that they have over the first month of the season as soon as Michael Paddock's got back. Anything else from you guys about Falcons Saints? I have a desperate plea. It's something that has bugged me for a long time, and this feels like a good opportunity to put it on wax.
Starting point is 00:22:03 Enough of the delayed sequels, we don't need another act 20 years after the fact. And like, we didn't need the Happy Gilmore movie. we didn't need the space jam sequel and as cool as it sounded to do Falcon Saints in Monday night to celebrate the anniversary of the dome how does that feel now how does that feel 20 years after the fact
Starting point is 00:22:28 where you're like this will be great we'll beat the Falcons just like we did in 2006 and it'll be this positive memory and everybody will love it and 06 is untouchable that'll be as a New Orleanian that'll be a special moment forever but to give you to be clear about that Like, I want you to be clear that this is like a very important thing to you.
Starting point is 00:22:46 You are not like an outsider who was looking at this. The 2006 Saints are one of the more important things that's ever happened in your sporting life. I am not being glib. I lived it. I wasn't in the building in 06, but like I lived in New Orleans at that time. It was a very special memory. And as cool as it sounds, and I would have said this before the game, as cool as it sounds to play this game 20 years later, like bring back all those memories. And they did such a cool job to have.
Starting point is 00:23:12 time show was amazing. They really played it up. And now you have this stinky performance sitting there. And like I said, it's not going to like tarnish 2006. That meant so much to the city and was about so much more that you can't completely touch it. But Falcons fans are going to point to this from now on. Like when you showed the Gleeson photo or the Gleeson play, they're like, oh yeah, what about 4524? And like, part of me thinks we would have just been better. off leaving 06 there by itself as a singular night and we didn't need a part two 20 years later. And I mean, it's too late now, but it's one of those things where it sounds like a good idea in theory, but you do have to play the football game and you just handed your biggest rival
Starting point is 00:24:00 a nice bit of ammunition in this ongoing feud. And I don't, I just don't know if I would have done it. I don't think you can capture the Saints Falcons energy better than I think that you just did. I mean, that was, that was perfect. It's one of the only true, like, I hate you rivalries in this league. This is, this, I, like, this is one of the top three rivalries in the sport. If you want to talk about Bears Packers or Steelers Ravens or, you know, there's a few others. Like, sure, fine. But this is, this is top three, top five.
Starting point is 00:24:30 And it is pure spite. And to hand the Falcons a dub like this on the night that is very important to the city of New Orleans. It just, I don't know. It's a little bit of an unforced error, in my opinion. But what if they had won? What if they had won in a convincing fashion? Like, doesn't that make it all the sweeter? Is the fact that you have now a second go-around of beating the team that you hate the most in a night that was supposed to be special?
Starting point is 00:24:58 Absolutely. But, and yeah, if you want to tell me no risk, no biscuit, no biscuit, fine. But, like, just, I don't know, protect these holy memories. That's my cowardly opinion. But like I said, you're not really ever going to. to tarnish what happened in 2006, but like now, now this is part of the story
Starting point is 00:25:17 and it didn't have to be. I'm of two minds about it because I think that there would have been a different time in my life where I probably would have agreed with you. And then I think about what Ben Johnson has done over the last two years
Starting point is 00:25:29 and how the downside of what he's, the downside of what he's doing is extremely real. I think the downside is there. The moment that the Packers win a game against the Bears in convincing fashion and blow them out,
Starting point is 00:25:42 out. Whenever that happens, they're going to hear about it. But at the same time, even if you're making the stakes a little bit higher, when you win, it does make it a little bit sweeter. And so it cuts both ways. I understand what you're saying, but I've, and I think I've kind of danced on that line a lot over the last year or so, as I've watched the coach of the team I root for openly antagonize the other fan base and the other staff with absolutely no disregard whatsoever. there's there's an argument on both sides of it but that was like at half time when trombone shorty was putting on this like this incredible show i was like this this doesn't hit the same when you're getting run out of your own building like this isn't as fun as it was in 2006
Starting point is 00:26:30 Derek before we get out of here what did you think of the panics game tonight he was fine i thought that he was okay i was a lot more impressed by the way that it was called And if he's going to have, again, he can throw the ball really well down the field. I think that they schemed enough of that stuff up, but he didn't throw the middle of the field. And I think that that's really going to be like what is going to change my mind at some point if we get there. I think the other, he just doesn't, he's not a creative thrower when it comes to like doing things on the move. He doesn't have a lot of clubs in the bag. Like that's always going to be something that he struggles with.
Starting point is 00:27:01 And even that throw where he's trying to pop the ball over, I think it was Chase Young to be jean in the flat. It just, he struggles with that stuff. Like he's just, he's kind of a one speed. one trajectory thrower and it's beautiful when he's able to do that stuff in rhythm but when he's pushed off of it you feel the cracks a little bit and so I think it was kind of a
Starting point is 00:27:20 Michael Pennix game it was a well called Michael Pennix game I think is what we got from the Falcons tonight and when you have this running game and when you're asking him off play action to push the ball down the field I think this can be a really cool offense but I also feel like we saw tonight some of his limitations in a way
Starting point is 00:27:36 that we didn't really see against the Packers because we didn't have to yeah there's limitations We can talk about that as the year goes on. But so long as those two other guys are on the roster and one of these guys and Stefanski and Reese are calling the offense, I think they'll be okay. I do have enough faith in that. It's a little different than the skill position players
Starting point is 00:27:53 they had in Cleveland over the last couple years. A little bit. It's a little bit than Jerry Judy. You feel the difference a little bit. All right. That is all we've got for tonight. If you're watching this on YouTube, please go check out the week for Hangover.
Starting point is 00:28:09 for watching this on Tuesday. Me and Derek broke down three games from the Sunday slate. I chat a little bit about the Sunday night game. Also hit Chargers Seahawks, regrettably, and then dug into Cardinals Giants. Got plenty more stuff coming this week for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening.
Starting point is 00:28:25 I'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment, and leave a rating. We'll see you next time.

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