The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Is this real?

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

**Game Show Audience Voice** IS...THIS...REAL?!? That's right, it's time for one of our favorite annual traditions, a round of Is This Real? with Robert Mays and Bill Barnwell from ESPN. On this year's edition, the guys consider Bryce Young, the Bengals defense, the Packers offense, and a couple more surprises from the first two weeks of the 2026 season.Join The Athletic Football Show Discord Server: https://discord.gg/bCyPFKASHost: 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.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show, brought to you by the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card. I'm Robert Mays. Every year, two weeks into the season, we like to have a show in the middle of the week where we play, is this real? We have two games worth of evidence for these teams. That's still probably not enough to know definitively how the NFL season is going to play out. But we like to do this. Two weeks into the year, some of the things that have surprised us, both good and bad in the NFL, is this stuff real? We always like to do this with Bill Barnwell, my buddy from ESPN.

That is who joined us today. We dug into the Panthers offense, which you haven't really talked about, the Packers, the Bills, the Chargers, a lot of fun conversations here. Let's get to all of it with Bill Barnwell right now. Playing a little game today that I always like to play two weeks into the season. Barnwell, I think we did this last year. Do we do this two years ago? Is this the third straight year we've done this? Or was this last year?

We've been doing Is this Real since we were. children. That's what I'm saying. But I was trying to think of how many years in a row we've done it. I think it's a lot of years in a row, isn't it? Two weeks into the season? It feels like a tradition at this point. We are always in one form or another doing is this real, whether it's as strictly as a podcast topic or whether it's just kind of testing little things in season. I feel like that is a constant back and forth between us. It's a fun game to play two weeks in because the question is super relevant for pretty much every single team in the league. I will say, and I preface this, I think on Sunday night when we were talking about the fact we were going to do this this

week, a lot of times you have a team that did the same thing two weeks in a row, and we ask, is this real two weeks into the season? There was such a swift change for so many teams from week one to week two that I think the pool of potential candidates for Is This Real this year might be a little smaller than normal, but we still have enough stuff to dive into today. We could do a different show, which is I don't want it to be real, and we could do a lot of stuff after we saw in week two. Yeah, you and I both riding high after week one with

watching our teams and the young quarterbacks and then we're in a very different place now. At least mine gets to come back. Yeah. All we're really enduring is one week of Case Keenham and a bunch of memes. You're enduring a season without your team starting quarterback. Yeah, there was a lot of

the reaping sewing tweet. That was me on Monday night. Good thing I didn't pick the Giants to make the playoffs. That would have been a stupid thing. Did you really do that? I did. Oh, wow.

Why would you ever do that? Where is the potential upside in doing that? Well, I'm foolish, is what it boils down to. We do have some candidates for Is This Real? And the exercise is as simple as the format. I mean, we're going to ask, is this real for something that we've seen? This sounds like you being Bob Barker explaining a game on the Price is right. It's a very simple game.

we're going to take a topic from the first two weeks of the NFL season. We're going to ask, is this real? And we're going to try to figure it out. Let's start with one of the motivations for wanting to do the show this week, on top of it being an annual tradition. But the first one that came to mind, a conversation we haven't really had on this feed. They played the Falcons on Sunday night.

We talked mostly about the Bears' offense coming out of week one, but something I was very excited to dive into today. Bryce Young, the Carolina Panthers, two weeks into the season, fifth an EPA per dropback? the four teams ahead of them. Niners, Bills, Cowboys, all predictable coming into the year. All thought those would be good offenses. Number four, the Seattle Seahawks and Drew Locke.

So we made, that one probably isn't worth the conversation because Sam Donald was going to be back. But the Panthers are firmly fifth in those rankings right now. Bryce Young has been the most productive. He's been over a two-game stretch probably over the course of his entire career. It's been extremely fun to watch. So let's do it. Bryce Young's emergence, Bryce Young's ascendance, Bryce Young's. Bryce Young's start to this season, is this real?

I have absolutely no idea. This is the one I am least confident about. This is the one where I kept looking at it and saying to myself, I'm really unsure. So let's talk through that. What are your competing thoughts on both sides that are kind of pulling you in different directions here? Well, normally after 1,500 pass attempts in the NFL, guys are usually pretty settled.

They don't make dramatic leaps, although it happens. And the guy I was thinking about, and there are different kinds of quarterbacks, but it's that same kind of question of, could this guy take this kind of leap at this point of his career after we believe him to be something is Andy Dalton, that year with the Bengals.

I think it was 20, 15? Yeah, it was 2015. Yeah. 2015. And that was a scenario where, if you look back, that Bengals team had a, really great infrastructure on offense. Great offensive line, a bunch of talented receivers.

They were healthy for most of the year. Good running game. And I'm sort of wondering, like, when I think about Bryce Youngler quarterback, I don't think he suddenly developed skills he didn't have previously, but were we either really not appreciating how bad some of the infrastructure was or has it improved dramatically? And I think you could make a little bit of a case for both, especially now that we have a healthy Jelen Coker

kind of being the second or really the primary receiver in some ways in that offense. I think the circumstances have improved, certainly from where it was early in his career. I think when you look at year one under Frank Reich and just how much of a disaster that offensive line was, I think we do have some lingering effects

of people watching him that season and being unable to forget how bad he was. But even when you move beyond that, it's been inconsistent at best. And if you look at the career long stats, bad at worst. They are bad career long statistics for the most part for Bryce Young. And I tried to do my best in going back and rewatching. I watched all 80 of his past attempts from the first two games to prepare for this. I was like, I was like, I want to know like how much, how I actually feel about this.

And I tried to do my best to just divorce myself from what we had seen from Bryce Young and what I had thought of Bryce Young previously. And you said something interesting that I sort of disagree with. and it's at the root of my relative optimism about this. I do think that he is displaying some skills that we have not seen from him previously, and it's in this one specific area. Bryce, and this cuts both ways, this is both why it could be real and why it can't be real.

Bryce Young's path to success is extremely narrow because of what his physical profile and physical skill set looks like. We've always known that. It was always going to be hard for him to thread the needle to be a productive quarterback in the NFL, given his limitations. But in order to do it, I think he was going to have to figure out how he needed to play and survive in the NFL. He was going to have to get a sense of that. And if you watch the first couple games, I think there are two areas where he has started to, or maybe fully, figured out how he can survive in the league.

one is where and how he has to find space for himself. And if you watch a lot of the stuff he was doing, especially in the Bears game, off schedule, extending plays, getting out of the pocket, figuring out where those lanes are, where those escape hatches are, the timing he needs to play with to get there,

how fast needs to find them. I was very impressed by his ability to do that. Those are the overt examples. There are other smaller examples where either the Panthers or Bryce are finding a little bit of space for him in the pocket, play action, moving the pocket. The 55-yarder he hits to Leggett in the Falcons game,

you see him slide in the pocket to his left just a little bit to give him enough space to really uncork that throw. In order for him to survive, he needs a master, like a master's level understanding of how and where to find and access that space. And I think that has been the best it's ever been through two games.

And the other area is how fast he's seeing things, period. how fast the ball is coming out because beyond the frame, his arm just isn't great. He can really push the ball down field. He's actually a decent downfield passer. Right. But he doesn't drive the ball to the intermediate areas of the field.

You know, 40-year-old Aaron Rogers can still lofty ball, but that like, you know, that drive that we saw with Caleb Williams throwing those end breakers in week one, that is not in Aaron Rogers talker. I don't think it's in Bryce Young's locker. Again, his ability to push the ball down the field, which we'll get to, I think

is he can do that. But the driving the ball outside of the numbers, there was one throw against the Falcons where he hit like a deep outbreaker from the opposite hash that was pretty good. But how quickly he has to make those decisions in order to make those throws viable, he has to do it instantaneously.

And I do think that's happening more and more. On the same drive where he hits the 55 yard to Legat, the touchdown he throws a Darren Waller on that drive is a sweet play. And he sees that thing come open two steps before Waller's out of his break. The ball comes out. It's a touchdown.

And so I think when you take those two things together, his ability to understand how he needs to find space and how fast he's processing and how fast the ball needs to come out based on who he is, I'm getting to a place where I'm like, okay, is that enough? Like those two things connected and those two things together, is that enough for him to be a viable long-term answer at quarterback? And I don't know if I'm all the way there yet, but I do think that it is a starting point for something that's potentially exciting. Yeah, I don't disagree with anything you're saying, and I see the logic and what you're saying. But I do think it gets back to my sort of initial question of like, is this a new skill or are we, you know, could it be a situation where the game is slowed down a little bit for Bryce Young, that kind of classic cliche. And so maybe he does feel like he has a better sense of what the timing is and how narrow those windows are and when to throw accurately and when to get the ball out quickly. I also wonder, and this is not to be disrespectful of my co-host, but is the fact that he played the Bears

and the Falcons without their top two pass rushers and with AJ Terrell leaving the game, does that increase the margin for error? And I think that's kind of the phrase I always come back to with Breischung, is just the margin for error is so small. And that kind of speaks to your point about, like, he has to hit those windows because, yes, he can create out of structure, yes, he can improvise,

but it is so much harder to do that when you are not a freak athlete, when you are not a threat to, you know, run away from people all that often, when you're more agile than fast. And so I do think there is that possibility that the game is slud down. But I also think, you know,

you're going to have a lot of margin for error playing those two defenses in the current situations they're facing, especially, you know, in the Falcons game, playing from ahead for most of the contest. I agree. And I think it's his ability to, find space and his ability to maneuver around the pocket.

When that pocket is condensing, it's going to be really hard for him in a way it's not for bigger quarterbacks. And I'm not trying to make this a, this is what NFL quarterback is. This is what NFL quarterback is not by making this comparison. But I literally just went back and rewatch the Chargers game. And when you're watching Justin Herbert, even when under pressure, guys can be hanging on him and the ball can still come off. That's what you're talking about with margin for error.

That doesn't exist with Bryce. Like when the pocket condenses, I think life. is going to be really hard for him. He needs clear space, clear escape routes, or the ball needs to come out immediately. And so that's kind of what I mean when I said the path is really narrow. And so I don't know where I land either.

When I'm saying, is this real? I think this is where I stick with it. I don't think there are top five passing offense. Like I don't think that's real. But I think I'm in a place where this is the start of me believing in him as their multi-year answer. Like if he can continue to play at this level or even a step or two back from this, I want to see what he can continue to do and what he could continue to do next year.

And I think that to me is probably a win for both the Panthers and Bryce Young, is them thinking this is a real viable option for us at quarterback. The offense has been great. The rest of the team is the areas where they've struggled over the first couple weeks. I mean, obviously the defense against the bears. And so I think that's where I land with it, where I don't know if they're top 10 offense real, but he has shown me enough where I am looking forward to seeing what he can do over the rest of the season. And I, that wasn't a guarantee coming into the year that I would be like,

oh, man, I can't wait to see what Bryce Young does with his 2026. But that's where I am right now. Yeah, I agree in that. I think what's real, what we could say for sure is he has a path to access maybe a level of upside. We did not necessarily think was plausible in years past. I know nothing about golf, so please excuse me if this metaphor is terrible. But like this is like the, you know, the golfer who has like a five handicap who shoots five under par one day. And like they've never shot par before. And certainly they're five under par. And you're like, I could do that.

Like I have that in me. Like if everything is perfect, I have that kind of performance in me. Maybe I can't shoot 67 every day. But maybe I can, if I keep performing and I keep improving, maybe I can get closer to that. Maybe I am really a par golf. Maybe I am really a one under. handicap. Like, I feel like that's the sort of opening that you have with Bryce Young now that maybe wasn't there before. We saw big games, but even two big games in a row and two kids

in a row where he looked as impressive as he's looked. Pretty rare, if not unprecedented for Bryce Young. There are two other big picture things I think are worth mentioning before we move on in terms of why it might feel and look different this year than it has in years past. The play caller is different, right? I mean, Brad Isick is calling place for them this year. And I And I will say. We have not talked about how weird it is that Brad Izick is the play caller for the Carolina Panthers. Just in terms of because of who his dad is?

Yes. Yeah. It's like cat guy GM, offensive coordinator. Just a weird combo. I mean, he's a young, he's an exciting young coach in the league. And he's been with Canales at multiple different stops. And I think the, there were, and credit to Joe Person, who does a fantastic job covering the Panthers for us at the athletic. when we were talking during training camp, he said there are people in Bryce's camp that,

not that there was anything nefarious going on, but that believed Canales was putting limiters on him in how they were running the offense. And that bears out in the numbers. If you look at it last year, 9.4% of the Panthers pass attempts went 20 plus yards downfield last season. That was 31st in the NFL. This year, through two games, it's 19.4%, which is the second. highest rate in the NFL.

And so they really have opened up the offense for him and his ability to push the ball down field. They've really gotten a lot of positive returns on that. And I think you see him playing with a certain confidence, quickness, how fast he's seeing things. I think that was the other argument for Brad taking over play calling is that you have somebody now that is your primary play call or the voice in your ear that is with you every step of the way throughout these meetings over the course of the week.

it is a truly like a day-to-day partnership where I think you can really instill a level of confidence in each other that maybe you can't when your canal is parachuting in at the end of the process because you're having to do all this other stuff as the head coach. And so based on what we've seen from the first couple of games and just how locked in that pair seems to be

and what they need from one another, I do think that it has made an appreciable difference in what we have seen from Bryce Young two games into this season. Yeah, I would also, to your point, like the idea of let's hunt explode Let's use the entire field. Makes a lot of sense when you have a quarterback who, you know, isn't necessarily built to access the intermediate range all that well over the middle of the field.

Like so many offenses want to attack and exploit that area. And Price-Jung can do that here and there, but that's not ideally what you want your five-foot-10 quarterback doing. It's a perfect example. There's a play in the second half, I think, believe in the second half of the Falcons game where there and they did this very well consistently with TMAC where he's running kind of these like big circus routes back into the. the whole area in cover two. And they run one in the second half. Bryce does a fantastic job of peeking at the route in the flat, holding down the flat defender just enough,

getting his shoulders back turn, and then hitting that whole shot to T-Mack. And those are the areas of the field where he can consistently attack because of the receivers he has, because of the way that he plays the game. But it always comes back to your point. It's still somewhat narrow

in what he is able to do at a high level. And is that enough? the ability to find space, the ability to attack outside the numbers, and his ability to play fast, is that enough altogether to make him viable in the long term? Coming into the season, I would have had my doubts, but after seeing it in practice over the first two weeks, I kind of think it might be.

Like, I'm excited to see what he can do because I really enjoyed watching what he was over the first two weeks of the year. All right, let's get to our next one here. The Cincinnati Bengals defense after being just an absolute abomination last season has looked considerably better through two weeks. Two games into the year,

the Bengals are seventh in defensive DVOA, their fourth in run defense DVOA. So after two games, the Cincinnati Bengals defense, is this real? I need more to believe. It's been so bad for so long that I need more than two weeks. And when I look at what they've done on a weekly basis, I can make excuses.

And that's unfair because the Bengals deserve a lot of credit for the things I'm about to make excuses for, but I can still make excuses. So week one, of course, the Bucks fumble four times. Tampa lost those four fumbles to Cincinnati. Cincinnati forced the four fumbles. They deserve some credit for that. But, I mean, the Bucks were about to score a touchdown on one of those drives. They scored a defensive touchdown off a fumble. It just, I want to get them.

some credit for forcing the takeaway, but you know what I'm going to say. Like, you're going to recover half the funbles in your game. So I just, it's weird to say like I want to see them force more punts in that scenario. Like, it's like I'm punishing them. But there's a little bit of like 25 Bears defense here, right? Like, where you're like, okay, we know you can't do that every week and the Bears kind of did do it every week. But that's a concern there. And then we two, they were awesome against the run. They, they honestly freaked Amico Ryan's out. Like, he made one of the the worst fourth down decisions you will ever see in the modern NFL. I still can't believe it happened.

He had it. He had it. It's so funny because I was writing about it this week and I was on the Texans website. And after week one, Nick Asari was like, yeah, you know, like we're running the ball more effectively. I think Domingo is really going to be confident in our ability to go forward on fourth and short. Hindsight's 2020, but I was like, one experience with Dexter Lawrence for that all to go down the toilet. Nope. Nope.

Nope. So. And like, they deserve credit. Like, Dexter Lawrence is a really good run defender. They have made major additions up front. They should be better against the run. But I've also seen the Texans be awful running the football for several years. And that is not a one-time thing.

So I'm sort of like piecing together each week. I'm like, well, like, this is kind of what drove them. And I don't know if they can do that. That's unfair, though, because they deserve credit for stopping the run. They deserve credit for forcing the fumbles. The thing that I want to ask you about, the thing that I feel like I have the most most skepticism about is they are blitzing at the lowest rate of football, which I'm not surprised by, and they have the fifth highest pressure rate of any team in the NFL. Do you think they can keep

that up? I think that sort of gap would be hard to do over the course of the season. I think the front is real. That's what I will say. I think the front is real. And it obviously starts with what Dexter Lawrence can do. We've seen that. I mean, what he did on Sunday, it's the most you can impact the game without a sack. I don't know if he had one. But, Just what he did against the run in that game is the most you can possibly impact the game as a nose tackle. He was incredible. But it's not just him. Like every single one of these guys has gotten in the mix in some way.

Cassius Howe playing the role that they're asking him to play, it's perfectly suited for it. He's been really productive. Jonathan Allen has been a great inside complimentary pass rush. I'm really surprised how well he's played so far. Really, really good complimentary interior past rusher. And again, it's exactly what they need him to do. Mafei, like the entire combination of skill sets has looked great, and I think the returns on that, I believe that to be real.

Do I think that they'll be able to be a top five pressure team while blitzing at the lowest rate in the league? Maybe not. I will say, I think a lot of their simulated stuff is good. And I think a lot of their pressure plan stuff has been good. Even some of the zero stuff that they're doing. They're like a top eight-ish cover zero team so far this year. And a lot of the things they're doing dropping out of that, playing zone behind it, forcing people to make really quick decisions.

I think the rush and coverage in those moments has looked good. So I actually do believe the pass rush and the run defense from simply the front is something you'll be able to count on for the rest of the year. It's some of the other stuff where I need to see a little bit more as we keep going here. Like what? Middle of the field spine defense. Like the spine of the defense, past defense. You don't think Dolton Schultz is like Trey McBride 2.0?

you just watch it happen and it's not surprising. I think the linebackers will be better than they were a year ago. It'd be hard for them to be worse. But I still think as I watch this team, the three players that come to mind, really four,

I think it's just the entire second and third level spine of the defense. It'd be like Jordan Battles made some nice plays near the line of scrimmage, but when you look at some of the plays where they're asking him to trigger downhill, there's been a lot of space and a lot of air in that area specifically

over their first couple of games. You saw it against, the bucks and the numbers could be even worse i mean kate out and dropped the seam ball they probably should have caught that to me seems like the area where you'll be able to get after this team the the corners on the outside and the front i feel really good about i think that dx hill is playing well dj turner is taking the leap we all kind of hoped he would take he looks really really good even though it helps when it's zavier hutchinson and not nico collins but i do believe in that stuff i just think the spine of the defense middle of the field past defense that's where i still

need to see a little bit more. They're 18th and past defense success rate through two games. Like, it's, that's not bad. But I think the run defense and what we saw from them against the Texans maybe is masking the true quality of what they've been like down to down for the first two weeks in that specific area. What I do believe, and this is not really something I've had to see so far this year, but over the course of the season is that they're not going to allow us many explosives as they did last year because they were the worst tackling team in football. And it really was not close. And a lot of the people who were responsible for that, you know, are no longer part of the organization.

And so, like, that is one of those things where it was such an outlier last year. Like, I think they had, like, 30 more mis-tackles than anybody else in the league or something crazy. Such an outlier that, like, you're going to make the moves to fix it. There's going to be year-to-year variance. And you're not going to allow as many explosives as a result. There were, it wasn't like they were, they got beat over the top here and there. But it wasn't like those plays where, oh, we're just getting people running bias in zone coverage. It was, oh, you're hitting a 14-year-d dig and it's turning.

into a 40-yard gain because we take terrible angles or we run into each other or we just ankle tackle or we try to, you know, hit stick you and fail. And Brian Cook has been a really solid tackler with the Chiefs. You know, the, I think the front makes them better because quarterbacks are going to have less time to throw. You're going to have to force the ball into tighter windows. You're not going to have those huge sort of swaths to throw into. Like, I think you know, there's like a holistic thing happening, some of which is just your regression to the mean from what happened a year ago. And some of which is just that front, making everyone's life a lot easier.

Yeah, I also just think that, and I don't have the numbers on it, I'd be curious what they actually look like. Last year, they just had to play so many heavy boxes because of their inability to stop the run, that that also can lead to more explosives because you just have more guys crowded toward the line of scrimmage. Like, it's counterintuitive that you would give up fewer explosive runs if you're playing with too high, but that's actually true. Like, you probably will be doing some of that.

So I just looked it up. This shouldn't be surprising at all. Who do you think is playing with the highest light box rate in the NFL two weeks into the season? I would guess the Philadelphia Eagles. They are second. It is the Cincinnati Bengals, 65.8% of plays, according to NextGen. So playing with fewer, playing with this many light boxes and playing with more too high structures, all of that kind of stuff, I think that also is going to limit the amount of explosive runs that you're going to see.

I agree. And that's crazy. It goes a long way in making that happen. You are afforded a lot more flexibility when you have a great nose tackle to do that stuff, as the Eagles can attest to what Jordan Davis and with Jalen Carter playing next to him. I think the question is like, what is real? Is real? Are the Bengals a top eight defense?

No, probably not. Are they sort of like the, oh, if they could just be average defense? Yeah, I think that's totally within the realm of possibility from what we've seen through two weeks. Yeah, if they finished as like the 12th best defense in the league by DVOA because of how good the front is, that wouldn't necessarily surprise me. I still have my questions about what it's going to look like over the course of the entire season because I do think they have relative weaknesses. And I did a video about this earlier this week.

And Derek and I talked about it on The Hangover. I do think you're going to see the teams that have issues in coverage in the spine of the defense this year because of how many teams are playing under center and how much under center play action that we're seeing. The conflict that you're putting on those second level defenders just because of the way people are playing right now, through two games and what I assume people will continue to do for the rest of the year. I do think we'll feel that and I unfortunately think the Bengals will be

one of those teams. I don't think the linebackers are going to be a disaster, but I do think that is the relative weakness of the defense so far and I think we'll see more of it in games where teams aren't finishing with a 10% rushing success rate. Yeah, and I think with teams leaning into bigger personnel

groupings, more 21, more 12, especially more 13, that begging, opposing defenses to match with base. And so I think teams are just going to have more linebackers on the field than they would have two or three years ago just because you're going to want to try to stop those bigger personnel groupings. All right.

Let's take our first quick break and then come back and chat about a unit that's been struggling two weeks into the year. Barlow, with two games in and the Green Bay Packers are currently 30th in offensive success rate. The teams behind them are the Pittsburgh Steelers, which there's something beautiful and about that. and the Miami Dolphins. So a lot of carryover there. We got Jeff Hathley in Miami.

We got Aaron Rogers in Pittsburgh. The Packers are sitting at 30th. The Packers offense being a decidedly below average, hard-to-watch unit, is this real after two games? Have you seen what their offensive line looks like? I have. Yeah. That makes me think yes.

If not 30th, below average seems entirely plausible to me. it is there's like a fundamentally broken thing about all the things that Matt Lufler wants to do and the pieces he actually has to work with. So just to start, they are not a team that can lean heavily into multi-tied personnel groupings because Luke Musgraves Adam definitely. They signed Johnny Smith right before the year and he's been, you know, on the field, but like the confidence and comfort they have in running 12, which they would normally be happy to do, they cannot do. I honestly think with more time, time on task, I believe that the combination of Kraft and Mark Redmond might be okay. Because I think Redmond is a capable blocker. The idea of like Jono Smith being a part of this, that I don't really care about. But like Redmond and Kraft, I do think that that combination of

guys is something that they could work with moving forward. This is a real NBA jam thing where it's like you have one superstar and you're just going to play as that guy in NBA jam and you're going to let the computer play as the other guy who's nowhere near as good. Tucker Kraft and anybody is probably an okay combination because Tucker Kraft is incredible. But I see your point. Jaden Reg gets hurt. So now your 11 personal grouping is down, you know, a sort of difficult to replace receiver. Save God Williams is on IR.

And then that's where the thinness at receiver that they didn't have in previous years immediately shows up. Where last year you could lose a receiver for an extended period of time and say, well, we got six of them. They're all kind of the same, but we've got a lot of them. This year they didn't. There's no receivers in the banana stand for the Packers right now. They are not there anymore. They weren't all the same, but there was a replacement for each of them. Yes.

That would have worked out. I mean, they were all of similar quality. Like, yeah, we just throw one more out there and we'll probably be fine. That is not the case with this current group. No, that is not the case. Boat Melton has seen snaps on offense already, which is concerning to me. And then the offensive line. And before the year, this was a concern.

Just looking at their backups on the offensive line, not even considering that Jordan Morgan was moving to left tackle on a permanent basis. I think he had one career start at left tackle before the start of the season, and he had not looked great, frankly, playing elsewhere on the line before this year. They were starting Jacob Munk at right guard. Zach Bacoweli was coming off of an injury, and sadly now has another injury. He's torn up until he's done for the year. Aaron Banks was banged up in year one with the Packers.

He missed week one and left the game in week two. I mean, you're looking at, and this is like the Packers thing, young players, I get it, but you're not looking at first and second round picks in a lot of cases taking over these spots. You're looking at day three picks. You're looking at UFA, as you're looking at practice squad guys who are already taking meaningful snaps and projected to take meaningful snaps moving forward for the Packers. And you've know Josh Jacobs. And for whatever qualms I have about Josh Jacobs in terms of his EPA because of his fumbling issues,

Josh Jacobs is a very effective interior runner. You have Marshawn Lloyd and Caleb Johnson taking those snaps. You have Chris Brooks, who's a pass pro guy, taking snaps and running back. And you're still running the ball at one of the highest rates on neutral downs and early game scripts, even though you are last in the NFL, I believe, in success rate, if not EPA per play, running the football on design runs. This is broken. And I don't really know how you fix it because the personnel is not there to really find a way to make it all work.

I'm not quite as down on it as you are. I think it's for this reason. I think that last week against the Jets, I feel similarly about the Packers game against the Jets as I do about the Bears game against the Vikings last week. Obviously, the quality of defense is different, but it's a messy game in a rainstorm, and there are just so many correctable mistakes

when you watch it happen from offenses that have so much built up equity that have looked better than this. And that's kind of how I felt about the Packers game last week. Like the amount of missed assignments in the run game and Christian Watson and just like guys not being blocked, that's not a talent issue. Like I think that's a continuity issue. That's a backup offensive alignment issue. That type of stuff in a weather game when you have this many injuries,

a lot of that to me feels correctable. And I do think the combination of LaFleur, Jordan Love, you still have Watson and Golden. I think if they can just get some level, of continuity with whoever the five guys are going to be, I think it'll look significantly less sloppy than it did against the Jets last week, even if there are a lot of personnel concerns. So my question, I think my hesitation here is not about the floor. I think the floor is much, much higher than what we've seen from them, what we saw from them last week when we seen

them in the first two weeks. I think the, my bigger concern with the, what you're talking about with all the offensive linemen out, all the injuries is that the ceiling for this offense probably just isn't nearly as high as it's been over the last couple years. So now are we talking about a team that's like 17th, 18th in every offensive efficiency metric rather than what we've gotten used to with them. That feels like kind of where I sit with it. I have real concerns about their ability to run the football. Yeah, that's fair.

That's real. And their pass rate over expectation on first down, on first and 10, is negative 17.8. They are leaning heavily into the run on early downs. And that to me is the concern because, like, I understand why you want to protect Jordan Love. I understand why you want to run the football. But you're not good at it. That's the problem.

If you're in second and 11, the argument of we want to take a play off the offensive line. We don't want to make them drop back 50 times. Well, now you're the, how much harder you're making the second down play by running it on first down negates the fact that you made the first downplay easier. Yes, even if it's second to nine, even if you didn't lose a yard, it's still bad. And so that's my concern. It's just this offense is built to play a very particular kind of way,

and they've been very successful doing it over the last few years, which is why they have the equity that I understand you're affording them. I just, I can deal with a drop pass. I can deal with a miscommunication on a route. But I'm looking at an offense where there's going to be backup linemen in there. There's going to be guys I don't trust there. That leads to Miss Assignments, like you said. That does lead to breakdowns.

It does lead to not having continuity when they're running concepts. And that is the stuff that concerns me because I don't know that this offense has the ability to stay on schedule very often. Now, they have the ability to create explosives because they have Jordan Love and he's a big game hunter. And they'll hit their big shots because they have big game hunter receivers. But like, you're also counting on Christian Watson to be healthy for the entire season. Like that to me also seems scary. It's not like even, like, Aaron Banks might not be healthy over the rest of the year. If he is great.

But like, there's just, we're already down so much. And I'm just not confident that even the pieces that are left. Jordan Love has missed time over the course of his pro career. I just, it feels like things are already falling apart. And I know that sometimes you can correct the ship. And sometimes there are things, like you said, the rain that could impact things. But sometimes you keep sliding down because you can't stay healthy, because the line is backed up. And you get like a 20,

22 Ram season versus 22 or 22 or 23 or 3. It was 22. Yeah, it was 22. Yeah. Like that feels like it's in the realm of possibility for this Packers offense. And I was not expecting that before the year.

I think that's a really good comparison to point out as a worst case scenario. The idea that you could just be dealing with a 2020 RAM season. And to me, why I think that's really good is, well, Stafford got hurt for how many games did Stafford play in 22?

Stavre played nine games, I believe. Nine games in 22. So that's part of it. So I don't think if Love plays 15 games. I don't think you're looking at that sort of outcome. But we have a play caller in McVeigh that has as much inherent faith as you could possibly have and the bottom fell out.

And so that to me is why this is a good comparison. Here's, this will be my parting thought before we move on to the next thing. I am worried. I'm not panicking yet in terms of how bad it could get. I want to see what it looks like, not in the rain. when they don't lose multiple offensive linemen in the middle of the game. Maybe they'll just lose multiple offense alignment in the middle of the game every game for the rest of the season. But I hope not.

I do think that, all right, we know these are the five guys that we're working with. And if you look at the way they were running the ball in that game, and just as Misgata pointed this out, and I think that it's a really good observation. And it struck me when I was going back to rewatch it. So a lot of those gap scheme runs looks significantly better than the zone stuff that they were trying to do. And so can you lean into some of those gap scheme runs? can you still be explosive in the passing game? Can you get to an acceptable level of play,

even with some backups in there, if you have the same five guys for an extended period of time? That's wishful thinking. I think that they're going to be hard pressed to make this all come together. That's why I am worried about it. I want to see one more week, not in the rain, not in a burn the tape sort of situation,

before I totally panic about where they are. I would also point out that Matt Lafleur built a coherent offense, a successful offense with Malikil as a quarterback, which is something I would not have expected. So this man might deserve some benefit of the doubt as well. I just, it's hard for me to throw dirt on them this early. Again,

I mean, like, you can have really bad games as a good offensive play car with a good offense. Like Ben Johnson and the Bears were not good last week. I don't think that means they'll continue to not be good. I think that sometimes you just have shitty weeks. And then last week was a really shitty week.

When you combine it with the injuries, though, that's where it starts to get concerning. And I'm willing to concede that. but I'm just, I'm not all the way in there yet. I'm not arguing Matt LaFleur is a bad coach or they have a bad scheme. Why do you hate Matt LaFleurrour? Because he wears the same vest every game and I feel like he's a tech bro secretly masquerading

as an NFL coach. He's just jealous of the eyebrows, which we all are. It's totally fun. Sure. Speaking of tech bros masquerading as NFL coaches, let's talk about the Los Angeles Chargers. The Chargers are 29th in EPA per play so far this season. they are 0 and 2. It feels like their season is kind of on life support.

I assume you've looked at this, but for people that don't know, have you looked at the Chargers schedule over the next six weeks? No. Who are they playing? Bills, Seahawks, Broncos, Chiefs, Rams, Texans. Oh. Those are the next six games for the Chargers. Yeah.

I don't think, I think you left out the seventh game. I think the seventh game is against the Ravens, no? Let me see. I somehow got lost on the schedule page. Yes, they played the Ravens after that. The Ravens game wasn't up. I had to expand the menu to see the Ravens games. You left the Ravens game out of the schedule.

That part is tough, but we can talk about that. But the Chargers look like a mess. Again, they're 29th in EPA per play on offense. The Chargers being just an absolute shit show, especially on offense, is this real? I was going to ask you, yes, the answer is yes. I was going to ask you, is it more concerning through two weeks that the offense is bad or that the defense is 26th in total KBR having played the Cardinals and the Raiders? Which is worse? I think the offense is more concerning to you.

I think the offense is more concerning. Because that's the big bet you made. The big bet you made is that Mike McDaniel plus Justin Herbert equals fireworks. And that is not what has happened so far. Yeah, of course that was the bet. And like, the logic still holds, but have you watched this Chargers offense closely? Have you looked at that their run game over the first two weeks? I went back and rewatched today.

It looks like first day of camp stuff, and not first day of pro camp stuff. It looks like first day of high school stuff. Like, guys are, there's like Mac Wilson's running Scott free into the backfield to make tackle attempts. You're having guys get slipped so easily in the interior of the line. Like it is, it's not always, it's not just one thing. It's just like a series of like, you guys don't have a remotely competent run game. And that's like the bare minimum of like, okay, you know, maybe the drop back passing game for McDaniel isn't, you know, totally moderately. But like, I at least trust that their run game is going to be consistent.

It looks completely broken. That's the problem is that, and I, we probably should have been, and I, I'm guilty of this because I think that in a lot of. of ways the conversations about I'm going to do this okay the conversations about the chargers coming into the year are similar to the conversations that we've had about just to Herbert for a long time and I don't think this discussion has to be a referendum on represent on Justin Herbert but we should talk about how he's been playing okay there aesthetic conversations and I think the I like there are some of the appeal to the Mike McDaniel offense is as is an aesthetic appeal and when you look at the overall like EPA per plane numbers and everything else when two was out there

They were always very good. But for the run game specifically, there are cracks if you wanted to find them. And you go back and you look at the numbers through the last couple years with the dolphins. The dolphins run game last season. And how much do we hear about the dolphins run game this off season? The Vikings were going to run it. The Bears were going to steal some of it. The Chargers were going to run it.

So many people were chasing the Dolphins Run game. They were 31st in Stuff Rate last year. The Dolphins Run game was 31st. The Chargers, through two games, are 35. first in the percentage of their runs that are getting hit in the backfield per next jet. The Dolphins run game was boom bust. They were getting hit in the backfield a lot. They were getting stuffed a lot, but they were extremely explosive.

We have the same run game here with no boom. It's all bust. And so that's the problem. If you're not going to be explosive, you can't live with this high variant stuff that comes from all of the different moving pieces that they're trotting out in the run game. The number that jumped out to me that is just wild, from condensed formations through two games, the Chargers have lost 24 EPA on runs.

24 in two games. That's three touchdowns. They've only played two games. How is that even possible? That's like a full win. That's like the Chargers have lost a full game just by being so bad on condensed design runs. They have run the fifth most of them in the league.

And only the Browns have been worse in EPA per play, on condensed formation runs. And so it just speaks to how fundamentally broken so many things about the offense are. Like if you're going to be that inconsistent without being explosive on the ground, if you're going to have so many negative plays, and then you combine that with all of the mistakes in the passing game, I mean, putting the ball on the ground, fumbles hitting guys going in motion, guys deflecting passes that should be caught by teammates.

This to me is like a perfect encapsulation of what it is like to watch the Chargers offense right now. One drive ends with the Injoku pick where it hits him in the hands and he throws it to a defensive player. The next drive, it's a third and long. Herbert throws a missile to McConkey on third and long. He runs an incredible route, balls on time, it's beautiful. They follow that up.

The next play, no one blocks Quay Walker. on the edge. Just no one blocks him and it's a negative run. Right after that, they bring the nickel. Herbert gets hit. He still is somehow able to get the ball to Hampton on a checkdown for a chunk. So those are three plays in a row. You have the missile shot, you have a misplay and then you have Herbert throwing a checkdown with somebody hanging on him for a positive play. I am not absolving it. He is not playing well. He's making plenty of mistakes. He's getting sped up a little bit,

but there are just so many other things happening with this offense where like you said it's a little bit of everything and that's why it's hard to figure out exactly how you fix this my i i do think if the schedule was not what it is if this next seven games didn't look the way that it does part of me would be willing to say new play caller intricate offense a little bit more time do they come out on the other side of this and i think in terms of like logic and reason. I still do believe that to an extent. But when you're playing these next seven games, you couldn't lose to the Cardinals and Raiders. I thought when you said new play caller, you were arguing that they should fire Mike McDaniel and replace him with someone else to call plays. And I didn't think that was a terrible idea. Oh, come on. Come on. It's two games. It's two games. We've seen this. We see this all the time. We see this all the time. Yes. We see this all the time where the bears and jaggs were a nightmare last year at the start of the season.

The Jags specifically, think about how many mistakes. I remember Treasper yelling at Pellities. Think about how many mistakes the Jags are making. This shit happens all the time. I think it's just a combination of the collective hype that everyone bought into this summer about what this pairing would look like, the fact that the defense has been bad

and it's led to them losing games on top of it, and the fact that they are staring down the gauntlet with this schedule. And I think that's what... Why this makes it so much worse. Yes. I will say, and this is totally not like me, it is completely numerically unrelated, seeing them get hit in the mouth in the fourth quarter of games where like something

goes to go to like the block punt in week one that led to a touchdown. That's the shit that's unacceptable. Yeah. Well, it's not that it's unacceptable, but like their response to it is a mess. They turn the ball over on the next drive. It looks like facing adversity, they just completely collapse in the fourth quarter of these games. And we haven't even talked about the defense. And that's the part that concerns me most is that even if you were going to say the offense is going to have growing pains, which it could,

even if you were going to say they need Ladd-McConkie and Justin Herbert has an 8.5 QBR without Ladd-McConkey on the field so far this season, like all those things could be true to me. But the defense was going to be the thing that was going to be stable. The defense was going to be the thing that at least if they had hiccups, their defense was going to carry them to wins over the Raiders and the Cardinals. Their defense does not look good. They are not getting a hash rush. They're 30th in the NFL in pressure rate. And they are 30th the NFL and pressure rate having played Jacoby

Brissette and Kirk Cousins. Those are two dudes who are eminently sackable. I like for both. They're both good players. They are both statues. That is the thing that really concerns you, because if the defense

is not even average, the season's over. Like the offense might get fixed or get better as the year goes along. But I think we've established By the way, also, they have no tight ends anymore. Charlie Polar and David and Joku are both on IR. So even if you wanted to be a big heavy personnel team, unless you have Alec Ingold playing tight end next week,

like your entire offense has to evolve on the fly, which the other offense wasn't working on the way a new offense would be any better. So it's just, it feels broken in a way that I find so difficult to believe they can fix on both sides of the ball, especially now that they're playing, the toughest schedule in recent memory over the next seven weeks. Yeah, I agree. I mean, the defense being what it is

that if that was going to happen, you were going to have absolutely no shot this year. The offense was going to have to be spectacular from day one. And I think we probably should have anticipated them taking a little bit of time to figure out some of the Kings. I don't think it was going to be this bad. The last thing I want to say, just about the Herbert stuff,

I do think on Sunday night, we were pretty harsh about the way that he played. Going back and rewatching the game, it was not as bad as I thought it was in real time. I do think that he is taking off from clean pockets. And just the overall, like, timing and decision making just isn't optimized right now. That's what I would say. I mean, that play where he takes off and gets wrapped up as he, like, has an incompletion to his right.

That was the play that was sticking in my mind when he was, I was saying that he looked a little bit gun shy in the pocket. That wasn't happening as often as I thought. I was more focusing on the negatives in real time. There are still five, six, seven plays in this game that are fantastic plays. but I don't want to be in a place with him where we're over, we're waiting that stuff, we're waiting that stuff too much. Like that,

because we can do that, where we look at the five or six incredible plays and it's like, oh man, no, he played well. The all 60 plays matter. And even though I don't think there are many like catastrophic mistakes in the way that he was playing,

I think that in the same way that there are five or six spectacular throws on that tape, a couple of which were dropped, by the way, there's also five or six plays where, eh, you don't love the decision. Like, he probably could have taken the crosser there rather than the checkdown. He probably moved a little bit too fast through the progression on that play.

I think it's just a lack of comfort and a lack of trust with what he's being asked to do within the offense, which is understandable. It's a new offense. You're two weeks into it. So I think he has some culpability and what this whole thing has looked like. I don't think that the first two games of the season have to be a referendum. on Justin Herbert the player in a way that a lot of people are trying to make it out to be. He is not the problem and he is not the solution, unfortunately.

That's right. And I think that quarterbacks, almost no quarterback is capable of being the solution in this bad of a situation. But the guys that we talk about as the best quarterbacks in the league, the true special MVP level difference making players, they can be the solution even when things are really, really bad. And I think that is justifiably some people's frustration in the way that others talk about Justin Herbert is that he has talked about as one of these quarterbacks that can be the solution and he often is not. And so I want to be clear about this. I am open to changing the conversation that we've had about Justin Herbert over the last few years. I just don't think he's playing quite bad enough for us to fully be changing that conversation two games into the year.

That's what I will say. Yeah. I land on, I truly believe Justin Herbert could be an MVP with the appropriate amount of help. But I do think whether it's his propensity for taking sack, his ability to get heated up, the occasional miss. I do think that he does not have that same ability to elevate what is a mediocre situation typically around him, let alone the disaster that's been around him the first few weeks of the year. I don't think he has that Mahomes, Allen, Jackson ability to pull that off. And I think we've had several years now where he has not been able to do that consistently. And nobody.

I mean, I don't know. Maybe Josh Allen could do it. But I don't think anybody could consistently drag this caliber of a disaster offense to adequacy, especially against the schedule that's about to come. Before we move on, let's take another quick break. Our last one here, we can run through this very quickly. Josh Allen is off to a new clear start. why just absolutely insane.

Do we think that the all-time season Josh Allen seems primed for is real? I mean, yes, because we know Josh Allen has that upside, right? Like, it's not like Josh Allen has to get to, like with Bryce Young, we talked about him getting to a level he had not been to previously. Josh Allen has been able to get to that level. It's just really hard for anyone to get to that level for 17 games. My concern is always, is he going to get banged up along the way? Like last year he broke his foot late in the year and just played through it.

You know, he is, it's not either taking any of the rushing load off of him, really. He's still every sneak, every situation, they're comfortable running him. I guess the thing I wonder, beyond the injury, like, around him what is improved, it's the Dalton Kincaid factor, right? It's that idea of, you know, even if you have, even if he's not going to average four plus yards per route run, like he's run so far this year. He was a super efficient route runner running 50% of the snaps for the bills. If he's going to be a 70% of the snap guy and he's really effective doing that,

like that's a fundamental difference maker for the bills, especially against Mann, which is where Alan has struggled over the past couple of seasons. You look at the numbers. So so far this season, Dalton Kincaid is behind only Jackson Smith and Jigbaun yards per route run. You might look at that and say, well, that's unsustainable, right? There's no way. Last year, Dalton Kincaid finished. behind only Jackson Smith and Jigba and Puka Nakua in yards per round run.

This was solely about how often he was on the field. And in the role they're asking him to play too. I think he has like out of 13 personnel specifically has 17 air yards per target so far this year. Overall, it's like 13, which some of that is the one play against the Texans doing some heavy lifting. But when you look at it. That's a pretty good play to have in your locker, though, to say, hey, I can moss Derek Stingley. Not a lot of tight ends can do that. He has, right now, his area yards per target on the season is just ahead of Jalen Waddle and Brian Thomas Jr.

Oh, sure. Which is totally normal. And so I do think the Kincaid factor is part of this. Getting DJ Morrin to the full, even we, like, I know he's not the most important element of this. Josh Palmer was her last year. Having Josh Palmer as your third receiver now when he wasn't even on the field last year does make a difference. That stuff all matters. the most important thing in my opinion is the structural changes within the offense.

Like them getting to a place, the bills last year were a heavy under center team because they like to run the ball a lot. They ran the ball from under center 75% of the time last year. 75% of the time. Their play action rate has jumped 10 percentage points in the first two weeks from where it was last season. This should be a team that has a dominant or at least like engine, were the under center run game, that you build these complimentary, intermediate, and deep play action shots off. And that's not really what they had been over the last couple of years, despite what the

run game looked like. And so seeing them morph into this, where they have a run and pass game that are perfectly tied together, it's led to a more downfield approach to the passing game overall. You have Kincaid, you have DJ Moore, and you still have Josh Allen. I don't know if it'll be a historic season in the way that it has. where we're talking about like all time numbers, I think that even with a step and a half back, they could comfortably be the best offense in the league. Like I do believe that a version of this is going to be real.

I mean, it's totally plausible. Like, it is not something that I need to see a different level from Josh Island to prove it. It's not something where I've only seen it for two games. Like, like, is completely plausible to me. And so the question is just can he sustain it? Can he stay healthy? Can Dalton Kincaid, by the way? Yeah.

Stay healthy. someone who has struggled to do that. But if you get that dream scenario or everyone's on the field for 17 games, yes, Josh Allen has a top eight historical season in him. I don't think anyone needs to be convinced of that. Yeah, but that would be it. That would be what would be different, is that it is going to be like a all-time season? And I think that right now, based on what I've seen so far, that shouldn't be off the table

because the changes in the offense are real. Like what they're trying to do is materially different enough that I believe the outcome and the results can be materially different. And this has nothing to do with the playoffs. I don't give a shit about that right now. No, no. We'll talk about that in January. Exactly.

Exactly. Four and a half yards before first contact so far this year. It's nice to be a part of the bill's offense. All right. That is all we've got for the 2026 version of Is This Real? Bill Barnwell, always appreciate it, sir. Where can people check out all of the wonderful work that you were doing for the worldwide leader over there?

It's on ESPN.com. You can check it out. I'm sure it's on. the app on the website, the Bill Barnwell Show podcast, which is also on YouTube, the usual places. But thank you so much, thanks. Good to talk to you, buddy. That's all we got for today. We'll be back tomorrow with the week three preview and a little Falcons Packers recap.

That is the Thursday night game. We get the Falcons on Thursday night in primetime. Really good stuff. And a Packers team, we were just panicking about the state of their offense. It's going to be a great. going to be an old school classic Thursday night matchup tomorrow on Amazon. That's all we got for today. I appreciate you guys listening.

We'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.