The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - NFL Week 3 recap — Dolphins beat Bills, Packers edge Buccaneers, and more

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

The Dolphins moved to 3-0 on Sunday, and they had to knock off the Bills to get there. The Eagles are also 3-0, and look like an unstoppable force. The Jaguars, meanwhile, look like the best team in the AFC South, and that was on a day that the Colts upset the Chiefs. It was another wild Sunday across the NFL. Robert Mays and Nate Tice break down the biggest games and stories on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @Nate_TiceSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome. The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me tonight. It's my good friend Nate Tice. Nate, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing well.

We might have to switch the order of those ads because it always ends with the KFC one. I'm always just like, God, that sounds good. That does sound finger-looking good. But, no, week three, almost in the books, we still have only one Monday night game tomorrow,

but so far, that was, it's been quite the day. And like good. And I always say the word schlock, but like literally we had a couple plays today that were like historical. Like a, you know, a butt punt. Dan Orvalowski's big day, his grand day out. So this is this was a very eventful day for a lot of different reasons. It really was. We are not going to talk about that miserable, ugly Sunday night game.

That's something we're going to say for the Monday hangover that I'm going to do with Deontay tomorrow. This is the reason the Monday hangover exists. It's a talk about games like this that we really don't want to or can. get to, which is a tough thing to throw on Deontes plate. But we're going to talk about Niners Broncos tomorrow. Here's this. Yeah, here, here's this garbage. Here, here. Just shovel you this shit.

So we're going to talk about that game tomorrow. We're going to talk about Saints Panthers tomorrow. Saints were definitely a candidate for I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed losing that game when the Panthers couldn't move the ball on offense. But a lot of stuff that we want to chew on on this show today, so we're not going to get to that. Where we do want to start, though, is with the Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins. you alluded to. This game had everything. It was like Stefan. It was that the hottest club is

Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. It had everything. It had a butt punt. It had so many different things. There's ton to dig into here. Your biggest takeaway from a wild game between the Dolphins and the Bills today. First one is it stinks to play in hot weather because, oh my God, both teams look gassed at the end of the game. The ref looked gas at spotting the ball. I know McKenzie should have gone out of bounds. But the ref, The ref looked delirious. He was like, he messed up the hatches because they still have the college ashes from the,

from the University of Miami game yesterday against Middle Tennessee State. Oh, Tyre Van Dyke. That's a whole, that's going to be another story. But oh, my God, he like, he messed up. He like, looked at the wrong hash and he was like, oh, it's actually this one, guys, sorry. But it's, oh, man, but this game was Josh Allen is something else, man.

His usage rate would be, he has Russell Westbrook level usage rate, but as NFL quarterback. He had 71 dropbacks day, which is I went through 2012 on True Media, and it's the most ever. That's the most ever dropbacks by a quarterback on record, you know, as we can go. There's only been three games of 70 or more dropbacks by one quarterback. One was Jared Goff of all people, and the other was Lamar against the Titans into playoffs a couple of years back. So the Josh Allen offense couldn't do enough.

But yeah, quite the game there in Miami. We can start with that if you want to. It was the Josh Allen offense today because I come away from this game a little bit concerned about the bills, simply because this is the first game where we really saw what the holes on the offensive line can mean for this team. Exacerated by the fact that Spencer Brown goes out with heat illness at some point.

David Cuisenberry has to come in for him. They're already on center number two. Greg Mans is playing at some point in this game. The right guard goes out. They have to replace him. So they're playing with a ton of new pieces along the offensive line. But even when Brown was in the game,

I thought Miami's front was better than the Bill's offensive line today. And you saw Alan consistently in trouble and really having to pull something out of his ass. He had a lot of magic on third down today, just small scrambles, making things happen when it wasn't there, that completion up the sideline to Singletary that he like placed in his hands at one point. There were so many, all right, Josh, you go do something, plays in this game. And for the first time, that as the baseline of the bill's offense left me a little bit concerned.

The Dolphins deserve some credit and making it hard on them. but I still feel like this is the first time where we've seen some of the cracks in the bills personnel on that side of the ball. And when they weren't winning just rushing forward, the dolphins, they would bring pressures and getting free runners time after time after time after time. And it was crazy how many times Josh Allen was making a guy miss and then making a play. I mean. That's exactly what I'm thinking about.

At least a half dozen, he made a guy miss or freeze and he created either first down or explosive play, which is so you're turning a negative into a big positive for your offense. I'm thinking about that Ingram play where he leaps at the pump fake. I mean, there were five of those in this game. He's like changing his arm angle. But then he's like, it's stupid what he's doing because he'll hit balls down the field. Like he's hitting RPO's and they don't have to worry about the offense alignment getting downfield because he'll pump fake and then throw a sidearm.

And the ball's coming out so quick that it didn't like you don't even have to worry. That's usually why you can't pump fake on RPO, Carson Wentz, is because you're worried about getting those penalties. And it doesn't matter with him. But it's pretty insane. like how much it's just him. And this, and we knew this. We know that's the kind of how the bill's offense is, but right now you really saw it, especially in this game.

And I cracked the joke on Twitter that I said, I think the bills just run the ball just to give Josh out a breather. Like that's what it feels like. It's not, it doesn't feel like they're trying to get in the yards. They're just like, hey, let's give Josh a blow here. And that as opposed to like, hey, we'll just keep pounding away, do what he does and what he runs around like an ostrich. But yeah, you saw, I think you saw the limitations of it all.

I wasn't really like, oh man, that's a terrible scheme by the bills. It was more just like, hey, this is all we can do because our offensive line was so patchy and just so just getting beat up. And also when you do all those five man protections like the bills like to do, hey, if we blitz it, we're going to create a free runner just by the math game. So you could just really see that game kind of squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, especially as Josh Allen got tired. And again, some credits of the guys up front for Buff for Miami. I like Seeler 92. He consistently is doing shit. Wilkins had some moments.

Agba had a couple really nice moments. It's a pass pressure inside and outside. We're not going to talk about this as part of that final sequence because it's overlooked by a million different things. Ken Dorsey smashing a bunch of machinery being number one. Have you ever seen that? Yeah. Even in, okay.

You've seen a tablet go in the in the booth at one point. I've seen, I've seen walls being punched. I've seen, you see some stuff. And the Bill's assistant did his best to try and cover it up before he could, before or more I could get on camera there. Usually they try to turn the camera off or they throw a towel on, but when the guys freak out like that, I haven't seen it to that extent where it looked like the panda meme,

where the panda's just breaking the tablet over the table. You know, that's what it looked like. I haven't seen it to that extreme, but I've seen some walls being punched over the years. The, what I was getting to is Queesonbury gets dinged for holding on the play before they run out of time because they were pretty much in field goal range before that hold happens. And that's all Agba.

Agba had some really nice. rushes from a three technique today from the edge. So again, want to give some credit to Miami's defense, but concerned about some aspects of the bill, the bill's offense, nine carries for 13 yards for Devin Sincletary today. They cannot run the ball when they need to. And that could absolutely be a concern moving forward.

On the other side of the ball, again, some of the personnel concerns, not only were they hurt in the secondary coming into this game. At one point, Christian Benford goes out, and Ingram, who's now their third string corner, is in the game. And there were a couple moments, in the second half where Miami was really going after him.

There was that one play where Waddle goes vertical and he just has to get tons of depth and he's really concerned about it. But also, again, you want to give Miami some credit because they made plays when there were the plays to be made on that side of the ball as well. Yeah, they had 39 plays today, which is the fewest by any NFL team since 2018, which was also the Dolphins in a week three game, which is kind of funny. But credit to them because they made them count and they really did. The third and 22 play late in the game.

I think it was in the third quarter. That was a really great play called. It's cool that the dolphins and Mike McDaniel, they don't play scared on those third and longs. They really take it to defenses. Hey, you're going to play soft because they play. They're playing Tampa 2 there. The bills were. And it was just a great concept.

It was a shot play. Obviously, the completion happened. But it was mirrored corners. I'm going to talk about this playing on wind the clock. But it was corner outs and what people call a seven up, not just because it's a fun. but seven is a corner on the route tree and then an up route by Waddle there. And it looks like a high, low concept against cover two. And you got new DBs back there.

So he's like, okay, wide is the widest, deep as the deepest. And they have another route, what was the guy's name, Trent Sherfield to tie down Edmonds over the middle of the field. It was just a nice play design. It was a shot play. It's a safe shot play because it was seven man protection. If it's not there, check it down. We'll see if we can get half of it.

Waddle sells a corner. You could see his speed. And it was just, it was a great play called it a great time. So it's one of those, yeah, they only ran 39 plays, but yeah, they made them count. And also I just want to give a shout out. We talked about the Dolphins defense already, but Javon Hallin had a great game today too. Oh, yeah. He had at least two or three PbUs that were really, really great plays where he saved, almost made a pick on it.

But also was just saving whole shots. That would have been 20, 25 yard gains for the bill. So I want to give a shout out to him as well. And his sack fumble. I mean, he's absolutely. He does so much for them. Also, I forgot. It was in my notes.

I missed it. The Melvin Ingram sack against Spencer Brown on the inside move, that he also had a sack fumble in this game. A lot of defensive players making plays for the dolphins. I keep calling it a touchdown. On that huge game to Waddle, you can also feel what Tyree Kill is doing to the safety on the other side of the field because he's stretching down the sideline.

That guy's being pulled in that direction. There's all that space in the middle of the field. You just feel the speed when you watch this team consistently. So the one little wrinkle design-wise I wanted to talk about they we've talked about this play a lot already this season because everyone is running it and it's the rPO where you have the guy going in jet motion running a little rail wheel up the sideline and the post from the inside player miami ran like two little variations of it today for chunk gains they had that they had the guy going in motion run to the flat and that pulled it down and then waddle came up the sideline and then they ran like a little dig with tyriek hill off of it where he comes inside it's just like all the same kind of designs and again, everything looking the same with these tiny little wrinkles off of it. And that's what the Dolphins offense feels like right now. It's that all this stuff is coming at you with such gusto. And then there are like little tiny tweaks on it that makes it really, really hard

to defend. You're already terrified playing on your heels. And the fact that these things are switching up at the last minute on you, they're really, really difficult to deal with right now. And it's, we think of the vertical element with it. Of course, these guys create so much yards after the catch. And this is a way to make the horizontal game dangerous because it's creating space for your run game and then also the RPO game because one guy hesitates. One guy doesn't pass it off. One guy gets picked. It should be a five-yard gain turns into a 15, 18, 20-yard gain. And that's, it's annoying. It's really annoying because you're like, oh, one guy misses a tackle. They heat you up. The other stat came across today is the only three players right now are averaging more than

three yards per route. J-win Waddle and Tyrake Hill are one and two. And number three is Rashad So of course I'm going to include that stat. So but that that just speaks to what they're doing though. It's they're not it's a balanced offense in a way as far as like run past splits. It feels like the RPO kind of juices those numbers a little bit. But it feels balanced where it's not like, oh, they just keep spamming these plays because like you said, they're just doing little design tweaks where it doesn't feel like they're just hitting the same play over and over. Like maybe the chiefs where you get frustrated with their offense sometimes does.

They ran a counterplay with the tight end pulling for a nice chunk. gain to Moster at one point. And then I think it was on the next drive. They ran an action that looked similar with a tight end coming across. And then he reverses course and comes back on the end around. The Niners have done this forever. The Niners have done this so often that I remember the Cardinals stealing it from the Niners at one point.

A week later. Yeah. Yes. But again, those plays tie together. You have a similar sort of action and it's just one thing playing off the other. And when you combine that general ethos with the talent that the bills have, or excuse me, talent that the dolphins have a receiver. This is the kind of stuff that you see. And the last play I wanted to point out, the touchdown that he threw, I'm never going to remember the

guy's name. What's the guy's name? Craigcraft. 85. Is this or another nickname? I think that's, I think that's what it is. Kraft mac and cheese. So the touchdown of Kraft mac and cheese, that is actually well, that is actually well played by the bills. Yes. They communicated on it. They, because Hill was in the backfield, Moester was a part of that little bunch on the left side. Yep. Yep. And they were, were talking. There was a lot of communication going on with a lot of new pieces on that side. And they actually picked it up really well and to a rifle that thing in there. Like that was a very low margin for error throw. And he makes that throw. So at a certain point, obviously they're being putting, he's being put in good spots. I think that the dolphins overall have made it easier on their players. But he made some throws when he needed to make some throws today. He's getting the ball out so quick. And that speaks to him. And sometimes it can be in. issue where like, okay, the first half, the pick against the Ravens last week where he just launched it because he thought the picture wasn't going to change. But then the benefit is if you're

going to run the same coverage against him every time, he's going to know where to go with the ball because he is smart enough to know that. And yeah, it speaks to him. That's why he doesn't get hit as much as you would think he would because the ball comes out every single time. Milano probably should have had a pick that could have sealed this game, which is worth clinging out, but also Holland did. I mean, it wasn't, it wouldn't have been a pick six, but a dropped interception on either side, Tua made throws when he needed to. Big question worth asking, should two have been in this game in the second half?

No. And they were trying to say it's like, it was weird when they tried to say it was a different injury when he gets up. It was a back injury. We all saw him get up. Stumble. You don't stumble like that with a back injury. He stumbled and then they had to hold him up when he was coming off the field.

Yeah. Yeah. And this wasn't the Byron Leftwich at Marshall where guys are carrying up. It was no, this was a, this was a, this was a, I stayed out to 2.30 at the bar kind of stubble. So that was, yeah, that was, I, I, I, when he got knocked, I was like, oh, dang, you know, you kind of want, you want a fair fight. You want both of the quarterbacks in there.

Obviously, you don't want anyone to get hurt. And so all of a sudden they said, oh, he's coming back into second half. It's like, what? Oh, he's got his helmet on. I couldn't believe that he had his helmet on. I was like, oh, they got to take it away from him. We all know this. And he played the whole second half with it, which is bonkers.

Big picture takeaways from this game. What are you going to remember? What are you taking with you to week four from what happens? happen today between these two teams. Oh my God. I think I Josh Allen can't have this much usage. The Bill's got to pick up their run game. And also I just want to, I think the dolphins had a complete game. Like I think this was their best best performance, even though they had the other wins this year. I think this was their best team performance as far as defense and offense. And we're not going to talk about the butt punt. So I want I wouldn't say the three phases of special teams because they had that. But I thought this was a very

complete game from the dolphins where I could see their defense winning them games. So that, I think that's it for me. It's that this Dolphins team, I think it, not wildly, because they played well for the first two weeks. Yeah. But I do think it changes my opinion of them as it relates to the grander hierarchy in the AFC. The fact that they are going to be here pretty much every single week all the way through the end. I don't know how far they go.

I don't know what their ceiling is, but they're going to be a pretty damn good team for this entire year. One more note on the butt punt. Morsted totally redeems himself. with the safety punt. This is another small part of this game that ends up being huge. He booms that thing. Because when they got the safety on the butt punt, I'm going to say butt punt as many times as I can while this is still relevant.

It's so fun. The slow mo of the impact is so great. Like it just a butt hitting a football with that sort of velocity, with that sort of proximity. It just, it was a really special moment. It was. It's one that's going to be replayed for all time. The fact that they won is hugely important in not allowing this to become one of the greatest bloopers in the history of the NFL.

So good on you for that. And part of the reason that they won, after they get the safety, I just assume that short kickoff going to be in field goal range. This game is probably in hand. He booms that thing down inside the 10 and then makes them go the entire length of the field. And they still might have won if not for the holding penalty. but I want to give Thomas Morsted his due because he overcame the butt punt in short order to do his job for the Dolphins. You see how Jack he was too after it? He was high-fiving.

Oh, they showed him. Yeah, he was high-fiving everybody. He knew he was inches away from going down from becoming immortal. Just ultimate notoriety for the rest of his life for this butt punt and then they won the game. So good for Thomas Morstead. All right. Second game we wanted to talk about here at the top, kind of the other marquee game of. the week that we previewed on our Thursday preview show last week.

Bucks and Packers, Packers beat the Buccaneers 14 to 12 in Tampa. Not necessarily digging into the nitty gritty of this game. We can if you want to. I think the most interesting parts of this were the Packers' offense struggling against the Bucks defense because Packers' offense is close to full strength at this point. Receivers are dinged up.

Sammy Watkins is out, but we still expect them to operate when Sammy Watkins is out. David Boktiari is rotating in at left tackle now. They're getting closer and closer, and they really struggle to move the ball, especially down the second half. But my biggest takeaway from this is, do we have a power vacuum in the NFC right now outside of Philadelphia? If you were trying to stack up the best teams in the NFC,

who do you feel good about right now after this game and after everything we've seen over the first three weeks? Yeah, even like, it's hard to even talk myself into the Rams because it's not like the Rams are, they're not like doing anything real sexual. the outside Scars Guard playing fullback. Like, but no, seriously, like it's, it's a very, the Rams feel like the 20-20 version of the Rams as opposed to last year's team that was just freaking shredding

people. It's more like, oh, man, we're four to five-yard chunks at a time on offense and our defense is, hey, Ramsey played fantastic today. But Ramsey and Aredonnell go makes a plays and we'll just, we'll win a lot of ugly games. And they don't feel kind of like that, how they did last year where they're really taking it to teams. But even, yeah, I agree with you.

I guess I keep saying the bucks when they get healthy. because, but they have to get healthy. No, I mean, this defense is great, but I mean, you could just see it in this offense. This was the lowest air, uh, air yards per attempt for Brady since he became a buck was this game. And it was Rogers, his fifth lowest of his career. Like this, this game was a checkdown fest. Like, it was just underneath. Three quarters.

Rogers was at three point. So seven area arts per attempt through three quarters. That one shot he took on the slot fade to Lazard lifts his average, but like three quarters of yard through three quarters three point oh seven so that brings me to my question about this packers team are we concerned about this model of offense not over the long term but like right now they're not going to play the bucks every single week right but they had the lowest rushing success rate in the league this week 20.8 percent and 3.07 air yards per attempt through three games your margin for error is so so small when you play small ball like this I'm worried about it again I know they don't play the

bucks every single week but if we're talking about six. sealing outcomes with this team and where they fit among the best teams in the NFC, among the best teams in the league, there's cause for concern there in my mind. It feels like a team that has Alan Lazard as their best receiver. Like, you know what I mean? Like he encapsulates this team. Nice and fine. He's solid.

He's efficient. No juice. And just it's more just crafty and efficient. Like that's what the team wants to live by. It's the old guy at the YMCA. Like, but that's, it feels like an old spurs, San Antonio Spurs. Tim Duncan offense at the end of his career where they weren't threes. It was a super efficient like kind of offense like, but it wasn't very explosive.

And that's how the Packers kind of feel. And it seems like I always want to say dobs, but dobs and Lazard, they are their top two. It seems like. And he had a nice game. It's just dobs. It's just normal dobs. Yes. God dang it.

I'm never going to get it right because I tell myself it's not that and I'm never going to get it right. So don't worry. I'll get it by week, week 12. One day, one day. But honestly, all the Packers good for. You versus Names is the greatest rivalry on this show. I got one later.

I think it's even the guy I like and I don't think I can even say his name right. But the Packers' best plays are. It's Mattabique. You knew what I'm talking about. I got you. I'm giving it to you right now so you can hit it later. I was with my sister. I am Mike McDaniel and your two in this situation.

I am putting you in a position to succeed. Point me in the right direction. I'll get it out in two seconds. Yeah, that's all long it takes me to get these names right. But the Packers, though, it's their best plays are double moves off of like RPO's. Like it's fake flat routes and seem like that's their best play right now. And when that's your best offensive play to get an explosive, that means everything's going to feel really, really tight. And that's how this offense feels for the Packers right now.

And their, their defense is nice. I think they're coming along, but it still has weaknesses against the run. I don't think the bucks were able to take advantage of it. that's a tough, a tough slog game, like a lot of slog-filled games are probably going to come if this is the way they're going to attack defenses and how they're going to play defense.

You could still win this way if your defense plays well enough. I don't know if their defense is that good for them to consistently win this way. And it's also just hard to win a lot of games 17 to 14 or 24 to 17. That close games lead to more losses. This isn't some radical idea. I was kidding about this team.

You're not going to win 12 games. This summer I was kidding about this team. We did a couple shows. I'm like, I think they're really trying to win every game 20 to 17. I was kidding. I didn't actually mean that like that was their actual strategy, but it looks like that's what they're doing.

And yeah, it's tough. It's really tough because one bounce goes the wrong, you know, the wrong way for you or the other team actually lines up in the right position and Tom Brady, the Hall of Famer isn't trying to kill a play with two seconds left on the play clock.

Like that those things, those brinks are going to happen to you if you play all these close games. I do think it's going to look okay against teams. that aren't the Buccaneers, because when you watch the first half of that game, this is truly just putting the game in Aaron Rogers' hands. Yeah. It's just a lot of RPO's. It's a lot of downfield RPO's, which is really just being like, all right,

one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, who is more situational awareness than anyone who's ever played this game, arguably, you have to make the right decision every single time we need an explosive play. Yep. No one else is going to have a role here, except for you and the design of the play. Yep. there's a lot to like about the quarterback and the designs of these plays with who's running the offense, but it's still, you're fitting this through a keyhole. And that becomes really hard over

long stretches of time. It's, it's nice when you, the play's not perfect, a throw is not perfect. And a guy makes a play for you. We talk about receivers, or quarterback's getting a bucket. Receivers getting a bucket is also really, really nice. Go watch the Eagles game today. That's, oh my God. That's, I was going to say, just ask Jalen Hertz, how nice it is. just throw it up in a general area and a guy just reaches over a defender. Like that's what a Devante Adams in your offense should do is that they increase that margin from error from 2% to 12% or more if they're really, really like a stud. You're making a fascinating point though because this is the gap between some of these teams now.

You have the Packers who had to trade away their top five receiver, one of the best playmakers in the league. And you have these two teams in Philly and Miami who went out. out to get these guys who made big, monster swings for these guys. Yep. And look at what it can do for them in some of these moments. You're seeing the two styles you can play with based on what you're receiving personnel

looks like. And I think that those differences are really noticeable right now between those two sets of teams. Yeah. God, how about the Packers, though, rotating left tackles? That was, it was interesting. I haven't seen that during a game, you know, like I've seen first half, second half. I haven't seen the split series kind of thing that we were. seeing in this game. That was an interesting one. It would annoy me and concern me if it were

pretty much any other team in the league. Right. It's the Packers mouthwash. Yeah. Well, it's because he's played so much. Oh, yeah. It's because that Nyman and Runyon plays left guard for them. Because Nyman and Runyon have played together so often, I'm not concerned about really messing with chemistry because there's a familiarity with all of those pieces. It's not as concerning or not as much of a wrench as it might be for some of these other teams. Maybe I'm rationalizing that, but I think that they can get away with it more than another team would be able to. They can.

Like you said, he's a freaking former all pro. So hopefully the same communication he's just had the last couple of years as far as verbiage. So I think, I think it's okay, but it's just, it's unique. It was a unique situation today. All right. We're going to take a quick break and then we're going to get to you, have my attention. Gentlemen, you have my curiosity, but now you have my attention. All right.

Every week during an NFL Sunday, there's so much stuff coming at you, so much stimuli over the first two slates of games. Each week, we like to take a step back and talk about who grabbed our attention over the course of the day. I watched games out today for the first time, and I don't know how long because we went to a music festival in San Francisco last night. So I'm here. That's why I'm in a hotel room right now for you guys watching. I brought my lights and stuff. I know. We look nice.

We're really committed to this right now. So I watched them out and I could not pay attention. It took me like 20 minutes to really get locked in. I was fine by the end. But during those two stretches of games, the first group that grabbed my attention, I think you could probably say the same, the Jacksonville Jaguars, you have my attention. The Jags are just good. There is no caveat necessary.

There is no couching this. The Jags could win the AFC.F.C. as the Colts are disappointing. Or the Jags could do this, eh, but the Jags are just good. And I feel really comfortable saying that. They were second and DVOA going into this week. Trevor Lawrence is six the EPA per dropback right now. He's only been hit.

I know we're going to talk about the whole team. Trevor Lawrence has only been hit, not sacked, hit three times in the past two weeks. That's crazy. Yeah. And that speaks to a mix of a better old line, better scheme, and Trevor Lawrence being freaking good in the pocket. They snapped an 18 game road losing streak today. But this was the Jaguars.

When we were talking about them against the Colts and even against the commanders, we're talking about, wow, their front, their defense of front is actually pretty fun. Like Josh Allen's stepping up, Chavon, like all these guys are kind of really pushing the pocket and they're running all these games. And then you saw what that whole picture can look like, a better offense with a quarterback that's taking a huge leap forward this year and a defense that has true speed and some true dudes. I mean, there's a ton of plays I want to talk about, but it's, it was a really, really cool

performance from this whole team that has a lot of confidence right now, it seems like. Let's start with Trevor Lawrence. We can let you do your victory lap here in a second because I think you had the most steadfast belief in him in what was a bad statistical rookie year when you just look at the box score numbers and even advanced numbers. He was not good. It was a rough year, but you had unwavering belief in what he could be. What do you think is the most important proof is in the pudding aspect of his game over the first three games?

We're like, this is undeniably why he has been so good. It's the just different type of throws he's hitting. I know that sounds obvious, but not only just the creation throws, like the first touchdown he had today where he's breaking out of the pocket in the red zone. There was even a short little pass play, and it's so simple. I really want to say it was on a third and short. It was an RPO, and he throws it with touch. He throws a little flat route with touch. and how quickly he flashes the fake and touches the throwover.

You shouldn't be able to do that in RPO because it's so bang, bang, usually. The fact that he's operating so quickly that he has confidence in what's being called. He's just doing everything so well. All those third and fourth downs, he has confidence. And you can tell just where the eyes are going. They run a ton of crossing routes, especially on third down. They love mesh. They love drive, love those concepts.

They dress them up so well. Like Doug Peterson, and this is what he did with the Eagles, too, doesn't run a ton of plays, but they window dress them so well that you can tell Trevor Lawrence is kind of like, okay, we're in this version, we're running mesh, okay. I know I got Evan Ingram coming on the crosser, so I'm going to keep my eyes in the middle, and then I go to Evan Ingram right at the last second. He's holding defenders, and he's not doing it just once or twice a game. It's every play. So it's the fact that he's already showing these steps and how he's moving in the pocket. That three hits speaks to his movement in the pocket as well. it's just that he looks great

he looks freaking awesome even he's missing accurately and I mean that not that he's missing the throw but he's throwing low balls like when the guy's on it over to save him a hit he had one to Kirk I think today Christian Kirk and where he's just he's peppering him but hitting him low so also the guy the safety has to jump over the top saving him a hit

they had another one sorry last one they had a screen go nuts buddy I'm going to because hell yeah I took enough flack for this so yeah I'm enjoying it while I can And they ran a screen RPO. I didn't even realize in the RPO. It was a second in like six. And it was a quick out route to Christian Kirk.

So I was like, oh, that's a nice little quick out route. I didn't realize there was a package play where they're running a screen on the other side. So basically he had nobody blocking for him. And he has three guys running right from, by design. I'm not saying it was bad design. They're going to block the screen. They're running a screen to Jamal Agnew to the field. Three guys are running at him.

He just drifts back, hits the out route before Christian Kirk's even breaking the ball was out. And the Chargers have no chance. Like even if they have to play, they could have played perfect coverage there. They had no chance because the ball is coming out so quickly. And it's, it's really cool to watch a quarterback gain confidence as the game's going along and the season's going along. There are two things I noticed when I was watching the Jaguars today outside of Trevor Lawrence, clearly being a really good quarterback and taking a massive step and being one of the guys potentially now. In the group of that is a really good quarterback, that is going to be a really good quarterback for a long time, which is, one of the groups you want to be in as an NFL organization.

Yes, you do. They have a ton of juice. Offense and defense. When you are picking as high as they've been picking for a long time, you want this. You hope so. You'd hope you get some of this stuff. Yes. So when ETIN is in the game, he has a ton of pop.

And James Robinson's undrafted. They didn't need any draft picks to have that element to their offense. He's a very good player. But you feel it. Even with Agnew, when Agnew is on some of this stuff, you feel the amount of speed that they have, the amount of explosiveness they have. Kirk gives them that,

especially when you contrast it with what the Chargers feel like on offense. You can feel such a difference when you watch these two teams play. And then on defense, they're gremlins. They are. Those guys with Walker and Allen,

and even like dropping Arden Key into that situation and what they have at linebacker now with Alouacan and Lloyd and... Javon Hamilton is like stepping up like a nose tackle. Yeah, they have all these dudes. So these guys, they have pop, but it's not about just that. They're extremely well-coached on both sides of the ball. And whether it's coaching or just fundamental play.

Two plays really stuck out to me in this game. One, they ran a draw on second and five. And it was the same play where Agnew was working on Murray and Space. And you've watched Cam Robinson on this play. They run a draw, and he does a great job. I think Rumpf was in the game. Bosa got hurt. something to mention.

This team is not deep on the edge. Bosa missed any time. They'd be in a really big trouble. But he sells rump up field two or three yards and still is able to get five yards downfield to block Durwin James on this chunk play, draw play that they ran on second and five. Just a small thing. But such commitment to the details from your left tackle on that. And there was another play.

I can't remember exactly when in the game that happened. It was, oh, maybe the first try for the charges. It was the third and one. Trayvon Walker does an incredible job stringing this play out against, I think it was Gerald Everett trying to lock him down on the edge. It goes for no gain, drive gets stuffed, makes them punted away. Just a small thing. But your number one overall pick, who is one of the best athletes purely in the NFL from the moment he stepped into it,

doing everything in his power to keep contain on that play and stopping a drive for the other team. That happened all the time today. Darius Williams had a couple of fantastic moments where he's sniffing out a screen, even though they're using a bunch of motion and exactly trying to put him in conflict. Like all the time this team looks well coached and they have a decent amount of talent. And when you combine those two things, you're left with a team that's just good. Yes. The creativity, just in the offense is Christian Kirk's touchdown in the third quarter,

empty play. James Robinson goes in orbit motion. So he goes behind the quarterback. Two defenders of the Chargers. run with it. And it's such a quick, but all the motions going one way, then Trevor Lawrence sprints out the other way and they run a little pick, boom, hit the quick out route. And sounds so simple, but watch other offenses.

Watch other off. Watch the Raiders get inside the 10 yard line. We don't know what to do. We can't get the ball out. The Jaguars are going, hey, we're, we don't run much, but we're just going to window dress the hell out of it. And it looks so good. The two point play, right after that touchdown I'm just talking about, two point

play, they went on a quick cadence. So it's just ready to go. So why they did that, they have a stack alignment. And you can see the Chargers players, what's his name, ends up? Evan Ingram and ends up wide open in the flat. You can see them communicating because they're like, oh, it's two point play. They're going to go on one. Okay.

So hey, okay, yeah, pass it off, right? Snap of the ball. Boom, Evan Ingram's wide open. Details. And everyone plays fast. When they go for it on fourth down, you can see all the guys looking at each other. They know we're going on fourth down because they look so comfortable. They look so comfortable all the time.

Everything. Everything. The last one is they had, and this is just talking about the game planning that this Jaguar's offense does, is the Chargers will kick their fronts based on the running back strength. So right at the snap of the ball several times today, they shifted to running back strength side. So he's to Trevor Lawrence's right, boom, goes to the left and they snap the ball and then they hand it off. But you can see the Chargers starting to communicate going like, oh, back over, you know, back strong. Like they're standing up and the ball's getting snapped. So they're in a bad position.

And it's all, we all say it's all the 1%. The 1% people want to make that out like it's the Patriot way or anything like that. This is what they mean by gaining that 1%. You're giving yourself that so much more room for error and also putting your guys in better spots because they're not even ready for the snap as you are, as you are controlling everything. And it's cool when you have a good scheme, players playing fast and a freaking quarterback back there that's like looking better and better. He looks so good. He really does.

And so it's a really, really fun package to watch. it's 1% for most teams compared to last year's jaggs it's 83% 87% name your number it's incredible that a lot of this roster was carried over from last season and they look like this right now well just the trust in james robinson is all you have to speak between what's the difference between urban mire and and dug dug peterson is that he wanted to run james robinson off the team because he wasn't fast enough but james robinson is a three a legit three down running back. This is not to knock Travis E.TN who had his best pass protection day,

was ETN did today. And that's his big kind of qualm. James Robinson can play all three downs, can run every type of run. That's why he's on the field on a fourth and one and it's not weird. You know, it's not like, oh, why is this guy in? It's like, no, oh, he could pass a past protect, he can run a route and he can run every type of run play.

They run that long pole guard, pole play, which was also, they were in three tight ends and the chargers matched with five dbs, which was interesting as well. But they run that play, which is the same play Leonard Furnett scored on the Bucks when they won the Super Bowl against the Chiefs a few years ago. But that's what it just speaks to that, that Urban Meyer had no idea what the hell the NFL

was and what the ecosystem of it all was and what is a good player. He just wanted everybody to run a four or three because that can work in college. But no, he gets, you see this and Doug Pearson's like, no, we want this guy on the field as much as possible. And then we use ETN and put him in great spots, catching swings, catching screens. Understanding personnel is such a huge thing in the NFL and this team gets it. James Robinson is one of the best. pure running backs in the NFL.

NFL, yeah. He's one of the best handful of pure runners in the NFL. You should be getting that guy a lot of work. Three down running back. And Urban Myers, like, I don't want him. Yeah, just that, that's a difference right there. Talked about some of the guys that were carryovers from last year and how different they look. One guy who was not a carryover from last year, Devin Lloyd looks awesome.

He looks so good. There was a sequence on a series in the second half. I think they were in man coverage on first down. he runs step for step with Gerald Everett for a PBU about 25 yards down the field. Just saying something. That is saying something running with that dude. Jared Lever is a really good athlete. And for him as an all ball linebacker to do that.

And that's a lot of athleticism, right? So let's show some awareness. Third down, he's mugged up near the line of scrimmage. He bails out, he bails out quick enough to get his hips around to pick up the crosser coming into his eyes from left to right and then driving on that. that to make a play short of the sticks on third down to torpedo the drive. He's a first round pick. A lot of length, big athlete had some flashes as a pass rusher in college. His awareness in coverage for a guy playing his third game has been kind of remarkable,

especially because we have not seen that from guys taking in that range of the draft at that position at all because a lot of those guys are drafted purely on traits. and they struggle to understand the situational and spatial aspects of the position. Quay Walker with the Packers. Yeah, and that's okay. No, Quay Walker's going to be fine. It's just the awareness that you can already see the difference. But no, I'm sorry.

That happens all the time at that position for first round picks. Think about how much Jamie Davis has struggled. Think about the Cardinals, linebackers, and how much they've struggled. So to watch a guy like Lloyd come in and clearly be picking stuff up really fast, I just am super impressed with how the defense looks and how those guys are just all seemingly on the same page. It's remarkable. They're squeezing so many throws, which is what we always, we compliment the Bills. The Jaguars defense is doing the same thing.

They're winning with four. They're bullets too as well, but they're doing all these different looks and then also squeezing because that means they're understanding what's getting thrown at them. They're well coached. They're a really well coached team. And also, Devin Lloyd is tied for first in the whole NFL for Splash plays, which is, you know, VUs, you know, everything, stops, interceptions, everything. He's tied for first right now, which is remarkable for a rookie linebacker.

I'm very excited to keep watching him. One more thing I want to talk about with this game. We mentioned a little bit when you and I were chatting earlier today. The fun chasm between what fun chasm sounds really close to us by the thing. I might have to rethink that term. The gap in fun between watching the Jaguars right now and watching the Chargers. And I know Justin Herbert's hurt and whatever. It's huge.

It should not be that big when you have a quarterback like Justin Herbert. It should not be so much more enjoyable to watch the Jags than it is to watch the Chargers at this stage of things. And it really is. I was joking, we have Pythagorean wins in the NFL where it's your point total. We talk about point differential. We should have a fun differential. Your Epicurean wins are how much more fun you are than the teams that you're playing against. And right now, like the Chargers actual wins might be fine by the end of the

year. But I'm concerned about what their Epicurean win total is going to look like if they keep playing like this. I love it. I was wondering what term you would come up with for that. So that's perfect. I mean, Justin Herbert hit one of his amazing 0.001% throws. And it didn't, it didn't feel exciting. It felt, oh, relief from the Chargers. Because you could feel that that moment, it was like that game was slipping away. But it, it wasn't like the size. I'm like, oh shit. Like, it was more like, okay. Exactly right.

Oh, man, we got it first. Okay, thank God. All right. Everyone's taking, you know, sigh of relief here. Okay, thank God. But that's not good. It's week three. This team is supposed to be one of the elite teams this year.

I know they had stuff to figure out, but man, it just didn't feel, they don't, they don't feel confident with anything that's happening. They feel just relief when a good play happens, which is scary. Slater goes out in this game. One more thing to be concerned about. One more injury. Storm Norton being in this game. showed up a couple different times.

I don't want to belabor this because if Justin Herbert really said I want to stay in and he was adamant about it, that's fine. He cannot be in there at the end of the game. No, no, it's the NFL. You got to understand that. You can't. You can't do that. It's hard to watch.

The first hit he takes today, he's wincing on the ground. They're down 28 points in the fourth quarter. The guy's having to take pain killing injections before the game and he's out there playing. Like at a certain point, I just think you have to be, you're sitting down. This is an 18 game season. We're trying to win Super Bowls here. It's really tough. Watching him in that moment made me hurt.

I can't imagine how he was feeling. Yeah. Sometimes as a coach, that's what you have to understand. You protect your players. They're, of course, they're going to want to play. They're the most competitive people in the world. This is literally the professionals at it. But sometimes you just have to, even if it sucks, even if they're mad at you,

you just got to eat it and just go, no. Like, no, now's not the time. Now's not the time. Even if you want to be out there with your teammates, whatever it is. It's like, now it's not the time. Like you said, you have to understand what a long season this is. It's one game.

I'll be like, yes, you want to win every game. But sometimes you just lose. It's the NFL. Sometimes it's not your day. But you got to understand that we still have, what, 15 more games, 15 more weeks to go. Yeah. Maybe plus playoffs. Like, yeah, what's win the war and not just the battle?

Next one here. Devante Smith, you have my attention. Holy shit. Slim Reaper. You look at the box score and you think, all right, I wonder what those plays were. You know, did he have a couple cheapies? No, no cheapie to be had in these. You look at the collection of catches he had.

The first one down the right sideline, he's tracking the ball over his shoulder somehow, making a play wall toe tapping on the right side line. The one he makes down the field near the end of the half, he goes up over two guys to make it play in traffic down the field. And then the touchdown is ridiculous contested catch in traffic. All of them. All of them. And then he had a crosser.

He turns up field and gains that guards there. So it's every, the, the Willie May's catch, the first one was like, I lost my mind because it's just tracking with your helmet on like that. It's just ridiculous. Wild. Yeah.

His body control is exceptional. And it's hand-eye creation. Body control is a great way to put it. Because the screen he caught, the screen, he caught a tunnel screen at one point. It was bad throat. Hertz had way too much juice on it.

So he had to kind of jump. and catch it and still manage to get his hips turn and get upfield so smoothly to get a chunk gain out of it. And I'm watching him today. And this is totally on me. And I'm like, oh, yeah, this guy had the greatest season in the history of college football as a receiver. He won the Heisman trophy as a wide receiver in an offensive, a dominated era of college

football when teams are scoring like 40 points a game. This guy is incredible at football. And now you drop him back into an offense that's actually willing to throw the ball around. And he's not going to get fed, I don't know, name a number, 180 targets in his season because A.J. Brown is there. But when he's allowed to showcase who he is, he's a really good football player. And that brings me to a larger point about the Eagles. There's been so much talk about the A.J. Brown deal, what he was in week one. The leap that J.1 Hertz has taken.

And the offensive line, right? the offensive line being this incredible group. All justified. We should talk about all of that stuff because it could be season-defining shit as it relates to the Eagles. The secondary players on this team are really good. Yeah.

They have really good players on this team. Devante Smith is one of them, but then you look at what the defensive line did today. They tormented. Carson Wentz over the course of this game. Top to bottom, this team is full of dudes. And then also they got like Dallas. Goddard is your number three option. Teams would kill for a Dallas Goddard. They're running

screens for him and he's, you know, breaking off touchdowns. And it's, I've said this, kind of like have been workshopping this thought, but it's like this Eagles offense because of the complementary pieces, not just offensive line, but their skill position guys, they're meant to torch two high defenses, like just this offense is because it's pick your poison. Why do you say that? Like, say if AJ Brown gets locked down, like, okay, say we're playing a cloud team, you know, cover two team. Okay, we'll pound the rock. We have our awesome offensive line and we have our QB run game. Okay, and we have Dallas Goddard working over the middle. Okay, say you got a man heavy, say they play the Patriots. I don't even know if they're under schedule. And they go, they play the lions in week one.

And the lions played a ton of man coverage against them. So they go, what if, what if they would go one double? Okay, one double number 11. They double team. Okay. Now, Devante Smith is one on one. There's not a single number two corner that can keep up with Devante Smith. Like he, he, he, he, he is a very good player. So this team is, it's just, they, even if the running back run game that actually looked better today. This offense is just meant to shred what defenses want to do to them, which is fun, which is really, really fun. It's up to Jalen Hertz to keep playing as he is. And then the defense, like you said, this defense aligned, they had nine sacks today. Carson Wentz got sacks six times in the first half. The Washington had five first downs. Like, they were just absolutely dominating. And guys, guys are running the hoop like around them.

Like, everyone's playing with effort because they can rotate their guys up front. They could smell today. Yeah. When you watch them play today, I think it's playing with the lead, which this team is probably going to play with the lead a decent amount this season. And we've talked about their struggles to defend the run out of certain packages. But if you're up 24 to nothing, you can't do that. You don't have to worry about it.

So you can just line up in your four-man front with these guys and just get after it. The run, the hoop thing, the bend that they showed multiple times on big plays in this game. There's different guys. Sweets first one. I don't, how your body bends that way. and the flexibility required to get that sack is insane. And then Reddick's strip sack, he shouldn't even,

it's not a bad play by Sam Cosme. He runs him past. You should not be able to bend your body back in that direction to even get a piece of that ball the way that he did. And then the interior guys, Hargrave had some moments. He absolutely roasted. I think it was Andrew Norwell for a sack in this game. Fletcher Cox walked the left guard back into Wentz for a sack.

Hargrave had a pressure that turned into a Brandon Graham sack. Brandon Graham had a moment today. He had a little two-hand swipe that he finished off. Every single guy chipped in on the Eagles defensive front today. And they're not the greatest group of players, but they're pretty darn good. And I think, again, today was just a showcase for that second tier of guys on this team and how they're really, really good and probably better than the second tier of guys on virtually every other team in the entire league.

What we've talked about with the bills and like the dolphins and it's always, okay, offensive line. You're always worried about a bad offensive line. That's what the Eagles defense is showing, though, that if you have a bad offensive line, we can take over games. And that is, as any football fan knows, that is the most frustrating thing when your offense can't get any of off the ground because your offensive line is just

getting their asses kick, play after play. So the fact that the Eagles defense is showing, oh yeah, and we got Slay playing fantastic football right now. It's all these guys. I know we're talking about the other kind of complimentary guys, but it's really, it's a tough team to play. You have to bring it and

play four quarters of good football because they're going to jump out to a lead and try to choke you out the rest of the game. And that's what they've done so far this year. In fact, they were not even focused on the game that Jaylen Hertz had, which was another incredible afternoon by him. I mean, where he's already at a point where it's like, okay, I guess Jaylon Hertz just plays this way now. Yeah, that's what he is. When you're combined with the amount of talent that this team has, they get really scary in a hurry. Speaking of being really scary, last one here, Lamar Jackson, you have my attention. You wrote about Omar this week.

He had another really nice day as a pocket passer, and we'll get into some of the numbers because it's really interesting how different he's playing this year situationally than he did last year. But this is another very good game for Lamar. Four more touchdowns through the air. Another rushing touchdown. It just feels like he was the best player on the field again today.

He carries this Ravens offense. What have you seen from Lamar over the first three weeks? It just shows his progress overall in pocketings. process. And Lamar, and I think he just gets knocked for this because his footwork is so funky that no one's ever, I think that's what, and he also can run, obviously, but his footwork is so funky that everyone I think thinks it's like everything's ad-libbed. But I really can see this year is how timely he is playing. The internal clock that he's playing with is it's the best of his career. You would hope you get better as you get older, but it's amazing. But he had a down year last year.

There was a dip last year in some of that stuff. So that it's not always. was linear like that. I think that's why it's important to point out. Yeah. And last week was where I could see him really, he was cognizant of attacking from the pocket. And the stats speak to this. This is the most he's ever thrown from the pocket in his career. This is the least he scrambled, yada, yada, yada. But he's also progressing. It's not guessing that a route's going to come into his passing line. Oh, there's the over. Now I'm going to throw it. I'm going to make up for it with arm strength. You see a lot of young quarterbacks kind of do that, guessing where the route's coming from. But Lamar- There's a lot of that early in his career.

They were hitting a lot of crossing routes and he had to wait to see it. He's throwing the ball out and open space because, I mean, that's just how teams were playing against them. And that's the area of the field that they were attacking when he was younger. Yep. And now, like, especially against the dolphins, there's at least three, four great clips where they're doing under center, heavy play action where he turns his back to the defense. And he comes up and he's truly going one to two to three and throwing a ball or putting him touch on the ball. A lot of Mark Andrews kind of overrots where he puts touch on it. But it's not him guessing or it's not him coming to it late.

It's all untimely manner. He's hitting deep digs, like almost like it looks like Stafford, like where he's taking these long, heavy drops, one, two, three and just wing it. And he has one top arm talents in the league. It's just a looks so. It's actually funny. You say that because I kind of think his arm reminds me the most of Matthew Stafford. It's like as a pure thrower, like the arm angle stuff and the way that it explodes out of his

hand, like those two are probably the most similar stylistically in terms of how they throw the ball in my opinion. Because they changed their arm slots so much. Yeah. They'll throw, he'll throw an over route to Andrews throw truly like submarine it. Like, that's how he puts touch on it. It's, but that's, that's what you. I've never made that connection before, but I actually think that makes a lot of sense.

Watch how he throws dicks. That's where it is. But today, it was a reminder. Oh, yeah, Lamar, the runners really, really, really, really, really, really fun. He had four rushes today over 10 yards. The run game was back to the gun runs where they're reading the stuff. They did the GT counter. read, which has been their staples for the garden tackle pole. And on that play, Lamar,

you have, if you have heat come the other way, because that's what they're reading, you put the D& the bind, he can't make a play. Or it's Lamar running behind a garden tackle pulling. It's awesome. They did the power read, which is, you know, just one polar. You don't block the end. And again, you have the jet sweep element of it. You know, it's not jet sweep. It could be a running back sweep. But anyways, you put the D.N. in the bind. If he makes a mistake, steps the wrong way, Lamar is such a good runner that it's a, it's down the field. an instant. And now it also do you get to see, and this is not speaking just a

Lamar, but the Ravens, now they're using Linderbom as a polar. So now they're doing center tackle counter reeds where it's so they're changing up how they can attack you. So oh, you want to play an under front or a head up front? Okay, we're going to do this version. Oh, you want to play an overfront where you have a three techniques of that. Okay, we're going to do this version of

the run. So they're just, it's, it's incredible. Like, it's like, how do you, like, it's fun how they're matching it all together. So you have this guy that's thrown like freaking Matthew Stafford from the pocket and he also can run like Vic and he can run between the tackles. It's, that's terrifying. And it's, and the stats speak to it and also how he's just taking over the game.

And it's, it's really cool what he's doing. He shredded pressure today. Every time the Patriots heated him up, he shredded it. And it's, man, you ready? Because I, we got staff if you want to. Yeah. So last year, we talked about this ton coming into the season about the issues that the Ravens had on offense last season.

Lamar Jackson was 29th among 31 qualified quarterbacks in EPA per dropback against the Blitz last season. The Ravens were actively bad in teams blitzed them. So teams this season have blitzed the Ravens at a very high rate. Lamar's been blitzed on about a third of his dropbacks, which is the third highest rate in the NFL. He is number one in EPA per dropback against the Blitz by so much it's silly when you look at the numbers. It's like 0.97 EPA per dropback. against the Blitz. I believe Matthew Stafford led the league last season at like 0.55.5.

So just we're putting it in context. Him and Mahomes were like in that little point five area. And that's insane. That sort of efficiency is crazy. And Lamar is almost doubling it through the first three games. All right. Patriots understand what Lamar was last year. I think they're kind of kicking the tires on if this is real over the first two games.

Blitzed him on 38% of dropbacks today, which was 13 of his dropbacks. on those place. Lamar Jackson, 11 of 12 for 127 yards and four touchdowns. That's awesome. Shredded them. That's what it felt like. It was every time I was watching it, I was like, no, there's another pressure. Oh, another big play.

Another big play for the Ravens. And it's not ad-lip stuff. No. The one to Andrews, he's making a play, right? That's just trusting your guy. But he's seeing stuff. He's hitting hots. He's doing a very good job of playing on time, playing on structure,

understanding rules. and that's, again, like you mentioned, if he's going to be running like this and playing like this from the pocket, they're still figuring some stuff out. They've got offensive line health concerns. Falle Lele, I'm going to go back and watch the game, see how he played.

I think they sounded pretty excited about the way he played after the game. In fact, they were on left tackle number three, so worth going back and watching. But they're still figuring some stuff out, but he's playing well enough that I think they can weather the storm just fine for a little while. Yeah, and like even how he's reading the game out is the play last week against the dolphins, which it was kind of, it's kind of funky.

The Ravens ran this play, a three by one formation into the boundary. So all three receivers aren't to the short side of the field. Rashad Bateman's alone, all this field is to work with. It was third down. And the dolphins brought the corner blitz. Usually it's from the boundary. When you're on a three by one, it's a shorter path. And you can tell the dolphins corner is like, man, I got to run all this way.

It's a blitz here. But on the play, Rashad Bateman Lamar, they're on the same page. They side adjusted, which is that he changed. his route midstream to basically just go into a soft spot. Rashabat Bayam was like, okay, I'm just going to sit here. Basically ran a hitch. Lamar caught the snap, saw it right away. I was actually very pleasantly surprised how quickly he got to it, knowing a blitz was coming.

So that meant he was keying the safety, which is that means that's, I just want to compliment that he's reading the game so incredibly well that he got to a corner blitz, which is usually a quarterback's kind of like voodoo doll because you don't, you're not guessing that corner's about the blitz. You're like, okay, that's the last thing I'm worried about. He caught it right away through a hot, you know, through his side adjust for shot Bateman gets the first down, nice and easy, third and seven.

Like, that's incredible that he's getting to that level where he's throwing hots and side adjusts, and they're putting that in their offense on top of all the gun runs and all the other stuff that he can do. So he's playing really special football right now. One of the quarterback note in this game, obviously Mack Jones, not sure what the injury is. X-rays came back negative, so no broken bones.

But if he tore some ligaments in his ankle and there's any sort of damage in that way, There's no way to know until he gets an MRI. So we'll be looking at that news and we'll be updating that later in the week, recording with Deante tomorrow afternoon. So if we get anything, any clarity on that between now and then we'll obviously let you guys know. All right. That's all we got for you have my attention. We're going to get to I'm not mad.

I'm just disappointed. Let's do it. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. All right. We were going to do this about the chiefs often. but I think it's just the Chiefs in general losing that game to the Chiefs defense played very well. It's not a performance issue.

It's not a performance issue. It's the Chiefs special teams. Yeah, I'm just, yes, just the Chiefs in general. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. How you could lose a game to a Colts team that played that way on offense and turn the ball over multiple times, how you could lose to a team that went seven of eight on third and fourth down in this game, that gave up five sacks that had drives.

The chiefs had drives begin on the Indy 35 and the Indy 21 because of a turnover and a turnover on downs. The Colts averaged 3.8 yards per play in this game. Only Washington was worse. Really? So, yes. And the Colts won this game. Yeah. It's unbelievable.

Like as soon as they got the strip sack on Matt Ryan. I was like, oh, here comes, here it comes. Here it comes the Chief's flame thrower. They're about to light them up. And then you got Skymore, who only returned one punt in college having his issues, returning the ponds. They had a resort to try to fake field goal to try and get some juice going on this offense. It was a very,

four than ten. Yeah, very weird performance, especially since Dave Tove is one, like, if not the best special teams coach in the league and hasn't been known that for decades. And the fact that that they looked like that. they're on the backup kicker, yada, yada, yada. But it shouldn't come, big question. Yeah. If Justin Reed kicks in this game, do the Chiefs win?

I think so. He wouldn't miss the extra point. They would miss the field. I think so. The field goal is a gimmie. I mean, yeah, it's, that, that, I don't, I don't get it, man. I don't get it. Like, this Chief's team, like, even when I rewatch it, I was like, okay, my

homes looks like my homes. Like, he has a couple plays where it's like, okay, he almost puts it in the harm's way. He has some brilliant throws. That's incredible that he's doing it. But then you, Look at the stats for the run game. You're like, ah, that's right.

The run game can't do anything. The chiefs running backs, the running backs, I'm not including the fullback here, just the tailbacks, had 17 combined carries. They got one first down, one first down. That's hard to do. It's incredibly hard to do. And it's not like bad situations. It's, you know, second and mediums and stuff like that where it's like, okay, get five yards.

Nope. They don't make anyone miss. So every play is what it's blocked for. There's one play that's gone around on Twitter and you could see as CEH. It was an outside zone play. And he's just like running with blinders on. He runs right into his tackle and guard. It's like, just cut up field, dude.

Get, get north. Just get north and get four yards. Like, what are you doing? You're not, you don't, you guys aren't athletic enough. Like this running back room, it's either McKinnon who has a lot of juice and no vision. You have CEH who has no juice and apparently no vision. And then Pacheco, the rookie probably should get some more run, but he's more of a straight at you kind of guy. So I don't know. It's this team cannot just resort on him,

him being Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey just being gods amongst men. Like it's a very frustrating. Shout to Grover Stewart, by the way, for the Colts who kicks him ass today. He's a damn good nose tackle in this league. But man, it's just this, just Chiefs offense. Yeah. I say all this, by the way, as Patrick Mahomes is leading the NFL and EPA per dropback. But it's, but they should be blowing this team out of how their defense play today. They should be blowing this team out of the water. This should have been a two, three score victory for the chiefs. And they kept them in it the whole game.

They just couldn't put them away. Absolutely. And the offensive line for Kansas City did not play well today. In the run game, they had issues. And the Colts defensive line was actually getting after Mahomes a little bit over the course of this game. They had some nice moments rushing for a couple little games. Buckner had some nice flashes.

In Gakwe had an inside spin late in the game that was disgusting. That was a huge play that resulted in a holding play. penalty actually the cost the chiefs big time. So, you know, just a rough day, a rough day where you win this game, you know, 95 times out of 100 based on the way the Colts played. But just feel like we had to touch on it a little bit because it's a pretty brutal loss for Kansas City. It is.

It could have been a definitive win, especially. It is a tough division, AFC West. Like, don't get me wrong, but just every win, the AFC is huge. And now that's, I know, actually. Now that, like, kind of, look at how these teams are playing. I mean, what was the final score in tonight's? game 11 to 10. But that's kind of how it feels is like this one was just one that got away.

And that's a very usually chiefs are on the other side of this. That's the thing under Andy Reid. They always seem even when they were under Alex Smith, they would kind of pull these games out of their ass. And it just felt weird to see the chiefs going like, oh, we can't do anything about this, all these great opportunities that we're getting. So a very uncharacteristic performance from them. We've been shitting on them.

I want to point out if this had gone a different way, I would have wanted to talk, talk about the Chief's defense. I, the Chief's defense, especially on the back end, feels extremely well coached to me. Like the, they're smart. I'm going to forget his name again. Jaylon Watson,

35 is the Rick, Carter. Yeah, the Rick and Carter. Yeah. His awareness, situationally in some of these moments where he's picking up on a screen,

he's just understanding exactly where he's supposed to be all the time. There's a lot of that. Reed plays really smart. Yep. When you're consistently getting the most, out of a position group where a team has not spent a ton of resources. And Corner for the Chiefs has been that. I know they drafted McDuffie, but McDuffie hasn't been playing.

And before this year, think about what they were doing at Corner. It was all undrafted free agents and reclamation projects. And they were ultimately fine on defense. And you watch Watson play. And you watch the awareness that Sneed plays with. It was a fourth round pick. They consistently get a lot out of that room. And it's really impressive.

And then you combine that with some of the pressure shit they were doing today. They had Reed walked down into the A gap. He was a free rusher. The Colts couldn't pick up anything. This was a spag special today. He was on one today. I was ready to talk about it. I was ready to be like, man, look at the Chief's defense.

Look at all the stuff that they're doing. They're extremely well coached on the back end, getting the most out of these guys. And then they go and do what they did at the end of that game. So this is on you. This is on, if Chiefs fans, if you're upset, we're not talking more about the defense. you go have a conversation with the special teams operation and how that went today. LaJerry Sneed, though, is legit one of the most fun guys to watch in the week. Absolutely.

They blitz them like a banshee. So it's fun. Like, and he's just a smart player. That's how it kind of encapsulates all of them. But it, yeah, that was a very disappointing performance by that offense because I also was getting ready to,

I was getting ready to chomp into the Colts offensive line protection plan that has now been an issue three weeks in a row. And I was, I was ready out of examples and everything. but now it's like, oh, yeah, sorry Chief's offense. I have to rag on to you a little bit in special teams. Probably worth mentioning. If Chris Jones doesn't get that in sportsman like conduct penalty,

the Chiefs probably still win this game. And just one of those days. One of those days where NFL botching fake field goals and missing short ones and getting on sportsman like conduct penalties to extend the game at just a tough day for Kansas City. And a pretty big break for the Colts. Yes. There's a chance that the Jags would be running away with this division

if the Colts didn't win this game today. Even a two and one. All right. One more here. Las Vegas Raiders. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. They lose 24 to 22 to the Titans.

They're now 0 and 3. Their season is essentially over. What is there to say? When you're 0 and 3 in the AFC, your season's close to over. There's not a lot of ground that you're making back here. And they are the only winless team left in the league, I believe, right?

The only team that's lost all three games. The Texans haven't won yet, but the Texans tied a game. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure that's correct. You're right. And the games that they have lost, it's not like they've lost to these juggernauts. They lost to a Titans team that was 0 and 2 coming into this game, lost to the Giants and then got blown out by the bills. They lost to the Chargers, which that's a real game.

And they lost to a Cardinals team that doesn't look functional against other NFL teams at this point. So it's been a tough three-week stretch for the Raiders here. Yeah. And this is such a weird team because they make a move that's more like an all-in move. And they seem like a team that's more like a rebuilding team as far as just who their pieces are. And like Devante Adams, like I think just their frustration on offense outside going one for 12 on third down, two for six in the red zone. Like it's so hard to win that way is if you just look at Devante's Adams stats when he was with the Packers the last three years. So 2019, 2019, 2020, 2021, his targets per game on third and fourth down.

he's gotten five through three games, five total through three games on third and fourth down this year. He would average three of those a game when he was with the Packers the last three years. His first downs per route, it's about 9%, which is league average. He was around 15%, 16% in his time with the Packers, which is most, you know, top one, top two, top three. First down per targets, 15% less. So yes, he's getting those targets. I think he ended up with 10 today, but it's not, they're not coming in false. Yeah, they're not in valuable situations.

They're more like six yard gains on first down, which is fine. Like, yeah, that's an efficient gain, but it's not these first down game changing type plays. His yards per route is half of what it was with the Packers last year. Half. So it's just like, if you're trading, this guy should be just, I know Darren Wall is a nice player, Hunter Redfrogh is a nice player, but he should be eaten a lot of these like big time moment targets.

And it just kind of speaks to this weird team that they have. Like their offensive lines and flux. They just feel kind of stagnant as far as an offense. they're in the Chargers kind of like a lot of the same feelings when I watch these offenses like they just feel very staticy and very just not not a lot of moving parts as far as like guys on the move so it's kind of a weird weird disconnect from what I pictured this team to look like we talked about this team coming in the season and we said that they felt incomplete that that's what they felt like outside of the big moves that they made and the Adams move is a big

move the Chandler Jones move is a big move they did some stuff that felt like finishing moves for a team that had so many area of its roster that were still in flux. The offensive line, the carton only got sacked once today, but Titans did not blitz, and they still got a reasonable amount of pressure. Weaver roasts the right tackle, who is a rookie, whose name Thayer Munford started at right tackle today. They bumped germany and Illuminawinter inside. Parham was playing center. They've done so much moving around to pieces on the interior of their offensive line on the right side already this year. The right side had a couple moments that were rough. The Illuminaur got a big holding penalty

in this game. There was a pressure on a third and nine that during the second half of the game that Carr had to dirt it. So even in the sack numbers weren't bad. The offensive line still didn't have a great day. And you're doing this against a Titans team that has been terrible over the first couple weeks of the season. So you have the offensive line questions and then you go to the defensive side of the ball. The Raiders defense has been just downright bad this year. Yeah. They, 28th in EPA per play on defense over the course of this season. The Titans team, a Titans team that came in 31st in Russian success was able to move the

ball on this team today. And I guess this shouldn't be a surprise. They had so many questions outside of the big name players that they have on defense. So it always felt like any sort of short-term expectations for this team that were driven forward by the Devante Adams trade and the Chandler-Jones signing were probably a little bit misleading compared to where they actually were. So maybe next year, they have some cap space next year. You know, you go and you try to rebuild your defense with a couple moves, see what you

can do along the offensive line. You get your draft picks back. But this season, as far as them being a contender or relevant team in the AFC, is probably out the window already. That's funny how your gut instinct is kind of like, oh, that felt like I can't believe if we answered that one correctly because that's how it felt when we broke down the roster in that AFC West preview. I'm like really looking at.

I'm like, who are the other pieces here? Who are like, what are they relying on, especially on that defense? Like Max Crosby is playing well. Like even if the stats, I mean, he's in the run games. Man, he looks so good. But then he's playing very well. But the problem is when you're not getting pressure from anywhere else, it doesn't really matter. Yeah.

Where's that juice coming from? I know, Chandler Jones is kind of sometimes we'll go stagnant, like where you don't even hear from them at all. It's a very, very strange team. Incomplete is the only way I can kind of sum it up. for them because it's not a team. I thought maybe they'd be frisky, a little bit frisgier, but I just don't, they don't, they're not making plays. Like it feels like a team that no one steps up and makes a play.

Like even today, the Titans hit like three, four screens on them. And it's like, somebody tackle. And I know Derek Henry is a runaway train, but somebody, somebody tackle. Like, it's just, there's nobody even near them to catch his screen. There's one where it was the first screen of the game. I think it was first draft for the Titans where Derek Henry was able to like polish the ball off and wipe the dust on it before he like, because he was like trying to catch it like a beach ball and he's like oh okay I got it I got it and there's no one on the

screen still like no pun intended there's no one on the TV screen and it's like oh my god somebody could near this guy so it's just a weird team where it just doesn't they don't have those dudes to make plays and and you can see they're just trying to find their identities I think on offense and defense all right that's all we got we got one more break before we wrap things up today all right each week we like to point out a couple overlooked performances, put a spotlight out a couple guys. It could be a coach. You can be a player.

It can be whoever the hell we want because this is our show. So who is your guy for week three? Justin, Matt a BK. I'm so proud of you. You did so good. I practice. I almost sent it to the chat to practice it.

But yes. And this is a guy I hyped up as a breakout candidate last year. And he kind of, he was fine. But then this year he was really through three games has really been playing very well for the Ravens. Not just a disruptive tackle that doesn't show up in the box score. Now he is showing up in the box score. Again, some TFLs today in a sack.

I mean, against the Jets, he took over the game for, I mean, against Lake of Tomlinson, who's a fine left guard and really, really blasted him out of the water in week one. And then last week, Dolphins had a great game plan where they're getting rid of the ball so quickly and two it was too. So he kind of, you know, him and the rest of the defensive front and the defense kind got taken out of it. But today really stepping up, had some big time. moments on passing downs, which I wanted to see. So take a bow. I just want to just want to shine more

of a light on him, as I say, his name right, for the first time of my life. I'm really proud of you, buddy. Thank you. Watching you grow has been so rewarding to me. Thank you. Over the course of doing the show with you. Mine is Jalen Petrie. We are not going to talk about the Texans Bears game in any sort of considered way. I was thinking about maybe doing it for the Monday hangover tomorrow. I was like, I'm not doing that to myself or to Deontay. I want to preserve the relationship I have with Deontay. So I'm not going to make him watch that, but I am going to make him watch Panthers Saints.

So it's not all good for him. Okay. Petri today. Monster Day. Two interceptions, two TFLs, a sack, a fumble recovery. He was all over the place.

I felt like every single time I looked up at that game. He was doing something. The Texans found a way to lose that game because they couldn't stop the run for most of it. And then those through a horrifying interception in the fourth quarter. But Petrie looks like a real dude. And for a Texan's team, at this stage of things,

all that matters is stacking up real dudes. That's it. And this is really the first draft that this regime has had with their full arsenal picks. And to potentially hit on a guy like that in the second half who can be a do-it-all, wreck-shit sort of safety in a bunch of different ways, that's huge.

So he had a really nice day and he definitely put me on notice for sure. Derek Stingley gets most of the headlines because he looks the part as a top five pick in a corner and him to battle with Sutton last week. It was a lot of fun. But Petrie was kind of one of those guys where it was a lot of draft Nick's favorite where it was like, this guy's a lot of fun. Like he's just a fun ball player at Baylor and now just seeing him translate.

I mean, instantly translate. I was a little worried. I was like, how's he going to use him? Like, because, all right, is he going to, like, they already had a nickel they kind of liked. Are they going to blitz him much? They're using them very well. So it's kind of cool to see him right away do what he was doing in college where he just,

he just makes place. He's just a football player. And so that nailing on a couple of picks, especially at DB, that's, that's a lot of fun. Like you said, Texans need players that aren't 76 to 80 in Madden. They actually need some, they actually need some decent players. And these are two dynamic players they got as rookies. All right. Last thing here.

We're going to get to any last words, a little final thought to put a period on the end of the sentence for each week that we do this show. I'm going to sit back and criticize my own way of doing this. and how knee-jerk we can be in this business every so often, how we want things right away. Because coming into this season, I had real doubts about what the ceiling could look like for the Eagles and the Dolphins with Tua and J-1 Hertz.

And I still think there are questions. You know, it's very early. We're three weeks into the season. I don't think anyone should be taken victory laps. But we were spoiled a little bit, I think, with some of the quarterbacks who came into the league over the last five years. Mahomes comes in in his second season and lets the league on fire immediately.

Lamar in his first full season as a starter lets the league on fire immediately in a very unique way. He's such a supernova of talent. Justin Herbert comes in and it didn't matter what was happening around him. You watch that guy and you're like, that is undeniable. It's not typically how quarterback development works. Nope. We have so many examples over time where it's been slower than that. And I think I'm guilty of this.

Some of the guys that we watched over the last three, four, five years made me speed up my expectations for some of these people. And Josh Allen is an outlier in a lot of different ways. I don't think there are going to be many more Josh Allen's for the rest of football history. For as long as we do this, a development plan that looks like Josh Allen probably isn't going to exist. But one that looks like Jalen Hertz is or one that looks like the path of Tua seems to be on. those can exist where you make incremental gains each season where you take steps forward that are appreciable but you still have a little ways to go and your team consistently does the right things to bring you to that next stage and i think that the eagles have done such a considered job in the way that they've built this team around jelan hertz and the dolphins have done the same when you look at what the dolphins offense looks like and how it's structured and the tangible impact that that speed has to be has on the way teams have to play against them and what that does for Tua. That's real.

We just talked about the Eagles offense, how it's structured, how they're really built to beat up the way that defenses want to play right now. That makes the game easier on your quarterback. It's easier for your quarterback to trust the way that he can progress between his options and a concept where he knows he has a ton of time to do it. It's easy for him to let some throws rip down the field into some tight windows when he trusts his guys to go get it. And maybe I'm just telling myself a story right now about Justin Fields and how it's not

necessary to come to any sort of finality, 15 games into a guy's career. But I do think that what has happened with some of these guys early in the season, even Trevor Lawrence, after what he looked like his rookie year, I think it's important in a world and in a sports media world and an environment where we can just want to put our foot on the gas all of the time, that it's important every once in a while to tap on the, the break a little bit, take a step back, understand that this isn't linear and it's not immediate. And we should all have a little bit of patience in how we think about quarterbacks and the

expectations we have for quarterbacks and in the timeline we create for quarterbacks. Absolutely. Especially at a time when it's never harder to play quarterback, it's like statistically it might look easier, but it's never been harder as far as pressures, as far as how defense are playing. And not only just quarterbacks, and I want to kind of knock myself here as Jeff Okuda for the lines. I liked him coming out of Ohio State. I did. I was like, oh, this guy's going to step right in. He looked like crap early in his career. And we talk about situation mattering so much. He's battled injuries. He's gone through confident ups and downs, confidence and all that. And now he looks like a good player again. And that's just a reminder that these guys are all human.

Their situations are so much in flux. There's so much that goes into this that, yes, the best ones, the most elite of the elite kind of our situation proof, but really not. I mean, look at Tom Brady without those guys are there. Look at Tom Brady at 45 years old with no receivers right now. Like, you know what I mean? But like everybody's situation matters, but it's cool to see when these young guys that maybe have those, they're, they're gods. They're the best players on the field always. And then they hit a lull and it seemed kind of come out of that, come out of the darkness a little bit. And Jeff Okuda is one of them and these quarterbacks like you're talking about. It's not, it's always just going to go, oh, they're, okay, it's like in basketball where you're like,

oh, they take the second year leap and then the third year leap. It's like, no, sometimes you go up and then you go down, you flatline, and then all of a sudden you get a great situation. You become an all pro. It's kind of cool to see it happening in this light as opposed to, like you said, that some guys just come in on as supernovas. You mentioned Jeff Akuta. We're going to talk about the Vikings Lions game tomorrow on the Monday hangover with Deontay.

So please come back and check that out. It's a game that I definitely want to hit on, which didn't have any space for it today. Also we're going to talk about the Panthers Saints game, which we mentioned a little bit earlier. And I have not decided on what the final two games are. So that's going to be something that happens over the next 20 minutes or so. You know, it's going to be fun. So please come back and check that out.

3.30 p.m. Eastern is when I record the Monday Hangover with Deontay on this here YouTube channel. If you have not subscribed to the YouTube channel, we're doing a bunch of stuff. Yeah. We do this show live on YouTube. We do the Monday Hangover live on YouTube. Our Thursday preview show with me, Nate and Deontay is live on YouTube at 3.30 p.m. so please subscribe to the channel if you have not. Nate's next edition of Y and the clock,

our X's and O's breakdown. The untimed down version will be on YouTube tomorrow. You're breaking down that Big J-1 Waddleplay, correct? Yep, yep, the third 22, little dolphins play. So highly encourage you guys to go look at that if you have not. Nate has done a fantastic job with those. Just a heads up are Thursday and Monday night game recaps. From here on out,

will be only on YouTube. They'll be YouTube exclusive. If you want to listen to those, if you want to watch those, you will have to do it on YouTube, just a heads up. We will not be recapping the Monday night game tomorrow because it's the Giants against Cooper Rush,

but also because I'm going to see the Gaslight Anthem. So those are two of the reasons that we are not recapping that game. Good reasons. In the meantime, before we get to our show with Deonté, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. Please subscribe to The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football. show. That's all we got for tonight. As always, guys, sincerely appreciate you guys sticking

with us and having another late night with us. We will be back tomorrow with Deontay in the meantime. Appreciate you guys. Listen. We'll talk to you soon. This was the athletic football show.