The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - NFL Week 4 Monday Hangover — Vikings beat Saints, Kenny Pickett debuts, and more

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

This week's football hangover features a supposed contender squeaking out a win over a banged-up, inferior opponent; two young quarterbacks making different types of debuts; and a couple of AFC South teams that seem to be going in different directions. Robert Mays and Diante Lee break down Vikings-Saints, Jets-Steelers, and Titans-Colts on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Diante on Twitter: @DianteLeeFBSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube1:00 Vikings-Saints25:40 Jets-Steelers51:30 Titans-Colts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. To the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today. It's my good friend, DeAte Lee. Deiate, how you doing, bud? I'm doing well, man. This is one of my favorite times of the season in the NFL.

You know, the first few weeks, you kind of get that very immediate visceral reaction to the teams that are really good and the teams that are really, really bad. And then this time of years where you get to, like, the teams with problems. Like, are you addressing those problems? Basically, do I need to take you serious or are you just an unsurious, French? charge from here on now. That's kind of what this time of year is for. We're going to get into three games today that we did not hit on the Sunday night show with Nate. We're talking about Viking Saints. We're going to talk about the Jets side of the Jets Steelers game a little bit more than

we did yesterday. I said that we'd discuss Zach Wilson and his debut a little bit later after not getting to it last night. And then we're also to talk about Titans Colts, which we can get into when we get there, I guess. A lot of thoughts, a lot of things to say. So let's start with where the NFL Sunday started yesterday, and that is with the Vikings and the Saints. Minnesota manages to knock off an Andy Dalton led Saints team, 28, 25. They go to 3 and 1 on the season. Saints are now sitting at 1 and 3. I was a little bit frustrated watching the Vikings in this game, but was my takeaway. That was my big picture kind of thought when I wrap this thing up is that I just have this sinking feeling that I'm going to watch this offense all year and I'm going to be consistently wanting more. And it's for a few different reasons, but that was my prevailing emotion when I was done with this game. How did you feel after watching the Vikings win that game? Similar to you. The very last note that I left that game with was, for all that, we're still talking

about a three-point win against the Saints. Like that was kind of way. With Andy Dalton with no Michael Thomas. Yes. It's like, I'm not a very good one game. You know, like for all of that. And I tried to look forward to look at it as optimistically as possible. And there were definitely some things to feel good about.

But in the end, to a still-beiner-a-one-possession game with the not-good Saints' offense on the other side, I definitely feel the exact same way that you do. This is just going to be a weekly recurring thing for a team that's probably going to win 11 games or so, and I'm going to feel very disappointed almost every time I turn them on. There were two kind of pillars of why I felt that way, in my opinion, after watching that game. One, some blown opportunities. A third-in-one, he has Munt wide open on a play-action, a little slide down near the goal line. ball was dropped. The one was also wide open on that play. Could have gone to either one of them. Fourth and one from inside the five, they kick a field goal, which was a little bit frustrating to me. And Kevin O'Connell's, I think, had some pretty good fourth down decisions earlier in the season, so I thought that was a little bit surprising.

Some weird clock management stuff near the end of the half. The ball with about 54 seconds left, Jefferson catches short little completion. They run off 30 seconds, even though they had three timeouts, end up having to kick a field goal there. and Cousins darts like a throw with a four-man rush after the Jefferson completion. That was the other thing that I was frustrated by in this game. I shouldn't be at this point. I should know what Kirk Cousins is at this stage of my life. But when I watch him play any bit of a crumbling pocket or anything that gets muddy

or anything that changes with what is in front of him, and it's over. He just cannot create anything. And that's okay when everything is. is perfect because it can look pretty good. He looks good throwing the ball. It's aesthetically pleasing. He has a very good arm. But anytime something about that tends to deteriorate, he can't create anything on his own. And that is where there are a lot of places where this exists. But that is the biggest gap between him and the really, really good guys. And when I was watching that game yesterday, I was just so struck by the fact that he is not one of the really,

really good quarterbacks, even if he's perfectly fine. Yep. I mean, so it's funny how Line Bureau on this, and I hate to say this, you know, far be it for me to criticize somebody for their fear of contact because God knows I'm not taking on any of these guys in the pocket. But I threw a question to some of my colleagues and I was like, is there anybody who looks more afraid of being hit before contact comes at quarterback than Kirk Cousins? And I don't know who else you would put up there, you know, that that's something that stands out to me, especially against the Saints team that has bigger body guys that are pocket pushers where you're going to be contacted.

You might not always get lit up, but you are probably going to take some kind of glancing blow as you're delivering the football. And I think that that kind of informs some of the ways that I was feeling about this passing offense in general, right? You open up week one with all the explosive offense to Justin Jefferson. Basically, they were doing what the Rams did with Matthew Stafford to open the year, right? And then you get a couple of new data points where you can't get the same kind of explosive offense.

And then I'm watching this game and I'm like, okay, there's heavier personnel whenever you want to go outside zone. And then any time you want to pass the wall, it's shotgun and condensed splits. Where in God's name have I seen this before? I was like, oh, O'Connell's running the Jared Golf offense for this guy now. I was like, now this makes so much sense. All of this makes so much more sense. And the funny thing with it is that I was actually kind of pleased because of how much it loosened up Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson. I thought there was a lot of great stuff designed to get them the ball on screens.

on drags. And that first drive, I believe it was an opening drive. You got Jefferson out of the backfield on a choice route. Little stuff like that. It's like, okay, I can see that you definitely made a concerted effort to try to find as many ways to get these guys back in the rhythm early as possible. I thought there were good screens to their backs, Madison and the Cook. And then like I said, with dealing on those crossing routes and moving him around,

I thought that all of that was pretty effective. But to the point of being dissatisfied, there's still just not enough explosiveness. and because there's not a big, big time explosive in the run game either, this leaves me just wanting more every time I watch this team leave the field on drives that don't end in scores. Yeah, and I,

it's, we are very aligned on this because I had the same sort of notes, set of notes early in the game. Jefferson in the backfield really nice. Really, they had a beautiful idea. Just second and four, 508 left in the first quarter, they go empty out of 21 personnel.

They have quads to one side. So a single receiver to the other. other side and they run a little just a little crossing route for Thielen against a linebacker. Just like pressing a lot of buttons that you want to see pressed in this game by design. A lot of just high lows with Jefferson and Thielen coming over the middle. A lot of guys that were running open in this game. The problem is when guys aren't running open, they're going to have no offense. Because he is never going to create something that isn't there.

And I, it's, so they're going to be successful. They're going to be efficient. I think they're going to be a pretty good team. But I'm just concerned about when anything starts to fade or, diminish what that ends up looking like because this offense isn't perfect. If it was perfect all the time that it wouldn't end up mattering, but the offensive line still has questions to me, right? I mean, there were a bunch of moments in this game where the pocket is crumbling pretty

quickly. The Ezra Cleveland had some pretty rough moments against Marcus Davenport in this game. The right guard, who is a rookie, hasn't had stretches of really clean play for the first three weeks of the season. There are going to be plenty of moments when he is going to have to make. something happen when things aren't clean and he just doesn't have an ability to do that. So I think there are going to be plenty of situations where guys are open because of the design of the offense.

But when they're not, it's going to look really bad, really fast because that's what happens when Kirk Cousins is your quarterback. He can do a lot of things. He cannot create anything. Yes. And it's funny like watching that and hearing you kind of speak about this because this is an experience I have with Kirk Cousins often. As I'm watching this office and I'm like, you know what they need is a really just like

a pure speed threat at receiver. And then I have to stop myself. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. This offense doesn't get to have anything else. You don't need anything else in what you have. Like, no, I'm not doing this with this quarterback. I'm not doing this with this franchise. We don't need to add any more pieces.

You have quite possibly the best rider's ever in the NFL, one of the best number two is in the NFL behind him, and one of the better running backs in the league. And a guy that comes from one of the best brain trusts offensively that we have in the NFL too. There's nothing else I need to ask for. All of this, I think, falls on the shoulders of Kurt Cousins. And while I would like to see them move bodies a little bit better in the running game,

this is kind of some of the things that I kind of felt that might come up. I feel like when we talked about them, this was something that I mentioned in the preseason, which is that kind of imbalance between what they do best in the run game, having heavier personnel with the last coaching regime versus what you want to do being a more 11 personnel team. And they've had some things that are interesting, whether it's going empty in those larger personnel groupings, like you mentioned or trying to move guys around, you know, whether it's stealing or Osborne in motion to try to create a little bit of discernity or uncertainty, excuse me, with the defense.

All that stuff is cool, but you still have to move bodies up front. And this is now multiple weeks in a row where in spite of success rate, which I'm sure they're still not struggling in, I'm not seeing enough of them popping these big outside zone runs. I'm not seeing these counter runs that they're designing, getting downhill the way that they should. And if you can't do that with the guy like Dalvin Cook in the backfield, well, then I have nobody else to turn to, but this highly paid quarterback who's been here for multiple years now, what they talented wide receiver core, and asked, what are you going to

do about it? And I think that we probably know the answer, which is why this is just going to be a recurring, frustrating conversation I have with this offense. It becomes an existential question, what you were just saying. It's so tempting to be like, well, if they had this one more thing, what would it look like? And you have to stop yourself. and you have to go back to the root of why this is the way that it is.

And then you have to ask, what do you want to be? When we get to the end of this season, and this is a team that probably wins close to double-digit games, maybe makes the playoffs, ends up falling short in the playoffs. They're just good enough to finish ninth in offensive DVOA. And we're sitting there being like, man, it seems like the Vikings are kind of close.

Like one or two things go differently. What could this end up being? And then you go around and around the whole thing again. Yep. And it's just, it's miserable. And it's exhausting. And I just feel it coming again because it's exactly how good he is. He is exactly this good to bring you to this place.

And if you're an NFL franchise, you're sitting there and you're looking at it. And you're like, we are good enough or almost good enough. If everything goes right, we are good enough. And then you talk yourself into all of the things independently going right. And then one thing goes wrong. But then the next off season is like, well, if that thing goes right and all the other things go right again, then we're going to be fine. But they can never go right. It's never how this works. Because it's always good at change when one thing gets fixed and nothing's going to go wrong to no fault

of your own. It's just how team building works when you need everything to be ideal. And it's going to be a fascinating, fascinating discussion. When we get toward the end of the year, when this season eventually ends, and you're sitting here thinking about what you want to be and where you want to go and whether or not you want to commit to him again. He's under contract for next year, but there's some interesting levers in there. It's that they can maybe get out of it. It's such a well-worn conversation and thought process with this organization, and it's absolutely exhausting. Ninth is the perfect number. Like, because that is just good enough. That's always just good enough to always be pissed off, right? Like, it's always good

enough to just be disappointed all the time while also not feeling rational enough to say blow the whole thing up, even though we know that this is always what it's going to be. The interception to Matthew is that, to you, is that a horrible decision? Is that a nice play from Tyra Matthew? It looked to me like it was just cover two and Matthew is just sitting there, but he was playing a little bit further outside than he probably should have been. Walk me through that decision and just how bad or good it was. How bad it was or how good of a play by the defense it was.

Right. So I kind of looked at it from both perspective, was a note, was like, was this an awful ball or just a miscommunication offensively? Because of the way that Tyrant Matthew played it, at first I was like, well, is this like a Reed cover two? like, you know, they call it palms or to read or whatever the case where it's quarters unless the slot receiver runs a quick out, right? And you can give a certain depth where if this guy breaks out towards the flats or towards the sideline at a certain yard depth, our corner is going to

go jump it and our safety is going to go over the top and play a cover two safety. I think that the issue is that when you see that versus a fade route, you know, most offenses ask you to convert it, you know, to almost sitting in that hole between the safety and a corner, right? So that way the wide receiver doesn't get lit up and the quarterback doesn't throw it so hard on the line that that safety can break in a flat line the way that Matthew did to pick the ball out. So to pick the ball off. So I think it was kind of both things working in tandem against the offense. Because the route was jumped so quickly, you can see Kirk immediately trigger on that go ball. And I think that because they were so tight to the boundary, now Tyrant Matthew playing wider than he probably would have been in other situations.

Maybe they had it scouted out. maybe that was kind of an adjusted call based on the formation split. But you could see that there was absolutely no doubt in Matthew's mind based on how flat of an angle he took, that that fayball was going to be thrown in a back shoulder type of situation and he was able to get underneath it. So I think either way, we kind of have to put that one on the offense. You do give a little bit of credit to Matthew for being aggressive in that situation. But I think better communication or a better understanding by the receiver of the covered shell he was getting, and that probably should have been a completion.

I want to go back and watch what the exact route combination was, but I want to say it's a similar design to the one he almost hit against the Eagles, where he had Irf Smith deep and then just he dropped it. I think it was that exact same kind of out vertical combination. Yeah. So if maybe there's something they saw in that, it's like we're not going to let that hit us over the top. And so that's interesting, a little bit of defensive coaching from the Saints. Speaking of, where are you at with the Saints? They almost won this game. They absolutely could have won this game.

A couple really unlucky bits of fumble luck. They had a really kind of, in my opinion, weak illegal hands to the face penalty on Matthew that kept that drive going. They allowed the Vikings to kick the go ahead field goal. I mean, a couple different breaks in this game. The Saints with Andy Dalton, no Michael Thomas, no Alvin Camara, potentially win this game. And I don't know if that says more about where the Saints are in terms of being competitive or are general dissatisfaction with the state of the Minnesota Vikings. my again reading directly off of my notes it says olive colon good everything else question mark question mark question mark question mark question mark question that's kind of where i'm my last note is my last note literally says all the way in on alave that is what it's what it says word for word i am all the way in on chris elave i don't think i have much else i don't know how much more i can give about this offense honestly looking at it um the running game has been struggling all year i'm obviously going to be even worse without avon kamer kamer

I think handed the ball off to Mark Engelman, 2022 is quite an adventure. And it didn't go well, especially with that offensive line. And Latavius Murray. Yes. That is not, I have to check my calendar every once in a while when I look at the Saints backfield to make sure that I'm where I'm supposed to be. So they definitely have been struggling to run the football. I thought that one positive for them that I did see was in the second half,

they definitely started pushing the ball more vertically. I think that the Vikings were trying to play a little bit tighter in coverage. You definitely saw a better underneath coverage, distributing those routes, you know, breaking on the ball a little bit quicker. And I liked Andy Dalton taking some of those chances on overrouts, on some of that design stuff, trying to get them some deeper pockets so we could push the ball further down the field. And he was definitely able to connect with the Lave a few times. And they were productive in the passing game. But what the hell else is there to this offense, man? Like, I don't know what I think.

I still don't know what I think about this Vikings defense. So I don't have a real barometer to kind of gauge this game off of. and I don't know, like, every time I watch them, and I hate beating a dead horse with this, but it's like, this is what an offense looks like when the bill comes due on all the spending that you've done over a seven, eight, nine, you know, year period. It looks like the bill is due outside of Olave, with all the guys that they have hurt right now, and what they probably were going to look like even being fully healthy. I don't know how you kind of wrestle this thing free from the mud that it's been in to open the season.

Saints are one and three. We can go back and forth and try to rationalize a couple big breaks they could have gotten. Could their record be better? They're one and three. The Packers and the Vikings are three and one. So those are two teams that likely have an inside track to make the playoffs, one of them, the division, one of them the wild card. The Eagles are undefeated and the Cowboys are three and one.

Again, a team that's two games ahead of them in a potential wild card race. We'll see what happens with the Rams and the Niners tonight. They're behind the eight ball. for making the playoffs in the NFC. They pushed a lot of chips into the middle of the season, they thought in a watered down conference, can we get there? It's a watered down conference. The answer is no.

And what happens next becomes a pretty big, daunting question. I hate poking. I hate poking the NFC South teams bear because I know if this goes wrong, they'll never let me hear the end of it. But it is entirely possible that the Falcons end up being a better football team than the Saints. by years in. Certainly will be more exciting offensive. Wow. I think that that is within. I completely believe that that is within the realm of possibility. And I will certainly say from a watchability,

if we're going by watchability index, I would have much rather every single Sunday watch the Falcons do whatever the hell it is that they're doing offensively than to ever watch this Saints offense again. I think that's more than fair. I also think that over a 17 game stretch, the Falcons defense is going to be so incredibly bad that these teams probably end up close to each other. But on a watchability level, I totally agree. I think the Saints defense is going to be the Saints defense. I don't think the heights are going to be as high as they've been over the last couple years, but I think they're going to be very good. You see it. You see flashes from Cam Jordan had a couple of really nice moments against Brian O'Neill in this game. Marcus Davenport is bullying people

when putting defined past rushing situations. I think Warner's a really nice player. He had a couple moments in this game where I'm just like it's a play of linebacker just doesn't typically make they try to run that little vertical rail to the full back off play action he read it the entire way they just have a lot of nice pieces and I just think that's probably what they're going to be they're going to be a team that finishes like sixth or seventh in defensive efficiency because they have really good pieces and pretty good coaching and their offense is going to be frustrating and they're going to be a team that wins like six or seven games and we're going to be wondering what all of this was for yep remember guys this was a team that could have done things and much

differently in the off season. They chose this, okay? This did not happen to them. They picked this, okay? When we do our postmortems, remember that this was decided upon. One more note. I wanted to hit on before we let. Lewis seen broke his leg in this game, so he is going to be out for this season,

which is a big bummer. Obviously, Andrew Booth has been hurt for most of the year. You know, we're getting snaps from guys I've never even heard of. Yes. A corner for the Vikings right now. They do not have a lot of depth. I mean, the one, Marcus Callow, had a one-on-one against the guy whose name I literally have never heard before in my life.

It's number 21, and that is how I'm going to remember him in this moment. I'm moving forward. Danzler is, that's all I got, man. There are 32 teams. The Madden, Madden generated age. It's all I got. It's all I got. So it's a bummer because when you're watching those Patrick Peterson, Patrick Peterson

had like a couple nice moments in this game, but for the most part, I think that you dropped a corner in the first round because you understand the writing is on the wall with Patrick Peterson. They have a Cam Bynum is also, to me, a madden generated player who is there to be replaced eventually. I think that was the idea with Lewasine.

And so, with you, I just don't know what the defense is or what it is going to be. I think that they didn't get a ton of pressure in this game. A couple of nice little splash moments, but not consistent. And the jury's still out for me.

A couple more games. We'll see what they actually are against teams that aren't quarterback by Andy Dalton. They didn't jump on the Packers in week one. I still don't know exactly. what I think about this defense. I'm right there with you. The one thing I was happy with was just what they were doing

and underneath coverage in the first half. Everything other than that, I'm like, I got to see it against a real team first. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to be back with Jets Steelers. All right. Jets beat the Steelers 24 to 20 in a game where Kenny Pickett makes his NFL debut. I want to start on the other side of the ball, though.

Impressions of Zach Wilson in his first game of the season. What do you got for me? The best backhanded compliment that I can get, which is that this is probably the best multi-turnover game that he's had in his young career so far. Because neither of those turnovers were really on him. I won't put those directly on him. The one that threw his receiver's hands and picked off by Minka, you know, what can you do about that? So in terms of actually making throws, I thought this was one of the better games that we've had.

He was relatively on time coming over the middle of the field. He still has to work on being very late up the sideline, had some drop picks. up the sidelines, Steelers miss some opportunities to make him pay. And he's obviously still got to work on his pocket navigation. You know, the pirouette throwaway, you know, that'll end up on a blooper reel of some sort at the end of the year. You know, you still have some issues with bailing out of the back, the back end of the pocket, turning a five-step drop into a 13-step drop, trying to get away from pressure.

You know, still not always positioning himself in a way where he can take full advantage of what I think Michael Floor is trying to draw up for him. But for the most part, if we're looking at the quality of throws, for the most part, especially in comparison to where he was early last season, I think that you can see a little bit of the dream that the Jets are trying to sell us on what Zach Wilson might be. Yeah, the pocket navigation stuff, I think is definitely something to point out. One play specifically where he eventually throws an incompletion of Corey Davis on the right

side line. He dropped to 15 yards. before trying to throw that ball. I mean, sprinting out of the back of the pocket. And that happened a couple times in this game, and that's something that's going to have to improve. Pass protection, something to mention as it relates to that. The Jets tackle situation is an absolute mess.

And I actually thought those guys played okay yesterday. Their offensive game plan and performance could have looked a lot worse when you consider one of their starting guards was playing left tackle. They had a rookie, I believe, fourth round pick starting. the game at right tackle. He gets hurt. Connor McDermick comes in. They were helping AVT on the left side more than they were helping on the right because it's hard to chip two guys on every single play. So the right tackle was left on an island a lot in this game. And eventually you're going to get beat. Mitchell had a couple rough reps against High Smith. He had one

against Reed. That happens. He's a rookie fourth round pick playing against NFL players. That's going to go down. So I think all things considered based on the state of their offensive line coming into this game, but what it looked like by the end, the performance from that group was okay. My biggest concern with Wilson is he was abysmal against man coverage last season. Horrible. Like, dead last in the league in pretty much every single metric. He was not good yesterday. Seven of 16 for 102 yards and two picks against man coverage in this game.

And that does not include a play that was negated for a defensive hold when he tried to decapitate Michael Carter up the right side line. Yes. And it just seems like any time he's not throwing the ball into open space on plays that are designed up for him, often over the middle of the field. When they have high lows for him against zone coverage, it looks beautiful. It's beautiful. He's really, really good at placing the ball to that area of the field. You can understand how you can talk yourself into this guy.

But when he has to think about it for a second, he had one big time completion to Garrett Wilson in a key moment against man coverage. that was a really nice moment. Other than that, he's holding the ball for three seconds, a lot of indecision, just not willing to pull the trigger when there is any sort of color that he has to navigate mentally. And that is still a concern to me. No, I'm 100% with you, right? So when I think about specific examples of the good, you know, you think about that deep comeback to Elijah Moore up the right side line, if I remember correctly, where he gets to pat, you know, it gets to pat the ball, climb the pocket, everything's on time. there's no pressure that he's dealing with, he's able to drill those throws. And if you're the Jets coaching staff, you're looking at that like, okay, we probably weren't

getting very much of that, if at all last season. That is at least a sign that when he navigates the pocket properly, his eyes and his feet and his arm are all married together and he's able to deliver the ball well. And then you think about the throw to Garrett Wilson, you know, on an elite outbreaker. Number one, he gets to it in the progression really late. He throws the ball late and inside. and that should have been picked. And then you're looking at that and you're like, still with this, you know,

and you're watching them go through some of these progressions where there's a lot of stuff underneath. This should be quick one to two to check down or one to check down if you don't like your first look. And you can just see them just perseverating on these throws, right? And it looks very much like a young quarterback, getting the call and thinking, oh, this is a smash concept. I really want to throw the corner here. And now you see him staring at the corner for an extra beat before. he works off of it. Against the team like the Steelers, that's perfectly comfortable and probably

prefers to play a lot of cover one with guys like Mika Fitzpatrick as a robber. That's how you end up in these disaster pocket navigation situations where it's my first look is not there because there's tight coverage. And now everything else after this is 100% on me and my arm and my understanding of my offense against the coverage look that I'm saying or the blitz look that I'm getting. And that's where you get the 15-yard dropbacks. That's where you get him turn. his back on the pass rush, which is just like a Cardinal said that I don't understand how you coach out of a quarterback. Guys who turn their back on pass rush to try to escape, typically never let that go and usually have many bad things happen to them. So I'm still seeing things like

that that draw a lot of my ire, you know, and watching him try to navigate the pocket as a quarterback and still be on time. And everything that's against like regular zone coverage is like, okay, I can see the arm strength. I can see that you can step up and deliver these dig routes. I can see that you can hit these throws up the sideline when everything is perfect for you. And that's nice and great and all as well with that. But that's not the real NFL, you know, that's not the real NFL where you get all the time in the world. And you can work perfectly through your progression. And you get 12 yards of separation and throw the ball into across the middle of the field.

You've got to deal with defenses that are more like what he saw in that disaster game against the Patriots last year, where it's cover one the entire way or it's going to be covered to and before you to throw the ball in the middle of the field. and you got to deal with a crushed pocket. That's going to be much closer to the reality. So while I definitely saw some things that I can feel like, all right, we can check off the fact that some work has been done in this way. I feel the same way that you did, that the things that were issues last year

and led to some of the worst snaps that we saw of them last year still exists and still has to be addressed in this offense. He's going to play against teams of the better pass rush than the current state of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Yes. That is going to happen. and the tackles are not going to get healthier anytime soon. It's going to be multi-week stuff for some of these guys.

The maximum injury, I don't think, is season ending. We got multiple guys on IR on the left side. I mean, they have issues, and those issues aren't going to be at fixed very quickly. And he's going to play against team with dominant edge rushers, not one or two snaps from Alex, Highsmith, and Malik Reed over the course of the game. And so this stuff about navigating the pocket, feeling comfortable, understanding what to do when that space starts to condense and having some sort of composure when those moments,

that's going to become more of an issue against teams that are not this version of the Steelers. To your point of he's going to do a real pass rush, you know where they see the next six games? I don't know this sequence of football that Zach Wilson is going to be dealing with for the next six weeks. I really do. I really do. Miami, Green Bay, Denver, New England, Buffalo, and the New England again. Those are the next six weeks to just football. So if you think it's fixed, we'll find out. We'll know about two games into this, whether or not some.

of these issues are fixed because not only can all of these teams get after the quarterback at least a decent bit, every single one of these teams that I named believe in playing tight coverage as often as they possibly can. Even a bill team that plays a lot of too high zone, they are very aggressive in theirs. The Broncos have a real cornerback one. The Packers have a real cornerback one. The dolphins believe in cover one and blitzing the hell out of you all the time and the Patriots are the Patriots and you got to see them twice.

So, you know, for all the things that I saw today or yesterday that had me thinking like, All right, I can say thumbs up in general if I'm using last year as my reference point and not just evaluating him as just like a blank slate quarterback on a rookie deal. A little better now, but what he's going to see over the next month and a half is probably not going to be very pleasant if he's still dealing with some of these issues. What do you think about just like the overall design of the Jets offense and where they're placing players in some of these opportunities? I love having Garrett Wilson there available to them as a wide receiver makes me like this offense a whole lot more from a design perspective. We talked about it a bit when they played the Browns and we got to see Garrett Wilson really get moved around, working underneath and vertically.

He was able to threaten every level of the defense. I think that he and Moore pair really well together as a wide receiver pairing. So I'm very interested to see how these guys kind of mature with one another. And I like their running back room. I think that what LaFleur has from the skill position perspective is enough to think like, all right, a real true star either at quarterback or, you know, a top flight offensive line could really make this thing go in a way that it's not right now because I can certainly see the outlines of it.

But right now with what they have at Sigma Caller and all the injuries that they're dealing with on the offensive line, it does leave, I think, or it does expose a lot of the holes that they kind of have in staying efficient on first down. You know, I think that at one point their first down, average yards for play was around one, you know, because they just don't have enough up front and they're not getting enough on early downs to be able to keep them ahead of the sticks. So the way LaFleur can do some of the best stuff for some of the stuff that we saw in the second half against Cleveland this year.

I want to watch the All-22 of this game at some point, just to see some of the route distribution stuff. This is one of those games that I watched early this morning before it was available. just watch the TV copy and curious what he's looking at and where some of these decisions are coming from and when he's holding the ball against man coverage, what does the back end look like. I'm interested in them. I just the pieces and the way they fit together, I like the skill position talent.

Even having Corey Davis is, I guess, nominally, your number three receiver, even though it's the highest paid guy on the team at that position. That's really a nice piece. They have talent on their offense and I do think they're doing some interesting stuff. So we'll see what happens over that six game stretch that you mentioned. going to the other side of the ball and that other offense, trying to figure out how I want to say this. Are you finished with that Canada, too?

Can I pose it to you that way? I am, I'm trying to think if this is the worst offensive infrastructure in the league, but the Panthers exist. Yes. But it is not that far away from what the Panthers have been over the last couple of years. when you think about the overall plan and how little sense it makes. Okay? You bring in Matt Canada to be your quarterback coach.

And then he's now your offensive coordinator because of reasons. And then you keep him when Matt, when Ben Rathesberger retires because I guess you can talk yourself into the fact that your offense was unwatchable last year because Ben Rathesberger was near the end. but what their plan has been for who's calling the offense, who's blocking up front, their offensive line is borderline unwatchable. They were playing against the Jets team that hasn't exactly been tearing people apart. And the tackle play is just,

and this is a right tackle they've committed to. And the tackle play is actively bad. And I just don't understand any of it. Jermaine Johnson's just roasting dudes. And that has not shown up over the first three games of this season. So I'm sitting there like, they can't block anybody. I'm not in love with anything.

they do design-wise. And the quarterback play, whatever it's going to be, is almost independent of that. It almost doesn't matter. Where this quarterback play ends up and who ends up playing quarterback and what Kenny Pickett is is almost inconsequential from the things that frustrate me about the offense. When they pulled Trubisky at halftime, I was like, this is when you're going to do this? What about the last two quarters of football was so egregious compared to what had happened over the previous three games that we decided this needed to happen right now in the middle of a game,

before you're about to go on this murderer's fucking row against four of arguably the best defenses in the entire league over the next month. I just don't understand the short-term plan for why the offense looks this way, and what the long-term plan for why the offensive offense had to look this way over the last couple of years. And Mike Tomlin, for the most part, when you look at the offensive coordinators he's had over the last 15 years, these are guys with skins on the wall early on. Bruce Ariens, first one that he had. Then he goes to Todd Haley, who's another former head coach.

And then you get into the Randy Fickner era, which only exists because you're trying to create some continuity with Ben Rathesberger, which I can understand that as an argument. But this current iteration for the ecosystem that the Steelers have tried to build themselves on offense, I truly do not understand it. I'm so glad that you lined it up this way. And I think a lot of this kind of crescendos with the quarterback change at halftime. Like I was watching, I was watching Red Zone for a good bit of the morning slate for me. And then it flashed to this Jet Steelers game. And I saw Kenny Pickett. And I was like, did I miss something?

Like, did you risky, like, die in the locker room or something? Like, what did I miss? Because I didn't see anything in the first two quarters that was any different than what we saw for the first month of the season. And certainly nothing that was any different. made some better throws in the first two quarters that he had made at any point in the season. And I think some of the sacks that he took were like Trubisky sacks. Three-man rush, hold the ball forever. I've been watching that since he got drafted.

So, you know, there was nothing that was kind of blowing me away from that perspective. So to your point, to that point of what is the decision making behind that, a lot of that is reflected on the field as well between personnel and how they're, how they're kind of implementing guys. And a lot of this kind of brings me back to what the hell is Matt Canada with this offense. So what was he brought in for? It was all of the misdirection, right? Well, we don't even really get jet sweep from this guy anymore. That's not a part of this offense, really. That's not how they employ their receivers.

It was all the different personnel packages that they can use. Well, none of that shit matters if your offensive line can't block anybody. All you become is a very tendency-oriented offense. This is something that Nate Tyson has spoken about with you on this show. before I was even working here with Matt Canada. You know, so this is not breaking any news with him on that end. And then you look at what they're doing in the passing game, and I think I got to like maybe six or seven past situations in a row.

And a note that I left was, do we not have anything better on this call sheet than mesh? Because I felt like I was just watching mesh on a continuous loop every single time they had to pass the football when Chubisky was in the game. And then to put pick it in and say, hey, now we're going to do all this like play action move the pocket. I want you to take some shots vertically. I'm like, all right, well, why are we dropping our rookie quarterback who clearly did not have enough belief from the staff to start the season with? And now you're asking him to take his shots down the field.

So I don't know exactly what the vision is even supposed to be. If somebody took a blind test and I just gave them a sequence of plays or what was attempted on these plays based on personnel and formation and the way that things were supposed to go, I don't think that anybody could tell me, even the better football minds, what this offense is actually looking to accomplish. And I feel like this is maybe the third hangover in a row where we've had at least one offense that kind of falls underneath this kind of a denomination. For years and years and years, you have a veteran expensive quarterback, and it hamstrings the way that you can build your team.

Even when he was good, it prevents you from making moves other places and you have to skimp in some areas of your roster. This is the plan when the quarterbacks cost nothing. This is it. They had a bunch of free agent money to potentially rebuild their offensive line. We came away with Mason Cole, James Daniels, and a contract extension for Truxacora for. That's what we had. You have your left tackle plan with your second year guy that wasn't very good as a rookie and still wasn't playing very well.

I just look at the entire offense and the fact that they kind of had a chance to retool this thing a little bit this offseason. They could have had any offensive coordinator that they wanted, whoever was wanted to be there, but they could have gone out and done anything. They could have remade their offensive line. They could have changed who was calling plays. And this is the plan they went with. And I'm like, this is it. Like, this is what we, this is the infrastructure we're trying to build here for a rookie quarterback that you drafted in the first round when you actually had some resources to potentially do some stuff around him. I did that plan for what Kenny Pickett is going to be and for what this offense is right now.

It's pretty bewildering. I just don't understand any aspect of it. Mike Tomlin has won a lot more football games than me. He's been very good at this for a very long time. But I just do not understand every single aspect of what they've tried to be on this side of the ball over the last couple years. The receivers are good. Like the receivers think they're good players. Love Johnson.

Love Claypool. I think that Pickens is going to be very, very good in the league. I like Fryer moves too. They have a nice collection of talent at receiver. And I think that the best version of Pickett, extending plays or, you know, trying to dump the ball off after getting away from pressure, when he plays like that, you can definitely see like, okay, Kenny Pickett might be something that I can feel decently about. But the ceiling on how good I can feel about them is always going to be tethered to this offensive infrastructure. And nothing about the way that this is built right now is conducive to developing a quarterback. You know, if we had to draw up power rankings of. hey, if every team right now lost their starter, which one is in the best situation to be able to manage it or get through it or bring in a rookie, this team will be towards the bottom. Like you said, the Panthers exist, so I can't say they're 32nd, but far be it for me to say that they're not in the 30s. You know, this is not a pretty situation for a team that, again, to this point, has one of the better running backs in the league, I think, in Najee Harris, who I just feel so awful for every time to handle the full ball.

ball too. It's not a fun picture watching this guy try to bounce everything outside because he just has no trust on what's happening in between the tackles. And then you can't protect long enough to get the ball to these talented receivers either. I don't get why with that 21st pick or where they picked that in the first round and all the money that they had this offseason that these are the choices that they made if this is the offense that you're going to get. And I don't have a roadmap based on what we've seen so far to make you think it's going to get better. Right. I can look at the Vikings. the team that we just covered earlier and say like, okay, I've seen the Jared golf offense. This can work.

It might not be pretty. Like, it's not going to be 2018 golf, but 2019 and 2020 golf was good enough to win some games. I can kind of turn my head to the Vikings and Kirk Cousins and say, all right, I feel like I can trust. At least I'll know what that brand of football looks like. This brand of football does not win games, whatever it is that we're going to call it. And like you said, there's a murderer's real coming. The bottom can fall out on this thing in the next month's time. And they're one and three.

And the bottom can still fall on. Yes. They're already one in three. The Kenny Pickett takeaway is bad decisions on both of those throws. Like, I don't know what else to say about it. The third interception came out of Hail Mary who gives a shit. Obviously, a tip ball on the one to fire me with on the sideline. That ball should never be thrown.

Never. Just never should never be thrown. And that's fine. It's his first half when he would, did not get to prepare as a starter, which, again, great stuff. That ball should never be thrown. And the one he's taking a deep shot on, you know, double coverage, man. First throw, you know, I appreciate taking a shot. It's a bad, it's a bad decision. There's, there's nothing else to say about it. But I thought that he made some nice decisions. I thought he had some nice moments. And we'll see what

happens. But it's hard to get that excited about Kenny Pickett when you're sitting here thinking about what they have around him and the people who are. are tasked with lifting him up in these situations. I cannot believe that we are calling the Steelers a bad football team right now, but I think that this might be a bad football team. It's hard to be a good football team in 2022 when your offense gives you very few chances to succeed. When the people in charge of building your offense inherently put you in a disadvantage, it doesn't matter what Mike Tomlin has accomplished or what sort of pieces you have on defense.

And when you lose one of those pieces on defense, it's a huge. building block that you've taken out of this. So we're running out of reasons why they should be a good football team. Yep. As currently constructed. I have to say, this goes back to the infrastructure point that you make with franchises all the time, which is it's never a matter of the stars. It's what happens and you inevitably lose one of them. Do you have enough when you don't have that guy or when that guy can't raise you up?

And this franchise for the last, you can probably say three or four seasons has not been in a position to sustain themselves. if they don't have Amika Fitzpatrick, if you don't have a T.J. Watt as a hero. We've been Rathesburg or arms atrophies the way that it did over the last couple of seasons. When those things are not available to you, there just just not been anything here for us to feel good about or for us to say that would be enough to get them through some of the issues that they're having. All right. We're going to take one more quick break, and then we are regrettably going to wrap this thing up with Titans' Colts. All right. So the Colts are in a timeout for me right now. And I almost wish that we didn't have to do this. But I, then I, if we didn't do it, then I would be sliding Titans fans who already think I hate the Titans. These are, this is the shit that I have to think about when we're trying to program the games that we talk about on this goddamn show. So I'm wondering, what do you think about the way that the Colts played yesterday and where the Colts are at right now? I'm going to let you take a majority of this and kind of run with it.

My first thought is just like it is so hard to look away from how bad that offensive line looks sometimes. Like it makes it really, really difficult to evaluate anything else happening with this offense. And this is an offense, mind you, that has not gotten the best out of Jonathan Taylor and has definitely seen a Matt Ryan that has not been producing up to the level that I think that all of us optimistically thought that might exist with him. So it's just been so difficult to look away from what this offensive line has struggled with. And Tennessee doesn't have their best pass rusher to start with, or the best edge rusher, I should say, to start with. They are 100% just doing pocket push stuff, trying to fame some pressure and drop guys out. Very typical stuff, right? We're not getting the most imaginative version of this Titans defense, not even to the degree that we saw from them last year when I thought that they were doing a lot of really interesting things.

And the Colts are still struggling, you know. And one of the notes that I left, and I think this applies to both teams really, is that relative speed matters so much in today's NFL with how spread out it is. And these offenses lack it to such extreme degrees. Sometimes it makes it look like the game is almost operating in slow motion or at, you know, 0.75 speed because there's just nothing happening explosively. And I think the Colts are probably guilty of it more than more than the Titans even because they can still get those generations. you know, kind of fake 15-yard gains off of play action every once in a while from Ryan Tannahill. There is just not much of that at all in Indianapolis right now. And I don't know how you unlock what's going on with this team offensively.

Their most explosive playmaker in this game was a 6-foot-6-260-pound tight end. Yes, a guy that I thought should probably be playing tackle when he was coming out of college because I just didn't know how productive he'd be as a receiver. He was their most explosive playmaker in this game. I thought their passing game actually looked okay near the end of the game. I thought that Matt Ryan actually played fine. Yes. The issue is everything else.

You don't know what the Colts rushing success rate in this game was? I'm going to guess it was lower than 40%. Oh, God. 13. You're going to break my heart. Oh, you're going to break my heart. Oh, 13. You know what?

That tracks, though, because I... That tracks because I feel like I can remember the good runs that they had off the top of my head. I have like two in mind. They're like one shot. shotgun run off a kind of like an RPO look that Jonathan Taylor was able to turn up the field. And I think they had one where Taylor basically had to break through five or six arm tackles to get like eight yards. It was awful.

They could not run the ball in this game. And the past production got better near the end of the game. But there were still so many, the five or six moments where you're sitting there being like, this is not okay. You just can't live like this. And it's everybody. I mean, Autry roasted Quentin Nelson for that strip sack in the first quarter, which isn't great. The left tackle is not viable. No.

As things currently stand. It was bad. It was not viable. They're already on right guard number two. This one doesn't seem to be doing much better for them. And if they can't protect consistently and they can't run the ball and they have no juice on offense and we have a quarterback that is clearly on the back half of his career, where are we at with this? I mean, even back half might be generous. There was a third quarter.

There was a third quarter play action pass from Ryan. and he threw a sail route and I watched him put so much of his body into that cell route that I thought his arm was going to come off with the ball and it really wasn't even throwing all that hard either. I was like, oh man, this is where we're at with Ryan. This has the opportunity to be very unfund. I don't like this at all, especially if they can't run the ball and they can't find Alex Pierce one on one on the perimeter either. It's bad. It's really, really bad. Like this is, this might be beyond worst case scenario for all the stuff that you, Nate and I had talked about all off season.

I don't understand why getting Michael Pittman on the move, just trying to create some sort of yak opportunities for a team that doesn't have any vertical juice and why we aren't seeing the elements of that within the offense. Naheem Hines, I think, is your second best pass catcher. I have not seen him involved in any sort of receiving role of note over the last couple weeks, which is truly bizarre to me, I just don't know where this team is at. It's so weird. And I don't want to spend all this time talking about the Colts because the Titans won the game, but it's not like the Titans were impressive in this game. They had two turnovers inside the Colts,

like 35-yard line. They couldn't move the ball for most of the second half. They had a couple big splashy play action plays. They had that screened to Derek Henry. Derek Henry had a couple big runs in this game. But these are bad teams. Right now, both of these are just bad teams, and the Titans got out to a big lead that they ultimately didn't relinquish. That's kind of what happened in this game. I'm with you 100%. And, you know, when I think about all the different iterations of Frank Rex offense in Indianapolis, right, you have Philip Rivers, which is quick game galore, right?

Screens and quicks all day long. And then maybe you get, you know, just enough intermediate passing to get you by at the end of a game. And then you have Carson Wentz, which was like the fakesst of fake offense, RPL almost every early down, or you're getting in the heavy person. And just handing it off to Jonathan Taylor to set up some play action stuff where you can try to get wins a design one-on-one vertically whenever that's possible and now I'm looking at this version of the offense and it's like, okay, well, you can't run the ball. They really don't have much a yak opportunity within this offense, but for whatever reason, they haven't been able to manufacture it. I don't see many RPO's or anything like that in this offense. And I can understand if that's kind of a point of discomfort from Matt Ryan. But if that's the truth, well, then what the hell also you're supposed to do with this thing because you're not going to get vertical. Matt Ryan's arm doesn't really lend itself to pushing the ball down the field either. And I think that because of that, you can't mix up the kind of personnel groupings that they

were even able to do last year with Wins to try to generate some offense down the field when things were kind of humming in the middle of the season. This does not look like an offense that can catch that kind of hot streak again where you're really able to move the ball and generate explosive runs because I don't think that there's a threat of downfield passing and certainly not enough of one, I think, to open up the door for Jonathan Taylor and this offensive line can honestly not be trusted at all to be able to pass the ball down the field or really try to get guys moving vertically either. This is an offense that we just have to treat as a bad one until further notice. And a slow one, I think, is almost worse than being a bad one because you can generate. You can kind of manufacture yardage for bad offenses.

It's hard to do it for a slow offense and one that doesn't block very well. my sorting tab on this chart is not working right now, but just doing some quick observation math. I want to say the Colts are either 26 or 27th in rushing EPA, which that's just not going to work. Right. It doesn't get any more complicated than that. If this team is currently constructed with Jonathan Taylor

and the most expensive offensive line in the league is not going to be able to run the ball, then it just doesn't really matter. When we were trying to build an optimistic case for the Colts coming into the season, it was that Frank Reich has, shown some really nice moments in play design, that Matt Ryan was potentially a better option to keep the train on the tracks because it was a well-designed, well-constructed train. The train is broken, so it doesn't really matter who's driving it right now. And so every case as to why

the Colts would have been better with Matt Ryan was made with the assumption that the offense was ready made for competent quarterback play. And that assumption was wrong based on the way the first four games of the season have gone. I think that's perfect framing that no matter what we thought or how this thing turned out, at the end of the day, this offense was built to use Jonathan Taylor and the offensive line as the central force of it. And that's not what this offense is. There was no contingency plan because the only way this was ever going to work was if this offensive line and Jonathan Taylor led the way. And now that it's not, we are seeing all the flaws of Matt Ryan in a way that I think that nobody in Indianapolis could have possibly saw. coming or definitely did not have a plan for. And the plan was that it just wasn't going to work then if they did not have what they needed to have on the ground. And that's what we're looking at right now. Titans are just a strange team. They have guys I really like. Jeffrey Simmons had his share of moments in this game. Nico Autry is a really good player. I just really like watching

DeNico Autry. He makes like two or three plays a game where it's like, this is, you are a quickness issue for tackles or for guards at times. And you are a powerful. issue for tackles at times. And that combination and what he can do with stunts. I mean, the biggest play they had today, sack that torpedoed a drive near the end of the game when the Colts were driving to tie the game is a stunt where the left tackle just can't handle him. And it's again, it's just one of those moments where the Colts offensive lines,

like what is happening right now? So Autry and Simmons, I really like, I thought David Long had some really nice moments in this game, just play recognition and blowing shit up. But that's another one. It's just like, we're going to run a little fake end around. swing to Michael Pittman that is read the entire way. He lets it sail over his head so he doesn't get blown up, which is the right move in that situation. Because it's been a five-yard loss with him getting his head taken off if he had actually caught that ball. And they're figuring out things on the back end. They're cycling through corners. And I like Christian Fulton. I think he's a nice piece moving forward.

But what's happening at that other corner spot with the questions about Caleb Farley and everything else? They're still figuring a lot of stuff out. This is a transition year for this Titans team. And I think that, They got a couple early toneovers in this game, and then they bled the clock out. Satternable. That's what happened. The Colts ran out of time in this game, and that's my takeaway about the Titans. I'm not trying to be critical of them. They won the game, but it's hard to get excited about where the Tennessee Titans are in 2022.

And I don't think that should surprise anyone. I think they'll probably be a competitive team because they've got some decent pieces. And I think for the most part, they are well-coached. But they're not good. They're not actively good, but the Colts are definitely not actively good either. Right. I'm with you. And watching this Titans team as a West Coast kid, Warner raised in San Diego, which means I saw the AFC West every Sunday.

Like, it is hard for me not to look at this Titans team and see like the 2001 to 2006 Kansas City Chiefs with Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson. We're just like we are trying to offense as little as we possibly can right now. like what is the best way to gain exactly five and a half yards as often as we can so we do not have to do anything other than that? It's hard not to see them through that lens. I did see, you know, there's still just enough juice from a Derek Henry to be able to feed them a bit, especially when you're playing with the lead. So I was kind of happy to see that they could still control game scripts in that kind of way. I would like to see them try to lean into that as often as possible. I mean, this is a defense that forced a decent amount of turnover's last season

that was able to create a lot of pass rush with their front four. Obviously not having Landry hurts that. But I think that when you talk about an Autry, when you talk about Jeffrey Simmons and what they have up front, the more of that you can generate, that kind of leads me to believe that they will have some kind of foundational piece available to them with their front four as they continue to make this pivot. So Titans fans have a reason to feel good about it.

that as you kind of look at what this offense is doing. But yeah, like it looks so much like old school priest homes, 21 personnel. We're just running ISO, just running lead. You know, I saw, I saw something that made me almost shed a tear, which is Derek Henry being tackled by a corner on duo, like in the backfield. I was like, oh, man, this is a really sobering reminder that this is not 2019 or 20 anymore. We're not in those days. There's a lot of tread on those tires now, you know, while he can still be productive. You can definitely see a lot of the shine has come off of this offense and it's definitely evident on the wide receiver room. All the back foot, you know, A.J. Brown breaking wide open on those 10 to 15 yard digs is out of this offense and just not having that on its own. I don't think that

we can overstate how much that just stripped away from what this team wants to be offensively. Yeah. I think they're very much in figure it out mode right now. I think that's probably going to continue for the next several weeks and probably for most of the most of the same. of this season. So I really, really wish we didn't have to talk about the Colts anymore on any sort of platform this week. But they play on Thursday night against the Broncos. It is October of 2022 and the only AFC South team I care about is the Jacksonville Jaguars. What the hell is wrong with the NFL? That's where we are. That is absolutely where we are. All right. Guys, thank you very much for coming and spend on the afternoon with us.

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