The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - NFL Week 7 recap — Chiefs dismantle 49ers, Packers and Buccaneers in crisis, and more

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

We've been emphasizing all season how the Bills and Chiefs are in a tier all their own. We got another illustration of why that's true in the Chiefs 44-23 win over the 49ers in Week 7. Then there are the Packers and Buccaneers, two supposed contenders that are clearly in crisis. Robert Mays and Nate Tice discuss all that, and a whole lot more, as they recap Week 7 on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @Nate_TiceSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube5:42 Chiefs dismantle the 49ers24:12 The Bengals offense is back35:50 Josh Jacobs with another monster game42:20 Kenneth Walker shines, the Seahawks are in 1st place49:04 The Giants run game dominates again58:07 Buccaneers lay an egg vs. Panthers71:17 Packers lose again, fall to 3-483:54 We See You, Micah Parsons 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 and joining me tonight. It's my good friend, Nate Heiss. Nate, how you, Nate, how you doing, buddy? Good God. I'm wondering the comments.

I was talking about how good of the intro. Oh, good, the intro was. Then I stepped all over it. And you're like, yeah, you're rocking out. Mess up the name. No, I know. My name rhymes with everything. Like, Nate rhymes with a lot.

And Tice rhymes with a lot. So it's okay if you stumble the words there. But I, I'm getting used to because, like, when we prep, we sit in the agreement for a couple minutes. And it's like, okay, sounds working, our camera's working. I'm getting, we reconfigured my background just a little bit. So like I have a TV right here now for the YouTube viewers. And that's really screwing me up when I look at myself because so that's what I'm going

through right now. That's messing up the name. I'm messing up my own intro because I think there's something behind me now or a blackout spot. Something getting black, uh, beeped out in the background here. All right. We got a lot of stuff to dig into tonight. Exciting game between the dolphins and the Steelers.

We're going to talk about that on tomorrow on the Monday hangover with Mike Sandow. so we're going to save that for a little bit. We're going to talk about the Bengals offense a little bit later today, some running backs that caught our eye, the teams in the NFC that are supposed to be good, just continuing to fall apart in a way that doesn't make sense. But I want to start with Andy Reed, Patrick Mahomes, and the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Chiefs dismantled a group that went healthy, and they were relatively healthy, we think might be the best defense in the NFL. The Chiefs tore them apart to them. today in San Francisco. Yeah, they got the, like, awesome plays. You know, like Kelsey's hurtling guys. And they got like a, Mahomes is getting hit and Kelsey goes on high points of

throw. But it was a reminder that when Andy Reed has a good game plan, which he does most of the time. But when he has one that's clicking and Mahomes is Mahomes, which he is 99% of the time, holy crap. Because they, like, just even little subtle things today, like they were sprinting out a ton on all downs. They're just, they were.

were just changing the launch point for, you know, Bosa and that 49ers defense of front. This is their strength. They love teeing off and ears pin back, go, go, go, go, go, go. So you have to change it up on them. And usually it's better in theory than what happens on a game day. You're like, oh, we'll change the launch point. We'll run a naked. We'll run a draw.

We'll run a screen. And then one gets blown up. And we're like, okay, drop back. Screw that. That didn't work out. But the chiefs you see stick with it. Every down, they had something cool, just cool designs. all those jet sweeps to McCull Hardman where one was out of 13 personnel with three tight ends and they were just gaming up with the 49ers had to match with three linebackers.

The next one, the CEH run to the outside. All this stuff was taking advantage of what fronts the 49ers were giving. And it worked amazing. Like, because they were just, they're just gaming it up. And on top of that, Mahomes is being Mahomes. It wasn't missing a throw. Now they're throwing back shoulders to Juju Smith-Schuster. against man coverage.

It's like, oh, God, this offense is coming full. They had two back shoulder throws in this game against man coverage because they know they're getting it. And that's what really stuck out to me is just all of the details. Obviously, Mahomes throws for 400 yards. Like what they did through the air in this game was crazy. But there were a couple of specifics to the game plan. You pointed about, but I want to dig a little bit deeper on. How uncomfortable they made Nick Bosa the entire day in a variety of ways.

the play before the first McCull-Hartman Jet Sweep touchdown, they cut Bosa with McKinnon on the outside on a little completion to, I think, Noah Gray. And just consistently throughout the game, he's getting chipped or he's getting cut. Or there's a feigned chip and he ducks inside because he thinks it's coming. That long third and 11 completion to MBS that really kind of upswing the game, they don't chip Bosa, but McKinnon's. there so he ducks inside and Mahomes has more time on that play to complete its MVS. They had two big completions out of empty with two chippers and McKinnon was one of them on

Bosa a couple times. The screen they hit on 3rd and 20 was out of that same empty look and instead of chipping, he releases and they hit him on a screen for a 20-yard gain. All of that stuff. There's one play I really want to dig into and point out a little bit more though. And again, it points to what the chiefs were trying to do to Bosa throughout this game. On the Jet Sweep touchdown, he gets way up field. On the C.EH touchdown run, you guys can see this if you're watching it on YouTube.

They just let Bosa get all the way up the field. He's six yards deep in the backfield by the time CEH gets the ball here and by the time he gets back to the line of scrimmage, this was a fantastic game plan for just taking advantage of how aggressive the Niners are as a whole up front, but also just how aggressive specifically he is and making him think play it and played out all the way through the game. It's those changeups. It's just, it's just, that's what having a game plan is when you're going against a game wrecker is, yeah, you're not going to be able to block him up every time and you can't just chip help them the same way every time. That's just one answer to it. It's they just through every answer. I'm glad

you brought up the C.E.H. touchdown. We had the little clip there. Look at that. New feature for the YouTube viewers. Look at us go. But it's, But it's, I know, but it's, but that's exactly what it was. They, they, uh, the commentator, was it Olson today. It was Olson. Yes. It was Olson. He did a great job.

He does a good job. He does a good job. Right. I know. He actually showed off these details of Noah Gray feigning. And it's just, you're just changing the attack angle for him. They're doing the pin stuff on the outside. So he's getting pinned on the outside like when he's not expecting it either.

It's just all these little, little tweaks are doing. Oh, um, they'll, they'll hit sale routes all the time to Kelsey. And now. they switched up the releases so they're doing like motion to stack and then juju smith schuster is running the sale route and so they're just a little tweaks they're off what what they've shown so far this season and it's awesome that that screenplay was great because the the empty formation it was the 49ers ran the same look the bills ran last week with the three down front with a spy spy rush and it was kind of like the chief the chiefs already had it in the game plan they're like

they show that we got a we got a great little wrinkle for them we just run to our screen on a third and extra long and not only get close to get it. They got the first down, set them up for a score, I think, on the next play. All that stuff was so, so good. And on top of it, there's two, there's been two times this season, I'm sorry, four times the season that a quarterback is converted on a first down over half their passing attempts. Mahomes has two of them. So it was this week against the 49ers and week one against the Cardinals.

Now, this is the stat I was excited to share with you that I haven't shared with you yet, was. So there's been, since 2012, I looked this how far back I looked, according to True Media. Patrick Mahomes has the highest percentage of attempts going for a first down of any quarterback since 2012. Second is Matt Ryan in 2016. Third is Peyton Manning in 2013. So he is first.

He's first. Patrick Mahomes is first since 2012. All quarterbacks. So he has at 41.9% of his attempts, his whole, all of his past attempts this year, are going for a first down, which is the first since 2012. second is Matt Ryan, third is Peyton Manning. I think Josh Allen's at like 39 and change, which is like, I think like seventh or something like that's six. So we have two of like these historical outliers happening right now in this season.

Like he is just absurd. It's not like all the yards we can say that touchdowns, those are all stacking up, but getting all those first downs, that's when we say this offense is hitting for doubles. That's what this offense is doing, play and play out. Just singles and doubles, singles and doubles, just hitting these 10 to 20 yard plays one after after another. Mahomes right now is just playing at an unbelievable level. And I couldn't believe when I came across that stat, I was like,

who are these other ones that came up? I think Ryan Fitzpatrick was in there as well. But like Fitzpatrick was at like two, he only had like 200 attempts for the entire season. I can't believe. I think that was 2018. But it was those other plays. But the fact that it's Mahomes, Matt Ryan, 2016,

Peyton May in 2013, that's quite the top three to have and the one that you're stacking up on top of. That's absolutely incredible. So I also had one. And just a stat from this game and a stat about the chiefs. And it really does point to. why they are the way that they are. And they're two of them.

And they're connected this year in a way. So we're never going to remember this. So many of these games, we're never going to remember this stuff. The Chiefs went down 10-0-0. Yeah. They went down 10-0. Mohombs threw an interception on the first draft. They were in a 10-0 hole.

Since Mahomes took over as the starter, the Kansas City Chiefs in the regular season and the playoffs, 18 games, they've fallen into a hole of 10 or more. Okay. They're 10 and 8 in those games. they have a winning record in games where they spot the other team at least 10 points. Do you know who has the second best record over that stretch? Oh, man.

Is it like, is it Allen? It's the Philadelphia Eagles. Okay. They're 8 and 18. The next best team is 10 games under 500 in those scenarios. And the Mahomes led chiefs are 10 and 8. They have a winning record. And you feel that.

It's that combined with the third and 11 conversion, the third and 20 conversion. They are converting 47% of their third and longs in this season. 47%. Over the last decade, the league average is 25. That's absurd. That's probably not sustainable. But what's interesting is that I think, and I don't know if this is real or it's a little bit noisy with the stats, because I know third down efficiency can often be a little bit volatile.

But because more teams are playing so much man coverage against these guys, the quarterback, it really does feel like they have more power in these moments. And the fact that the chiefs and the bills are converting at such an incredible rate on those third and longs doesn't feel like an accident. It doesn't feel like it's that volatile. They feel like they do have real power and real advantages in those scenarios where other teams don't. We're going to get to a couple teams that have been horrendous in those situations. But that's how good the chiefs have been. And I think it allows them to climb out of some of these holes, whether it's big picture during a game or whether it's during an individual set of downs.

Always in attack mode. And so much that Mahom's stuff, yes, he has a couple plays where he's doing, he's doing the loopier round and five seconds, et cetera. But so much just feels like an extension. Like it's just a, he puts the little, you know, the extension of like a lowercase J. Like he's like, okay, that's what so much of those, it's like he steps up because he's just letting his crosser clear just that extra half space.

So it's still kind of in structure, but it's not like he just extends it, that extra play. So it's not like a true adlet, but the fact that, again, it's the in structure stuff, out of structure stuff, him as a scrambler, they're figuring out the run game. But it's just that entire offense just, it's relentless. Yeah, that's just a great word for it. Relatness is a great word for it. Third extra war.

Okay, we're going to, we're going to run this three down front. We'll, you know, rallying, tackle him short of it. they run a screen, they get an explosive play on it. It's like, okay, all right. Now, okay, third and 12. Okay, we're clamped down. We're in really locked down on them. Okay, now he's finally going to hit us over the top.

And it's like, oh, my God. Like, you just, you're always a page behind them. And now that they're throwing wrinkles and now they're having all this game playing stuff. I wanted to reiterate, like, you, we mentioned all the stuff they were doing against Bosa. But the fact that they're leaning into this many sprint outs. I watched the, this is a different screen, like the outstanding offense and the bad offense. You watch the Steelers. And I get it.

They're starting a rookie quarterback. They played the bill. they run a sprint out with Kenny Pickett with a smash concept, which is a hitch in a corner. It's as high school as you can get. And they run it like seven times. Mahomes and the Chiefs run these sprintout concepts. I counted at least five.

Might have been more than that. Every concept they ran with it was different. So they're running the same play, like same sprint out action, the combination of two man or three man combination. And at different times, first and 10, third short, red zone, all these different plays.

And they're hitting them in different ways. And all those jets, sweep touchdowns, hitting them in different ways. Same basis. All right, we're going to get you in a stack look. We're going to get you in this type of front. Stack look, I'm saying is all the linebackers are off the ball. So it's all the linebackers off the ball.

All the safeties are back in the too high structure. So you get these stack looks. So all we have to do is feign the DN, make him just sit there and we just hit him on the outside because now we have numbers to the outside. And they did it in three different ways out three different personnel groupings, 12, 13, and 11. So it's pretty cool, just these wrinkles that they're showing in that they can adjust for each game plan.

It's an awesome offense to watch. right now. I said it earlier today, but one of my main takeaways we're watching that game is just that I don't even think we give enough credit to Andy Reed for what he is. I mean, he is quite simply one of the best football coaches of all time. In the modern era, I mean, Sean Peyton, you know, did this for a good long while, but not at the level of Andy Reed is doing it right now. But these play calling head coaches who have been the figureheads of their offense for this long. And Andy Reid's done it for almost a decade. with these Chiefs teams and they've always been good offensively. There's always been, I mean, there have been different versions of it, like what they were in 2013, 2014,

and then in 17 when Tyree Kill comes and now they have the vertical aspect to it with Alex Smith and then Mahom steps in and it becomes this entirely new thing. And then you have now you're in the post-Tyriek world and there's still the best passing offense in the league. And having Mahomes is part of it. But this is the sort of game plan when you see those little details. And when you see, all right,

neutralize, I don't know, Bose has probably been the third best defensive player in the league this year, third, fourth. Yeah, right there in the conversation. On the podium. Yeah, just right there. Yeah, he's standing. He's got the bronze medal probably. He's placing.

And they spend so much intentional time in this game, making it hard on him and neutralizing him and defanging him just enough to allow the offense to flourish. And Patrick Mahomes makes it all sing. But all the work that you're doing, doing to make sure you're helping put your offense in the best possible position, he's at the

center of that. And he's been doing this now for 10 years with this franchise, combine what he did in Philadelphia. It's remarkable. Like he is one of the best ever, and it's just important to keep saying that. It's not just ballplay. It's a game play. And that's what he puts together. That is what when you're going against game wreckers on the opposing team, it's what you

usually say is we're not letting this guy beat us. And it's easier said than done most of the time because it's, It takes a lot of effort to put together 100-ish plays. And each one has to be like, okay, we only call this on this hash. Okay, well, we only call this when this player is out of the game. It takes effort from the whole staff and Andy Reid and or just whoever the play caller is and whoever's designing these plays and whoever's putting together the game plan. Well, we have enough of these on second along.

We don't need another one where, oh, well, we need this one when Bosa is in the game so we can have this play when this one's perfect. But that is just what this is what a good game plan looks like. Like, of course, you have Mahomes. which makes everything easier. You have Travis Kelsey who makes everything easier. But guys were running open. And McCullough Hardman is getting these touchdowns for a reason.

And it's because the gameplay got put together in such an elegant way, I would say. And then you have great players taking advantage of it. So, no, I agree. He has one of the best fields where Sean Payton sometimes felt like brute efficiency, where it was just like, yeah, we're killing you with six to eight yard gains over and over run game, short game. And that's how we're doing it. This is just everything.

And the fact that they can tap into more and more against different opponents is really cool to watch throughout an entire season. Also, I wanted to chat really quickly before we move on. This is just one of those games where Jimmy just worries me. I mean, this is a team that you make the McCaffrey trade and it's kind of an all-in move. It's like, all right, we see the chess board with the NFC. But he's just always going to have these moments. It's like, oh, God. It's just, the offense is just so capped out because these games are coming.

And that's why it's hard to get really, really excited about this team because the needle that you're threading is incredibly skinny. Yeah. The little sense of urgency, like the safety he took. It was like he scrambled and he was like, okay, I'm okay now. It's like, no, stranger danger, Jimmy, stranger danger. You got to keep moving, man. You got to keep grunted. But he does that.

That's what he does. Like he has, he never, he never fully stops. Oh, no, he never fully yields, he just stops. It's like, hey, no cop, no stop. Just keep going. Keep doing what you want to do, Jimmy. Like, even the touchdown he threw that he adlipped,

it was kind of like, he's like, I think I could do this? Like, I could throw this play out of structure? And it kind of, it worked, obviously, but it's so many times you're like, oh, yeah, this is Jimmy. Jimmy always, Jimmy's going to put a bar on himself. But if it's clicking, it's clicking, but you can see where the limitations come up. So, yeah, I agree. It is a wide open emcee.

We talked about this on the Thursday live pod, the recap. after CMC got traded. But it's that we know what Jimmy is. That's why we were excited what the Trey Lance, what that wildcar could be, you know, what that mystery box could be. And then now it's like, oh, yeah, we're back to Jimmy. Jimmy's safe.

We know what Jimmy's going to bring to the table every game. And yeah, you can see the limitations of it today. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And then we're going to talk about some things that grabbed our attention today. Gentlemen, you have my curiosity. But now you have my attention.

All right. Nate. Bengals' offense is fun again. We made it. We got back here. We made it through the dark times over the first month of the season, and we have returned. That was great. I was watching them play today, and I understand it's against the Falcons.

I understand that we have practice squad corners coming up in this game that we're on the team as of yesterday. I still think that the structure of this thing and some of the ways that they've evolved in real time are very cool. and getting to a place where Joe Burrow is Joe Burrow again, everything is just better. The sun is shining a little brighter, got a little spring in my step when I was rewatching that game. I'm happy to be back here. It's one of my favorite Simpsons memes is when Homer is getting the,

the fibrillator. He just goes, more, more. That's what I'm watching this Bengals offense. That's what it felt like, hey, we saw 989 rear its head again. One of my favorite concepts that I could talk. about this. 989 is as simple as football can get. Peyton Manning and the Colts used to run this all the time.

Two vertical routes, nine, which is a go ball on the, on the route tree. And then the eight is the middle read, which they run with Tower Boyd, and you either run a dig, or you run right down the pipe against too high. Tower Boyd's touchdown came on 989, covered two. You never really see the splitter down the middle, like not the splitter pitch, but the splitter between the two safeties. Tower board touchdown right there. So there's, okay, that's the beat cover two.

What was, what was the, Higgins on the right on the outside there? What was he running? It was a corner, right? Well, no, so they go tight splits. So they run out and up. Okay. So they get to the very, yep, yep. Because what I thought was interesting, I thought he was running a corner and then because

it really put the cover two safety in conflict because he has no idea what he's supposed to do there because Boyd's running down the pipe and Higgins is running to the corner. So he was in such conflict that he fell over. He didn't know what to do. And he just fell over, which looks silly, but I think it's a product of what they were doing to him with the structure of that play. Yep. It was a tight split. It was a different.

It's a different. That's a wrinkle on running this rather than being static, which the chase touchdown, the 30-ish yard touchdown, I believe, near the end of the half, also a 9-89. But this one was against man coverage. And that was because Dean Peace took it immediately. He was, oh, I know. Because the Falcons defense coordinator, Dean Peace was like, I can't keep living this cover too. We just ran cover two and Tower Boyd ran down the pipe. Man, blitz.

We're doing the fuck simulated. And then that's what happens when you go man coverage against the Bengals. He's just going to throw, Burroughs just going to throw go balls on you. So I just loved. So that one to Boyd with the tight splits, the bucks like doing that out of the tight splits a lot. That is the Scotty Miller against the Packers and the MC championship game.

It was a tight split look. And so they fake out and they get to the same go spots, but from a close split. But the fact that they ran those two. And then on top of it, 99 and truly is, I think in the Sean Peyton offense, they call it doubles. We would call it in the Christ offense. We call it mirrored concepts. But what it is is you can tag on the outside, the nine and the nine, it can be both comebacks.

You can go 585. You can go 484, two stop routes or two curls. And there's a couple times, they ran like 585. And you saw some comebacks getting peppered out there. So when you're beating these guys over top and you don't have AJ Terrell to match up with these guys, That's a good way to live. We got true one-on-ones. Don't you want to take your one-on-ones?

Let's just pepper them all day. But on top of it is now in the last two weeks especially, we see Burrell peppering these underneath throws over the middle of the field. And that's the way he has to live. And now he's getting those explosive plays back. So I can get into two and I let you go. But that was what was cool to see in the passing game. And then there's some run game stuff that it's cool,

what they're tweaking and modifying their tendencies a lot. and I think it's really been helping them. So let's talk about the tendencies a little bit. Yeah. We talked about this on the Monday hangover with Sando. They're exclusively a shotgun offense now. Yep. So the only time they went under center today, or over the last two weeks,

the only times they've gone under center, they've run seven plays under center before the fourth quarter of this game when they were winning by a million points. Okay. All seven of those plays, they had one yard to go or it was a kneel down. That's it. So they are exclusively playing in the shotgun now. Basically.

Yes. So in any normal down in distance, they are in the shotgun right now. And it's really interesting to watch because now the siloing we talked about, they've removed it completely. It's gone. Because you don't have to worry about it anymore. So now, and they're actually running the ball out of the gun much better than they ran the ball under center. So much better. And they hit a play action over to Tyler Boy today on a play action pass out of the gun.

So their play action passing game. more efficient than it was under center. It's watching it all come together like this is awesome because now they have answers when teams are going to play all that cover two that they've been playing against them for the first month of the season. Falcons came into this game, fifth in the NFL, and the rate they were using cover two is about 21% of snaps, which is almost exactly how often Joe Burrow was seeing it over the first six games. Oh, funny. And so they're spreading it out and he's willing to pepper everything. And especially today, Falcons, I would assume I have not. not looked at the stats because we don't have access to the fancy stats, I think they've probably

run as many sim pressures as any team in the league. And you watch it happen today. They're not blitzing a ton. I think they blitzed on like 9% of dropbacks, but they're bringing second level defenders the entire game. They were second when I looked at it last week. So who was first? The Titans?

Broncos. Broncos. Okay. So Broncos, Titans and Falcons, I assume are all up there. And Box are up there. Yep. So the usual. So that Burrow is seeing all this.

So they're bringing second level defenders. I thought they did a great job of picking it up today when they were bringing those simulated pressures. And I thought that Burrow was seeing it consistently. There were two plays on the same drive where they were in empty and they brought one and he hit the back just immediately. And they were in this game, he was 11 of 14 for 95 yards out of empty. They just letting him control the game. And it's really fun to watch. And when they have those one-on-one matchups, he still takes them.

So it's the elements of the offense that worked last year, plus solutions to the problems they were facing over the first five weeks of the season. It's awesome. It's raising the floor up. Just be more efficient. So you can still get those explosives, but just be a little bit more efficient from down to down. So you don't have to face all these like third and impossible situations. But no, the shotgun rate is so, it's so cool because I want to say it was the Ravens game. I really looked at a couple weeks ago was just the different types of runs the running out

shotgun. When they were under center, it was the same play almost every time. It was zone. They just ran zone over and over and over. Heavy personnel zone on second down. That's what they did. And now, and just some more stats from weeks one through four compared to the last three weeks, five through seven. They're in the shotgun run rate is at 69% the last three weeks.

It was 31% over the first four weeks. Their EPA per rush has gone from negative point two. overall in the first four weeks to 0.06. They've gone from a good. 0.06 is good. That doesn't seem like it's good. 0.06 is a very efficient run game. Yes.

Here's success rate. It's gone from 30% overall to 53.8% over. That's like a top five. That's bringing you into the upper echelons of the league. Even just a simple one. First and second down rate, first and second down rate of five yards or more that they succeeded on. First four weeks, 26%. Now it's at 43%.

Just every way. you look. It's just everything is better. And all they did was had to get in the freaking shotgun on like second down. It's just, but it helps because now defenses can't tee off on you. They can't go, oh, under center, under center zone. Okay, match. Okay, here we got to check because they're under center now. Now it's just, and like you said, now they go shotgun. Now they're going, okay, if they show run, bear it, hit your gap. Now you run play action out of it. It's just, yes, you're built. Now you're have to step three off of these looks and that helps and now you can run that 99 point that they love to run now it just opens up more because now they have to worry about the underneath stuff now

they have to honor it now they can't just sit back and go well you're in the gun we can just back off now so it's just this yeah it all kind of plays hand in hand and it's been cool to watch the last three weeks i also think in chatting with people there that they believe the run the shotgun run game actually fits better with the skill set of the offensive linemen that they have now so it's all kind of coming together from a bunch of different directions. It removes the siloing, but they're actually better running the ball out of these situations and out of these looks. So credit to Zach Taylor into that offensive coaching staff, man.

I mean, it's been frustrating to watch at times, but working through all of this stuff in real time and solving all of these problems, it has made them pretty potent. And in a world where we're struggling to find these high. high powered offenses, finding a way to unlock all of the skill position talent that you have and let your quarterback, who was playing like a top five quarterback last season, really control the game in his hands, the way that he has over the last few weeks. I mean, they are trending way, way up right now. It's, and they're not run the same run. So you're helping out. If you even think O-Line's better than last year, it's still not great. And this helps it out. This is,

you're not just running his own every time. You're running trap. You're running. running like QB draw stuff. Like you're just changing up, like how we just talked about with the Bosa getting attacked in different angles. You're not like when we talk about the Falcons offense on the other side, what we love about that is they, their, their offense lists the bar of their offensive line and quarterback play because it lets them take breathers, let them just hit some easy buttons that maybe weren't there.

It just makes their lives easier. And that's what all this little offensive tweaks have done. And hey, yeah, like you said, credit the Zach Taylor. Because after the first couple of weeks, I was like, hey, you had all offseason to figure us out. You didn't. And then maybe just had to get like a little bit more cold water thrown on going like, okay, we can't keep winning this way.

So credit to them for adjusting because it's been it's been bona fide like good like watching this. It's not just a few lucky goal balls. It's actual good down to down offense happening. Yeah. And they've never really played like this. Even last year when they were rolling on offense, it was a lot of those. The two touchdowns that Jamar Chase scored, that was most of the offense last year. They didn't move the ball like this in these ways last season, even.

when they looked really good on offense. So I think this is probably the best from a structural standpoint they've looked since this offensive coaching staff has been here. I agree. I completely agree with that. It's the most cohesive that they've looked. It's just not just putting together good ball plays and a good game plan. This is the best their game plan has looked the last couple weeks.

It's funny. I think a lot of teams have just kind of realized there's nothing that benefits us from going under center. Going under center just doesn't benefit us in any way. And a lot of teams, you look at the chiefs are like 95% now. Obviously, you'll spread out teams like the Cardinals and all that. But I think more and more teams are drifting away from it, which it's just an interesting kind of trend to watch here as the season goes.

All right. Next up here, Josh Jacobs, you have my attention. Goodness gracious. Another huge game today. Stad I love from this Josh Jacobs game. average 7.1 yards per carry today on over 20 carries, he didn't have a run longer than 15 yards. Oh, that's fun. To average 7 yards a carry when you don't have a run longer than 15 yards, you dominated the game.

Like, you controlled the game playing and play out when you're running the ball like that. And that's what he's done all season. I mean, some of these Josh Jacob stats, among backs with at least 30 carries, he's second in the league in yards after contact per attempt. among backs with 50 carries. He leads the NFL in success rate. He leads the NFL in first downs per rush. He's third in total EPA on running back runs after Nick Chubb and Sequin Barclay. He's just been one of the best running backs in the NFL.

He's in the conversation for the best running back in the NFL so far this season. And that's pretty amazing, all things considered. He looks fantastic. Got to love a player on a contract year. Yes, you really do. He has so much juice. I mean, the fourth, I'm going to talk about the runs in a sec, but the fourth and two he caught, and he assumed that there's a defender overrunning it. So he planted his foot and got north.

I didn't know Josh Jacobs had that in his bag. Like, I've never seen him drop step like that. Like he was a shack into low posts, like dropping to get north. It was awesome. But, no, there's a couple runs that got one for the YouTube crew. But it's eye formation runs. Like Josh Jacobs is almost like a classic running back. Like he is an I formation running back.

And I thought the Raiders did the great job. And this is where the Jacob Johnson really comes in was these eye formation runs that were running. This is a counter for the ones that are watching on YouTube. So this is a fullback guard counter, old school, old school running play. They ran this several times. I would say three or four times that I saw for successful runs. They ran a duo runoff eye formation, which is just with the fullback leading up.

They did a fake belly pitch out of this. And what they were doing, and even when they got into lighter personnel, They were motioning a tight end back and forth to get because of how the Texans play defense. So I thought this was a really good game plan from Josh McDaniels and offensive line coach was that they understood that the Texans don't adjust their front. They set it and forget it. So when they're in a base formation or base personnel, they run an underfront, which is the nose tackles towards the tight end side.

And they were catching them. So that's why you saw that counterplay. Counter gap scheme runs are really good against underfronts. So they were motioning, getting the receiver across, getting into the right formation that they want against that defensive look they want, and they were manipulating it. And so Josh Jacobs is such a good three-down runner, and he's good at all run concepts. And now he has a little bit of a contract ear juice so he can get to the edge on the outside runs. But he's a great between the tackles runner. So it's a great combination of game plan, a great running back in the eye formation looks and just, yeah, just hitting it up in the hole.

So those counter runs are really cool to watch today. and just like, yeah, it was a perfect game playing against a defense. They knew what they were getting at those defensive looks, and then Jacob was just hitting them like a madman. I mean, every single one of their big runs today was a Gap scheme run. It was some sort of counter. It was some sort of pin pull. They were doing a ton of different stuff getting pretty much every single offensive

lineman on the move in some way. I mean, Illuminaur pulling around the left side. I mean, everybody was doing that. And credit to, like you said, the offensive line coach whose name I cannot remember. I know he came from New England. and Josh Jacobs I can tell you his resume and not know his name. And Josh McDaniels for building that game plan

because I was watching it. I was like, man, the Raiders run game is pretty fun. They're doing a bunch of different stuff in this game. And to do that without elite offensive line personnel, that's just putting your guys in the right spots and understanding what runs you have to run in the right situations. And they're doing that consistently with the back who is getting every ounce of meat on the bone,

essentially every time he's touching the ball. Carmen Brissillo is the Raiders offensive line coach. Thank you, Bill. I was on the tip of my talk. And it's funny because you look, so many of the teams around the league, I mean, the idea that everyone runs all this outside zone now, I think, is a misnomer just because most teams have had to find the counterpunches by this point in the game. So a lot of teams run a lot of stuff, but still seeing this team, like New England

ran a ton of gap scheme runs when Bristolo was there last year. And so he brings over a similar mindset with Yaacob Johnson. I mean, the structure of the run game is pretty similar. And the run game for New England last year, even with a rookie quarterback, they were really good. There was a really good run game last season. So the fact that they took that and brought it over to Vegas shouldn't necessarily be surprising. But you watch a game like this and it's like, shit, man. I mean, this is an offensive line without anybody on it that we're really excited about outside of Colton Miller.

A lot of unproven guys. And they're getting a lot of work done in the run game because of the structure and because of what Josh Jacobs is doing for them. Yeah. And it's cool when you can tell it's a, they got a bead on what, what the defense is giving them when you can see a different personnel group, just like with the Chiefs game against 40 Nair's. But this game, too, is, okay, we're going to get into 21 looks with the fullback. We got these runs.

And then just those spread looks, like his, I think it was Jacob's first touchdown, motioning and tight end across. And like you said, they're running the pin pull stuff. They're, because Texas are set and forget it. So we'll motion across. And now the tight end's got an angle to pin. And we'll loop to tackle around. We got beautiful blocking lanes.

Like this is a perfect game because it's so old school how the Texans are on defense and how the Raiders are in offense. Yeah. Like you can really see the diagrams on the play. Yes. Like you can see who's pulling for who. Who's kicking out who? Like this is a perfect type of game. If anyone wants to rewatch it on YouTube or something.

When that's the case, the running game is going to have a nice day. When you can just draw the telestrator and it's essentially like putting it on a chalkboard, you know the running game is going to have a good day. And he did. When the safety is tackling a ball. botch. Yes, but this is a theme. I mean, this is absolutely a theme. Some of the other stats from today's game specifically, 65% rushing success rate for Josh Jacobs

in this game. Highest in the league by far, half of his carries in this game, 10 of his 20 carries went for a first time. That's crazy. 10 of his 20 carries went for first time. That's a good day. That is a dominant day from a running back. And again, it's become a theme for them this year.

All right. Let's stick on the running back train here. Kenneth Walker, you have my attention. All right, a little bit of a different flavor than what we've gotten from Josh Jacobs so far this season. Josh Jacobs leads the NFL in rushing success rate among high volume backs. Kenneth Murray has been more boom or bust. He was again today, but my God, of the boom's fun. I mean, that guy has some juice to him.

The stat that I thought was really good. he has 12 carries of 10 or more yards this season. That's tied for 10th in the NFL. He only has 67 carries. So one out of every four Kenneth Walker carries is going for a 10-yard gain right now. Pretty good. That's pretty explosive. And you see it.

I mean, the style he runs with, I mean, his feet are incredible. I mean, that guy, I really, really like what he's doing for them. And I think that when you expand this now to a rookie class that we've talked about, this rookie class is like five or six guys that look like potential long-term starters for them. That's amazing. It's amazing. Both tackle spots. I mean, it's insane.

Two corners. I guess two corners. Yeah. I mean, they're, yeah. I mean, and now they have a better record than the Broncos, which is absurd. Though, but they're in first place in the NFC. West. I know.

Is it insane? And God, I had the overs on their wins. But it's, no, he, Kenneth Walker is just a little ball of chaos. Like he is, he's, but when I watch them at Michigan State and I want to say they played Miami early in the year. Yeah, it was Miami. And University of Miami. And on that game, it's my first game watching them all 22. I saw the big stats.

They barely wanted the pass ball at Michigan State. And I'm watching them. And everything at first I'm like, oh, this guy's so out of control. He's just running. He's just really fast. Sometimes you see these running back. that are just like, they have no vision, they're just better athletes and stronger, they can just get to the edge and outrace everybody.

And I watched them and it's hilarious because he's like, it's like Sonic when he, you know, Sonic the Hedgehog when he spins up and like that. Like he gets to the line, but then he'll stop. And then like his vision kicks in and he's like, okay. And then I'm going to do this. Like it's just, it's all frantic. Like, but it's also under control. Like it's this weird, weird dichotomy of styles.

He has an incredibly distinct running style when he does. watch him. I mean, there was that one play today where it looked like, you know, when you watch a soccer player kind of do the circles around the ball with their feet, that's what it looked like he was doing today at one point when he was like in space. He was trying to cross over his feet multiple times. Like what is going on right now? But it actually works. Do you like my soccer terminology? I'm a big soccer guy.

I did. I like that. We got Monta-go. Let's keep going on it until the World Cup. I have been trying. I can't remember who I compared him to when I wrote him up. But he reminds me a lot of Devante Freeman, but with more juice. Interesting.

Like the fact that that, but with more juice. He has more speed than Devante did. But just like chaotic style, everything's just going. He's also taller than Devante is, I think. He is. It looks a little bit different. But yeah, it's interesting. He's bigger and faster.

It's like that, but juiced up. But that's like that. But you're right. He has a very distinctive style. And that's always awesome. I love. Oh, it's great. Ciotic backs are like some of my favorite players.

but also usually it's like, oh, God, there's such a headache because they miss the easiest holes. Walker hits those holes. Like he actually has good vision. It's just that, yeah, there's limbs going everywhere when he runs. It's, it's,

who is it, limous and peanuts? You know, when he has the, all the stuff around. Yeah, the dirt around him. That's Kenet,

yeah. That's who it is. Pickpad, thank you. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm screwing up my peanuts terminology. That's,

oh, Schultz will disown me as Minnesota here. But it's, but also that is what it's like watching him run. It's just just a little, ball of dirt as he's running every time. But yeah, I'm glad they got him because he is, Richard Penny was playing amazing this year,

but Walker is like, should be starting because he is such a good back. He was my running back too after Hall in this class. So I'm glad that he's hitting the ground running literally and figuratively. Huge bummer about Brees Hall. I mean, again, this rookie class of running backs, what they were doing so far,

absolutely amazing. And then Brees Hall goes down, which is, I mean, he was a huge part of their offense. They're struggling to move the ball through the air at all. and what he was giving them was really the most juice they had on that side of the ball. And now he's done for the year, which is a huge bummer.

But I mean, the Seahawks in general, man, Gino made again like three or four throws in this game. It's like, holy shit throws. Oh, my God. I just don't know what to do with them. Like, they have some real guys on offense. And losing D.K. McCaff might suck. We'll see how long he's out and what the actual outlook is for that. But the guys they do have right now, they're just enjoyable to watch.

I like watching the Seahawks play offense. I did too. And the offense is so sound. Like they run everything in which I love. But he, Gino is playing quarterback how a quarterback should be playing in 2022. He sits in the pocket, moves in the pocket and finds the backside digs.

He's sitting in empty and he's finding dig routes. He's hitting seams. He's on the naked. Like just everything is like he understands what has to accomplish without just always instantly checking it down. He doesn't play into the defense's hands. Like he's like, no, I'm fine. But the first play of the.

game they're an empty and he could just hit this underneath route and he's progressing on it and then just he finds a dig and it goes for an explosive gain like there's a one i tweeted where he's hitting tyler locket pinning it the ball the dig on him even though eskridge gets meshed up hemmed up on his it was a dagger concept hemmed up doesn't matter he's just backs in pocket hits him right pins it right on him it's like oh it's awesome the best part of that highlight the best part is he is pumped like after he hits that ball he he He knows that he just smoked that throw. And he's telling the sideline about it.

And that's the best part about this is Gino is a man. You can't kill a man who's already dead. Like, Gino Smith is playing with house money right now. This is a dude. Everything that happens this year is him just given the middle finger to every single person who never gave him a shot to do this before. And he is fucking loving it. And I'm enjoying watching it happen.

I have no idea what the ceiling for the Seahawks. team is, any of that. But he is playing quarterback at a really high level and he is just giving the finger to every single person along the way. And that is cool to watch. It is. It's not, it's not some guy running around and making some plays and pulling out of his ass. Like, this guy is operating within structure and killing it. And it's awesome. It's honestly one of the best things to watch week and week out. All right. Last one here. And you have my attention. We got to talk about it really quickly. The Giants offense. Again. I just...

Every week. I tweeted this out right before we started the show, all right? This year in the NFL, top five guys in rushes of 10 or more yards. Number one, I'm doing this for memory. I don't have the tweet up. Number one, Nick Chubb. Number two, Lamar Jackson. Number three, Josh Jacobs.

Number four, Sequin Barkley. Number five, Daniel Jones. The new Pony Express. He had 11 carries today for over 100 yards. Seven of his 11 carries in this game went for first downs. This is like a real weapon in their running game. This is a real weapon within their offense. It's wild.

Yes. Yes. And his size, that's, I always come back to the Kyle Shanahan quote, of course, when he was talking about the difference between Johnny Mansell speed and RG3 speed. And he's talking about, well, yeah, Johnny could run a little bit, but he doesn't have that speed to get to the edge, like RG3 can. Daniel Jones can get to the edge.

He can outrace the guys that are trying to get, like stop him from getting to the edge and create yards on it. Like he has a genuine, you can't run, yes, you go against this giant's offense and you look at the receivers and go, let's just run man coverage. Who's getting open against that?

Well, Daniel Jones will just run it on you. He'll just run for a first down. It'll be a 20-yard gain. That's what sucks when you try to run man coverage against them. But also, like, they're changing up. up like we've talked about their wildcat offense and it's not even just a gimmick now they have

changeups off of the personnel grouping they'll go into pony personnel with two running backs in there with breeder and barclay and uh so i have to play again for our youtube crew is so they're in this pony personnel so they have the two running back in there now they're running zone reed arc plays with bretah running out into the flat to block for danio jones keeping the ball and then they're doing stuff like running a jet sweep to breeder uh of the same personnel grouping. So they're showing all these changeups off this look that's become their fastball. Now on top of it, they'll go, oh yeah, we'll run bootlegs off it.

We do the quarterback regame. And then we'll run glance RPO's with it. So it's just that they're, they know that they don't have great personnel, but they're finding the ways to not only just develop. They're like Jamie Moyer, just a junk ball pitcher. 82 mile an hour fastball. Everything else is that's 76, 74, 72. It doesn't matter.

They're still going to get you out. That's what this giant's. offense is. And it's just, it's fun watching them just have new tweaks every week because they're well coached. It's not like they do this stuff. And I'm like, man, they have two guys blocking the same guy. Oof, the guy came and going motion the right way. It's like, no, it's all sound. It's, it's, quote unquote, it has to be when you're living this way. Yes, but it's all, it's run as well as it can be. Like, that is what's awesome about it. It's run is as, as well as this offense can be run. It is being run that way. It's, it's, it's low key kind of really fun to watch, even if it's like a race to

20 points, I guess, with Giants games. I don't know what to make of them. I don't either. I still think it's just kind of a weird gimmick. Someone on Twitter today was like, the Giants are no longer just like a novelty act. I think they still are a novelty act. They're a perfect team to give you problems, right?

When you're playing against them, what the Giants defense is playing and play out, all of the blitzing, all of the funky, looks. It's just a pain in the ass. Like if you're in offense, it's just a thorn in your foot for four straight quarters. And the offense feels the same way. It's watching them on offense and all of the plays where Jones is pulling it and they're running just naked boots for him to actually run the ball and not throw it.

It makes sense. It works when you lean into it to this degree, but no one's willing to lean into it to this degree. They have to do it. So that's why it's working. It's like if you built the entire plane out of these sorts of plays and these sorts of ideas, this is what it looks like. I still think when you get into scenarios against good teams and the Packers might not be very good. Like we're learning that slowly and that's really their signature win that they've had. If you get into scenarios against good teams where the game script is not in your favor, where you're going to be in third and seven, they cannot hold up in those moments. They cannot hold up in those moments.

And I think that ultimately they're going to run out of magic fairy dust and we're going to see that. But for what it is, it's pretty fun. Yeah. And even those situations, okay, we don't, oh, it's another third and four, third and five. Oh, we're just going to run it. We'll just run zone reads. And here's the play that I had from YouTube.

It was the, the, uh, or for our YouTube watchers right now is they, they went to the, the zone read look. And it's just understanding what defenses are giving you. because, okay, we're, yes, oh, man, we're at third and six, and we got this offense where we want them. We're going to tee off on them. Or we got a second and long, okay, wow, they went to the pony look here. Watch out for the Wildcat stuff. And you're just changing up the look that you give these defenses, like on this play that's playing right now.

That's just a simple zone read, but they window dressed it with the personnel grouping. And it's just, it's awesome. Like you said, it's a thorn their side of whoever they play against because it's, okay, it's, all right, well, it's second in 14. Oh, man, they only got eight yards here. Good. It's third and four here. Oh, third and six here. Oh, shoot.

Oh, no. They just ran another movement play where Daniel Jones is running for 10, 12 yards. That's annoying. Yes. That's really annoying to go against. They are an annoying offense, but they are an effective offense. That's where they're at right now. Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

We're going to take one more quick break and then we're going to get to a couple teams that kind of let us down today. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. Let's start with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who lost a game today, but not, didn't just lose, lost in convincing fashion to the Carolina Panthers who were accused earlier this week of tanking when they traded their most well-known player for a bunch of draft picks in a season where they had already fired their head coach.

Nate, I'm going to say it. This is rock bottom for this version of the bucks. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is, this is zombie of zombie teams that, that, that, that looks like they're playing right now. That drop happened to Mike Evans early on, the Deep Post. And I was like, ah, they're going to get 20 of those today.

They did not get 20 of those today. They were far, far from it. This offense was, I don't know what, I don't even know the adjective to use. Stagnet? Like, I don't know what the word is. It just feels rough right now, watching this offense especially. Some numbers. So they were two of 12 on third down today, which seems bad.

I was shocked when I saw this. So they have faced 43 third and longs this season, which is seventh in the NFL. Makes sense, right? They've run the ball really inefficiently on first and second down. So they went away from that today. They really didn't run the ball that often on first and second down today. They threw it 21 times. Brady was 13 of 21.

So eight times they started on second and 10 because of incompletions. So they've just been really inefficient on first and second down. So they've faced almost more third and longs than almost any other team in the league. 43 of them. They are four of 43 on third and long this season. Four for 43. They have converted 9.7% of their third and long chances this season. That's like historically low.

The chiefs are doing it at 47% of the time. Oh my God. It's almost impossible to be that bad. The average over the last 10 years is 25%. I said that before in regard to the chiefs because I was looking at this stat up because of the bucks. 9.7%. And it's how it feels. Like they're inefficient on first and second down, so they're facing a lot of third and lungs,

and they just cannot convert in those situations because they look really out of sorts. Brady looks really uncomfortable in the pocket. Uncomfortable. I mean, there were a couple different plays today where he's double clutching. the ball. He's not moving nearly as kind of just casually, comfortably. Yes. His pocket movement was always so assertive. He was always so sure of exactly how we needed to navigate those spaces. And he does not look like that at all right now. And you have an offensive line that isn't playing very well. I mean, obviously the personnel on the interior is a huge concern.

We knew that coming in. But Donovan Smith got roasted today for a sack by Brian Burns. Tristan Worf said a couple moments. It's like nobody on this offense is playing well right now. And that's how you end up with games like today. Yeah. Chris Godwin's like steady Eddie and everybody else is just like, you don't know what you're getting play and play out. Like they their own line has that leakiness up the middle.

And you can see it's not, it's the accumulation of pressure and hits that that get to quarterbacks. And that's what we worry about with young quarterbacks. And it's like, oh, man, this is irreversible over time. But there is, I mean, Kadeki had some rough reps. I'm glad you brought up Donovan Smith because he had a terrible game today, I thought. Just rewatching it and not even staying in all 22, it's noticeable. Yeah.

But I look at some stats comparing from 2020, 2021, 2022 bucks with Brady. You know, his average depth of target has dropped from 9 yards in 2020 to 7.2 yards this year. It's like a steady drop, 9 to 8 to 7.2. His average time to throw, though, has dropped a second and a half, or a point a tenth of a second and a half. So I went from 2.4 to 2.25 this year. So he's throwing shorter and quicker on his drops. Yeah. Is a dot empty, which is a huge weapon of this Bucks offense.

Like under Bruce Ariens and Byron leftwich, those Cardinals and Bucks offenses, when they get into second and along, they're almost always an empty. Their pass rate on second long is ridiculously high because that's like, that's just their MO. But their A dot and empty has gone from seven yards in 2020 to 3.5 yards in 2022. It's halved. Adon and play action has gone from 11.2 yards in 2020 to 8.2 yards in 2022, dropped by three yards right there. Everything is just tighter on this offense. You think that's a protection thing?

I do. Yeah. Even against Blitz, he's 27th among 35 quarterbacks and the EPA against the Blitz, which is, that's not Tom Brady. That's not how he attacks. And I got a couple plays here. And I actually got another one for our YouTube audience. But there's a couple where they, it just feels like they're getting gamed up on

stuff. The Panthers, Phil Snow's gone, but this Panthers defensive view now and third down, it's actually been one of the most fun blitz units to watch as far as just what they do. But they had one where they gamed up the box later in the game. But this one I'm going to talk about real quick. It's third and two near midfield. It's about 12 minutes ago in the third quarter. So the slide for this offensive line is going to the right spot.

They are working to the right. So Getecke, the left guard is going to the right spot. For net, the linebacker that is blitzing is his. his guy. And Goddecki hesitates for a split second. He's a rookie left guard after all, just going, is that my guy? No, I'm good. I'm just going to continue my slide. For Nett, who should know better, just olaes the blitzer. He just goes, oh, Goddeky's got him. So he just kind of, he almost does like a rip move through him. But because those two just mess it up, they each hesitate, not knowing clearly what their assignment is. And you can see on the clip, whoever's watching on YouTube,

you can see Fernette just waltzing by the guy that's blitzing. Then the pressure gets in Brady's face, he misses this go-ball opportunity to Godwin. Godwin ends up winning late on it. So he ends up a diving sink complete. That's the third and two. They end up having to punt. There's another one late in the fourth quarter. I'm sorry, first play the fourth quarter.

Third and seven, the Panthers run a four-week look, which you have to change your protection, where you have to run a hot route against that. And you can see on it, Tom Brady points out the hot. He's telling Mike Evans, if this guy blitzes, you're running a slant. They do it perfect. Operation is perfect. But because the Panthers defense is like, well, we played this buck. team a few times now, they know exactly what's happening. He runs a slant, gets sawed off. Mike Evans

is like 240. He gets whacked on this. And that, that's what it feels like. A lot of these bucks guys are just getting smoked. Like, they're a tough team. And Godwin and Evans, I could tell her just like, oh my God, I can't take another ball over the middle getting peppered like this. Everything just feels tight. Their best plays, yeah, they run a lot of, that's kind of what they do, a lot of receiver screens. It's kind of like how they replace the run game a little bit. those are working a little bit, but then they don't have the run game at all. The run game is just so running into the back. Like, and it's not just the blocking hasn't been great, but Leonard Frenet is not,

hasn't been anything to write home about. Like we are, we are post contract Leonard Fornet and we are free contract Josh Jacobs. Yes. That is, that's the difference right here is like for net, eighth worst, I believe. Oh no, he's 31st in a rush success rate of qualifying runnybacks. Rashad White, who's only a runback that we can compare it to, he's fifth best.

I'm sorry, eighth best. So it's 31st best compared to eighth best. Okay, first downs per rush. Fernette is 48th in first downs per rush. Rashad White, fifth. EPA per rush. Fornett is the second worst running back in EPA per rush in the entire NFL. He's only above Melvin Gordon so far who has like 20 fumbles.

EPA per rush, white's about midway. So he's 21st. It's time for a little bit more Rashad White, my man. I think so too. I think so, too. The last one is short yardage. Frenet is the second worst short yardage running back in the NFL right now at 38% conversion rate. He's 5 for 13.

Rashad White, five for 5, 100% success rate. So it's not just the one they didn't get in this game. You're talking about stuff like that? Just get north. Just get north. Dude, you're not racing anybody. So it's a combo of guys, you know, like veterans that you expect to be at least average, above average starters.

Daven Smith, Leonard Fernette, not playing to their extent. brutal at Mike Evans drops and an accumulation of Tom Brady not moving and thrown confidently. So this is what this offense is. It's like just all that those domino effects happening. Does this get better? Oh, God, man. I thought the, I'm genuinely worried about Brady. This game was worrisome.

How much, how happy Brady's feet. I should say happy feet, but how warm his feet felt and how he was just, he double clutched a couple throws. Multiple throws in this game. You don't see him double clutching unless it's on purpose. it's like, oh, a guy jumped. I'm just going to dig the throw. He's double clutching and then throwing it, which is, he's not seeing it as fast.

It was wild to watch because it's such a departure from where he was over the last couple years. When you watched this offense last season, he was playing as well as pretty much any quarterback in the NFL. Like it was him and Rogers, and I think for stretches last year, how Burrow was playing. But Tom Brady could have been the MVP of the league last year easily. What he was doing in the middle of that buck's off. offense was lifting them to being one of if not the best offenses in the NFL.

He is not playing at that level right now. The protection is worse. The players in front of him are worse. And I do think that, so there's some timing issues on the receiving course side of this. But Tom Brady is not playing at that level. And if he's not going to play at that level, what is this Bucks team? I don't know the answer to that. What do you think they are an explosive play rate in the entire league?

Like the bottom third? They're 29th. That's insane. If they don't have that, then what are they? Nope. They can't live that way. This offense is gash you down your throat dropping it back with 15, 20 yard gash ball. Like the best place today were comeback throws, but it's like you don't have anything outside of those.

Like they have nothing, everything feels like four yards, barely getting the first down or like a 16 yard comeback to Mike Evans. Like that's what that passing game feels like, which is crazy. Like what I, even I thought a drop off in this offense would be mid level and explosive play rate. The fact they can't run the ball efficiently and they're going to note there are 26 an explosive pass rate right now. That's not what this buck's team is supposed to be built like. I would have to watch a little bit more and actually like study it. And even then, I probably wouldn't be able to pick up on enough of it. It feels like teams are really keyed in on what they're doing right now.

It feels like whether it's some siloing that we're not necessarily noticing or some tells that they have formationally or tendency-wise. Because there was one drive that really stuck out to me. It was five minutes up in the third quarter. first down, failed screen that the panthers snuffed out instantly that Brady had to dirt. So we get to second and ten. Second and ten, he has to check it down, falls incomplete, get to third and ten. Third and ten, stunt, instant pressure, Brady has to check it down. Just how unambitious the offense feels right now and because they have to.

And you have this offense that felt like they were always, always bringing the heat at you. They were always dictating the game to you, and it doesn't feel like that at all anymore. You talked about that. The hits that they're taking and how downhill teams are playing against them right now, how hard defensive backs are driving on the ball, the confidence that they usually play with, defenses are playing with that sort of confidence against them right now. And watching that contrast is just, it's weird. I'm just not used to seeing this collection of players having that happen to them.

we would just laugh the last couple of years because it's like you shouldn't be able to get away with this like just how quickly it gets her to the ball and how far the how far he's pushing the ball snap after snap after snap and that's what you're saying like oh yeah first and 10 it's a negative two yard run well second and 12 they're going empty and guess what oh here's an 18 yard seam ball to mike evans like right down the pipe or godwin right down the pipe and it's like oh well wow that must have been a lot of fun for the defense like you got them in a great situation they're hitting explosive plays on you they're just not doing any of that. There's no efficiency, no explosiveness. It's, and it feels sloppy, which is not, and I get it. The center, it's a new center and everything, but that's just one guy. Now the rest of the team's getting healthy and just the sloppiness is coming from guys that I'm not expecting it from. Especially the quarterback. Especially the quarterback. And this is going to be a conversation we can have over the next couple months. Talk about all in. Right. His team is $40 million over the 2023 cap. Like, this is it. And if this was going to be the final push and this is what they look like on offense, they're going to have to sort through some rubble next spring to figure out what the next stage of this looks like. I mean, it's going to be a rude, rude process for Jason Light and whoever's in charge of this because this was supposed to be the last gasp.

And they're gasping for air right now. Yep. Talk about another offense. All right. Let's talk about the Green Bay Packers. because this is just absolutely brutal. O of six on third down today. They go into Washington.

They lose to a Taylor Heineckee-led Washington team. And just for the most part, get absolutely nothing going on offense throughout this entire game. It's brutal. This is another offense. So it's like, okay, this is a time for you to take a little step forward. Like, okay, yes, your receiving group isn't great,

but neither is Washington's DVs. Like, you know, we're hoping for that. But just the quotes after this game were just a little scary if you're a Packers fan, I think. It's, I mean, it's a lot of like, oh, like Rogers basically gave a nobody believe in us. Zach Tom learned that he's starting at left tackle this morning. Like, just these quotes are coming out. But the Zach Tom learning about it left tackle this morning is a problem. What he said about David Bakhtiari is even more of a problem.

For those of you who didn't see the quote, Ryan Wood, who covers the Packers, Zach Tom said after this game that he was told this morning he was going to be the starting left tackle. Part of his response was sometimes the way that David looks in practice, you know you always have to be ready. Yeesh. It's weak.

When it's we're going into week eight now. That was week seven. That was like, yeah, that's been an ongoing thing. And I'm sure that's a lot of consternation. It's like, all right, if we can't, well, we need this backup to be active. You only get a certain amount of guys that can be active on game day. okay, this guy has to be active because he has to be our swing tackle and we need this guy to be our guard. Like that causes a lot of headaches.

Well, even beyond that, Nyman had to play right tackle today because he practiced it right tackle all week because they were going to trot out that five starting five this week where Jenkins was moving back to left guard. Nyman was going to play right tackle and Bakhtyari was going to play left tackle because when you watch them against the Jets, I think a lot of people watch that game. Like this can't be the best five. Like you have an all pro level guard and you have. a guy that has played left tackle for you at a fairly high level. This offensive line play at this level cannot sustain. We need to figure out a better five. So they tried to do that.

And then they're starting left tackle who just disappears before the game. Because it's, it's rough. I mean, that is a rough outcome. But their issues go far beyond losing David Bactiari 24 hours before this game started. Oh, and we're talking about another, I'm trying to segue this like you, another disappointing older quarterback. Um, Rogers, even when it is blocked up and we can talk about figuring what they're figuring out there, even though the receivers aren't upper tier or even above average. Rogers isn't really reading the game out to the level of Aaron Rogers. It is, Rogers is dinking and dunking, which I know he always does, but we talk about like three pointers and layups.

That's why Aaron Rogers highly likes to attack. If you notice, all of his home run attempts, all of his go balls are slot fades and simple goes. And that is because he can predetermine that pre-snap. Yep. He can go, I got man, I'm taking this right away. Post-snap Rogers is not happening right now. And right now, like, so a third of Rogers' pass attempts this year have been at or behind the line of skirmish. Today was 31%.

So right in line with the season average. So he's at 33.2 for the season. The NFL average is 22%. That is the highest percent since 2012, tied with Alex Smith. in his one year with Washington in 2020. Oh, my God. For the, yes, the highest percentage of throws that are at or behind the line scurvage. He is at a historical rate, 33% of those.

And I'll, in Bellar, you can put the clip up for the YouTube, uh, listeners is that this is last week against the Jets. And so many of these plays is there is him scrambling or it was a bootleg, I'm sorry, and him looking down the field and he just. doesn't throw it. He does throw it and he doesn't scramble. He has a wide open lane there to run for about 10 yards, maybe more. And instead he throws a contested trick shot into like for whatever reason behind him.

And it's one of those where it's like what he's doing this a lot where he's hunting these plays randomly. Nothing's happening in structure or he's signaling and dinking and dunking on the outside. So there's another play that against the Jets that I noticed was this happens a ton with Rogers. This was last week. This was against the Jets. Giants. This was this week is he, if the pre-snap read is not open, he's just hanging out. And he's not getting into the adlet, bounce around world.

He's like, just like, screw it. I'm curling up and taking the hit here. Or I'll throw this one away and I'll look at the sideline and give him palms up. Like that play call was terrible. He had one against the Jets. They run a four-by-one concept. And I'll mention this a few times. I've mentioned these types of plays a few times because you can really tell how the quarterback's

reading the game on these because it's a pre-snap read. It's zone to go one. side man to go to the other. He has Romeo Dobbs, I believe, on the one-man route and the four-side over there. The Jets are obviously playing in his own coverage. They have three guys to Dobbs side. So it's a three-on-one. He looks at Dobbs and hangs on Dobbs. And it's just running a slant route. And it's like, why are your eyes going there? One. Two, why are you hanging over there? You have three defenders going there. You have a safety, a corner, and a linebacker. It's the easiest four-man side read you can ever have. This is day one.

install for a quarterback. And Rogers has run this concept a million times because usually he had Devante Adams as his lone guy. And sometimes he could just say, fuck the read. I'm going to number 17 here. Now he doesn't have a fuck the read type of guy. And now you can see it catching up to him a lot that he's used to go, oh, I used to just hit my one-on-one all the time here. It's like, oh, shoot, I have to read this concept out. I ain't doing that. So he holds onto the ball and takes a sack or he holds on the ball and throws it away. And that's, that's cropping up time and time again. And that is not, it's hard. I mean, their run game is actually pretty good, especially out of the shotgun. Their eighth and success rate, I believe, and running the game, running the game, running the ball.

But it's just this passing game is just all horizontal with one or two shots. And usually it's just a performative type of shot play. The most disgusting number I found that related to the Packers passing game this year on the season, they have completed 11 passes that went for no gain or negative yardage. Completed 11 passes that went for no gain or negative yardage. That's second in the NFL. Only one team has more. And I will give you one guess about who that team is because it is disgusting.

Panthers. It's the Chargers. The Chargers have 14 of them. Oh. So in seven, twice a game. The Los Angeles Chargers complete a pass that goes for zero or negative yardage. Twice a game. That's hilarious.

I knew you'd be disgusted by that. It's pretty nasty. funny. There's so many these stats and I look them off for like Rogers or like even Russell Wilson or something and then I'll always see Herbert's name like just above like oh no why are you down here

why you down here Justin this isn't your realm the Packers offense and we said this with about the Giants how when you're trying to live this way you have to do everything right everything every detail has to be crisp the margin for error is so small

when you're not moving the ball efficiently or explosively in the passing game. Packers aren't playing that way. That fourth and one to Dobbs, I don't know what's supposed to happen on that play. You watch it, Watkins is either supposed to block or he's supposed to do something. He just lets Wild Goose through,

whacks Dobs, and who drops the ball on fourth and one. And then the third and two play that I do want to talk about, the play where Rogers looked to the sideline and said, what the fuck are we doing on third and two? He has Dobbs sitting there. And he just doesn't throw it. And I don't know if it's because the pick wasn't clean, the rubber out that they were supposed to get on that one by three side. But Dobbs is just sitting there and he double clutches it and then dirts it.

So there's something not clean about the way that play actually unfolds, but that combined with him compounding the problem is just what's happening now with this team. And that's the concern. And even in the run game today, multiple different plays where they're just leaving guys unblocked for TFLs for like five. six yards. They had only faced six third downs in this game. Four of those were at least third and ten. They're just putting themselves in terrible situations. I mean,

it is a pretty ugly offense to watch in every single way. And hopefully when their best five get out there, it looks a little bit cleaner. But the lack of details, they had a bunch of multiple illegal formation penalties today or illegal shift penalties today. I mean, they are just not crisp right now. on offense.

And it's, I think I saw, and I want to attribute to the right person, but I believe they only had four motions in all of today. So it's hilarious that they're like, okay, we're going to run this offense. How you want to run it, Aaron? And they're kind of taken away like any excuse that he might have. So it's, it's, yeah, it's the palms up stuff is hilarious. Because even like I said, when I watched the Jets game all 22, he is the classic. He'll go palms up on the bad run plays when something bad happens.

but when it's good, you don't hear anything. It's all just results, nothing about process. There's one with like A.J. Dillon that I think he just gets tripped, but it was blocked perfectly and called perfectly. It gets a perfect type of defense against the Jets. Dylan trips. So it goes for like a two or three yard gain. And he looks at the sideline like they messed up.

And it was like, dude, come on. Like you can't just do that. The body language is bad. Bad. It's horribly bad. It's awful. Anytime the other team has a drive that lasts more than six plays. I wish you just kept the camera.

on him because it's just it's he's a fire breathing dragon in the worst type of way not in the good way that usually bring it up but in the bad way whenever something the other team is having well or doing something well or they had a rough series a previous series it's just yeah the body language is bad but i mean it's i know it's rogers and he he he's he's himself like he's his own personality and stuff but and that's what makes him great but there's a lot of this stuff that he's got point to finger at himself and i really like he has to because when it is blocked up well, when a guy is winning or it is schemed up well, he's not giving them all the chances that they can have.

And I get it. Some stuff is you're mixing up the offense aligned. You have all these young guys that receive. You guys also against man coverage. There are not a lot of people open. I mean, no, when they're having to like actually make a play on third and anything and teams are

playing man coverage. There are not a lot of guys winning in man coverage. No. And he's not, he doesn't like it. No one likes that. But it's just, and he's like,

I'd rather just burn the ball and what's, hey, we're building up our defense, right? So you can just see him trying to figure out what he's working with. And I think he's just grasping out straws like, this isn't working. Well, shoot, that didn't fix it. It's like, you know, we're turning circuit breakers. That turn on?

Like, that's kind of like how he's doing with his offense. That's what it feels like it's happening publicly every week. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy because they, he was justifiably the MVP the last two years and how efficient their passing game was. And for it to der Root this fast, losing Devante Adams is part of it. but I think that these issues are coming from several different directions, and that's how you end up with an offense that really looks like this. The one other, you know we're not going to get to tonight,

but I do want to talk about at some point later in the week is the Chargers offense, because struggling like that against the Seahawks defense is definitely worth mentioning. I did not watch enough of that game. That is definitely going to be part of the study session this week is going to be watching how the Chargers are managing to do that against a Seahawks offense or defense that hasn't been able to stop. anybody this season. That's what happens when your entire passing game is passes to a running back like that. That's what happens when you're when your passing game looks like that. Yeah,

but I'm excited to take my teeth into that one. I'm not excited, but we are going to do it. All right. I love my schlock, man. Really quickly, we're going to talk about a couple of guys that we notice that we're going to get out of here. A couple games that we're not going to hit with any sort of depth today. But I want to talk about the Ravens front just really quickly. They had five sacks in this game. Without those five sacks, they don't win this game. Calais Campbell had a huge play. Justin Houston had a couple sacks. Kyle Hamilton had one on a blitz. They got pressure just often enough to win that game. I want to dig into that one a little bit later over the course of the week. We'll hit that on the hangover with Mike Sando tomorrow. And then the other guy I wanted to talk about just very

quickly, Michael Parsons had Mitch pointed this out on Twitter, ridiculous hustle play to save a touchdown in that game against the Lions. And on the next play, the Cowboys get a turnover. And, you know, it's the Lions. The Lions' offenses look pretty damn good for stretches of this season. I know they got dismantled by the Patriots, but the Cowboys just keep doing this. They just keep beating the shit out of every single offense that they play against, except the Eagles last week. And they're 5 and 2 right now.

And they can kind of ease Dak back in. They're winning games with Cooper Rush. Dak just being, like, fairly efficient is all they really need right now. And that's what was happening. So, again, credit to the Cowboys in that defense, another game that we'll talk about on the hangover tomorrow. But those are the two I wanted to point out before we get out of here tonight.

I'm glad he brought the Parsons one because I rewatched the game because I was like, what play was he talking about? Because you're like, I want to point out one play. And it was going through it. I'm like,

oh, I know the play. Because he is, it's a tight end screen, I believe, right? And he's like seven yards in the backfield. Parsons is. And he runs them down down to save that play. And then there's another one.

I tweeted it was he runs down golf. He makes an inside move. And he's like 10 yards behind golf and runs him down. And it was like a third and 12. Like golf's not running for a first down anyways. But the fact that he runs inside and is not like, oh, I'm on the opposite side of the field. Like, okay, someone else will tackle him. He's trying to go make that tackle.

It's cool. It's cool when you see star players that are one of the rarest athletes that this game has seen. Like, seriously, that's what Parsons is. On top of it, he plays with his hair on fire. Oh, he plays incredibly hard. It's so cool. And it's so cool that he does it. Like, and it's not just once or twice a game.

It's not just he turns up in the fourth quarter because it matters. So it's like, no, it's first quarter he's doing that, second quarter he's doing it, third quarter he's doing it. Hell of a player. Help some good, good plays from him today. All right. That's all we got for tonight. As I mentioned, we will be back with the Monday hangover with Mike Sando. That'll come out on Monday evening tomorrow into Tuesday.

We'll talk about some of these games that we did not hit tonight. In the meantime, if you could subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you're watching this and you haven't subscribed, to highly encourage you to do that. If you're listening, as you might have heard over the course of us doing this, we're going to try to incorporate some of the plays that we're talking about, some visual elements into the YouTube stream. We still want you guys able to listen to it. It's a podcast. But when applicable, we're already talking about these plays anyway.

So hopefully we're going to throw up some visuals just so people that are watching this can get a little bit of a better understanding of some of the stuff that we're talking about. If you have not, please subscribe to The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show is where you can do that. And if you could, if you like the show, let us know. go leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Give us five stars. Tell us why you like it. We would really appreciate that.

We will be back tomorrow with Sando. Until then, appreciate you guys listening. Talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.