The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Ron Rivera vs. Cam Newton, what’s at stake for the Bengals & the AFC playoff picture with Lindsay Jones + a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team visit with Greg Auman

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones kick off the episode by discussing the Week 11 matchup between Ron Rivera and Cam Newton. They also talk about what’s at stake for the Bengals, the highly anticipated showdown between the Cowboys and Chiefs, and the big questions surrounding the AFC playoff picture. Plus, The Athletic’s Greg Auman joins the show to discuss the Buccaneers' two-game skid, the injury issues and Tom Brady's MVP caliber season. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. The Athletic Football Show is presented by State Farm, because like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Get a quote today. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Today is Thursday, November 18th. I'm Robert Mays. Great show for you guys today.

Our Bucks writer at the Athletic, Greg Alman, is going to be joining us a little bit later to talk about a rare two-game skid from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. What it means moving forward. Should we be worried? Really enjoyed our conversation with Greg before. We do that, though. I'm pleased to welcome my good friend, Lindsay Jones. Lindsay, how you doing?

I am great, Robert. I'm excited for kind of a normal week in the NFL. The last couple weeks have been insane with news. So I'm really excited for this week where it is just an awesome slate of games and we can really just get into a lot of stuff that we're excited about because there's a lot of really fun stuff coming up this weekend. So we usually talk about a news item with the discussion that's happening in the league is kind of taking the temperature of the biggest news.

and there is none this week. There's really nothing that's happened. There's a couple scattered injuries here or there that we're going to get into whether guys are going to play, guys that aren't. But for the most part, unless we wanted to spend 15 minutes talking about Joe Flacco starting for the Jets, there has not been a lot of stuff that's come out in the last few hours that we felt like was worth really digging into. We'd like to direct you over to the Can't Wait podcast or Connor Hughes.

We'll be getting into all of the Joe Flacco news of it all. So we don't have to. We're just going to dig into the categories that we hit. every single Thursday. And we're going to start with who has the most at stake in week 11. Lindsay, why don't you kick us off here? All right. So like I said, this is a really exciting week of games.

I mean, I was looking through this late and there's six or seven games that I'm really jacked up about. But one that I was not excited or I was not expecting to be excited about, but all of a sudden I am right now is the Washington football team against the Carolina Panthers. And it's not so much because of, you know, the X's and O's and all the schematics of it. It's because I think both Ron Rivera and Cam Newton have a ton at stake this week as they're facing off against each other in Carolina. This is expected to be Cam Newton's first start. They're kind of couching it in Carolina.

But all signs are that they are preparing Cam Newton to be the starting quarterback against the Washington football team. So, you know, there's just so much at stake, I think, for both of these guys. I mean, Cam Newton's return last week where it was a very limited role in that game against Carolina. They didn't need him, or against Arizona, excuse me, they didn't need him to do a ton because, you know, he scored two touchdowns right off the bat and his limited kind of in the packages of plays that they put together for him. There wasn't this need for him to come in and take over for PJ Walker. But, you know, they're moving into a situation now where they're very much still in playoff

contention. And if they want to stay there, Cam Newton is going to be the one who is going to have to direct this offense. So I think there's just a ton at stake for him as we find out what the Carolina offense is going to look like with Cam Newton as the starting quarterback and not just a guy who was a collection of plays, you know, some goal line series and that sort of stuff. But what does this offense look like when, you know, Cam Newton needs to be, you know, directing their entire passing game? What role does Christian McCaffrey have? Can Cam Newton and Robbie Anderson establish some sort of

connection when Robbie Anderson and Sam Darnold clearly never had that going on? So I think Cam Newton is going to be a huge storyline this week. And then, you know, Ron Rivera and the Washington football team, I mean, going back to Carolina, this is really reunion week. I know it's been kind of a joke in Washington this week because I think there might even be more people on Ron Rivera's staff and players on that team in Washington that, you know, played with Cam Newton in Carolina than guys that are actually in Carolina right now. And, you know, look, it's going to be emotional for Ron.

You know, I don't think it's going to be any sort of revenge game or anything going on. I really want to see this is a really important spot for Washington. Not so much because they should be in the play of consideration right now. I mean, they're three and six. It might be too little too late. But what do they do now? You know, how do they take a step forward with Taylor Heineke coming off of that really big win against the Bucks? It's their first game without Chase Young. So there's just so many storylines going on and, you know, a ton of pressure for for two guys that, you know, I just, I wasn't expecting to be talking about Cam Newton and Ron Rivera. in the middle of November, but now I'm really glad that we are. The Washington thing, I think, is underrated. And it's something we probably won't talk about a lot just because they're not a good team. But it's always important to me to kind of reset at certain points throughout the year and look at a team like Washington that had real expectations coming into the season, expectations that we put on them, but expectations they had in the building.

I feel like the moves that they made, going to get Ryan Fitzpatrick, is a choice you make when you're trying to be a, as good as possible for the short term, right? They're trying to win games this year. They're trying to make the playoffs this year for real. Not make the playoffs as last year's NFC East winner, but really make the playoffs. And it went sideways from the start.

The Fitzpatrick side of this, how poorly the defense has played, Fitzpatrick is not going to be back this year. So now, what happens? Where do you go from here? What does their quarterback situation look like? Those are all questions for the spring. But you can start answering them now because Taylor Heineke is going to be a major part of all of that equation that's going on.

So how he play is important. I think if they land on Taylor Heineke is the answer for their quarterback situation. It's depressing. Then something has gone wrong. Taylor Heineke is enjoyable to watch. There is an excitement of what he brings to the field. There is a reason that he has not been a long-term starter in the league. And if you're thinking about, again, the trajectory of the timeline of the franchise,

it's thrown off now. It looks a lot different than we would have expected coming into this season. So now what is a big question? And when you start answering the now what have it all, quarterback aside, I think that starting to stack up some wins or just playing better, getting a good taste in your mouth as this season comes to its close, I think is really, really important because that was the best part

about the outlook for the Washington football team after last season, is that even if they weren't a contender, the taste in everyone's mouths was great. Everyone was feeling good. They were playing better. The arrow was pointed specifically in one direction. Now, it's a lot harder to feel good about the direction of the franchise overall. And if you could get this train back on the tracks,

even if you're going to fall short of what your goals were, I think that's really important. Losing Chase Young, obviously, is a ding to that. And not only for what he means to your team, but if the defense was going to turn around all of that stuff. But sometimes I think we just lose sight of a team that had a lot of expectations coming into the year fell short of them and that we just forget about them. I'm definitely guilty of that.

And I think that this is a team where I don't want that to happen. On the Carolina side of this, what a weird 10 days. You know, the fact that now Cam Newton is the starter, their defense is still playing well, my big question is what is the offense going to look like? Because I have no idea. If their offensive line is still a mess, Cam Irving is on IR, Matt Paradis is on IR, Pat Elf line is playing center for them. Now, Dennis Daly is playing left tackle.

That offensive line is not getting healthier or better. But everything around it and what it's going to look like structurally, that's a huge question for me. Is Cam going to run the ball? Are they going to lean into the quarterback run game? When Sam Donald was playing horribly, they were running the ball at a higher clip than pretty much every other team in the NFL. Is that still going to happen? Are they going to say, we're going to, win with Christian McCaffrey or lose with Christian McCaffrey and how does Cam's ability as a runner

fold into that plan. So what this team looks like and what that means for that seventh seed in the NFC, I think is one of the more interesting, intriguing storylines for the back half of the season. And that starts this weekend. So I totally agree with you. I was not thinking I'd be paying this much attention to the Washington Carolina clash in week 11, but it suddenly becomes something that I'll have on because I want to see what it looks like. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the games that I'm going to put in my, my four box when I'm watching the games this out, you know, on Sunday afternoon. I might even, might even put it on the single screen from time to time.

And I definitely didn't think that was going to happen. But I just want to know who Cam is. I just, I really want to see. I mean, last week it was such a feel good story. And I'm skeptical, right? Because kind of we saw who he was in training camp this year in New England. And we saw kind of who he was last year for the Patriots who a couple good games and then really fell off. And was that a function of what was happening in New England and the lack of talent or just not knowing exactly the best way to use him?

Or is that kind of just who he is now? So, you know, I hope Carolina Panther fans aren't expecting to see 2015 Cam Newton because I don't think that guy is showing up. But I just want to see it. I just want to see what sort of spark you can give them. And if Joe Brady can be really creative and maximize this version of. Cam Newton. All he has to be for this team to potentially win nine games is not the worst quarterback in the league.

And that's what Sam Darnold was for the last month that he was playing. And their defense is good enough that that's what you need. You just need Cam Newton to be the 25th best quarterback in the league for this team to be competitive because they were still in games with Darnold actively throwing games away, which is hard to do and speaks to the quality of their defense. defense. So it's such a strange outlook for them long term. You know, if they end up paying Darnold 18 million next year, they'll have given $35 million in dead money to quarterbacks and back-to-back seasons. What is the long-term answer at that position? And there's so many things

hovering over them. And I still think that they're very directionless when it comes to a lot of the choices that they've made. But in the short term, Cam can absolutely be an answer for that. All right. My team with the most at stake this week is the Cincinnati Bengals. because it's funny. The Bengals are one of those teams. It's almost like the community meme where Donald Glover walks back in with the pizza to a room that's totally on fire. Like if you were on bio last week and now you're returning to the NFL, that's kind of what it feels like. It's almost like the Ghostbusters line.

It's like dogs and cats living together. The Steelers are tying the lions. Every team has five wins. It's just a real bunched up muddy picture as it relates to the playoffs. And this Bengals team that everyone was so high on a few games into the season has now lost two games in a row and is coming off a bye. They lose that weird game to the Jets, the Mike White era rest in peace. And then they get blown out by the Browns, a Browns team that then gets destroyed by New England a week later as we all struggle to figure out who's actually good and who's not. And now the Bengals come in, they play a Raiders team that's in a fairly similar situation, right?

The Raiders are also playing for their playoff lives in the AFC. So what Cincinnati looks like coming out of the buy, whether they can kind of recapture some of that magic we saw early on, that to me is a huge question. Because Bengals fans, for the most part, a month into the season, they were thinking playoffs. They were thinking that this was going to be a huge jump that even if they weren't a contender, they were going to be one of those teams that was right in the thick of it. They could make the playoffs, potentially win a playoff game. And in order to do that, I think that things have to get back on track right now against a team that it would be very valuable to have the tiebreaker against. So I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit. I know you're putting the entire Bengals at stake. Is there a specific player position coach that you think has the most to prove and will be maybe most pivotal to getting this back on track? I think it's Zach Taylor for this reason. You know, we've seen what talent they have offensively, right? We've seen what Jamar Chase is.

we've seen the way that Joe Burrow is playing. Can they figure out a formula on offense with the deficiencies they have up front still, with some of the limitations that this team has, where the consistency on offense can settle in? That to me is the biggest question because I think for the most part, if you look at the way the formula has changed a little bit from last year to this year, and then even within this season, they've opened it up a little bit. They were running the ball in a really high clip early in the year, I assume, to kind of protect Burrow and allow them.

him to get healthy. So now what does the home stretch version of this Bengals offense look like? That to me is a big question. Obviously, that's a Zach Taylor question. Because even if you can get excited about this team and the talent that they have and the young pieces that they have and how much better the defense is played, they're ceiling and what they're going to look like for the rest of this year and into 2022, that's a Zach Taylor question to me. It's what does the coaching staff due with this core of young talent that we've seen start to emerge. So that's the biggest issue. I mean, I think he'll be back next year, obviously, based on the way that they played this

year. But what ceiling and what ultimately they can end up accomplishing to me comes down to him. And this is a tough stretch that they're entering. So at the Raiders, home against Pittsburgh when Ben Rathosberger should be back. There's still a chance that Ben Rathosberger is able to play. This week, it's a small chance. But he should be certainly on the field. November 28th, the Chargers, and then the Niners, who all of a sudden,

Niners look real good. So this is a really tough stretch. And you don't want to be losing, you know, on a three-game losing streak, four-game losing streak heading into that game against Pittsburgh. They could lose all those games. Yeah. And that's not me making fun of or poking fun at the Bengals. They absolutely could lose all those games.

And that to me, it's why they have so much at stake and why Taylor is kind of in front of mind here. It's like, all right, I had this bright spot really. the season. Everyone's getting excited about where everything is headed. But what does it really mean? Where are they really headed? What does the next 12 months of this team really look like? I think that's what's at stake this Sunday and then over the next month. All right. Let's get to our appointment viewing for this week, the things that we cannot wait to watch in week 11. I feel like we're going to land on the same thing here. What are you looking at this week? What is going to be, what is going to have you glued to the TV? All right. So the game of the week, I think it's

pretty clear and it's become even more exciting as the game of the week is Cowboys at Chiefs. And if we were talking about this game a week ago, when the Chiefs were still only scoring seven points, 10 points, 13 points a game, we might be framing this discussion completely differently. But now of a sudden we're having the Chiefs looking like vintage Chiefs on Sunday night against the Raiders. So this sets up to be kind of the game that we were all envisioning back in, you know, May throughout the summer when we had the schedule and you're circling games that, oh, this could be a really, really interesting matchup or a really high scoring game with two really fun offenses. And that now feels a little bit more like where we're going right now, where we've got the Cowboys offense who very clearly got back on track last week after whatever,

that weird game that happened against Denver in week nine went out and just demolished the Falcons last week and looked as good as anybody in the NFL. And now you have the chiefs that all of a sudden look like they might be figuring things out. You have, you know, 400 yards, five touchdowns, zero turnover version of Patrick Mahomes. And maybe it's naive to expect that we'll see that version of him again. But it was encouraging that we saw that because I think we all, you know, our bar is so high for the chiefs, just our expectations for how they should play and what we want to see out of them weekly or so high. It was just nice to finally see that they still had it in them and they could turn it on when they wanted to. So this is clearly my game of the week far and above all of the rest of the games.

And I know you and Nate will get into all the matchups and the X's and O's of it all. But I just think there's a ton of fun storylines. And I'm just really excited that we're getting kind of the best version of these teams heading into this game. I totally agree. If you said right now that this is a Super Bowl preview, that's not off the table. When you look at how strange and compact the AFC is, there's no reason. that the chiefs can emerge from that really packed up group of teams. I think Dallas has as good a chance as anybody in the NFC based on the way that their

offense is playing. And that element, you know, we dug into it a lot on Sunday's show. We're talking about DAC as the potential MVP as you look at how things might unfold over the next couple months here. And I think that's very real. To me, that's the thing I'm excited about, is Dak Prescott in this sort of spotlight game against the best quarterback in the league against a guy who's won an MVP award, those two guys going at it because I think deck is on that plane right now.

He has joined, he has joined that group of quarterbacks, that rare echelon of quarterbacks, where I have to watch. Like, I have to tune in. And Mahomes is clearly in that category. So you got two of those guys squaring off in a game that has massive implications for what the top couple seeds in the AFC and the AFC and the NFC are going to look like for what we think about the contender tier of teams in the

NFL consists of here over the next couple of months. I mean, it is absolutely far and away the best game on the schedule, and I cannot wait to watch it. So where would we set the odds if we're considering Trayvon Diggs and what that might look like? What are the odds that he will pick off Patrick Mahomes from what we've seen out of Trayvon Diggs and what we've seen out of Patrick Mahomes this year? And then maybe what would we put the odds on Trayvon Diggs giving up a 75-yard touchdown to Tyree Kill? It feels like that type of game on both sides of the ball, right? I just feel like this could be a 42 to 41 haymaker type of game because of the way these teams are built.

Trayvon Diggs is the perfect example. He's somebody that has been up and down and what they've given up. And there's been big plays going both directions, right? It's picked off a ton of passes, but how aggressive they played on that side of the ball. they've given up a ton of big plays. That's what the Chiefs do on defense. I mean, think about how aggressive they are, how much heat they bring.

I mean, they are not afraid to live in cover zero, to go after people, and DAC has burned teams that have tried to do that against him this year. I feel like the styles that comprise this game lends to that sort of back and forth, big play here, big play there, and I think that's why this is fun. I mean, this is not only two of the best teams in the league,

but two of the most exciting teams in the league and there's going to be fireworks, in my opinion. Yeah, Steve Spagnolo is not going to bring the Jordan Love game plan. I don't think. Or he probably shouldn't because Doc Prescott will make him pay. I kind of hope he does, because if there's just a touchdown every 10 seconds in this game, I'm looking forward to that. All right.

Let's get to the one big question that we have heading into week 11. Lindsay, what do you need answer by the time that Sunday's games are over? I want to know who the Cardinals are. Now, this is, they're kind of really in the middle of this stretch of adversity right now where, you know, they won their first game when Kyler Murray was out. They went into San Francisco and that was a really impressive win when they were playing without Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins. But last week, the way that they lost, how poorly they played all around offensively, defensively, everything against the Panthers when they didn't have Kyler Murray and they didn't have DeAndre Hopkins. You know, this is their first really big kind of blowout loss of the season. And I want to know how they respond.

And it looks like Kyler Murray is trending in the right direction to play. Obviously, that's going to go a long way to getting them kind of back on track. But, you know, this is a team right now that they have now, you know, taken a step back in terms of the NFC standings. You know, they had a game up on the Packers and now they're back and the Packers have that whole have that head-to-head tiebreaker. So I just want to see if this is a team that can finish strong. And getting Kyler healthy is going to be key to that. But what are they going to do defensively? They're playing against the Seahawks this week.

Seahawks obviously struggled. a ton last week didn't score any points against the Packers in Russell Wilson's return. So you have to think that the Seahawks are going to play better. I mean, they can't play worse offensively than they did last week. So I just really, I just really want to know who the Cardinals are and if they're going to be a real team that, you know, we're talking about all of these teams in the NFC that we think might be hanging on. We're going to talk to Greg Amin a ton about that.

And the Bucks are one of those teams. Well, they've been struggling. They're going through some adversity right now. We firmly believe that one store in J. anywhere we're going to be talking about the Bucks as a team to pay attention to. And I'm just not convinced about the Cardinals yet because we just haven't seen them do that. We've seen them start strong before under Cliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray and then trail off. And now they're really at this critical junction of their season where I just want to see who they are.

And if they can if they can pull it together and winning this division game against the Seahawks really, really important this week. So I'm in Arizona right now. I was with the Cardinals today. And it was funny. Cliff Kingsbury was asked, what is it like? Just, fundamentally when you don't have Hopkins and Murray out there. And he kind of smiled. And it's like, I mean, they're two of the best players in the league. I mean, it changes everything that you can be. And I think that's important to remember.

You know, this team jumped on the Niners a couple weeks ago, but they played against a very good Panthers defense without two of the best players in the league. And I think they're going to be fine. You know, because in my opinion, the way they've played offensively when Kyler's been healthy. And I think a conscious choice to get him healthy is very, smart. They looked at what happened down the stretch last year when he wasn't 100% and what it

did for them and how important he is to what their offense is and what their offense can be. They need the best version of Kyle or Murray for this team to hit its ceiling. And I think giving him these couple weeks has been smart. The sense I got is that he is going to play. So take that for what you will. And something I thought was really interesting when Cliff was talking today is that he was talking about Russell Wilson and about how in the conversations he's had with Kyler Murray over the last couple years and the way they've talked about what you want to be as an NFL player

and the way that you should approach the position that Russell is somebody that comes up all the time. He's got 10 million personal coaches to do everything. He's got a mental coach. He's all of this stuff. And Cliff also got a front row view at what Tom Brady does. And so it's interesting that those two guys, Russell Wilson, Tom Brady have been an influence in the way that Cliff has tried to talk to Kyle, talk to Kyler about how he should approach the position.

And I do feel like overall, kind of the sense that I've gotten from this team in the last couple of days is that that transition to this is my full-time job. This is what I do every single day. The details of it all. These are things that are important to me. That's been a huge thing with this team. Kyler, Isaiah Simmons, Byron Murphy. As they've moved into year three of this coaching staff, of a lot of the same guys being on the roster,

it's allowed things to crystallize a little bit for them. And when you bring in guys like Rodney Hudson and J.J. Y and A. Green, just pros, pros. And you add that to the mix, it allows that maturation process to kind of crystallize and finish off. And that to me is what this feels like. I think they're for real. And I think they're for real in part because the way

that Kyle has played in part because of some of the tweaks they've made offensively, but also because their defense. You know, their defense is the second best defense in the league, according to DVOA. They're healthy on defense. You know, most of the guys that they have on that side of the ball are back in the lineup. And I think that they can ride a very complete team to one of those top couple seeds in the NFC. I think that last week without Kyler, without DeAndre Hopkins against a Carolina team, again,

they're still very good on defense. I think that's the aberration. And I think that we see them come out and play really well against Seattle this week. All right. My big question, I mean, it's a pretty simple one. What the hell does the AFC playoff picture look like after this week? I mean, it seems like we talk about it every single day, but... It gets more confusing every single week.

We've gotten zero clarity on it, right? Look at the games that are happening on Sunday. And what sort of confusion or clarity we could get after all this is over. The Colts play the bills. What if the Colts win? What if the Colts beat the bills on Sunday? And now they're sitting at six and five. They're suddenly playing a lot better.

They're healthier than they've ever been, especially on offense. Jonathan Taylor looks like a demon out there. I mean, so many different things and implications in that game. What about the Chargers and the Steelers? Right? I mean, those are two teams that are fighting for one of those wild-carts spots. The Chargers offense has looked disjointed and a little bit defanged over the last couple weeks. The Steelers are going to get Rothsburger back?

Are they a team that with some of the... the tweaks they made offensively, can be an annoying team to play against in the AFC. I mean, all of those considerations, and we already talked about the Bengals and the Raiders game. So, I don't know. I just, the AFC is such a throw your hands up and try to figure it out later scenario right now. And I think this is another perfect example.

I mean, those three outcomes, I'm not sure if we'll learn anything from them, but they're fascinating and what they're going to mean for what the last eight weeks of the season are going to look like. So that's my question. What is the middle, the meat of the AFC, which teams are going to emerge, who can kind of get hot at the right time? Because right now, you could spin the wheel when it comes to pretty much eight teams in that entire conference. Yeah, I mean, because if you look right now, the teams that are technically in the playoff spots in the AFC right now, it's Tennessee as the one seed. The Titans are playing the Texans this week.

So you've got to think that they're going to get to nine wins. They'll be the first and only team to nine wins in the AFC. But then you've got Buffalo, Baltimore, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, New England, and the L.A. Chargers. And then you've got five more teams behind them that are all at five wins in the Raiders, the Bengals, the Colts, the Browns, and the Broncos. I mean, that is a mess. I mean, nothing spoke to how jumbled the AFC playoff picture is more than that Sunday night game last week, where if the chiefs had won that game, they were going to be in first place. And the AFC West, if they'd lost it, they would have been in last place. and the AFC West.

And, you know, all of a sudden now that they're in the first place in the division, it's like, okay, there's order has been restored and that makes a little bit of sense. But all I know is that I think we might learn a little bit more this week, but we're not getting clarity to the AFC playoff picture until like January 2nd, maybe January 8th at this point. It's going to be a long way to go because there's never been more parity. And the AFC, and that's what's, it's just nuts because going. end of this season, I thought it was, I thought the gap in the AFC was going to be massive. And instead, there's basically no gap.

Yep. It's crazy. I mean, it's just every single week is we feel like we learn something new, but then reality, we learn absolutely nothing. So you're ready to do that all over again. All right, very quickly, Lindsay, sell me on Thursday night football. All right. So we've got Patriots against the Falcons, which I know is a sore subject for our friends in

Atlanta who are listening or who will be listening to this and watching. this game, not quite as dramatic without Tom Brady, of course. But there will be many references, I think, to 28 to 3. So that is our drinking game of the week. Anytime there's a reference to Super Bowl 51 or specifically 28 to 3, make sure you take a drink and act responsibly about it. But, you know, the Patriots are really fun right now. I mean, we're just talking about the AFC playoff picture and the Patriots were not really a team that we focused on right there, but they're playing as good as anybody. And we're going to get to see Mack Jones, who is on a offensive rookie of the year kind of campaign right now.

He has established himself as the best of the rookie quarterbacks right now by a considerable margin at this point. I mean, the offensive rookie of the year award right now is basically like a three player race between Mack Jones, Jamar Chase, and Ray Sean Slater, who we're putting in there. Thank you very much. This is a pro offensive line podcast. I've been banging that drum for a couple months now.

But so watching Mac Jones is going to be fun. I just want to see the progression of this offense. And the Falcons are a little bit harder of a sell. I think Grady Jarrett is still one of my favorite players in the NFL. So, you know, if you want to focus in on a little defensive line play, just focus on Grady Jarrett. Mack Jones is enough for me. I mean, the way he played last week and what their offense looks like, not only with

Mac Jones playing well, but with Trent Brownback, what does the running game look like, all the different run schemes they've been able to go to, the way that Connor Henry has played recently. I mean, I'm so guilty of this. And being with the Cardinals this week has just been a reminder that it's such a blind spot for me. We need to be patient. Like if you have all of these new pieces, especially a new quarterback, you know,

offensive line moving pieces, an entire new set of offensive weapons, it takes a while for teams to settle into what they want to be and settle into who they are. And I feel like the Patriots have done this. that. Like they have really figured out, like, all right, this is the formula. This is what we want to do. Let's open things up a little bit. But let's still lean on the screen game and let's still have this really good running game. And that process has been really rewarding to watch with New England. And I think that now we get to see what the end game looks like, what they wanted to be from the beginning of the year and are now able to be because of the growth of their players and them getting

healthier. And I think this is a really nice national showcase to get a sense of that. It's entirely possible that we come out at the end of this week and the Patriots are in first place in the AFC East. Yes. It's entirely possible. That's wild. If you had told me six weeks ago that I'd be feeling as good or better about New England than any other team in the AFC, I wouldn't have believed you. But that's the season that it's been. And that's what the last month or so has looked like.

All right. That's all we got. It is time to get to our conversation with Greg O'Brien. Let's do it. All right. It's time now for this week's team visit. I am very excited to welcome a regular guest on this show for more reasons than one. The team is good.

We love him. Greg Alman covers the bucks for the athletic. How you doing, Greg? Hey, you doing well. Happy to be on. Hope you're doing well. We are doing just fine. Me and Lindsay,

we're both being NFL reporters today. So we've been scrambling around all day. That's something I don't always do anymore. But I put my writer reporter hat on today, which is always a fun thing to do. but we want to dig into what's been going on with the defending Super Bowl champions. It's been a weird couple weeks. I want to talk to you because you were a prominent member or prominent, you were prominently featured on Tom Brady's press conference this week,

where he answered three questions in 90 seconds and then bailed. And I think I want to talk about that because it kind of gets into a larger feeling here. When you're rolling and you're the best team in the NFL and you're winning a lot of games and you're moving the ball at will, there's a certain tone in the building. And then when you hit a little bit of a skid and you lose two games and you're the best quarterback of all time, things get a little more curt. So just in the overall feeling and vibe in that building right now, how have you kind of seen it transition over the last two weeks? Yeah, I mean, obviously they've lost two in a row. And I think, you know, losing in New Orleans, a place where they, you know, lost 383 or, you know, lost whatever it was last year, wasn't that surprising.

And Brady was kind of short after that game. I mean, the same kind of thing was a long wait, and then I think he was less than two minutes in New Orleans. You know, just clearly, you know, this is a guy that takes losses hard in the hour after a game. It's still a lot to process. So, okay, two minutes, thanks. And Tom's a guy where if there's two, three seconds of silence between questions, he's going to go, thanks, guys, see you, thanks again. And he's gone. And kind of tried to do that against Sunday in D.C., and obviously we tried to keep him around.

and got him around for, I guess, four more questions, one of which was answered with a nope. That's fine. Well, you performed admirably in trying to get him to stay. So we all appreciate that. It was really, it was kind of weird because you didn't have time to really decide. And like he did that where he kind of did. And he did the thing where he like talks as he's leaving the mic. So he's like, okay, guys, thanks again.

Happy Day. And I literally, I'm like, Tom, that's it. And he looked up like, he's right in front of me. And he looked up. I'm like, that's it. And it's like, and then I didn't have like a boom, this is a really important question just by you staying around question loaded because I just asked him one. And luckily, like someone to my right had like a 20 second question to kind of diffuse the

room a little bit, which again, I think he answered with nope. But yeah, he's a guy. I mean, we know going in that Tom isn't always the most chatty guy after a loss. But yeah, that was frosty for a minute. Yeah, and I know the discourse since then has been like, oh, all these reporters are mad that Tom Brady didn't want to talk to him. And it's not that, right? I mean, it's not that, you know, none of us get our feelings hurt if Tom Brady is crabby after a loss. It's that if you're a Bucks fan or the NFL general public, like Tom Brady is the face of that franchise. And outside of Bruce Ariens, he is the mouthpiece, right? And he is the one guy who should be explaining what's going on there. So if he's crabby after it, it is you, the NFL fan who is losing or the Bucks fan, especially. because you're the one who deserves explanations for what the hell just happened and why they lost to the Washington football team. It's not us. Greg's tough. Greg doesn't care. He's not getting his feelings hurt. He lived through the James Winston era, right? Like, you're fine. And then like there was

with James, it was a regular thing to be like, hey, so let's just go through the interceptions of what happened there. And you'd have, you know, Aryans would assign blame and say, well, the first one was definitely on him. The second one was probably on the receiver. Third one, look like a miscommunication. And you'd kind of do this weird, you know, exhuming. of the football game afterwards. And someone asked Tom. I mean, Tom had one pick that really even statistically shouldn't be a pick, where receiver caught it, made a football move, and it got jarred loose.

It goes down as a pick, but it's by all readings, a fumble. And someone asked Tom about the second one, which was just a plain overthrow. Ariens even said he just overthrew him. And Brady's explanation is, well, we started with the ball and they finished with it. And it's just like, all right, well, Tom's not here to play today. This is all right. So I think part of the reason that we want to do that exhuming and the post-mortem after a game like that is to try to dig into how much of this is real,

how much of this is caused for concern. If we're stacking up the issues and the questions, what does that look like? So as you kind of take a step back from the last two games and you're looking at what is ailing this team, what do you think is the most important thing and the thing that might continue to be an issue as we move on through the season? here. Yeah, I mean, the number one thing, and this has been the case since the first month of the season, is that they're just ridiculously depleted at cornerback. So Carlton Davis and Sean Murphy Bunting, who are their best two corners, are both on IR. Bunting's been out since the first

quarter of the season opener. Carlton Davis has been out since week four. Even the replacements are hurt. I mean, they had Richard Sherman, who they brought in, who had been injured, came back, and was ready to go. He's healthy. And he pulls his calf in warmups and is literally scratched after inactive, which never happened, to where D. Delaney, who again had, I think 21 NFL snaps before this season, is a starting corner in this game. And then it wasn't like he was victimized the whole game or something.

It wasn't, and it's not, it's on him. I just think if I'm Todd Bowles, I think once you know you don't have the guys you thought you had for the game plan, you're much less likely to break out the exotic blitzes and put those guys on an island as much. not the people you thought you'd had out there. It's so funny, and I've spent some time with a team this week having this exact conversation about what defensive continuity does for you and how it's set.

You are allowed to play the way you want to play. You can settle into the version of the defense that you had in your mind, whether it's before the season or before that week. And that's kind of what it feels like with the Bucks right now is that they're scrambling toward an answer. They can't be the defense that they want to be. They can't deploy guys in the same way. And it always leaves you a step behind, a play behind.

You think about the third downs on Sunday. That was kind of the feeling of it, right? Is that we're always scrambling here. So what does the outlook for those guys look like? Is there a world where that defense can be the defense that it wants to be by the time that the games really start to matter down the stretch? Yeah, I think that's absolutely in play for them in terms of, you know, and ideally you'd like to get them in place, you know, week 15,

where you got a month like last year to reestablish yourself at full strength. A huge process for them, by the way, last year. The changes they made in the playoffs and the little tweaks they made, like, we're going to play more man, we're going to do this. It helps to have time with guys to understand what sort of alterations you want to make for the stretch run. So I think that's a really good point. Yeah.

And we, I mean, this was coming off of a buy. They didn't really get healthier in the buy week was the problem. So a lot of the guys that they had hoped to have back, it's just Washington. They're two and six. But they didn't have Grancowski. They didn't have Antonio Brown. They didn't get Sean Murphy Bunting or Scotty Miller even back. I don't like your tone, Greg.

So Scotty Miller is a very important player on this podcast. Yes. And he'll be there very soon. My point is nobody, like, wherein there was supposed to be this like post-by cavalry coming in to get them back closer to full strength. It really didn't happen yet. And I think it would have been easy to say, well, it's Washington. They're two and six.

They can probably get by with 42 of their best 48 or something like that. And they clearly couldn't. They didn't. You talked about third down. Third down was wild. Washington converted 11 of 19, got another third down on penalty, got two more fourth down conversions. And the whole masterpiece of it was this 19 play 10 minute, 26 second drive to eat up the, I mean, most of the fourth quarter. They got it back with 30 seconds left down 10.

ran the ball twice, went and talked to us for two minutes. So to get a little bit more into the defense, what is going on with Shaq Barrett, Jason Pierre Paul, and that pass rush? Because that's really what powered them through that postseason run last year. And right now it feels like a disappointment. So can you help us diagnose what's going on up front? Yeah, there's a couple things. Jason Pierpawall isn't himself, first of all. He's playing with a torn rotator cuff and a fractured finger. Oh, that's all? Practice today.

Practice today for the first time in a month. He literally has gone all week, not practicing, and then just showing up on Sunday, given it his best. And that obviously hurts a little bit. Shaq Barrett has five and a half sacks, but hasn't been a $16 million a year pass rusher. Their rookie Joe Tryon has been good, has three sacks, but hasn't been, you know, overwhelming. So, I mean, Sunday was weird, and that they had five sacks. They had 11 tackles for loss, none of them on third down.

So they just kept kind of digging a small hole for Washington to crawl out of it. I mean, Taylor Heineke was just a wizard at getting from second and 15 to first downs over and over again. And that's just the defense not making plays when they had to. Third downs are when you have to make plays and get off the field. We talked to Larry Foote, who's the outside linebacker's coach today. And he's saying they're making plays all day. They're just not making any plays on third down. And then you're not getting off the field and you're losing the game.

So that that's what happened there. You'd hope that that stuff normalizes over time, right? When you have extremely positive performances on first and second down, I mean, Nate and I talked about it on Sunday show. The EPA per play on first and second down compared to third down was insane. I mean, it was just like in a different stratosphere. Two different games. Yeah.

And over time, typically that evens out. Being a team that lives on third down offensively, that's going to come back to bite you eventually. That's never, overall that stuff regresses. So I guess that's kind of my question. How much of this is, I don't know if you can answer this or if they've tried to answer it, how much of this is noise, how much of this is a typical NFL season where you're going to have stretches like this? Think about last year. Think about the little swoon they had last season before that everything kind of came together. Is this a, is this cause for concern any of this stuff? Or do we have a feeling that at a certain point, this is still going to be the team we thought they were going to be. that was the best offense in the league for the first half of the season, a team that looked very much like the Super Bowl contender that we figured they would be.

Yeah, I think what helps them right now is New Orleans is a massive quarterback. So the team that would be in best position to challenge them doesn't look like a team that can outsprint them for the next eight weeks. Carolina, Carolina gets them twice in the last three weeks. So that could become a thing, but I still don't think it will be. And for the most part, it's kind of like if they get to the playoffs, as a division champ, they're starting the postseason in a better position than they were last year. We wrote a little bit this week about how this Bucks team is violently different at home versus on the road.

It literally works out to 26 points a game worse on the road. They're undefeated at home. They're averaging 40 points a game. They're scoring 18 a game on the road. Their defense is worse. Brady is worse. The run game is worse. And part of that is that last year's team, while they went 9 and 2 in the road,

road, went nine on two in the road where there were no crowds or limited crowds and there really weren't any of the normal challenges of being on the road besides sleeping in a hotel and taking a bus to the stadium you're not used to go into. So to me, what's the huge part of these next eight weeks for the bucks is can they win the games that are supposed to win just so they don't have to play as many road games in the playoffs this time around? So can you catch us up on some of the other like injuries that are going on, especially on offense? You ripped through some of those names before. But when can we realistically expect to see Rob Grunkowski, Antonio Brown, some of these other guys that they've been missing? Yeah, it's a litany. There's

so many to go through. Grancowski is probably the most confounding. I mean, Rob got hurting in week three, and they didn't even put him on IR. So he's been a healthy scratch for seven weeks, which is not good from a roster management standpoint. But they brought him back and he played in New Orleans. He only played six snaps, had one target, and clearly wasn't feeling right. I mean, again, Gronkowski's had all kinds of back issues. So for him to take a shot in the small of his back, bad enough to break ribs, puncture a lung, you got to make sure the guy's okay before you bring him back. He's already retired once because of this. So we see him. All we've seen him do so far is run on the side with trainers. He's looking better more naturally at that. But the idea of he's,

him going across the middle and putting himself, you know, a vulnerability to get hit again is going to be the big thing. So I'll be curious to see if he practices tomorrow. I mean, I think eventually the urgency of a two-game losing streak would set up, you know, maybe a little bit more of a need to play now versus waiting and waiting and waiting. Antonio Brown is kind of the same way. We didn't even realize he got hurt, had an ankle injury. I guess it's kind of a weird sprain that's more in the heel than in the ankle. So he's missed the last three games. It's like we saw him. He's riding a bike, but he's riding a bike with a boot on, you know, so it's a strange thing where he's coming back from. We see him at practice. He looks fine. We just haven't seen him run. And it's a receiver

and a foot injury. So it doesn't really matter how he's doing until he's running. So A.B's another guy that could be at practice tomorrow, could be playing Monday, or it could be another week. Scotty Miller has been out since the first month of the season. He had turf toe. He looks fine. I expect him to play. He'll be back. He's probably their fourth receiver, so it's not a huge boost, but it's good to have him back. It definitely adds to vertical threat. They haven't had the last couple games. Other injuries on offense, I think that's it. Defensively, every corner they have is hurt. They like five of their eight corners are either on IR or about to be on IR. Vita Vallea was a big scare. He got hurt literally the last play of the game in Washington

and on the goal line, fourth and one, went off on a cart. And Bruce, only thing Bruce tells us is that he felt something in his knee, which is not boating well. But he came out of it with just a bone bruise, mild MCL sprain. Doesn't look like he'll even go on injured reserve. So I wouldn't expect him Monday against the Giants. But beyond that, I think it's in play. Their corners, again, there's five corners that are out right now.

I think it's very possible that Sean Murphy Bunting is playing Monday with a brace on his dislocated elbow. Carlton Davis is running, which is a good step for a guy with a quad injury, but he's probably another week off. Richard Sherman has a grade two calf strain, which is probably a multi-week injury. He just got that Sunday. Dee Delaney is in concussion protocol. Richard Robinson is on IR. So that's how you get Bleedy Ray Wilson and Pierre Desir.

And pretty much, it's literally a possibility they could add a corner and have him active on Sunday if everybody stays hurt. We talked about this before this season. I mean, you and I talked about this when I was down there in Tampa in that air-conditioned trailer when it was 110 degrees outside. How could this team not be a contender again? What would derail their chances of repeating? And it's not fun to talk about. It's not interesting, but it's health. I mean, every time you look at these situations and you look at what it takes to win a Super Bowl,

you need to get lucky. You need to get the breaks that happened your way. There was an extreme case last year. They were the number one team in the league and adjusted games lost. They were the healthiest team in football, and that's a big reason why teams win in January and February. And now it doesn't matter how stacked you are, how many guys you bring back,

or where you think you have quality depth. If you have this rash of injuries, it's really, really hard to win games in the NFL. And this happens to be a rash of injuries in the one area of the roster that we felt like they couldn't get hurt because the depth didn't exist. And it just feels like the worst case scenario in that one specific spot for a team that seemed loaded everywhere else. Yeah. And I think honestly, what kind of really gave it away to me just the fear of injuries and how fragile a situation that is is Brady Sunday against Washington in that Hum Brady was not sacked. Had one quarterback hit the entire game.

It happened to be on third down on the opening drive. Jonathan Allen came and got him hard. I mean, he threw to his right and took a shot. And I felt like it changed the game for Brady in that that no risk get, no biscuit, no biscuit downfield throwing didn't do that at all. Eight screens, seven checkdowns to Leonard Fournette, with the exception of that one touchdown to Mike Evans for a 40-yard score on the fourth quarter, didn't really try to throw the ball downfield at all.

He looked like a guy that wanted to get rid of the ball as, quickly and as safely as possible the entire game, even at the expense of, they're playing the number, the number 32 pass defense in the NFL, and they had their season low for passing yards against that defense. Was there any explanation for why they did not push the ball down the field? Did anybody ask Bruce? It's just like, it was so, it was bewildering to watch that game plan against the team that couldn't defend throws down the field for the first nine weeks of the season.

And then you have a team that wants to do that. I mean, I just, it was so hard to reconcile in my mind watching and rewatching that game. Right. And it felt a little bit like, I mean, obviously there's what they want to do and what Tom is willing to do. And it felt like that probably was at odds a little bit. I think the way Bruce explained it was that they were in too high safety, which makes you less likely to want to throw. And Tom wanted to get rid of the ball quickly. And between those two things, and Mike Evans had three targets. One of them resulted in a field goal before the half.

the other one was a touchdown, but he got three targets. Fernette got nine. I mean, Godwin's going to get targets. That's fine. It just they, it seemed like they were giving a lot of respect to pass coverage that hadn't merited any kind of respect going into that week. Whatever they saw that spooked them out of that, they gave it up kind of cold turkey. And again, if you can, if you can do that, even in the fourth quarter where you're, I mean,

it looked like his first option was a five-yard pass to Four Nett, who was pretty much brought down by his first tackler every time the entire game. And again, if the defense gets a three and out with 11 minutes left and Tom Brady gets the ball back and goes down the penalty, they win, you'll say they did exactly what they needed to win. But instead, they kind of chose a path that gave them very little margin for error and they lost. If that game is five quarters long, the bucks will win that game. I firmly believe that.

And that's part of why it's like, all right, are we overstating this? When you lose two games and you lose to a Washington team coming out of the buy, there has to be some cause for concern, but in reality, it's probably going to be okay. And that's why I think that down the stretch, get a couple of guys back on defense. It was the best offense in the league for most of this season. Tom was existing at a higher plane for most of this year so far. So I want to look forward a tiny bit because I do think they're going to be okay. When I've watched Chris Godwin this year. I'm sorry, I have a salamander in my background in November. Just a flaw in my Florida presence here. Sorry.

Listen, I'm in the desert right now, so I'm warmer than I deserve to be this time of year. Sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. When I've been watching Chris Godwin this year, this is my brain and how it works, part of me is just imagining him in different jerseys next year. And there is going to be a financial reality with this roster. And how integral he's been to their offensive success and the game plan and what he means to them. We talk about the Packers, this being the last dance. this version of this Bucks team, we're not going to see it again, most likely.

Their financial realities are going to set in. Does that feeling and understanding what's on the horizon? Is that a thought at all in that place, either with you guys or with them? Because it really does feel like what they did this spring. They knew they were going to get one more crack at this. And the urgency associated with that, in my opinion, probably has to be real. Oh, absolutely. And I've had it where, like, I'll say plainly.

Like there's no way they're bringing everybody back again. And the Bucks front office takes that as an open challenge. Like, whoa, wait. But again, I mean, it helps. You should see the dead years. You can't even imagine the dummy years. Just voidable years. Everyone gets them.

And they, like, I mean, they could if they wanted to, I guess. But Godwin is going to be a really expensive, unrestricted free agent who already has been tagged once. I think Carlton Davis has probably helped them with Carlton Davis that he's missed these games with injury. so he's not quite the top 20 NFL, top of market corner that he probably could have been. But they have so many. I mean, their D-line, Sue and Pierre Paul and Goulston. And offensively, it's not just Godwin. I mean, Gronk is technically a free agent again.

Antonio Brown is a free agent again. And they've already kind of gone upside down on a lot of contracts to keep these guys here this year. So we were talking to Jordan Whitehead, who's their strong safety. and Whitehead is a guy who, again, he's a draft pick who's going to be an unrestricted free agent. Alex Kappa is a draft pick who's going to be a free agent. So it's not just the 33-year-old types that have been, you know, coming back on one-year deals. These are now younger guys like Carlton Davis, like Chris Godwin, that are homegrown. This is their first chance to get that big NFL paycheck.

Not all of them are going to take less to stay here, unfortunately. So I know we've talked a lot about how Tom Brady struggled last week and his, frustratingly short press conferences, but he's also still second in betting odds to win the MVP and was probably an MVP favorite for much of the season. Can you help us put into context a little bit about what his season has actually been like? And what do you think he's going to need to do for the rest of the season, not just to win another MVP, because I think that's certainly possible, but to get this team back to the Super Bowl, what specifically does Brady need to do? Yeah, I mean, it's amazing what he's done. Again, at age 44, there's never been a 44.

four-year-old full-time starting quarterback in the NFL for him to have 27 touchdowns against seven interceptions. And that's seven interceptions with four in the last two games. 27 and seven puts him on piece for 51 touchdowns, which he's never done. He would need the 17th game to get it. So it kind of gets an asterisk. And he's done that without Gronk for five games and without Antonio Brown for three games, hasn't had the full complement of targets. As much as he had this ridiculous depth at the start of the year, he really hasn't had everybody together in that team picture, kind of since the opener almost. So I think for Brady, obviously, it starts with staying healthy.

They've done a great job of protecting him. He's the least sacked quarterback in the NFL. Staying healthy is absolutely first and foremost. I think there's a real difference for him in winning this division first and foremost. I don't think it'll be a problem. But having that first game at home, if you look at Tom Brady's history before last year, when there's no crowds on the road, 20 and 4. at home in the playoffs, four and four on the road.

So there's just, there's one very familiar, very clear path to the Super Bowl for him, which is home games. And there's what he did last year, which won't be the same this time around. So right now, as much as they've lost two in a row and there's this fog over the team, they're one loss behind the top seat in the NFC. And the teams above them play each other. So, I mean, they're only real too tough. I mean, they just lost to Washington.

So you can't really write anybody off. but they're bills, they have bills at home, Saints at home. And the next toughest game is like at Indy, I guess you'd say. Yeah, I mean, a Panthers defense is quite feisty. We don't really know exactly who that team is going to be come December. Those games are so late too. What, that's week 16 and 18? Week 16 and 18.

Yeah. Week 18 sounds fake. There's been this back and forth where like beginning of the season, it's like, oh man, they close with Panthers, Jets, Panthers. They can't get better than that. And then it's like Carolina comes out three and O and you're like, maybe that'll be tough. And then they lose like five in a row. And you're like, oh, they're going to close with Panthers, Jets, Panthers.

And now they bring Camden. You're like, maybe that's tough. So anyway, that could be a wrinkle at the end of their season. I think the main thing for them is how many home games they earn the right to play. We know they're going to playoff team. They're probably a division champion, a bad division. But there's that question. Okay, can they be the two seed?

Because right now, they're still behind Dallas. right now, I guess. So right now they're the four seed, which means playing the Rams in the first round. And the difference between last year was kind of the same thing when they were the, they lucked out because they got Washington in the first round. And the difference between the three seed and the four seed in the NFC right now is the difference between playing the Rams and playing the Saints or, or, you know, Panthers or Falcons, whoever else takes that, Vikings, whoever else takes that last wild card. So I think there's just a huge value in not losing games like they did against Washington, winning the games they're supposed to win, getting to 13, 13 wins,

12, 12 probably has you on the road twice. So that's what they're doing right now, is just seeing how difficult a path they want to have to get to Los Angeles for a Super Bowl. In a league that has been very muddled over the last couple weeks in a world where we keep asking who's good, why, how are these teams losing, where parity has been a huge thing. It really does feel like when it all settles and when they get some guys back, this team is going to be what we expected them to be for the most part. And when you lose two games in a row, though, you have to do that diagnostic,

especially when one of them is to Washington. Greg Alman, thank you very much, sir. I know you have to go. We always appreciate the time. I'm sure we'll talk to you soon because, again, I think this team will be around for a long time over the course of the year. Good to see you guys. Thanks for having me.

All right, guys. That's all we have for today. As always, thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Greg. Thank you to Lindsay. We'll be back tomorrow with Nate and Schen. Sheel doing our preview and our Friday pick segment. Until then, appreciate you guys listening.

We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.