The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Steelers-Browns Thursday Night Football recap

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

At first, the Week 3 Thursday night game looked exactly like a Browns-Steelers game. And then it suddenly looked like Chiefs-Bills for a quarter. And then it looked a whole lot like Browns-Steelers again. After a back-and-forth first half, the Browns dominated the Steelers after halftime, riding Nick Chubb and their defense to a 29-17 win. Robert Mays and Nate Tice recap the game on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @Nate_TiceSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. The athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me tonight. It's my good friend Nate Tice. How you doing, buddy? Doing well. That was, uh, that was Schlock.

Thursday night football is back. That's what we needed. I was a little excited, kind of, for like seeing next week, Bengals, dolphins. So it's like, okay, okay, okay. I can live with that one a little bit. That's a little more interesting than what we just saw a little bit. I mean, it was interesting. There was some stuff.

There was some stuff to talk about. but it was a that was a performance from that Steeler's offense. That sure was. We'll dig into that. Browns beat the Steelers 29-17 right before we started recording. I said the Brown scored another touchdown. I was getting ready to do this. I did not see the lateral fest touchdown by Denzel Ward.

If you tease that game, I'm incredibly sorry. If you have any sort of altered over under, I'm incredibly sorry. If you're playing against the Brown's defense and fantasy, I'm very sorry. I had them for the first two weeks of the season because they were playing against the Jets and the Panthers. I could not turn down Dallas against the Giants next Monday, though. So I had to make a change. So I'm off the Browns.

Unfortunate timing for me. And I just dropped David Njoku today. So a lot of good stuff happening for this guy. That's good. Let's start with the Cleveland Browns. Okay. Cleveland Browns are a couple bounces of the ball, one terrible onside kick fumbling from being three and O this season. Greg Rosenthal asked this on Twitter.

I had a very similar thought down the second half of the season or down the second half of this game. Do you think the Brown's offense is better what you go be percent than it was at Baker-Metfield? Oh, yeah, without a doubt. I'm not even hesitating there. I think it is definitively better. I made a joke. I replied to Greg, and I said it's nice to have a quarterback with his internal clock in the same time zone. But honestly, when you watch this offense, because it's not a, I mean, it's not like a simple offense, but it's a very, like the balls out.

There's simple reads, I should say. It's very much the one to two. It's a lot of play action, so it's one to two to check down. So everything should come out like on one or two hitches. And Baker, how many times you see Baker backing up, back and up? At least the ball's coming out in a timely manner. It's going to the right spots. Like the touchdown, the first touchdown of Mari Cooper in the red zone, Baker's not throwing

that that quickly. Like, Jaco, he, that's not an area that he throws that well. Even the second one in Injoku, he lets that thing rip on time. On high and high pointed it, it was nice. And like that inside slant though, like Baker would always throw the outside slant. I would joke about it that they'd run double slant. He'd always throw the outside slant every single time. So it was literally something that Baker would never throw.

I mean, that's the difference right there. The QB sneaks. Oh my God. Like he's a machine on those. And yeah, I really do think when your strength of your team is the run game, there's a saying in horse racing, like a jockey can't win you a race, but they can lose it. I might be but that's kind of being a quarterback in this Brown's offense is just don't mess it up for us. He's a game manager.

And we say, wait, I don't mean that in a pejorative way. He is a game manager. And it's not just a don't make mistakes game manager. A couple things that really stuck out to me about the way he plays the position today. Jacoby Preset on his first 32 dropback today was pressured three times. Okay. I know T.J. Watt did not play. Yeah. Definitely have to take that into account, take that stat with a grain of salt. How often did he calmly and correctly adjust the protection tonight and slide it the right way and was able to stand in there because he was making the right decisions pre-snap. He's just not shooting them in the foot in more ways than not just turning the ball over. And I think that's really important. He's done that consistently. Yeah, ball's coming out.

Finding checkdowns. I mean, it's kind of a funny who got the targets tonight. Amari, Amari Cooper got 11 targets, no joke who got 10 targets, and then the rest of the receivers, People's Jones got three, Bell got one. That's how I thought it was going to be coming into the season. That's how it should be. That's why I have David and Joku in every fantasy league. He's a great as a blocker too, actually. So I wanted to point that out because he had a really nice day today as a receiver.

Everyone's going to talk about that. They ran that play multiple times in the first half where they had trips to the right with Njoku and the two receivers in a condensed split. And Joku handles the edge by himself out of that alignment multiple times with Potonio pulling around and they get chunk gains out of it. Multiple times coming into this game, no tight end in the league had more run blocking snaps than David and Joku. No one, but it wasn't even close.

We talk about three down. We talk about three down backs. A three down tight end is very, very valuable that you don't have to rotate. Oh, God, we're run blocking. All right. Get Lee Smith in there. You know, like not having to rotate the guys for your personnel. No, that matters.

That really matters. And he's good at it. And they do it in smart ways, too. Like in the Panthers game, it was a great, they run pinpole really well. And I like that you brought up the long guard pole that they do with Petonio is they do like a feign block where he steps in front of the D. And then he goes and cracks the linebacker. They did that a couple times. Yeah.

He's really good at it because they actually have to honor him. The D ends go, oh, shoot, this guy can get me. Like, so they actually have to honor. They're not just like throwing him to side. So it's great. It's a great usage of personnel. Also the Browns. This was their, they were the first team to run seven offense alignment in the NFL tonight.

So just, just banner day. Banner day for blocking. Again, pretty on brand for this franchise. The David Anjoku contract that he signed this summer, I think a lot of people raised an eye. Understandably so, but he's still only 26 years old. He is a willing and able blocker in this offense. He can play every single snap for them. He can do a lot after the catch, catches screens.

They do such a great job in their tight-end screen game. So this type of night is kind of what I expected from him, coming into the season. Maybe not 10 targets and eight catches for 80 in a touchdown. But I expected him to be a bigger part of their passing game and still a pretty good run blocker. And that's exactly what he is. It's kind of funny because he came into the league as this Uber athlete first round pick.

Yes. And very rarely are those guys effective blockers first and then come into their own as receivers. And that might be the path that David Njoku was on. It's really cool. Hey, that's the philosophy on tight ed. Just draft the big fast athletes and hope they work out. and get Bill Callahan as your offense a line coach and coach him up so he gets in a good run blocking. But no, no, it's credit to him, turning himself into a truly valuable player.

Those guys, that is very valuable. And the fact that he's hot, like we're talking about the throw, but he's high pointing a touchdown and they're targeting him for a reason because that's, he's a good athlete. He can go, he's got good size and go and get up there. So that's, that's a very valuable player. And he's playing really, really good football right now. The call on third and one to throw that ball to Amari Cooper is that. hell of a call coming out of the quarter the stealer should have been like alarm bells like ringing every time you come a stoppage of play a two minute warning a timeout quarter like you should know

some maybe a shot play's coming but awesome call awesome call there's other guys that would get puckered up there and nope the stepansky they they went for it i love that i love going for the throat there as your brissette there how it's got to be terrifying it's like oh god he's wide open it's a one man route One thing I can't do one man route. One man right. It's hard on the run fake. This is the third and one coming out of the quarter. They lined up in a super heavy personnel package and they threw it deep to

Amari Cooper. Mori does a great job of setting that up by the way. He stakes one step to the corner and then all the way across the field. There's nothing but space. And if you're Jacoby, it's all I have to do is not chuck this five feet over his head. And in that moment, it's got to be, ah. It's a quarterback. I can't imagine that feeling where it's like there's all I have to do is not screw

this up. The hardest. The hardest throws are the wide open ones. They really are because you're like, don't baby it. Don't throw it too far. And then usually you under throw it. Like that's why so many times it's like, we call him anchor balls where the guy's running and then the guy's like, like the anchors dragging them back.

But it's you're like, just don't overthrow it. Don't, don't screw this up. It's kind of funny too with Amari being in almost like a traditional offense. He actually looks, this is like the best. He's like kind of like looked because he gets to do kind of like. He looks to do. He gets to do real receiver things and not, um, I think maybe sometimes the. misconception with him was that like, you know, he's like, because he's so quick off the line,

but really he's best going vertical. And in this offense, he's got a lot of juice to him. Way more than you would have thought based on how he was using Dallas. There were a couple years where they were using him on some more vertical routes. When he first got there. When he first got there, when he first got there. Yep. And he's kind of stepped out of it.

I think when he can stride it out, he is a really impressive athlete. Yes. When I was at training camp and you're around him and you forget, like this guy was drafted in the top five. He is much bigger and faster than you might expect from a guy who is kind of a Z receiver. He played off the line of scrimmage with the Cowboys. He's profiled as that sort of quickness, route running type player.

But he's more physically impressive than that. And seeing him in this role, I actually think it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, the touch, so both touchdowns, was concerned, curious about how the Steelers matched those? Yeah. The first touchdown to Cooper. The first one was weird.

They were in 11 personnel. Yeah. Steelers matched it with base defense. Yep. That one was weird. So I'm curious, Stafansky when they showed him on the broadcast and you saw him in the process of bringing the play in and he kind of like smiled right at the end right before they cut away from him.

And I'm wondering if he saw that they were out in base. He's like, well, that's it. We got it. Yeah. Because Torel Edmins was on Cooper. Which is a terrible matchup. I was like, what is happening here? And they brought five.

So in traditionally when like this is the thing. when you bring four and you run man coverage, you have a whole player, a robber or a linebacker that's in the middle. So guys play with outside leverage because there helps in the middle. And they brought five there and Edmonds played outside. So it was very weird for me.

It was like, so are they expecting Make a Fitzpatrick just to be a monster back, which he is. You can be in five third place at the same time. Yeah. Like that's what are they like was weird. Maybe they caught him. The Browns went tempo a ton of this game.

I noticed. Like they, they were really hurrying to the line. Another example of him being a game manager of being able to control the flow of the game. I think that's a great thing to point out. They never went out of sorts. Like that's really,

yeah, being a game manager. I know. We're not using that. We're using that as a compliment. Like, he is a competent quarterback. Like he can handle this.

There's a reason Belichick drafted him because he interviews really well. I actually hosted Jacoby at Wisconsin. He did not commit. I hosted him and Nicolieri. He ended up going to Georgia first. So it's actually I have a long history with him. Great guy. So like I understand why people want it on his team because he understands football.

universally beloved teammate. He's like everyone loves Jacobi percent. So he like this anecdote. I know we're talking about this game, but I was at with the Falcons of scouting. We went to, I was at NC States Pro Day. He threw.

And he's, you know, other people are talking to him. I'm just off to the side taking my notes. And then I was like, Hey, Jacobi, I wanted it.

And I didn't even get my words out. And he goes, he didn't remember my name, but he goes, Wisconsin. He remembered me hosting them from years, years prior. I was like,

yeah, yeah, you didn't commit. But yeah, good to see you, man. Like, good to see you. But yeah, but he is, you can tell he gets football. He's probably going to be a great coach because he just gets it.

You can tell. Even at the Colts, you could tell he'd be like, like as a play is going and he's like, has his hand up because he understands that it's about to be a shot or something like that. He's one of those types of guys. He just gets football. And you can tell when he has a nice offensive line, he gets to operate back there. He does a good job.

He's doing a good job right now. All three games, he has done a good job playing quarterback. The way I understood it, even when the Watson's suspension came down with as many games as it was, I don't think they ever thought about moving on to go get another quarterback, even for, maybe they considered it. But the way that I had understood it from the building is that Jacoby, they were very happy and very secure in what he could be for them. Six games, ten games, whatever it would be.

And I think that he's acquitted himself very well in the way that he has played over the first few games of the season. He's been everything that they need. On defense for the Browns, it's hard to say, right? I mean, so the biggest, concern I have, pass rush non-existent for the rest of this game. No clowny. So something to think about, but they did got no push up front whatsoever, even with bringing a little bit of heat every once in a while. Yeah, they, well, the Steelers went, I've just looked it up in true media,

Steelers went max protection, 25% of their snaps of their dropbacks, max pro. So they, they were saying, Miles Garrett, you are not wrecking our game until the very end and then they had to spread it out a a little bit, but they were going to empty looks with the double chippers a lot. They were really cognizant, a lot of sprint outs. But then it's so funny the Steelers offense. It is so frustrating with the matter. That's what I wanted to get into. I have to.

Yeah, hold on. Yeah. Let's table the Browns conversation for a second. I want to talk about the Browns defense and analyze the Brown's defense when they play against a real NFL offense. We can, we can do that a little bit later down the road. Better. They definitely play better less than a big bus.

Denzo Ward had a couple really nice moments. So I do think they played better. But let's get, talk about that a little bit later. Let's dig into the sealer's offense. What is the most frustrating part for you about watching this offense? This is a great way to sum it up. Is there, their run game, I'm tout to my own horn before I even say anything. But the run game has all the motion, the Matt Canada, you know, okay, all this stuff, the double motion, double jet stuff.

And then when they get into passing game, they all just sit there. It's, there's no motion. I want to look at the stats, what the numbers are from pass to run on shifts and motions. because they get out, they spread it out in the shotgun. It's like static. As soon as no one's moving, it's like pass, pass. Like you know it's going to be a pass. And it's like as soon as you see a motion, run, run.

Like there's no tying together. We talk about siloed offenses. This isn't just silo. It is their tendencies are so ridiculous. Like you can tell literally what they're about to run by the tight end, by the formation. It's very elementary. And that's what it is.

The dropback game is so. basic and not even just basic in the sense that they don't run a lot, but the stuff that they do run. There's a reason they're throwing so many go balls because they're saying that's the best throw on this. The passing chart was insane. Dude, it was embarrassing. It's like, it was stacked on top of each other, just right side go balls in the first half. And I know on the left side line. Yeah, just a couple. Like, it's, you can't win that way. You can't. It's not sustainable to win that way. Even when you have dudes. Ask the Bengals. I mean, that's, it's hard to do it when you ask George Pickens after the play he made. today. They have guys, Deante Johnson

is a good player. This one down the left sideline. That one that was right there through his arms. But for the most part, he's going to make those plays. He makes plenty of them. George Pickens makes that insane catch down the sideline. Like absolutely insane. When the greatest catch is overseen. Essentially horizontal to the ground.

Yeah. It's different that the OBJ won't say the OBJ one is ridiculous, but he has both eyes. And just think when you're, I know the people listening to us on the podcast, you're moving around here. But this is why you got to watch our YouTube streams. And which these pre caps will only be on YouTube starting with our next one.

So take that. Okay. Good enough. Yes. But this one is horizontal and it's passing over his head. So just think of how your peripheral vision goes with a helmet on. That is insane. It should be the NFL logo like Jerry West with the NBA logo.

It was so cool. Kirk Herb Street, I know he's doing a nice job, but he has a lot of information they're giving. Like, someone get excited. I was flipping out on my couch. I'm by myself drinking my lacros. one of the greatest catches you'll ever see in the history of the NFL. We did not have that sort of response from the broadcasting team.

I know. I know. You know that meme on Twitter where it's Joe Buck. It's like Joe Buck, the sun's rising. He's like, oh God. Oh, God. Yes. Like that's what it felt like just very monotone.

Like come on. Like someone get excited. I was flipping out. I'm drinking my LaCroi going like somebody like I want to high five somebody right now. So take it to Twitter. But no, it was one of the coolest catches. But it's so frustrating because that's the only way he's getting fed is go balls. Yeah.

That's, that's hard. You're not getting any gimmies, no slants, no digs. You don't see a dig in this offense. You don't see a high, low over the middle of the field until the last drive when they're, you know, down two scores. And those were benders and those are hard throws too. They're just running four verts and four vert variations and stick. It's not, it's a very, very basic offense. That's very, it feels very ACC.

That's why I feel like I'm watching. I feel like I'm watching a mid-tier ACC offense in the NFL. That's siloing of when they were using motion they were running and when they weren't. weren't they were throwing. This is a consistent problem for this offense. I thought it was a Ben Rothlisberger problem. I did too. Because I thought he didn't want moving pieces when they were dropping back to throw. Clearly not a Ben Rothesberger problem because it's carried over when he's not the quarterback anymore. I know. Honestly, I thought they do put Trubisky on the move on sprintouts a lot. Where are the nakeds? Like, where are the bootlegs, the other movement stuff? Like, where is the tie-ins,

the play action? Like, that's, again, kind of going off what you're saying. He doesn't turn his back. Like there's not, it just feels very just like, okay, we're sitting in the shotgun, three by one, why off, you know, tie that end off and we're running this play. And there's nothing like where it's like, ooh, that looks like the run play where they're under center. I want to break this down like the next couple weeks, maybe we get another game and then start looking at their tendencies because it's very, just very like 80%, 75% this, 80% this. And that you can't win that way in the NFL when you don't have guys and you have Trubisky, your best offense is Trubisky run around a little bit or Naja Harris,

break some tackles. Like, that's their best offense right now. Yeah, Chibisky run around and sling a ball up the sideline and see what happens is not the makings of an NFL offense. So that leads me to my next question. You have a mini by now. You have a few more days and then you walk into your next game in 10 days. Is this the time?

Is it time for Kenny Pickett to play? What are the reasons that he shouldn't be playing at this point? I mean, they can understand what they are. I think it's a very, you got to be reflective. Like, unless he is, you're saying he's unplayable at this point. which I don't think he is, but that would be the only argument against it that they're saying it's worse if he's out there. But it's like,

he needs to see bullets. You risk. My understanding as far as why he would not play at the beginning is that this is a veteran locker room. And there is a standard culturally within the organization. Especially that defense. We try to win. Okay. We're trying to win every single game.

The best players are going to be out there. Did you see the body language on the sideline with the receivers today? Did you hear George Pick. this week, talking about how he's open 99% of the time. The culture's going out the window, Mike. You're not keeping anything intact by trotting this guy out there. You were running out of reasons to not play the guy you drafted in the first round. Even if it's marginal, I still feel like the building and the veterans and the guys in there

are probably going to understand the kid was drafted in the first round. He should play. I understand why he should play. It's not as, it's not enough of a step back for you to incite a mutiny because guys are upset about wasting games of their career. Right. And the fact that you slap that first round grade on them and draft him in the first round, it is, hey, there's not like a mistake. We're planning on this guy starting at some point. Why not now? I still think, of course, the perfect role as a guy sits for a year, but it's on this team, why? Like, why? We know what Trisky is. It's not helping.

I mean, the still not throwing down the left side is still kind of happening too. And honestly, I just want to speak about the culture of the Steelers real quick. It's a very real thing. And it's a very It's a very, very real thing. But even you can see it tonight, Jill and Warren, the backup running back, who I really like, really, really fun player,

great pass protector and get with the ball of his hands. He had the fumble and they recovered it. The Steelers recovered it. He gets benched because that's what they do. Steelers are going to do that old school. Hey, you turn the ball, but get out of here.

And Cam Hayward comes up, slaps him on the ass and like, rubs him and goes, hey, you're good, you're good. That is real. That is a real thing. They have a team that,

everybody has to be accountable. And so that's where, I see the hesitancy to play a young quarterback. But dude, let him get in there. Let's get his feet wet, especially like you said, what you have the half by that they have this week. Yeah, I just don't see any more reasons why he's not the better option. You understand the long-term plan.

And again, it's not enough of a step back that you're going to have guys kind of looking at the side, giving you the side eye because really we're going to put this guy in. It's not some fourth rounder. Yeah, it's not even book last year, you know, for the same. It's a duty, you drafted at 20. or 21, whatever it was. But that's... And I think it's really important to understand that you said.

It's ideally a guy would sit for a year. Who are the last two guys that were first round picks that sat for a year? Mahomes. And then was it Palmer? Trey Lance sat all of last season. Oh, Trey Lance. Yeah, that's two spots starts. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. So two guys who were first round picks that sat for an entire season, those were top five offenses. Yep. When those guys sat. I'm pretty sure the 2017 Chiefs finished 10th. in, or excuse me, fourth in offensive DVOA. Had won the division the previous X amount of years or put their legit 10 win team.

And I think they, at once in the Niners finished fifth last year. He was looked great. That was Alex Smith-Bom's away. Those are offenses where they're giving you the best chance to win because you're set up to win. If you can have this thing where you maintain the culture because there's offensive excellence and this is who we are. No one's wondering if how much better we would be because you're already so good. That's not what this is.

At a certain point, you have to understand that both the long-term view and the short-term health of the franchise can probably be helped by moving to a guy you drafted in the first round. Yes, yes. I totally agree. They have to know. You have to have some self-awareness with your team. I know you have some standard by everything. But it changes. It changes from year to year.

This is not the team, the Steelers offense from four or six years ago, or even five, six years ago. This team, this offense has been kind of, yeah, don't you. want a little spark. And even though before a free agency happened and everybody was hyping up how Chubisky is going to make like $20 million and stuff, remember that? Remember that week that happened where people were tripping over themselves about how much money Chibisky's going to get paid and you got

one-year deal for single digits? He's a backup. He's a backup contract because he's a backup quarterback. Correct. And that's okay. It's okay to be a backup quarterback. Yep. But when you draft the guy in the first round and this is the situation that you're staring at, I think that it behooves you to give that guy a chance, especially when you have this built-in mini by three weeks into the season and everyone can see what's happening. And this defense is always going to keep them in games. That's also another argument, too, is that they're not going to have a lot of games where it's like, oh, my God, we're the whole second half.

We got to chuck it. They're always going to be in games. I really do think that. I'm worried about what it looks like without what. A little bit. Highsmith's stepping up. Highsmith's a nice player, but that's it. It's not like Hystlets's coming off the bench.

Highsmith is a starter. Yeah. The other rotating cast of guys they have on that other edge, it's not. very good. The T.J. Watt brings this whole thing together and they really miss him when he's not out there. I still think they'll be competent enough. Yeah, Sam Sutton is a nice player. He had some nice moments again today. Like, they have, they get the most out of their guys on that side of the ball.

I really believe that. But I still think that it's just, it's so tough without Watt for the defense to carry you for stretches. They can't, the defense can't carry them for stretches with him on the bench. They can only tread water and sustain. And this was interesting, too, is that like, I, make a Fitzpatrick's been playing amazing the last two weeks, this is the worst kind of game script for a guy like him to affect the game. He's a guy that destroys quarterbacks thrown the ball 30 to 40 times and gets in the way. He's not a guy because how they use him. He's basically a perma robber.

They want him just playing like reading eyes and doing what he does or playing cover two and going rogue. I'm going rogue in a good way. And this is the worst type of game script for him. Up until this game, by the way, the Steelers had, did not play a snap of base defense until this game this entire season. They were all nickel and dime the entire year until this game. And then now they have to get out.

They put it in weird situations. And now they're strange. So strange, right? It was kind of like they galaxy brain themselves a little bit, I think. I really do think that. And that's the thing. When you have a unique Browns offense like this, that can win with a dominant offense align and just fresh back.

Kareem Hunt, Chubb. Like, it's when those backs are hitting the whole hard, it takes you out of your element. And if your element's going to put a bunch of DBs on the field, that's kind of frustrating, but that's like, that's the advantage the Browns had in this game, too. Note from our producer, one thing to take into account when we're thinking about Kenny Pickett, whether he should start. After the Jets next week, the Steelers are at Buffalo and then home for Tampa Bay. Okay, let's wait.

So there's a chance that Mike Tomlin's looking at that slate and saying, we'll feed Mitch to the bills and the bucks and then maybe Kenny will get his chance. What's after that? What's the Chubisky Bill's Wick scale? Is that half a wick? Is that the John Wig? Negative wicks. He got his chance to be a starter because of the reclamation project that happened in Buffalo

where he didn't do anything. Quote unquote. Am I coming in as the JV quarterback at the end of the games and blowouts? He had a great, great, yeah, great rejuvenation project there. I have no issues with Mitchell Tripisky. I think that there are a lot of guys who make a great living. Week 7 at Miami, week eight at Philly, is what they have after that. When's their body?

A lot of guys soon. that's why I want to know. I'm not looking at the schedule. Yeah, yeah, I'm not either. This is live week nine by. So I don't know, I don't want to wait till week nine. I don't think Steelers fans want to wait till week nine, but that next couple games after the Jets is pretty daunting. Yeah. Yeah, it's, there's nothing wrong with being a back of quarterback. There's nothing wrong with being Jacoby percent. And you, you bounce around to a couple teams and people like you. You're in the locker room. That's the life that you live. That's Jay Stanley. As Chase Daniel. As Shane how it's been. It's been a great living for him. That's the thing. Trubiski's the guy. deal backup because he can go in there and run around. Like even if he does another game plan, go run around and run around. So makes a place if you have, if you need him as a spot starter.

But when he's your long term guy, it's just we've seen it. It's not fun. All right. Anything else? No, not really. Just I'm excited for Sunday.

This is this. I actually enjoyed this game more than I thought I would. The Brown's run game is legit fun to watch. And I, I mean that. Brown's offense. I'm enjoying watching. I mean that's sincerely.

I really like him having his finger on the button. I do too. I just think that he's done a really nice job with it. No, Jacoby Percette, and we keep calling on the game manager, we are saying this so much as a compliment because he is playing good football. He's playing winning football. He really is at quarterback. And that's fine. And now the defense has to do their part.

The Browns are hanging in there. They really are. It's an interesting team. It's a team more interesting than you maybe thought maybe a couple weeks ago. Yeah. If they hadn't made a Faustian bargain the way that they did trading for the quarterback that they traded for, I would feel really good about what they had done over the first few. swerving lanes. So swerving lanes

getting around it right there. So I'm doing what I can here. But no, props to Jacoby Percept for winning another game and this Browns team. So Thursday night football, nothing like it. All right. That's all we got,

guys. Really appreciate it. This will obviously be available as a podcast very, very soon here. If you have not listened to our week three preview, which is an hour and 45 minutes long, sorry about that. First time we shot it out that format with the two of us starting it.

And then Deiote coming in, we will tighten those shows up. Yes. later on. But there is a lot to dig into with our week three preview. We talked about Bill's Dolphins. We talked about Bucks Packers. We talked about the Gremlin Phil Jags defense going against the Chargers.

We talked about the Chiefs defense against the Colts. Asked if the Eagles are definitively the best team in the NFC. We trotted out some takes. We're waiting into them. We're going to start doing that on every Thursday show or most Thursday show. So please go check that out if you have not. Also, please subscribe to this YouTube channel. to it or a little bit earlier,

these game recaps that we're doing, we're going to stop releasing them as podcasts. It's going to be YouTube only. They're going to be YouTube exclusive. So if you want to watch these, if you want to hear these, you're going to have to start watching the YouTube channel. If you want to subscribe to that,

the description of this podcast, the link is in there. Please subscribe. We have this. We have our Sunday recaps. We have the Monday Hangover. I'm pointing down to the Friday Hangover. The Monday Hangover,

a lot of stuff on. YouTube, Nate's X's and O's series Y in the clock. So please go subscribe if you have not. Subscribe to the podcast if you are not and subscribe to The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show. Football GM will come out on Friday afternoon. A lot of stuff to remember. Football GM will come out

Friday afternoon with Randy Mueller and Mike Sando. So highly encourage you guys to listen to that. And then we will be back on Sunday nights. In the meantime, appreciate you guys listening. Enjoy your weekend. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.