The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Tom Brady’s return to New England, Richard Sherman’s deal with the Bucs and what’s at stake for Ben Roethlisberger with Lindsay Jones + a New York Giants team visit with Dan Duggan

Episode Date: September 30, 2021

Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones discuss Richard Sherman’s deal with the Buccaneers and the WR injuries across the league. Then, they dive into Tom Brady’s return to New England, the Cardinals’ hot start and what’s at stake for Ben Roethlisberger in Week 4. Finally, The Athletic’s Giants writer Dan Duggan joins the show to talk about New York’s 0-3 start, the state of the franchise, Joe Judge and much more.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. The presenting sponsor for today's episode of the Athletic Football Show is Visa, a network working for everyone. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Today is Thursday, September 30th. I'm Robert Mays. Fun show for you guys today. Our Giants writer, Dan Duggan, is going to be joining us a little bit later, chat about, I don't know, pretty depressing. I won't three star for the Giants.

Not a lot of stuff going well. We got into all of that great discussion with Dan. Before we do that, though, I am thrilled to welcome my good friend, Lindsay Jones. Lindsay, how you doing? I am great, Robert. I'm excited to get into all of this. And we'll try to keep it happy because the last 30 minutes, it's going to be a little rough for Giants fans. It is going to be a little rough for Giants fans or anybody else.

So let's go. All right, let's start with some of the news. The big news from this morning is Richard Sherman signing with the Bucks. It's kind of an incentive-laden playing time-based deal. It's a one-year deal. The Bucks are dealing with tons. of cornerback injuries. And this is just one more late career veteran.

They've kind of coaxed to Tampa to be a part of this ride. Lindsay, what do you make of this deal? And obviously in the wake of some of the things that Richard Sherman has been dealing with here over the last few months. Yeah, I mean, we kind of have to separate the football side of it. And then just kind of the personal stuff for Richard Sherman. From a football perspective, Richard Sherman absolutely fits the profile of who the Bucks have been signing. It makes a ton of sense. I was at the Rams Bucks game the other night.

when Jamel Dean was injured in the first quarter did not return. And after the game, Bruce Ariens was talking about that they brought in a couple guys last week and that were long and tall. And I was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It's Richard Sherman is coming in ASAP. And sure enough, Tuesday, he made the cross-country trip from Seattle to Tampa and signed. And he was on the practice field wearing number five, which will look very weird. It's funny because he wore nine at Stanford.

So I've seen him in a single-digit number before. I knew I wasn't losing it. I knew that I had seen that in the past. Yeah. So he has already practiced. He talked to and he talked to reporters, you know, a little bit like caging whether or not he'll actually be in the lineup on Sunday. When they go to Foxborough to play the Patriots, he kind of said he'd like to have a full week of practice. But, you know, he was on the field on Wednesday.

So he absolutely could practice. He's not on a commissioner's exemptilist. There has been no, you know, determination of discipline or anything like that stemming from what happened the summer. And Richard Sherman, in the way that only Richard Sherman really can do, was actually very candid, very open and honest about talking about his mental health, about what he went through the summer. The Cliff Notes version on that is that he was arrested. It was initially kind of billed as a domestic violence case. He showed up at his in-law's house, his father-in-law called the cops on him. There was also a car accident, a DUI charge. So it's kind of a litany of

misdemeanors, the DUI is still in there. So my gut, my understanding of what would, what will probably happen here is that at some point he will be disciplined by the NFL for the DUI, whether that's even if he pleads it down, if it's a no contest. The NFL takes DUIs very, very, very seriously. There's not a whole lot of wiggle room based on whatever the education of the case is. So I think that will happen at some point. I would not expect that there will be a suspension based on the other part of the personal conduct policy, just given kind of what we already know about that case and the history of how Roger Goodell's treats these things. But that's nothing that's happening immediate. It's not going to preclude

him from playing right now. Seems like he is in a very good mental health space, especially compared to where he was several months ago. And now it's just, you know, he hasn't played football for a very long time now. And can he be up to speed and ready to play in a couple of days in a, you know, game that a lot of people are going to be watching. He was on Doug Farrar's podcast or did something with Doug recently and just, you talked about how it was just a, you know, a miserable day and just something that he deeply regrets. And I just, I hope that his mental health is in a place where he feels good about it. And, you know, it'll be, you know, something to see him play again. And especially

in this circumstance, I mean, I can't really remember anything like this in recent NFL history where we've seen all of these guys who are such big name players in one era kind of coming together in a moment like this. I mean, a team with Tom Brady and Richard Sherman and Rob Garnkowski, if you had told me that Tampa Bay would be the place for these guys to be two years ago. Yeah, Antonio Brown as well.

I mean, it's just, it's a very strange circumstance. But it's, I think Richard Sherman said it. It's like when Tom Brady picks up the phone, it's, you're going to listen.

And that's what's happened. Yeah, I mean, I immediately thought of, I mean, we know who Richard Sherman was. I mean, the very first time that most people knew who Richard Sherman was,

was when he was when he, went up to Tom Brady after a game in 2012 and basically said, you mad bro and posted all over social media. I had just started at USA Today at the time. My first trip, I flew up to Seattle to write about like, who is this kid? So it's a very kind of one of those funny versus my Twitter,

like aware how it started, how it's going. And there's been a lot of chapters in between for these two guys, obviously the Seahawks Patriot Super Bowl. There have been chapters in between, but it is very cool to kind of see these two guys align now. Was that in 2012? It was.

Yeah, it was his rookie year. I remember watching that game at Bill Simmons's house and watching the Patriots game and watching that moment. And it was like, wow, I used to watch it every week when we were younger. He said that season, I watched almost every single game there. I remember watching the Tebow game with those guys and just driving around aimlessly in Los Angeles when Marion Barber didn't go out of bounds. The 2012 Bears Tebow game. Oh, that one. Okay, gotcha.

Marion Barber. Oh, God. It's just a miserable, miserable day. All right. Let's hit a couple quick injury things very quickly. Every single receiver in the NFL has a hamstring injury, apparently. AJ Brown and Julio Jones both thinged up. It seems like AJ Brown, I want to say, is week to week.

Seems like Julio might have a chance to play a little bit sooner than AJ Brown does, but obviously a huge blow to a Titans team that, I don't know, is somehow two and one? I don't really, they're almost winning the NFC or the AFC South by default at this point. But this is a team that was really kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel with their receiving group last week. Chester Rogers, people like that. So that's definitely something to keep an eye on. And then on the other side of that, Rashad Bateman coming off IR. The best news that Nate Tice has heard in like six months, the fact that we get to watch Rashad Bateman play football relatively soon here for the Ravens.

He's practicing now. He could play as soon as this week. I mean, that is amazing news for the. the Ravens who are also getting Miles Boykin back off IR, but I'm a little bit more intrigued by the Rashad Bateman News than the Miles Boykin news. Yeah, I mean, it just really is what the Ravens need. I mean, it's been a really rough start injury-wise for that passing game. So the idea of finally getting him back is really, really enticing.

Anything else you want to hit before we move on? I would just also mention James White in New England. It looks like he's going to be out for the rest of the year. they were cautiously optimistic, I think, after Sunday's game, that it wasn't going to be a season-ending injury, but it appears they got that news Wednesday afternoon that James White is going to be out. And, you know, he's just such a great part of their passing game. You know, he's just such a reliable weapon. He's also just a good dude who's been through a lot.

And so it's just, that was really tough. And I'm sure that's going to hit that locker and pretty hard in a week that they're already dealing kind of with enough external stuff. And now they have to figure out, you know, I don't think they're particularly deep at running back. I mean, Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels are the kings of just given the ball to random dudes. But James White was such a big part of what they were doing. And kind of with where Mack Jones is at was really a safety valve for them. And now that is no longer going to be there for the rest of the season. All right.

Let's get to who has the most at stake in week four in the NFL. Why don't you start us off? All right. Not to be super negative Nancy here on this podcast. But I'm putting the spotlight on Ben Roth. Ruther and the Steelers offense because they are playing the Sunday afternoon national game at Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers. So I will forgive a lot of people if they didn't watch every snap of Bengals Steelers the other day. I hope you didn't go back and pull it up on game pass or recorded on your DVR because it was very ugly.

It was a really, really difficult watch and especially for Ben Rathesberger. I really enjoyed Mark Caboli, one of our Steelers beatwriters. I really enjoyed his kind of breakdown of what happened because he really got into very clearly of how the Steelers are basically just a one read offense right now. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Their offensive line has been very, very poor. But a lot of this is on Ben Rathosberger and just what can he physically do at this point? When you watch them, it looks like they are playing in slow motion.

I think one of the sacks he took the other day, like actually took about 17 and a half seconds. I mean, I, it's, it's like mind-boggling to watch the speed at which kind of they're playing, the way he moves around in the pocket, the lack of dynamic offense that they have. And it's, it's just been really hard to watch. And this is going to be on a massive stage. And there's going to be no hiding anymore. So the kind of the national conversation, I think, around Ben Rothesberger, if he does not show a little bit more signs of life when they're, you know, up against Aaron Rogers, a quarterback who seems to be aging.

just fine outside of maybe his facial hair. It's going to be really, really apparent of just how kind of old and on the very last legs Ben Rathosberger is. What kind of knots is Tony Romo going to have to twist himself in to not just bury Ben Rathosberger in this game if he plays the way he did last week? Can you remember a situation like this where there's been this legacy quarterback who just looks completely cooked this early in the season. So it's not as if you can go to somebody younger.

It's, oh, we'll give the young guy a chance. They committed to him this off season. I mean, I guess there are shades of what happened with Eli Manning near the end. But I think we remember how complicated that situation was just because of his stature there within the franchise. It just makes it such a complicated scenario for Mike Tomlin to have to navigate. And it feels like we're headed in that direction. Yeah, I mean, Mike Tomlin was getting asked questions this week about like, well, what changes do you make? Do you, would you consider benching Ben Rothesberger?

And for who? You're benching him for Mason Rudolph. You're benching him for Dwayne Haskins. I mean, one of the fundamental problems right now that the Steelers are facing is that they just, they have just kept delaying the quarterback succession plan for a really long time. And we can criticize other teams who have mishandled their quarterback succession plan. we're going to get into one of those very shortly. We'll stay, stay tuned. But look, it's happening in San Francisco.

It happened with the Giants, where it was this very awkward thing with Eli Manning and Daniel Jones. But at least those teams kind of had some sort of a plan. It's awkward how to handle it. But the Steelers have not had a plan. They looked at what Ben Rathosberger did last year and said, yes, sign us up for that again. And thought that maybe it was somehow replicable where they were a good team for a lot of last year. I mean, they were the last undefeated team standing in the NFL last year, even though if you actually watched their offense really closely,

there wasn't a lot to be really excited about. And you could see this aging process, really, for Ben Rathesberger. And right now we're in a place where it's not good. And it's really hard to watch the tail end. And look, I'll probably talk more about kind of the end of the Peyton Manning era in a little while. But you saw that with Peyton. It happened when the end came, it came really, really, really quickly. you know, I think there were moments of Drew Breeze last year.

But, you know, for a lot of these guys, we haven't had to see it. You know, Philip Rivers walked away before we had to see him fall off of a physical cliff. You know, I think Eli Manning also maybe he was getting close to there and we didn't have to see him go all the way into, you know, what are they averaging? Like he's like averaging about six yards an attempt, six point one yards per attempt right now. But he's also near the very bottom of the league and completion percentage. So not only is he not attempting to throw the ball downfield, he's actually not completing that higher rate of his passes, his short passes. I mean, his passing chart is, it's really ugly.

I mean, he's not throwing deep. I don't think he has any attempts over 40 yards downfield. And he's very inaccurate even when he goes in the 15, 20 to 30 yard range. So it's been really painful to watch. And look, is this Matt Canada's fault? They brought in a new offensive coordinator. Or is Matt Canada designing the best game plan he can? for a limited quarterback and a really poor offensive line.

I'm not sure which one is more to blame here. But it's rough and it's going to be on a pretty big stage where I think everybody is going to see these massive flaws of the Steelers team Sunday afternoon. And it's been rough because their defense has also been playing pretty poorly. Obviously, T.J. Watt has been banged up. But they're corners. They've got two that are playing pretty well in Joe Hayden and Cam Sutton. and then they've got two that aren't playing pretty well.

And that was one of my concerns with this team coming into the year is that, their defense still has so many good pieces on it. But at the same time, is there any world where they're as good as they were over the last couple years? And if the answer was no, if they slipped on defense and their offense couldn't pick up the slack in a big way, what does this team look like? And that kind of feels like the direction that we're headed. And this holding pattern that we were afraid of with the last year of Rothesberger, not having a plan for what comes next.

What does this team look like in 2022? It kind of seems like we're there. My answer for who has the most at stake is Matt Nagy. There's nowhere else I can go with this. I mean, can you remember a coach or an offensive performance that has gotten this much, much oxygen in a bad way this early in the season? I mean, how many breakdowns of what happened have you seen on the internet over the last three or four days.

I watched a half hour JTO Sullivan video today on the QB school about every single sack that Justin Fields took in that game. It just, I cannot remember anything like this. Such a highly public-facized public failing from an offensive staff and the discourse that's gone with it. It's been exhausting for me over the last four days. It's his own fault, though, right? Because they've mismanaged.

this quarterback situation basically from the day that they drafted Justin Fields. And even as recently as what 10 days ago, two weeks ago, right after Andy Dalton got hurt, he wouldn't kind of declare who their starter was going to be because he said it was a scheme decision, which would lead us to believe there would be some sort of different scheme happening when you had a quarterback who had a different and much more dynamic skill set. And instead what we saw was something that was far more boring. Yeah. It's, they need to do something that shows some life on offense.

Thankfully, they're playing the Detroit Lions this week. It's like clockwork with this team during the Mad Nagy era. Every single time they need a game from their quarterback, from their offensive staff, whatever, they happen to play the Lions. It just feels inevitable at this point. The Lions defense has been struggling. They have so many cornerback injuries. They're so young.

This is the get right game. Nagy today came out and said, they're going to keep it internal for who's calling plays. And this is just the same cycle of pain that we've gotten so used to in Chicago over the last couple years. They did this last year when Bill Lasers started calling plays. And then they switched back before this season started. It's just they have, I've been talking to so many people this week about it. You know, former NFL players, coaches, just they have such little identity and feel on offense.

and I don't know. I think he has the most at stake just because if they play poorly this week, goodness is that drumbeat going to continue. I don't think a performance, a solid performance against the Lions means anything in the long term. But if this goes bad, no matter who's playing quarterback, oh my goodness. I mean, I just can't even imagine. Before we move off of Matt Nagy,

are we sure that the Lions are not looking at what happened with the Bears last week and say, here is our get-right game. That's actually how they're spending it. The same way the Bears fans are talking about it. There's a chance that they might. This is the week our pass rush gets on track. Here we go. Oh, my God.

That is where the Bears are right now. I mean, it's just on so many levels. They are, it's hard to be worse than they were last week. And I think that's why Matt Nagey has so many eggs in this basket. And we'll see how that goes. All right. Let's get to this week's appointment viewing something we cannot wait to watch in week I think both of us had the same answer.

There's no other place to go. I mean, some of this is silly, right? Like some of it is always going to be silly. But I think that some of it is undeniably compelling. Like there is a reason that there is so much focus on this because I just think about it. I mean, it's hard to wrap your arms around the totality of Tom Brady and the Patriots and everything that has meant. And now he is playing against the Patriots. And I understand why that's been the question for everybody.

And that's why everyone's going to get 10 million questions about it this entire week. Yeah, I mean, because it's basically unprecedented. For a player to have spent 20 years in one place, it would have been a big deal if this game had been in Tampa. It is a massive deal that this game is in New England. It's a massive deal for the fan base. I know there have been reporters who have been traipsing around New England, Peter King, among them. to just like really try to figure out how fans feel about this. I mean, how many little kids in New England and not even little kids?

How many teenagers are there in New England who are named Brady, right, that are going to be at this game that are going to be conflicted? You know, I think narratively, it changes a little bit based on the fact that Tom Brady has already shown that he is just fine without Bill Belichick. If they hadn't won the Super Bowl last year, you know, or if he hadn't had a great season in his first year away, we'd still be having this endless, like, was it, was their success because of Tom or Belichick? And could they succeed without each other?

We have already seen half of that. So I think undoubtedly the pressure is more on Bill Belichick in this game. But I think the emotional toll is going to be on Tom. And that's why, look, I'm sure that you and Nate are going to get into a lot of like the schematic stuff and maybe what you're going to be watching on the field in this game and tomorrow's show. So I'm most interested in the pregame, the post game. everything that's going to happen on social media, what's happening in the breaks, what's happening in the stands. Because, look, so I covered the, I covered the Broncos during the Peyton Manning era.

I was at the game in Indianapolis when he went back. It's not an apples to Apple situation because he wasn't going back to face his former coach. Yeah. Indy kind of really cleaned house the same time that Peyton Manning left. But he didn't really get a chance to say goodbye. And Tom also has not really had that kind of like emotional moment with the band base, like the last time that he was on the field at Gillette Stadium, he threw an interception. I was there. Yeah. I mean, his last pass there was an interception to Logan Ryan, right? And the

end of that Titans playoff game. I mean, it was kind of an unceremonious end. And then it was just over. And he was gone. And so it's going to be really, really emotional for him. And, you know, what I remember about Peyton going back to Indianapolis, there are some similarities in that, you know, look, the bucks are, if they're not the best team in the NFL anymore, after having just lost to the Rams the other day, they're one of the very best teams in the NFL. Tom Brady is performing at a very high level when Peyton and the Colts, or Peyton went back to face the Colts. He was coming off a season where the Broncos probably should have won the Super Bowl in 2012 and he was in the middle of an MVP season. And he was a mess. No matter how much he wanted to say, it was just another game.

And it's just we're trying to have a one and a week. and we're not thinking about all of it, it gets to them, even the best players. And as much as Tom wants to say, you know, it's just another game and we have these big goals and everything. Like, it's going to be really, really hard. I mean, I get emotional when I like drive past, I drive through my hometown or I drive past my old high school or like a song comes on the radio. Like imagine 20 years in one place. It's really, really incredible.

I mean, I can't even fathom it. I mean, just to go to. work every single day in the same place and to be so inextricably linked with that place. And I'm sure it's going to be complicated because I'm sure that they're, when they roll up to Gillette and he walks in the building and goes to the visitor locker room, that's going to be so strange. And I'm sure there's part of him that is going to be thinking about, again, the totality of everything they accomplish.

Not even just that, but his kids growing up there and just like every moment. And I mean, that's how I would approach it. But then at the same time, I'm sure there's part of them that's just like, I want to give an FU to them in this building. Like, they let me go. Like, I am the greatest player in NFL history. Look what I have done. And they let me walk away. And I know that there are fewer questions about who deserves the credit.

But I absolutely think that this is a man who unabashedly has been driven by spite very often over the last 20 years. We all thought of a documentary. That is going to happen again. And, you know, there is, again, there are certain moments where some of this stuff is just nonsense. Where it's just like, ah, who really cares? With this, I think it's transfixing. I mean, I cannot wait to read way too much into every facial expression and every twitch and every close-up. So the winter after I finished my, I was waiting to go work at Grantland.

I was 22, 23, and we had time between when I finished my internship in Boston and when I moved to L.A. And that's the year that LeBron went to Miami. And I was like, maybe I'll drive to Cleveland for his first game back in Cleveland because I didn't have a job and have anything to do. And I went. I just bought a ticket because I wanted to be in the building just to see what it would be like. And obviously, so incredibly different, right? like Tom Brady delivered how many championships to New England. He gave everything he had to that place.

They walked away. It was a very strange divorce. LeBron leaves Cleveland without winning. He's a hometown son. He goes to Miami of all places. Very different energy in the building. But I still think those moments are just so incredibly compelling. And just the kind of tangled relationship that a fan base has with the player and what the

environment is going to feel like in the building. I wanted to know that. And this is going to be another one of those moments. And I mean, it's amazing. It's appointment viewing. It's exactly why we do this. It's just because this is the one thing that I am just going to be glued to my TV thinking about all day on Sunday. And I fully expect that he will get a tremendous ovation.

Yeah. Standing ovation cheers from the very first second that he comes out. I'll be curious to see if he even does kind of his normal pregame routine stuff. If he comes out early, is he going to run out of the tunnel and run spring. down the field and do his like, raw, LFG stuff that he normally does. Will he kind of need to like rain it in? You know, another one other homecoming that I'm remembering is when Brian Dawkins went back to Philly.

I was covering, it was when he was with the Broncos and this was like 2009, 2010, something like that. And like he was a disaster. Like could not pull himself together. A famously kind of chill guy, Brian Dawkins. Right? I mean, it was like it was. I mean, he was not okay at all.

I mean, it's, it's just really hard for these, for these guys who have given so much of themselves. But you are absolutely right that there is going to be an FU attitude from Tom Brady. He's not going to say it this week, but you know that that is in there. And especially coming off of the loss, I think he still would have been like that if they'd come off a win, if they'd beat in the Rams last week. But coming off of a loss, there's just that little extra, kind of little extra bit there. And I was talking, I was at that game in Los Angeles last week. and talking to folks who worked for both of those teams,

but especially a lot of people with the Bucks. And it was so weird because that game was bigger. That game actually mattered more in terms of, you know, this is a huge NFC game and there's only one team against the buy. And now when we get to January, this is a game. That was a game that probably will have some sort of ramifications. But it's almost overshadowed by a non-conference game just because it's just so much bigger emotionally.

And then we're not even getting into the, Rob Garnkowski is going to be back there. Antonio Brown has like hated and then loved the Patriots and then hated the Patriots again and posted these memes about Popcraft and like it's going to be there's there's a lot. There's going to be a lot to get into. Goodness. All right. Thank God it's a Sunday night game. I can't wait.

I know. I know. I know. I'm going to have to change my prep routine because usually I'm like rewatching stuff and getting ready for the show during the Sunday night game at times. I'm going to have to throw that out the window. We're going to do a terrible podcast on Sunday night because I'm going to watch. every minute of that game. No, no, no.

It'll be great. Don't, don't undersell it. It'll be terrible. Anyway, let's get to our one big question this week. What do you want answered coming out of week four? All right. Look, I'm just going to continue leaning in here. I want to know who the best team in the AFC West is.

And I'm also going to do a little shameless self-promotion. Go read our power rankings that published Wednesday morning at the Athletic. Because the AFC West voting was so weird. I went through all of our staff ballots because we have to finish. figure out the order here. So three of the four AFC West teams got at least one top three vote. Do you know which team did not get a top three vote? It was the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Kansas City Chiefs. But then when the totality of the voting was done. How can you say the Broncos are better than the Chiefs? I don't. Look, I didn't. It was not my ballot. And I'm not going to identify the voter who put the Broncos in one of the top three spots. But it happened.

Send it to me privately so I can shame that person. It's fine. I will. Although I'm not sure if this person knows that I know. So I probably should I tell him, tell him before. It is a him, by the way. But ultimately, when the voting all broke down, when we went through all of the ballots and averaged everything out, the chiefs were still ranked as the top team in the AFC very narrowly above the Raiders, just like, you know, half a percentage point or less ahead of the Raiders, then it was the Chargers, and then it was the Broncos. So, And I think all three, I think the Broncos came in at number 12, number 13.

So all four of those teams, you know, very highly ranked. But this is going to be potentially be a kind of a big movement week, the rest of the division. The Broncos have their first real test. They're hosting the Ravens. I'm going to be at that game. I'm really excited to see Teddy Bridgewont that brought on the offense in action. And, you know, I just really want to see if this Vangio defense, if they're going to be disciplined enough, if they're, if they have the horses to figure out a way to stop Lamar Jackson and

I see what you did there. Most teams are, ah, yeah, how about that, right? But most teams can't figure out how to do that. And then the Monday night game is Raiders at Chargers. It is going to feel like a Raiders home game in Los Angeles. But that's going to be a massive game, right? I mean, I just think there's a lot of really interesting individual matchups, scheme matchups there, Brandon Staley's defense against this ridiculous Raiders offense.

that I'm assuming you guys will get really into some of the fun matchups there later on on the podcast this week. Oh, yeah. It's a football nerds dream this week. There's a lot of really, really fun shit. Carolina, Dallas, we're going to dig into all of that tomorrow's show. Yeah. So I just think it's going to be really interesting.

And, you know, the Chiefs kind of have potentially a get right game, right? That they're playing against the Eagles. It's really time for the Chiefs to kind of end this slide. I mean, a two-game slide. It's the first time they've lost back-to-back games since early in the 2019 season. It's only the second time that has happened in the Patrick Mahomes era. So ready to, yeah, ready to just get a little bit more clarity about my favorite division. I really hope that the Broncos get healthy here over the next few weeks. I know the KJ. Hamlers is out for the year.

I mean, that that really sucks. But if they can like Chubb, Judy, like all these guys, can they get back by like midseason? Like can they tread water for long enough? How long is Chub's supposed to be out? I think it was six-ish. No, it's going to be a little bit longer than that. It might be like in the eight week, six to eight week kind of range. I just, I think this team is in so. Well, can you play on a scooter? So how does that work?

I'm not sure what the rules are. I have looked at the football operations manual. Scooters are not allowed. I would love to see that team healthy because I just think that they've done a good job putting it together and it just, it's a bummer to see some of those guys go down. Both of their starting guards are going to be. Both of those guys are dinged up now. I mean, obviously, you know, the derby injury is easier to get over just because of the cornerback depth that they have.

But, you know, and even a receiver like Patrick and Sutton can kind of maintain. But when you think about how all the pieces were supposed to fit together, you start removing those janga blocks. It's just, it's tough to sustain success doing that. My big question this week is, are the Cardinals ready? You know, this is a team Cliff Kingsbury has not won a game against John McVeigh. I mean, they cannot beat the Rams. They have not been able to beat them since McVeigh got there. And the Cardinals are fourth in EPA per play on offense and fifth in EPA

per play on defense. You know, obviously, this is a team that has struggled to consistently put games together. They obviously has to have talent, right? We've seen how well Kyler Murray is playing that they have superstar level players on both sides of the ball. There's some issues. Their run defense has struggled over the last couple weeks. James Robinson averaged 5.9 yards per carry.

Last week, Carlos Hyde, whatever's left of Carlos Hyde, average five and a half. So, I mean, there are issues that they need to clean up. I think over the course of the long run. But if they can go toe to toe with the Rams this week, a Rams team that it looks like one of the best teams in the league, if not the best team in the league, the way their offense is playing, I mean, they are clicking on all cylinders right now.

So it's an incredibly compelling game. I mean, I think it's a really good test for a Cardinals team that was in kind of a make or break here. There were huge questions about them coming in. It's a game I'm excited to watch. It's a really, really good slate this week. I mean, I thought last week was kind of down and just take it.

taking down five more notches because I had to watch that bear's performance. It's easy to get excited about what's on tap in week four. Yeah. And I'll say both of those games, the games that we just talked about are at SoFi Stadium. It's like quite a double header. It's a Sunday afternoon game and then the Monday night game. I was blown away by that stadium.

And to have it full, it was really, really, really cool. So it's going to be interesting for a Raiders Chargers game. But it's going to be, yeah, it's going to be loud.

It's going to be rocking. It's going to be a fun place for the Super Bowl. What stood out to you about it? Because I was only there for a practice. So I have a sense of what it's like the building, but not like what it's like during game day. Yeah. I mean, just like the optics of it are all really cool.

Like it kind of looks like it feels like you're inside of video game. Just like the colors are really vibrant. And it's also built like very vertically. Sometimes these new stadiums, they take up a lot of space like horizontally. Like the upper decks are like really far from the field. This one it's built kind of straight up. So even if you're on the upper levels of the stadium, you still feel kind of close. to field level and it makes it really loud inside even with it being open to the outsides.

Which is interesting because it's not that tall. Like they've clearly built it like somewhat into the ground because it's not that tall. So when you walk in, like if you walk in from the outside like the concourse level, the parking lot level, you're at like level three or 400. Yeah. You have to like look down into the stadium. And that was kind of by design. But yeah, it's it's very, very cool.

Yeah. And it just, like, the colors, I think were just what was so kind of vibrant about it and everything. All the walkways are really open. And so, yeah, it's going to be a really fun weekend in L.A. I mean, obviously, like you said, the stadium itself, like the seating itself might not be wide. But the structure, I mean, how wide is it? It's like maybe like a mile wide. I haven't, I've never seen an NFL stadium like that.

It's like a campus. Yeah. And it really is because the NFL Network Studios are literally. right adjacent that's right across the street there's a target there's apartments it's kind of still under construction some of the nearby area if you're going to a game plan about six hours to get in and out it's kind of a nightmare but yeah it's just it's like a very impressive place and now that i've seen it i totally understand why the NFL is probably going to move the combine there as depressed as i am about it it's going to be a little bit of a different hang in los angeles

there are more than four bars in los angeles if you didn't know that we were preface my God. It's going to be fun. All right. It's my favorite time in a show. Let's go. Let's go. It's time for sell me on Thursday night football.

We do this every single week, especially early in the year, but the slate has been brutal. This is a particularly tough sell. This is my biggest challenge yet. Lindsay, sell me on Thursday night football this week. All right. So there's really only like one legitimate salad is Bengals against the Jacksonville Jaguar. So it is the last two number one overall picks in the draft.

So it is. Trevor Lawrence against Joe Burrow. And look, I shouldn't have to push you really hard to watch Trevor Lawrence. He's really fun. He's really, really good at football. It's been painful at times just because of kind of who the Jaguars are. But, you know, look, if you were a college football fan, if you are interested in quarterbacking, if you want to see Joe Burroughs recovery and return from his ACL injury, this is

a good one. Look, there's a lot of games in the NFL. Look, last Thursday night, we had to watch a Thursday night game with Davis Mills at quarterback. This week we get Joe Brady and Trevor Lawrence. That's where your point should start. That is where the argument begins. So this is that. I will say the other part, Jammar Chase has been really fun. And for a guy that we kind of cropped all over all offseason because he was dropping passes left and right, he's been the best, the best, I guess, non-Dashon Jackson, like deep threat in football so

so far this year. So watch is just to see if he is going to continue this streak. I think he's had three straight games with, or now I'm losing what the stat is, but he's, he scored a touchdown in every game. Yeah, he put a touchdown in every game. He's tied for second in the league in touchdowns four. I believe he is four in three games.

And his yards per catch is kind of like off the roof. The final reason to watch this game, it's my drinking game alert, is every time you see a sideline shot of Urban Meyer, take a shot. And then. Just look, does he have to look a certain way? just showing him, period.

Just show him. Because he's probably going to look miserable, right? I mean, I think he only has one look. That's more fair to me. Just every time he looks miserable, you have to take a drink. I mean, but that's just his face. It might just be redundant. That's just his face.

Who was more depressed this week? Urban Meyer, just because of his general demeanor or me having to watch the Bears game as many times. Ooh, that's a push. That's a push. You also watched Giants Falcons twice. Twice. So it's been pretty miserable.

We had Charles on earlier. week and I watched the falcons side of it for that podcast. And then we're having Dan Duggan on in a second. And I went back and I watched the old 22 of the Giants Falcons game. And this is time I just can't get back. I've watched the Bears game twice and the Falcons game twice from this week. And I just wish my life had taken me in a different direction. I'll just say before you completely close the book on week three, if you haven't already,

and I'm guessing you already have, but maybe just go back and watch the Rams offense one more time because it was a great palaconsor it's fantastic idea just go do it feel better about yourself guess what we're going to be talking about the rams and the cardinals i assume on tomorrow show with we might just do five games tomorrow sometimes we do five matchups players whatever i don't even know if we can get away with that it might just have to be five whole games so i will take this opportunity to go we watch to we watch the whams and hopefully that will make me feel a little bit better all right you sold me at thursday night football i'm going to watch i'm going to watch every week I just, I got nothing better to do.

I got nowhere to go. It's time for Dan Duggan. It's time for this week's team visit. This is going to be a really uplifting conversation. All right. It's time now for this week's team visit. And I wanted to chat with our Giants writer, Dan Duggan. He didn't know why I wanted to chat with him after what's been happening with the

Giants. But I felt like this was a good time to check in because the Giants are 0. And it has not been great. And I just think it's a good time to reset. And I want to start with what happened today, Dan. Because after this 0-and-3 start, we have Joe Judge going to war with Microsoft Office, which is always a good step for an NFL head coach. You clearly know things are going well when you're rampaging against Excel and spreadsheets. Yeah, I mean, listen, the funny part is, three weeks ago, everyone would have laughed.

Oh, Joe Judge, what a good one-liner, because he's pretty good with the media. And the line wasn't bad. It's just no one's in the mood for kind of a light comment. But at the same time, it wasn't totally light because he is, he was still pretty dismissive analytics. So that's picking another fight. But yeah, my mentions have just been on fire today since I tweeted that quote out. I mean, the one point he made that I don't quite even understand where he's like, you know, if it was XL could win a football game, Bill Gates would be killing it.

It's like, Bill Gates is doing pretty well. Like, I think he's killing it. Yeah, like, it's a weird guy to kind of signal out. It's like, oh, you know, you know, I can't succeed. And honestly, really, obviously, it couldn't be doing any worse than O and 3. So just that was kind of a, you kind of missed the mark on that one. But yeah, no, it's, it's, the heat has ratcheted up here. you know, like 10-fold, or that's probably underselling it.

Because if you would ask me three weeks ago, is Joe Judge any chance he gets fired this year? I would say, like, barring a scandal, no. And then before I came on here, I got, you know, those gambling odds send out emails every week. He's number two behind Matt and Hagee as the most likely coach to be fired. Now, again, that's gambling odds not coming from, you know, John Mara. But it's become a lot more of a realistic scenario, which, again, I never envisioned three weeks ago, let alone, you know, happening so early in the second season. Well, we're going to get into a little bit of this stuff that's going on with John.

on Mara in a second. But I want to back up just a couple more days. And I really need you to take me into how the Giants lost to the Falcons because it's just really baffling the way that game happened. Can you just give us like the Cliff Nose Virgin for the people who are maybe not watching every minute of that game, the lucky people, I will call them. Give us the Clifnos version of how it actually happened. I've watched it twice and I still don't know how they lost. I've watched it two times and I'm still not sure how it happened. Yeah, I mean, Jesus said, you want the clips of those first. I've written like 4,000 words on that game, and I seldom think I know the answer to it.

I mean, because if you look at the box score, I mean, they definitely dominated all those aspects, you know, they moved the ball fine. But you scored 14 points against the defense that had allowed 80 in the first two games. So obviously something wasn't right. And you just really break it down. It's, I hate when coaches say like the little things, but there were so many drives where they're in the red zone and one play just kills it. There was a sack.

There was a snap. them went through Danny Jones's hands. So that's two field goals right there where they're moving. You know, you're thinking they could get touchdowns there. They didn't make plays really on either side of the ball. There was so many interceptions that could have been had. The biggest one, of course, was that Dory Jackson, had one in the end zone as Atlanta's going in to tie the game.

He holds on to that, and it was a gimmy. He holds onto that. Game's probably over. Just so many instances where they just don't make big plays. It happened in the Washington game. Same deal. Anytime the other team needs a play, they make it. The Giants aren't able to stop them or make.

make a big play on their own. But no, it was an ugly game. I mean, listen, Atlanta is not a good team. So, you know, you can come out of some games saying, hey, it was a close game, came down to last second. I don't think you feel any encouragement coming down to the wire with Atlanta because, you know, based on I saw from them, I don't think they're going to be a very strong team this year. And that's kind of the frustrating part about this is that they're in a pretty strange place after three games because they're 0 and 3. But the offense has actually looked okay. You know, they moved the ball fairly well against the Falcons. you know, that Daniel Jones fumble plays, that's when you just know it's all going wrong. It's like, really?

We're just going to drop a shotgun snap for no reason to short circuit a drive. I was watching it. I was like, shaking my head. Like, oh, my God. But you look at it, they've lost two starting interior offensive linemen. And they haven't looked awful at front. They held up well against Washington. The running game has actually been okay, even if there have been way too many plays in the backfield.

But overall, their running game is solid. And that's a frustrating place for this team to be because the areas where they've needed to improve, they actually have improved a little bit. Like, their offense is middle of the road and they're still finding ways to lose games. And I just can't imagine what that has to be like in that building when you knew the offense had to be better and it has been and it still doesn't matter. No, I think the strangest thing is if you would identify the two biggest concerns or, you know, areas that could derail the season coming into the season, it was the offensive line,

certainly was the top one. And then Daniel Jones. I mean, there's just a lot of questions. Could he make the leap? all the cliches we all throw around in the off season. The offensive line has not been good by any stretch. And certainly it's undermanned. You mentioned the injuries with Nick Gates and Shane Lemieux.

Andrew Thomas has gotten a lot better. That's probably the one positive development you can really take out of these first three games. And you hope that continues. But it hasn't been good, but it's been serviceable. You know, Jones hasn't been just totally under pressure every time he drops back. You mentioned the running stats. Those are a little, I mean, they all count, but a little skewed by Jones kind of ran wild against Washington.

and down in and down out, the run blocking hasn't been very good. But still, you know, it's been serviceable. And Jones, you know, he's not turning the ball over, which was kind of his big bugaboo and his rookie season. The problem now is he's totally flipped the other way. His rookie year, it was a lot of big plays, touchdowns, and you have to live with the killer turnovers. Now you're not getting the turnovers,

but you're not getting any big plays either. And I think that really kind of going back to even your previous question, but like how they lost, they're so predicated on the sustained like 10 and 12 play drive. because everything is like, let's get a first down. Let's get 10 more yards. There's no chunk plays. There's no big plays down the field to Kenny Galdi,

which is why he gave him $72 million. And they're just not good enough to sustain that. Down in a down. A snap goes through the quarterback's hands. You know, a backup left guard holds Grady Jarrett, like stuff that is kind of inevitable that they just can't overcome. So I think that's really where the offense, like even if the efficiency numbers,

whatever might look a little better than obviously they're not scoring. They're scoring 18 points a game. It's just because there's so. built to, you know, every three downs get 10 yards. And I just think that's a really hard way to survive. And they've obviously proven that. I want to look a little bit big picture at this franchise because for a very long time, I mean, basically for like as long as the NFL has been a thing, the New York Giants have kind of been held up as like the model franchise, the way to do this, the mayor of family, kind of a ton of respect and, you know, in ownership circles, a lot of times

they're looked at as kind of like the gold standard. Now you fast forward to a couple of days ago and John Merr is getting booed on the field during the Eli Manning jersey retirement ceremony. I saw your tweet come through on that and immediately was like the eyes wide open. Like, oh, man. That's bad, right? If Eli Manning is having to kind of shush the crowd and back them off to stop booing John Merr. And then we all saw the video of John Merr kicking over, but I believe was a trash can.

Yeah, that's a little unconfirmed. It was like outside the owner's suite right after the field going through. Yeah. Was he tripping or he was mad? But whatever, it was a bad look. So, I mean, where is kind of the state of this franchise now? And who's maybe under the most pressure to get this right? Yeah, no, I mean, just to address the main point making it.

It's crazy. You're sitting there at Eli Manning's retirement ceremony. It's like this glorious moment for the franchise, this beloved player. And he steps to the microphone. And it's like Roger Goodell announcing the first pick of the draft. Like thunder's boo. Just totally caught me off guard. I mean, I'm like kind of half watching the Eli ceremony.

Just gather my thoughts at halftime. And then like, that made you perk up. Like, what is going on? And you just, I mean, listen, the benefit of being an owner and a GM, you kind of can hide out during the season. And the coach, you know, Joe Judge has to get up there every day and answer for all the, you know, the things that are going wrong with your franchise. So Mara stepped out and he heard about it. So if you ask like who's under the most pressure, I mean, again, I think day in and day out just by the nature of his job, it's Joe Judge. But I think there's a ton of heat being directed at Mara, a ton of heat being directed at Dave Gettleman, which is totally understandable and deserved.

And then I think the other guy who's getting a ton of it is Jason Garrett, the office coordinator. We just obviously touched on some of the issues there. With Marr, it's funny because, you know, as you mentioned, this has been a stable franchise, you know, from its inception. There definitely was a period there. They called them the wilderness years here from, I think it was like 64 to 80, where they didn't make the playoff. So there were definitely some down times,

and it feels like we're kind of backing those right now, and John Marr lived through those and obviously doesn't want to be back there. But, you know, George Young came in and sort of righted the ship. And it feels like they're at a point like that again now where they need to shake things up. need something to kind of intercede to get this thing turned around because they just, they just can't get out of their own way, it feels like. And, you know, you can look big picture.

They've won a Super Bowl in each of the last four decades. So, I mean, they've been able to put it together enough to have some success, but they have not been able to sustain it, obviously, this past decade. You know, I think John Marrard definitely cares. Maybe he cares too much. Maybe he's too involved in football decisions. He needs to hire the next George Young and just step back and get some of the family members out of the front office and really hand it over.

I don't know, you know, what the answer is, because obviously, you know, see what they're doing isn't working. You know, Dave Gettleman, I mean, the seat couldn't be any harder there. I mean, the guy just, they haven't won any game since he's taking over. So I don't know how he could be saved unless they really turn things around. And then for the first time, the questions were appointed about Jason Garrett's job security. Again, we're three weeks into the season and people are already, you know, not only calling for his job, but like judge has to give kind of lukewarm answers where it feels like maybe it's not going to happen this week, but it's not off the table where he just kind of said, you know, we're not going to make any radical changes yet. So yeah, I mean, it's like that meme with the, you know, the fire around the guy sitting in the bar and it's just everything is going wrong right now.

And they're trying to act like, you know, it's only three games. But the fan base is just so fed up and just, you know, it's getting ugly fast here. And then you look at the schedule and it could get even uglier. So it's not a good time to be a giant, you know, owner, coach, GM, player, any of the above right now. I was going to ask you who the biggest villain is for Giants fans. you just listed all of them, which is fantastic. Is there anybody else that we didn't cover yet? Any other big villains?

I think Garrett is probably public gain number one because that's we see on Sundays. And I think Gettlement is probably big picture. Maybe, you know, there's just a lot of vitriol there. There has been built up for a while. I think those are probably one, two. But just gaining fast. I mean, I did not expect that to be the case, like I said. And I think fans are really out on him.

And my point with Mara to kind of put a bowl on that, too. like what's he going to sell the team you're not going to fire him so like listen yeah you can criticize him what we want but he has to hire the right people and then they have to do the job he he obviously hasn't the right people so that ultimately lands on his feet but i mean being in new york there's definitely worse owners in this market so like again he has been here for shots fired shots fired he has been here for some success like you know Dolan and and the willpons and they were here couldn't even say that so um i just it's weird to me like i'm not protecting the owner it's like it's just kind of hard to criticize him because i mean i don't know

he's up in the booth just watching on Sundays. So obviously most of the attention is directed at the GM, the coaches and the players. But yeah, I would say Garrett is probably the top of the list right now. People are just really ready to see a change there. And I think if they do make that change, that would buy them momentary good PR. I'm curious, where do you think the majority of the blame should lie with this right now? Do you think it's about the mechanics of the offense? Do you think it's the way they've constructed the roster?

Do you think it's just the overall coaching staff and how that was put together? I'm kind of in one of those moments with Joe Judge recently where it's the Bob's in office space. George, what would you say you do here? I mean, the whole point of being a CEO type head coach is that you want a team that's disciplined, does the little things the right way. I mean, that's the argument for bringing in somebody with his background. This is a team that's been penalized at one of the highest rates in the league. they have had crucial backbreaking mistakes in pivotal moments of games.

And so that's what you're just kind of looking at the big picture and how it all fits together. It's like, what is the vision for the franchise? Like, what are the Giants supposed to be good at? And I am really struggling to answer that question. Yeah, no, I mean, I don't want to keep giving you like all of the above type answers. But definitely with Judge, you know, your point is a good one because he's not the offensive play caller. He's not some defensive whiz. He's supposed to be the CEO and, you know, on top of everything.

So when you have the discipline mistakes, you have the killer turnovers or the killer, you know, lapses late in games and, you know, his own game management has been really bad. It's funny because I don't feel like it was terrible last year. He was conservative for sure. That just seems to be his MO. But some of the stuff, he's throwing challenges on plays that can't be challenged. Timeout management hasn't been very good. But I do think a lot of his problems game management just come down to.

They're so conservative. And I don't know if that's born from last year. they just have a lot of talent, so they have to try and grind out every game. I don't know if they didn't fully trust Daniel Jones, didn't fully trust the offensive line. Whatever it may be, but I feel like it's really become like this insidious factor on the team where they're just so afraid to make a mistake. And you just can't win every game, you know, 10 to 7 in the NFL. It's just really hard to try and exist that way.

So that, I mean, that is definitely the judge problem. And again, that's why the heat has cranked up so much because it's like, listen, man, you're sitting there preaching discipline and your team's getting penalized all the time. A lot of the stuff that he's preaching is not showing up on Sundays. so fans are, you know, kind of getting tired of that pretty quickly. But I think Garrett, the offensive schemes, I mean, he's got to speak on Thursday. My question is going to basically be,

and I don't know how to ask this without being just completely disrespectful. It's like, how does your scheme give your offense an advantage? Because it's a great question. Like, you should be able to identify that, no problem. Like, Sean McVeag could probably give a five-minute answer on, like the different ways his scheme gives a team advantage. I guarantee I'll get some coach-speak, blah, blah. But like, I don't know.

I don't see it. I'm not a genius, the next-in-other genius, but I've talked and listened to smarter people and I. They don't see it. Like, I just don't know what they put their team on the field on Sunday and say, wow, that gives us an advantage over what the defense is trying to do. It feels like they're so in this mode of, like, take what the defense gives you. Like, Daniel Jones runs wild, zone reads against Washington.

You come out the next week against a bad defense that got torched by Jalen Hertz in week one, and you don't run any zone reads. Like, it's just really hard for me to understand. I know you probably want to talk about that a little more, but I do want to make sure I answer your question. It's still get them into me. Like, he's the constant. Joe Judge has only been here for 19 of these, you know, 40 losses or whatever it is or 30-something losses under Gettlement.

Jason Garrett's only been here for 13 of these losses. Gettelman came in in 2018 and Ted a team that was coming off a 3 and 13 season with an aging quarterback, looked at the mess, the locker room was a mess, looked at that situation and said, yep, we need a running back at number two and we're going to run it back with Eli Manning on his last legs and somehow, you know, become a contender overnight. It was just such a poorly thought-out plan, poorly executed plan. They just kept digging the whole deeper in 2019.

I felt like last year they started to make some strides that the judge was a good hire. I'm still not totally out on judge, but it's definitely, his approval ratings are definitely going down in my book. But I thought they finally looked like they were starting to figure it out last year. It's got to be a slow build.

We have to build through the draft, all these things. And then this off season, they come out and they spend like crazy and, you know, it doesn't feel like the pieces are fitting yet. I mean, they did do some things in the draft

to accumulate some capital for next year, which that was smart. I think that should have been the plan from 2018. team from day one. Better late than never, I guess. But no, I think at the end of the day, it falls at his feet because he put this team together. He misfired from the jump.

And it's just kind of a scrambling, I feel like, to try and get it back together. And again, it's clearly not working. One more thing about the game management stuff, because if you're, when I look at some of the shortcomings of offensive-minded head coaches, like Sean McVeigh is a perfect example. He has not been good in certain situations when it comes to giving his team edges on fourth down, all of that. Maybe that's a lack of faith in Jared Gough, whatever it is. Kyle Shannon is the same way.

You can explain that a way. It's like they give their team an advantage in a very distinct way, and they spend most of their time calling plays and controlling the offense. Joe Judge has to give his team every single possible edge, because that's what he should be thinking about the entire game. That's all, that's his role in this. When I was watching the Browns play the Bears last week, they had a fourth and three in the first quarter.

I think of their first drive. The bear is like 30-yard line. And they didn't get it. And I was instantly, I was like, well, they're going for it. Like, I know they're going for it. I know inherently that that's what they are going to do because they give themselves every possible edge. And for some teams to be doing it that way with a top five offense and a ton of talent. And then for a team that lacks those elements doing the opposite, you're just setting yourself up to lose.

And I'm not one of those like fire everybody that doesn't go for every four. down people, but that's really, really hard to justify. You're just putting yourself behind the eight ball in so many different ways. And that's the problem is this team, even in moments where it looks promising, at the end of last year, like, oh, the defense might be good. And even when Daniel Jones looks okay for the first three games, they just can't get out of their own way. Yeah.

Well, I think that there was a really good example that highlights a lot of what you're talking about is there's the fourth and four at Atlanta's 39, like midway through the third court. I think they're down a point at the time. and so they throw a deep ball. Jones definitely checked it. They throw a deep ball on third down and it's incomplete

and they get off a holding. Arthur Smith, like without hesitation, declines the penalty. You would think maybe some coach you might be, let's just back him up. He must have known

they're not going to go for it here. So Judge obviously sends on the punt team. And then, so that's whatever. You make that decision. I think it was a bad decision. They did pin him back, but it didn't really matter

field position wise because Atlanta got a couple first downs. It basically came out in the wash. Like they didn't gain anything by doing that. That's 2021. one.

But when you're, you know, winning games 10 to 9 anymore. And then when you hear his explanation for it, I mean, it's always well thought out. He's not like a dummy, but it's definitely,

there's this old school philosophy. I don't know if it's a guy, he was a special teams coordinator. He puts a lot of emphasis on the kicking game. And he was probably, you know, rah, that the punter put it inside the five

and they downed it. But it's so much looking at sort of like the negative possible outcomes. It's like, you can, he's talking about winning field position. Like, if you get a first down there, you have first down there

teams 35 yards. Like, that's good field position. I don't know why you're so worried about all these other variables. We kick it to them, and then they kick it back into the wind. And then to what? Get the ball back to where you are.

I know what's the difference of, you know, first down versus fourth down. But it just shows very little confidence in your offense to be able to pick up. It was like a long, it was like a long three, really. It wasn't even four yards. Like you have Sequin Barclay. I know at that point, Shepard and Slayton wrote, you have Cadarius Tony.

You have all, Evan Engram. You have all these players. Like, they got to make a play at some point. You're just, like you said, you're not going to win 10 to 9. you're not going to just win by playing the wind and the field position. Sometimes you have to be aggressive, and he just hasn't been. And I think it's, again, I think that's something fans can maybe live with it.

I mean, obviously if you're going from fourth down and not getting them, they're going to grow pretty tired of that fast too. But I think they would at least like to see a little more foot on the gas. It just seems like he's always on the brakes. I mean, 15 yards of field position is, to me, has no difference. To me, the number of possessions is the important number there. How many possessions do you get in a game, not 15 yards of field position? Anyway, I'm getting frustrated.

Lindsay, go on. I said, I want to flip and talk about them. Right? I want to flip and talk about a couple of players because, you know, this whole off season, you know, when you looked at the Giants plan, I mean, clearly they wanted to upgrade their receiver position. They gave Kenny Goliday a lot of money. They used a first-round pick on Cadarius Tony.

And I specifically want to ask about Tony because he has had this very curious, very bad, I would say, is probably fair, right, start to his career. Can you kind of take us through what exactly has happened with Cadarius Tony and what are realistic expectations for this first round pick moving forward. Wow. Yeah. How much time do we have? It's been. Clif notes again. It's gone. Cliffs notes again. Yeah, yeah. It's been a curious existence, really from the draft. You know, in the spring, first rookie minicamp is cleats don't fit right. At one point, he's going through a ladder drill with one cleat on and one foot barefoot. It took like half the practice just to get the right size cleats on. That was kind of an inauspicious start.

And then he was just sort of in and out the whole time during the spring. He just skipped the, all the voluntary stuff because he hadn't signed his contract. I mean, no rookie, you know, most rookies don't sign their contract. Yeah, they sign a waiver. Sign the waiver. You're good to go. For some reason, he, like held out of those. Didn't make any sense.

Especially for a guy who was billed as a raw guy who really needed all this development. That was a little strange, you know, had a little minor things where even in the veteran camp, he didn't practice. He had a family situation where he missed the last day. So that's a spring. So they're like, okay. Now we'll reset it when we get to camp, plenty of time for him to get up to speed. You know, test positive for COVID, right before camp.

So I missed the first couple of week with that. You know, had some after effects with that where I think they really brought him along slowly, which, you know, obviously that's totally out of his control. But then he does get back out there. I think maybe pushed a little too much. Then he tweaks his hamstring. So basically from the time of the draft to week one, he basically didn't practice. I mean, there were a handful of days in there where he probably did, you know,

what you'd call limited or whatever. But he never really was like a full, full board participant in practice for two or three days in a row at any point. So then, you know, I think they said, like, we got to just bring this guy along slowly. And, you know, obviously it's been very slow. You know, week one, he's out there for, you know, I think five snaps. They gave in the ball twice, lost two yards. Washington, he was on the field for, I think, 19 snaps. Didn't have a target, didn't have a touch.

And again, he's such a dynamic player because you finally saw it on two plays against Atlanta, where they did get in the ball. And they kind of forced one to. It was clearly a very designed play for him where Jones rolled right, threw it back to Tony. It looked like it should have been a five-yard loss, but he made a guy missed. That's why he drafted him 20th overall. they need to manufacture those types of touches for this guy. Otherwise, why did you take him in the first round?

But that was only the two touches he had. It was on one drive. Boom, boom. He had two nice plays. Never heard from again. It's really, it's hard to understand. I mean, I know they always felt like they had to bring him along slowly. You know, he was not a finished product coming out of Florida.

They had all these veteran receivers. Now the Shepard and Slate, and it looks like, you know, will be out at least this week. It's got to be the time where they're going to start featuring them more. But I just think there's a level of he didn't practice. They didn't fully trust him, you know, on third and six. Is he going to run six yards? Is he going to run seven?

Is he going to run eight? Like you need to know what you have and they just don't have the time on task and practice. So I understand that to a degree. But again, it goes back to Garrett. Like you just have this weapon and he's just sitting over on the sideline. Like you got to find a way to get a guy this dynamic the ball. It doesn't have to be anything super advanced.

Like just the basic jet sweeps and all that stuff. Just get the ball on his hands, make them, you know, try and make a play. Because again, we're talking about an offense. They can't score. So what do they have to lose by getting the ball to a very dynamic playmaker more than they have? It's so frustrated. It has to be so frustrating.

And you spend all this money and all of these resources on playmakers, right? Saigon Barkley was the second overall pick. You spent all this money on Kenning Gallaudet. And Sterling Shepard has been their best skill position player. It's just such a, and his first round pick on Tony, and you look at the, and everything in totality, you could see it in the summer. Remember that day we watched them practice in Cleveland, Dan.

He was their best player. He was their best offensive player. And when you just are mis-evaluating and misbuilding certain position groups so badly where you're spending all of these. resources on other guys and this person who's almost a forgotten man in that entire pecking order ends up becoming your most important player on offense. It's just, it's so emblematic of what's been going on with how this team is just throwing darts at their team building process. Yeah. And the problem with Shepard is like he's injuries. That's been the problem. So he comes out

this year. He was awesome. The first two games and then he pulls his hamstring. And again, we don't know exactly how long time he's going to miss, but usually you don't, you know, pull your hamstring on Sunday and you're back in a week. So I probably, I'm going to miss him for a few more games. But with him, he's the opposite of Tony. A ton of chemistry with Jones, a ton of trust there. So that's why, you know, we could see in the summer. He just goes to him.

He loves him. Third down, you know where he's going to be. He's going to make the play. He's going to get a couple yards after the catch. So he was that guy, and he just didn't build that with Tony. He didn't build it with Kenny Gawley. Because Goladay, you know, he pulled his hamstring early in camp. Pretty much missed all of camp.

No preseason action. And with him, it's just crazy, though, because we know what he can do. Tony, it's a little harder to project, you know, obviously coming out of college. Kenny Gallagher's done it in the NFL and I actually asked him today I said like I don't think he has a catch you know on a pass over 20 yards in the air and that's why he got paid $72 million

he didn't get paid $72 million for his ability to run like eight yard curls you can find Sterling Shepard's in the second round to do that and I said you know why have you not even had any deep really attempts I mean there was one that went off his hand against Washington and off the top of my head is the only way I can think of and he literally said I don't have an answer

for that now I'm sure in his mind he probably does have an answer he doesn't want to say but it's just it's maddening because again you're signing guys presumably with a role in mind like why you know what he can do how are you not finding ways to get him the ball deep and now again I know if I asked Jason Garrett or if I asked Joe judge and well the defense has to say

in that they're taking stuff away over the top A maybe maybe not be like shouldn't you be scheming ways to get him you know use your best players the best of their abilities and then see if that's the case shouldn't more things be open underneath so nothing's adding up with this team right now And the Galdi signing is definitely a good example of like, you know what this guy can do, you went out and you get it,

and then you're struggling to use it to the best of his abilities. We've spent a lot of time on the offense. I want to ask you about the defense because this is a unit that I was excited about. Coming into year two with Patrick Graham and just the way that the pieces fit together, you had guy like Xavier McKinney stepping into year two fully healthy. I just thought that they really had a chance to take a step forward. And it's been decidedly underwhelming through the first three games. what are they saying just kind of about the pretty meh returns that they've had on that side of the ball so far?

Yeah, me, meh is a good word. I mean, because I don't know. It's even hard to just put your finger on like one glaring error. It seemed like in the first two weeks, they were just playing a very soft coverage. And Terry McLaren just was catching balls left and right in front of soft coverage. And eventually, you know, you have a breakdown or whatnot. You know, the office makes a play and you give up a touchdown. But they don't get any pass rush.

That's the first problem. You know, the gave Leonard Williams, the huge. huge money. He's been pretty quiet, at least as a pass rusher. He's still obviously a very good run defender. The edge guys, Azizzo Jolari's, you know, had three sacks as a rookie. Two of those, you know, kind of more of the coverage variety, but still three sacks and three games, it's not a bad rate. But, you know, they're just not getting any consistent pressure up front. So that's obviously putting a lot in the secondary. And the pieces just aren't playing as well as they did last year. I mean, I don't really even know how to explain the guy like James Bradbury who looked like a top

five corner in the league last year, he struggled. You know, I mean, he's, he was better this week, but, you know, he still gave up a touchdown where it was sort of a rubber out and he didn't, you know, he didn't stick with his guy and get a touchdown there. I think the dirty word that no one really wanted to say all off season was regression because you don't really, it's hard to bank on that. And a lot of these guys are young in their prime, so you wouldn't expect they're going to fall off a cliff.

But like, you know, guys like James, Bradbury, Leonard Williams, Gibral Peppers, they all had the best seasons of their career last year. So he said, oh, man, Patrick Graham unlocked something in these guys. We were all talented players. And he took them to another level. This is how they're going to play forever. And now it's kind of like, well, maybe this is more who Jeril Pepper's is. And last year was just sort of, they caught lightning in a bottle.

And, you know, same with the other guys. I don't know. It is hard to put my finger on it. I'm kind of at a loss. I think they're kind of at a loss. I mean, they were obviously better on Sunday. But Atlanta, certainly not a very explosive offensive team. I think we'll find out a lot more about this defense.

Maybe not so much against New Orleans, but with Dallas coming up and the Rams coming up. and the Rams coming up and then, you know, the Chiefs and the Bucks. I mean, they're going to have to get things straight. Yeah, they haven't get things straightened out real fast. The Raiders, I mean, I'm leaving out some of the offenses they're about to face. So they're going to be good things straight now. I don't know.

I mean, I have a ton of respect to Patrick Graham. I think he's really good. He figured it out last year. They got the slow start last year. So he's got to get this figured out fast. You just listed off that that schedule that they have coming. I mean, there's a chance they're just sitting here at 0-and-6. Oh, easily.

And you said, you said, said this, and I feel like it makes total sense, that judge is probably safe pending total disaster. But if you're 0-1-6, this is a team that has $205 million in contracts allocated for next year already. I mean, they have $3 million in cap space with a cap at $208 million. They are not in rebuilding mode. This isn't the Falcons that they just lost to. This is a team that is trying to win right now. If you're at 0-6, outside of moving on from Gettleman, maybe, How do you spin this if you're the Giants? Yeah, that's the ugly part.

I mean, you're all in, basically, as a team that was coming off six and ten, to go all in was probably a questionable strategy to begin with. Like you said, the cap space for the future isn't that great. And they can't even get out of a lot of these contracts because they restructed crap out of them. I mean, they push as much money into 2022, 2022, 2023 as possible. So it's not as if, all right, they can just kind of wash their hands. I mean, some of these guys maybe, but not the big ones. I mean, they have some enormous capits next year for guys like Leonard,

Williams and Kenny Goliday and James Bradbury. But I don't know. I mean, that's why I think, listen, if I'm judge and I'm in survival mode, again, it's crazy to think he could already be there. But like, Jason Garrett's kind of just sitting there for like, you know, give him a quick kick off the dock. And like that's, but you don't want to play that card too early because if you're doing week three and then again, you're sitting there.

I mean, again, I think they'll steal a game here or there. Like, that's just how the NFL works. Most teams don't start 0-10 or something. But like, if you get to that point, then you get nothing left to play. So I think that he has to hold off on Garrett as much as you can't find a way to steal one of these next two games, you know, we're against the, uh, the Saints or the Cowboys. I don't think the Rams is really the place to get your big, uh, first win of the year.

But yeah, there isn't a lot of cards to play there. I mean, because even if I got him fired get them during the season, like, okay, great, you know, the fans get their pound of flesh, that doesn't really have any impact, you know, between the lines this season. So I met more after the season with that. I don't think that's a game season move. But even when it all comes down to it and like, he's the scapegoat at the end of the year, it's still kind of like, what are we doing here?

No, it's just the route to what happens next just seems so unclear. Absolutely. And that's the thing. I always felt like this was had a good chance to be Gettelman's last year, almost regardless. I mean, he's like seven years old. Say they have a good year. That's a good time for him to just, you know, gracefully bow out.

And obviously, again, if they have a terrible year, then there's no way you can justify bringing him back. But I always felt like, well, that's with the idea that judge is your guy. Because I don't put as much stock as a lot of people do on this whole, you have to hire your GM for your coach. So if you love judge, then get a GM that works well, a judge. and what's the difference what order they were hired. But if you're not sure on Judge, that's like the worst-case scenario.

Because then are you going to hire a guy who's aligned with Judge and then save another bad year next year? Then what do you do? Now, you've got a GM who you kind of link to your coach. I mean, that's where it gets really messy. And then throw the quarterback into the mix. Because you got to decide on the quarterback's future soon, too. The quarterback, safe one.

It's not a good situation. Listen, we're getting obviously far down the line, but it's not hard to envision these dominoes falling and being a really sticky offseason. Lizzie, can you uplift us here for like 10 seconds before you go? So I'm going to just completely shift gears here as we get you out of here on a positive note. So Eli Manning is like the new favorite person on the internet. And I think for a lot of people, this Manning cast has kind of been their introduction to like the Eli Manning personality.

So what is your evaluation of Eli Manning's performance on this, on the Manning cast as kind of this as kind of like the foil maybe the partner with. Peyton Manning and maybe is this the Eli that kind of you guys know the guys who covered him for a long time like yes and no like he was he definitely more of a sense of humor you know with us than maybe you saw like a rigid press conference but this is more that Eli Manning I think you saw with his teammates because he still was still pretty you know buttoned up with us you knew there there there'd be a kind of one of those one liners he delivers very deadpan which you're seeing like you know repeatedly throughout these broadcast he's so good at those but I think it's more where you saw part with his teammates but no i think it's tremendous my wife makes fun of me she's like i'm like this

this is so good like you got to watch this like not not that she cares at all but i'm like you don't understand they just explained some concept that like i've never understood they did in two seconds and it was brilliant like i think it's the best thing on tv honestly i'm such a fan boy for it um and it's not really because i've got a unbelievable relationship with eli i have a good professional relationship with the covered him for the last couple years of his career which certainly weren't the glory years um but yeah you always knew he had a good personality because you just talked to him up his teammates off of the pranks he did he couldn't obviously be nearly as buttoned up as he came across you know sunday afternoon after a game but no i think this has been like such a perfect

vessel for his sense of humor he like he bust patens chops like no one else could get away with calling out patens pit stains i'm sure you know what i mean but it's just like it's such incredible it's such a perfect marriage and i like i know people you know don't love some of the stuff like i mean i they got rid of the hokey stuff early the guests can be kind of hit or miss but when they just talk football like that first game when it's in overtime and it's them to and Russell Wilson, just like hearing them think out the situations as they're happening. I mean, I just can't. There's nothing better on TV, honestly, in my opinion. And my wife's probably in the other room laughing at me again for raving about this. But I mean, I'm bummed

that it's not going to be on the next three weeks. Right. I was so upset when they said they're not coming back till week seven. Well, I can't wait until they get back for Steelers Bears just so we can watch Peyton Manning explode on live live live television. It's going to be amazing. He'll be so disappointed. He hates bad football with like a passion. I love it. It's so amazing to watch. Well, I hate to break it to Peyton. There's game's going to be bad football. Yeah, and they're calling, let me just like, they're calling Giants chiefs, I believe it is. That'll be fascinating to go back. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. At that game to watch what Eli says there. Because it was interesting hearing just talk about NFC East teams on Monday.

Even though there's been change over, he wasn't even going against these defensive coordinators. But hearing them discuss the Giants will really be interesting to see how that goes. Dan, I'm so. glad the manning cast exists to give you just a brief moment of levity in your life. Thank you for lifting me up there, Lindsay. Ending on that note. It's much better than everything else. That's why she's here because we need that.

Because I have the ray of sunshine on this podcast for 30 straight minutes. If I'm going to be hurting after the last week, everyone else is going to be hurting. That's kind of how I approach it. Dan, sincerely appreciate the time. Really, really great insight. Thank you very much for joining us. We'll catch up soon. All right.

Sounds good. Thanks, guys. All right, guys. That's all we got for today. Thank you so much to Dan for joining us. He was a very good sport as I just assailed him with questions about the Giants. Thank you to Lindsay, as always. Thank you to you guys for listening.

We'll be back tomorrow with me and Nate doing the Friday 5 previewing an excellent week four in the NFL. She'll be joining us for this week's picks. Until then, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform choice. I would sincerely appreciate that. Also, please subscribe to the next. The Athletic. Just so much good stuff on there every single week. Sheel is doing some great breakdowns, just weekly kind of big questions, big answers that are happening in the league.

You can go read Lindsay's power rankings. So much great stuff. You cannot be an NFL fan, a proper NFL fan, without a subscription to The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show. We'll be back tomorrow. As always, guys, I really appreciate you. We'll talk to you soon. This was The Athletic Football Show.