The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 1 recap: Bills and Packers start the season off right

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Same Sunday night recap you know and love, brand spankin' new look. Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman celebrate the return of the NFL with the Week 1 recap episode of The Athletic Football Show, the first from our new studio in Chicago. The guys discuss the Bills' dramatic win over the Ravens, the Packers' dominant victory against the Lions, the Jets and Steelers—really!—giving us the most exciting game of the day, troubles for the Dolphins and Titans, and a whole lot more.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)5:30 Bills-Ravens thriller15:15 Packers dominate Lions27:40 Steelers-Jets fireworks!39:00 Emeka Egbuka pays immediate dividends49:00 Dolphins embarrassed by Colts56:10 Titans fumble multiple chances to upset Broncos1:05:00 Seahawks endgame leaves a bit to be desired1:12:30 Bryce Young off to a rough start1:16:05 The Bengals get away with one1:22:15 Geno Smith starts his Raiders career with a bang1:27:00 The Stafford/Davante connection1:30:35 You can't ignore bad training camp vibesConnect with The Athletic Football ShowX: https://x.com/TA_FootballShowIG: https://www.instagram.com/tafootballshowYT: https://www.youtube.com/@TAFootballShowTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tafootballshowDiscord: https://discord.gg/sPp5md3BCall us: 847-448-0701Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @davehelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Week 1 did not disappoint. We watched the games in person today in our studio in Chicago for the first time. It was kind of a perfect morning. It was beautiful out in the city and just walking to the studio and just knowing we were all going to be together to watch the games. Me, Derek Klaasen, Dave Hellman, just had a different sort of energy than it's ever really had since I started working here. And the fact that the games show.

up in the way that they did just made it even better. It made it really did, really did make it feel like a perfect week one. So we dug into all of it. We started with a crazy Ravens Bill's game that ended in a game, ended in a way that only a Ravens game can end on like every conceivable level. Talked about a big win for the Green Bay Packers. A Steelers Jets game that was way more entertaining than it had any right to be, probably the most surprising thing we saw in week one. Talk about a big bucks win against the Falcons and then dug into some of the low lights from week one in our first WTF of the season. So a fantastic opening week in the NFL calendar. Let's get to it with me, Derek Classen and Dave Hellman right now. If you're like me

and week one is always a little bit of a sensory overload for you, just a little bit of you. It's like, I kind of wish we could ease into things, you know, kind of wade in slowly to what the NFL season is going to feel like. Nope. None of that today. Week one was everything that we wanted it to be. Most notably that Sunday night game. You are like a very sad man right now, Derek. I'm sitting here looking at you. As as the world's foremost Baltimore Ravens believer, that's two play sequence when Lamar had the Houdini act and then Derek Henry scored the touchdown of the very next play. You were in a mindset of like, this is the greatest football team that's ever existed. And then they pulled a rug out from under us again at the minute.

That was like the most I have felt alive in I don't know how long. Watching Lamar Jackson, I think NextGen posted that he ran for like 75 total yards on that 19 yards scramble. He's dead to rights like inside his own red zone. And literally within like 65 seconds real time after that, Derek Henry is in the answer. I'm like, this is the coolest offense ever. There's something so beautiful about the fact that only the Ravens could play that game. Only the Ravens could look that dominant for stretches of the game.

We were talking about this. There was a moment with 756 left in the fourth quarter, where Lamar and Derek Henry were averaging a combined 11.75 yards per carry. And Lamar was averaging 11.4 yards per attempt. The Ravens were averaging 9.7 yards per play. This is with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter, David. And they lost the football game. Only the Ravens are capable of this.

This is one of those times where we're at a disadvantage recording. I mean, what? We're recording maybe 15 minutes after the game in. we don't have the benefit of digging up all the best stats. But consider Lamar Jackson finished with a passer rating of 144. Derek Henry ran for 169. The Ravens ran for 238 as a team. The quarterback didn't turn the ball over.

The Ravens scored 40 points. I feel confident saying that in the history of the NFL, they have to be the only team that's lost a game like that. Or if there's another one, it's like one other team in 100 plus years. And if the Ravens are the only team that could allow the game script to go, that way. I think the team with Josh Allen is one of the only teams on the other side of the ball who could actually make this possible because it's so hard to be so dominant for most of a game. And then when you ultimately punt the ball away in that situation that the Ravens

did on that fourth and three, every single one of us in that room were like, I think they probably just lost this game because of who's on the other side and what he has been doing over the last couple drives. And that's exactly what happened. That was the thing. It's like, okay, I understand why fourth and three and like that felt like a long fourth and three but like a long fourth and three when Lamar Jackson is my quarterback and I know it kind of seemed like he was maybe limping

like right after that third down but I don't care I'm I'm letting him go for it anyway like an 80% Lamar Jackson in that moment is better than me punting to the second or third best quarterback in the NFL when we know what Josh Allen can do at the end of those games like it's just punting to him there is just why especially they only needed a field goal to win

not even to tie and it's not like they needed a touchdown like they needed a field goal to win and you gave it to him in the moment i'll admit like i can get a little scared there as much as i like to be aggressive it's like oh if it was fourth and two i'd feel a little bit better like it's fourth and three do you maybe you do kick and then the minute josh allen started jogging onto the field i was like what am i talking about they only need a field goal to win this game no this was this was a mistake and i regret my conservative nature that happened 45 seconds ago let's kind of try to untangle the details of what happened in this game let's start with kind of the potentially frustrating

or scary moments for both defenses respectively. Is there anything about the Bill's ability to claw their way back in this game and what you saw from? I don't know how to describe it. The aging second outside cornerback spot from the Ravens is how I would put it. Like,

we just need an amalgam of Chidobio Wuzzi and Jair Alexander's name. Like the Chudobie Alexander cornerback spot on those, on that last sequence. Whoever it happens to be at the time. Just the Chidobie Alexander quarterback spot or the bill's just real lack of physicality over the course of this game whose defense do you leave this game feeling more worried about

when we think about their season long aspirations after what you watch tonight probably buffalo's because I think I feel like for a lot of it for the Ravens was I think there were definitely moments where the cornerback two spot was a little bit of an issue like Keon Coleman having the game that he had in part because he was able to tee off on some of those guys I think was huge but also a lot of the plays in this game we're just like Josh Allen gets outside of the pocket. And then when he does that, he's the scariest player in the league. James Cook at a 51-yard reception that like swings this game.

And then there's a fumble. I think that it's, I don't want to take anything away from the bills. But I do think that some of the game swinging plays we saw from Buffalo, I'm not sure there's anything endemic about the Ravens in those moments. And I think that's not necessarily true on the other side when we talk about that matchup specifically. Yeah, on the other side, it's like there were just so many moments of like Derek Henry just getting what he wanted in the run game. Like the first big Derek Henry run,

which just pistol like mid zone and like it scoots off to the right. And like it looks like it's going to be jammed up for a second. And then left guard climbed takes out a linebacker. I think Rashad Bateman just like cleans out one of the other safeties. And then Derek Henry just like bounces off Taylor Rap and like him able to do that. And then you have the play later in the game in the fourth quarter where they go, I think to the same play, but from under Sender. Like it was kind of like a stretch zone with the fullback leading.

And like they kind of catch. Buffalo with the safety Taylor wrap rotating away from it. So he's got to refit not the type of player you want refitting to get Derek Henry in the alley. And he just doesn't have it in Derek Henry outraces him. Like this just felt like Buffalo doing the thing again where their defense is just not built for teams like this. It's funny. We talked about this when we preview the bills and the Ravens for that matter. But fair or not, these are teams where you're judging stuff based on what could happen in the postseason.

Because I'm really, I'm not worried about the bills on a weekend and week. out basis. The Ravens did this to them last year. They ran for more yards last year and they crushed the bills. I think it was week four of last season. And by and large, some teams had success against them. That's going to happen. But they were not that much of a liability on a weekly basis. But guess who you have to play in the postseason? You got to play Baltimore. Or God, you know, God willing, maybe you play a Philadelphia in a Super Bowl. And you're going to have to worry about that. So am I worried about the bill's defense getting, like getting them to 11 plus wins. Not really.

But you see that type of stuff crop up against a contender and you're like, yeah, do you have an answer for this in January? Yeah, for these teams, getting to 11 doesn't matter. It's what you do in the divisional and stuff like that. So that's a great point. The lack of physicality on the bill's defense is something I've been concerned about over the last couple years.

And we've talked about this, Derek. The lack of physicality, it's safety specifically, I think really does creep up against the team like Baltimore. And there were a couple plays that stick out in this game. I mean, the touchdown run that Derek Henry had after that Lamar Jackson scramble, where Taylor Rapp's angle just gets erased.

If you're going to be in all these two high looks, your safeties need to tackle in the run game. Like it needs to be part of what your identity is. So Taylor Rapp, it takes a terrible angle on that play. Derek Henry scores a touchdown. There was another play earlier in the game. It was the drive, I believe, after that third and seven tight end screen that the bills through.

And Derek Henry came back on the following drive and had a monster run. And on that play, if you watch the All-22, Andrew Vohy's just absolutely dumped. Terrell Bernard on the second level. And then Rashad Bateman clears out and digs out Cole Bishop on that play. That should not happen. Like a receiver, Rashad Bateman is not Mac Hollins.

That should not happen to you. And it happens to the bills consistently. And that's just something where I totally agree with this framing. Over the course of a 17-game regular season, they'll probably be okay. But when they have to play this team in the playoffs, I do think it's going to be a problem. The thing about Baltimore that I feel like we should not dismiss and we should keep in the back of our minds when we're talking about the things when we get to January that are going to worry us, Dave. Todd Monkin again, in the biggest moments of the game, shells up a little bit. Like, handing that

ball off to Zayflowers and just some of the sequencing at the end of the game, it does feel like, even if this Ravens team looks like the most dominant well-willed machine you could possibly construct on that side of the ball for 85% of the regular season, for 95% of an individual game, there's still these moments in the most important stretches of the season, the most important stretches of these games, where something just feels a little bit off and they shoot themselves in the foot, and that's exactly what happened again tonight. Baltimore ran eight plays in the final 10 minutes of this game. And a huge part of that's obviously the Derek Henry fumble, but 10 plays over the final 10 minutes when you have been unstoppable again, 231 yards on the ground, getting whatever you want.

Yeah, it's, it's striking to see that. I mean, what, the first eight drives they punt one time, and then they punt twice and fumble inside the final 10 minutes. It's it's mystifying. Some moments in this game and just other kind of supporting pieces to point out. The emerging receivers, one and not emerging because he's like 33 years old, but the New Hopkins catch is just something that's going to be lost to history because the Ravens didn't end up winning this game. But then what we got from Keon Coleman for how sad you might be about what happened to the Ravens

tonight, I assume at least a part of you, Derek, is happy that we had the Keon Coleman game in week one. am now because I was a little bit worried that like when this game with like eight minutes left in the fourth quarter felt like the Ravens were just going to hammer them and like end this game. I was like, man, we're just going to have this like 80 yard Kion Coleman awesome performance just completely lost because the bills lost this stupid game where they got blown out. Obviously he ends up being pretty important for them not getting blown out. So I'm really excited for King on Coleman. He's a guy who like I think from a yak perspective from a size perspective and even just from a

red zone perspective. Like obviously that the two point fade they try to throw to him like that's a bad ball from Allen. I don't know if that's the call that you should be making in a two-point situation, but like the fact that they even think that they have a guy like that now, I think kind of matters to me. Yeah, we talked about it again leading up to the season where it's just so fun to see a plan come together. Yeah. That's why Keon Coleman's here. Like he makes Josh Allen right. Not that Josh Allen needs to be made right a lot of the time, but he's going to get a ball that might sail on you. He's going to bully people in the in the end zone and in the red zone. And he did that all night. It was so

fun to watch. The other play that's going to be lost to history now because it just doesn't matter because the Ravens ended up losing this game is the screen to Zayflowers where Ronnie Stanley just absolutely destroys the corner on that play. And that's just, that's the nature of this game for the Ravens. The Ravens do cool shit for 55 minutes and then it ends up not mattering against a really good team and a really huge game. They're the best team in the league until they need to be. One other quick point I wanted to make before we get out here with this game, Sean McDermott was throwing a lot at Lamar Jackson. It did not work for a majority of the game. Some of it I think I take issue with. Let's talk about the Cole Bishop blitzing from talk about that two play sequence that ended with

the Zayflower screen. On the play before that, you have Cole Bishop coming from 15 yards deep on a safety blitz. Taylor Rapp is rotating to the post. He has to rotate too far. And then Zay Flowers is coming on that cross room. He's wide open for a huge chunk game. Yeah, they were throwing a lot of shit of Lamar Jackson. I don't know about the veracity of a lot of that shit. It was not good. But if this can be a situation where they're toying around with stuff for six weeks, that would be good because they against the best offense in the league most likely. Exactly. And so they blitzed 45% of the time in this game, at least according to True Media right now. Sean McDermott has only called seven other games in his career with the bills at a higher bill rate than that. And none of

them were in the past two years. So this is a little bit of like going back to something for them. So hopefully it sticks. I know we got a full day of games to get to. But one other thing, I just special teams were such a big part of this game. Like Tyler Loop misses an extra point, which looms really large when you lose a game by a point. And then obviously the bills, the bills put a fire drill field goal in the hands of Matt Prater who arrived in town like two days before the game.

You were losing your mind as they were setting up to do this. Matt Prater's kicked hundreds of field goals. If you're going to do that to a guy, he's the one you should do it to. But I was just like, I can't believe we're going to do a. running clock walk off field goal with a guy who just got to town. Like this is nuts.

And Kyle Hamilton almost blocked it, by the way. So just it worked out. I'm not criticizing anybody, but it was a very fun 30 seconds watching all that happen. One of my favorite things about our setup this year is that we're going to be able to watch these games together. And it was worth the price of this studio, all of the work we did putting it together to see your emotional journey. What would happen with the Ravens today and you losing your mind about them doing this

with the kicker that they signed two days ago and it ended up working out. So it's already worth it that we have this setup. Last note on this, I wanted to look up these numbers because I was just curious. So yeah, 45.5% blitz rate from the bills today. Seven of nine for 140 yards against those blitzes for was Lamar Jackson, 15 and a half yards per attempt on non-blitzes in this game per next gen. Seven of 10 for 69 yards. So not bringing extra bodies was actually something that at least was a speed bump

to the Ravens today in a way that the big blitzes were not. So interesting to see the bills toying with some stuff, still concerned about just the general lack of size and physicality for this team, especially at safety against a team built like the Ravens. But let's give some teams some grace in week one. We're going to have to remind ourselves a lot of that over the next hour or so. All right. With that, let's get to the first edition of this season's you have my attention.

Gentlemen, you had my curiosity. Now you have my attention. The Green Bay Packers play one of the highlight games of this week in the 3 o'clock window. I think a game a lot of us had circled. The Packers really have their way, David, with the Lions in that game. We mentioned it as we were just talking about the day. The Packers really had that in hand for most of it. Like that game never felt like it was in doubt.

Your biggest takeaway from watching that version of the Packers today and what it might mean for the rest of the year. I mean, there's a lot of directions we can go with this. And I'll just start with the most obvious is in 29 snaps, we saw why you trade two first round picks for Michael Parsons. I mean, the gravity that he played with, 29 snaps, three pressures, one sack. He was on the field for three of Green Bay's four sacks of Jared Gough. So like even when he's not making the play himself,

he is making life easier on the guys around him. He had a pressure to get the Packers off the field on third down on his first snap as a Green Bay Packer. Later in the first half, he gets the pressure on Jared Gough that leads to the air and throw inside that Evan Williams picks off. That basically it didn't kill the Lions' chances of winning the game, but I think it's a different game if Detroit has success there. Like it's what, 173, they're driving in.

They got a chance to make it a one-score game going to half. And that whole sequence just snuffed it out. And Green Bay never really looked like they were in trouble for the rest of it. even when Detroit opened the second half scoring a fuel goal, it just didn't feel real. So maybe that changes if that doesn't happen. But yeah, for a guy that played 29 snaps to have that amount of impact on the game.

I mean, he was on the field for less than half of the Packers defensive snaps, three pressures, one sack, helped force a takeaway. Yeah, I'd say you're getting ROI pretty quickly, especially for a guy that,

again, didn't practice all summer. We talked about this when we were watching games a little bit earlier today, and just this idea of interior pressure versus edge pressure and the value of it in the modern NFL, because as we have so many mobile quarterbacks, the guys that can slide move around the pocket, if you have bendy, speedy edge rushers

that really just win around the corner, if you can push those guys past the quarterback, everyone is essentially capable of making a guy miss or pretty easily stepping up in the pocket and neutralizing the overall value of a guy like that. And that's why some quarterbacks and some teams have come to a place where they, they think interior pressure is more valuable because it's just harder for the quarterback to deal with.

Michael Parsons is like his own unique animal when it comes to this though. And that's because those inside counter, they're almost not even counters. It's like what he wants to do. Like his ability to threaten up field and then immediately win with those inside moves back toward the quarterback. You saw that on that first third and seven. Like it's just this combination, Derek, of like speed, precision, power. And he affects the game and affects play.

quicker than other edge rushers do because he can lean on those moves so much. And that's exactly what he did on both of those third and sevens that Dave is talking about. Yeah, he's like, it's because he's so explosive and because he's so quick, he knows that every tackle in the league is terrified of him winning off the edge. And so he gets a little bit more space to operate inside. And like what I've said before about like the difference between him and Miles Garrett is like Miles Garrett is way more bendy than he should be for someone his size. But Micah Parsons for a guy who's like 255 maybe.

Not even. Yeah, it's like way stronger than anyone. that size should be and that's why he can always win inside shoulder like to be able to do that against penesuel who is i don't know like the third best tackle in the league maybe to be able to do that against him consistently is crazy i know he had another one similarly off the left side where he like split to uh offensive lineman like he is just a very rare player player in that sense and i think why specifically it works against a team like the lions other quarterbacks if you're trying to attack through the inside shoulder the tackle they can just the quarterback can bail josh allen can bail

Lamar Jackson, Jaden Daniels, these guys can get outside of the pocket. Jared Gough does a lot of things well. He's not getting outside of the pocket. It's great point. You are afforded the ability to go win inside. And when you're a guy like Parsons, I mean, he's going to do that a lot. The Parsons stuff, I think absolutely is headline grabbing. And he did impact the game in the limited snaps that we saw him.

I was really impressed by pretty much everything else that we saw from the other guys in the Packers' front seven in this game. And, you know, when they traded Kenny Clark as part of that deal, I think a lot of people who maybe haven't paid attention to some of the depth pieces on the Packers, might think, well, now what does like the interior group look like for this team? And with Slayton leaving too, this off season. So, and that you're like, essentially your main run stuffing presence among that group. If you think about like archetypes of players, that's what T.J. Slayton is. And Colby Wooden is somebody that has been a young kind of ascending player for them as like

a potential run stuffing nose. Guys like Carl Brooks, you know, we know Devante wide who's a first round pick. A lot of those guys had nice moments today. There was a play on, it was to start the second quarter essentially, it was a first and 10 run and Colby Wooden just blows up Christian Mahogany, the run goes for no game. And you go all throughout the game and you watch what that front seven was doing to this lion's run game. And it just seemed like they really had the upper hand for most of it. And when I looked at the numbers afterwards, I was actually kind of shocked at how toothless

the lion's run game was for most of today. They had a 31.8% design rush success rate according to next gen. That is their fifth, the worst game since 2022. and they averaged, I believe, like 2.7 yards per carry. That is their second worst mark in a game over the last four seasons. And this is a group that had questions about the interior offensive line, but I still feel like even with those questions, we thought they would be able to run the ball.

And the fact that the Packers were the team that really controlled the line of scrimmage on that side today, I think that's a really good sign if you're a little bit worried about what Green Bay might look like up front. And I think that's a bad sign if you have some lingering doubts about how this Lions team is constructed on offense up front. Yeah, like this, for the Packers' fronts, be able to do that with, again, like, not having two of their best run defenders from last year is, like, pretty crazy to me.

And I do think it is a testament to, like, how well they have started to draft and started to develop. They also changed their defensive line coach, this offseason, which I think is already showing some pretty good dividends for them. And then I even thought the backers played pretty well, like in the run. I totally agree with that. They were awesome today. Like, Walker started to come on at the end of last year.

And I thought, he really did. And I thought that Cooper was actually a lot better today when it comes to like just playing a little bit less with his hair on fire and just like being in control against the run. It was encouraging stuff. It's just they are, you could see the kernels of the like what the Halfley defense was supposed to be last year, right? And now all the younger players,

they've been there a little bit longer. The front coaching is potentially a little bit better. Like it, that mixed with getting Micah Parsons is like, helps. Yeah. It's a pretty good mix of what they've got going on here. Again, week one,

but like, man, it's impressive. I don't, we're not going to overreact to week one, but like, what facet of this game was not dominant for Green Bay? I mean, and we haven't even talked about the offense.

The offense down to down, I still think. The run game wasn't amazing. But honestly, I feel like the Packers felt to me like a team that throttled down after half time. Yeah, that's fair. I just think the down-to-down consistency in the passing game is still something I want to see a little bit more of moving forward. This is still a team. Like, I like the fact that Jordan Love plays the way that he does. I don't know if I want the Packers averaging 11 and a half air yards per attempt every single game on offense.

Like I get the appealing. I kind of want it to be honest with you. I love the fact that they're explosive. I still worry about what the down-to-down consistency of the passing game looks like and whether this is the right mindset and construction if you want to win games in the most important parts of the season. It's week one. But it's just like that's, I watch this team play the same style in terms of how they're trying to throw the ball today. And I'm like, when it looks good, it looks great. And when it looks bad, I think they can find some swoons.

That's still in the back of my head. It's very intoxicating when it works. Because, like, I've got it in my notes. Jordan Love, he attempted 16 passes before halftime. Six of them went for 15 plus yards. Like, it was just explosive after explosive. And then he threw six balls after the break. Like, they just weren't trying to move the ball through the air anymore.

And but if it's that explosive, that consistently in the first half. And I get it. It probably won't be consistently. enough for that to be worth it. But man, it's fun to watch when it works. I really love the post to Romeo Dobbs. And that was actually another one of my takeaways in this game is that I thought the flashes you saw from Romeo Dobbs, like if he's going to be a guy that's capable of making those sorts of plays and now you're mixing in Matthew Golden and just everybody collectively in that receiving core just take like one step forward, this group suddenly

becomes really dangerous. And that post that Jordan Love hits the Dobbs, he's in a little bit of a cut split. He does a great job of like bending it outside before taking it back to the middle of the field. And Jordan Love, to his credit, Kirby Joseph comes down on the crosser and as soon as Kirby Joseph takes that step, Jordan Love lets that ball rip. And so if we're going to have a combination of the receivers coming up in those moments and love seeing it that quickly, this offense is going to be explosive when they throw the ball. I just worry and I wonder, is it only going to be explosive as we keep going through this season? I still have the contention that they're more consistent than it feels it's just the bad feels really bad when it happens but i do think down to down it's really not

that bad and i think today that that was certainly too uh true um i kind of agree with dave like they felt like in the second half they throttled down which when both sides of the ball were playing as well as they were i kind of get it but still it's way too early in the season for me to think that this definitely means anything but the parallels from this and the lambo packer lions game last year are pretty eerie to me like they played midway through the season green bay's six and two it's a huge test Detroit went into halftime up 17 to 3 and just throttled down and just choked them out and they won 24 14 this was basically the same exact game except it's the packers now and we haven't played enough for me to know because at that point in the season you're just like oh well

green bay is just not ready for this like they're not ready for Detroit and we can't say that after one game, but it was weird to see the same game played with the shoe on the other foot. It's week one. We're going to say that a million times over the next 40 minutes here. But what you wanted to see from both of these teams with the Packers being ready, right? Like are the Packers ready to be the team in this division? And what are the Lions going to look like with all of this turnover along the offensive line at both coordinator spots?

The early returns on this are about as good as they can be for the Packers being ready to be that team in the NFC North. and probably about as bad as they can be for what all of those component parts changing out are going to look like for the Lions. Yeah, there was, to me, where I felt like everything we talked about with what might go wrong with the Lions offense

was one of the sacks that Goff took towards the end where Green Bay shows everyone on the line of scrimmage and they get the lines to slide to the left. Devonta Wyatt is, I think, lined up right over the right guard, maybe to the right guard's right shoulder, just cuts right across his face and get straight to Jared Goff. And that's one of those things that like, we worried about like, is the past protection plan going to be good enough? Are they going to be able?

Is the interior going to be able to play well enough? Even not even just from like a plan perspective. Are the guys just going to be able to block the other guys in front of them? That play to me was like that was all of the things I worried about for three months with this team. Again, the fact that the Packers were just better up front on defense than the Lions were. I just think that's something that would be concerning to me if I were a Lions fan. And the other part of this is I can remember what point in the game it was when I looked up this stat. And obviously the number was higher.

as we got a little bit deeper because the game was completely out of hand. There was a point, like, in the fourth quarter, like early in the fourth quarter, but still deep into the game, where Jared Gough was averaging 2.9 air yards per attempt. That type of offense, and this is a team that consistently threw the ball short of the sticks last year, it was a team that really did not push the ball down the field as much as a typically explosive offense would, but they were so good at manufacturing yak on those plays, and they were So these like controlled kind of like pointed shots that they were able to take. But if they're going to live that way without that ability to create explosives on those underneath throws,

then I just don't know what the overall mix of this offense is supposed to look like. And so the fact that they were still living in that world but were unable to manufacture explosive plays out of it, I just wonder how this is all going to shake out. Let's get to the next one here. Steelers Jets just as a game. You guys have my attention. The fact that the Steelers and the Jets was the most entertaining game of the early slate of week one, you could have listed off, I mean, if we had a pick between the eight games that were happening,

it probably would have been the seventh or eighth pick when it came to like offensive explosiveness and firepower. And it ended up becoming the most entertaining game of the week before we got to Sunday night football. I mean, on our what we're looking forward to for week one episode, we got to the end of the show and we're like, we want to see some stuff in this game, but we have a. I mentioned it in an hour of talking football. Like, I mean, it felt like an afterthought. It felt, I felt in my bones that this would be a 2016 win for one of these teams. And it's like, yeah, okay, you're 1 and O.

and I did not have fun watching this. And I could not have been more wrong. And I'm happy to say it. I had a blast watching this game. The Jets had the best EPA per dropback of any offense in the league in the week one in the league. I was looking that up for something else. And I saw that the Jets had the best EPA for dropback. And I was like, that cannot be correct.

Like it felt good watching it, but I was like, that just can't be correct. I must have like clicked some sort of wrong filter. And then lo and behold, it's right there. And me and Dave kind of had a funny experience rewatching the Jets game like kind of together during the end of the slate there. In the moment, it kind of felt like Justin Fields was playing okay. You were like, oh, he's stepping up in the pocket. He's making some moves here. A couple of really nice throws down the field.

And it was like, if we watch it back, is he really going to have looked like he played that well? And you watch it back and it's like, it's not the All 22 yet, but he looked like he actually played a pretty good game. Like there weren't that many things I took fault. And even like the end of the game where he's trying to like drive them back and to go win it, he puts a ball on Josh Reynolds that like if Josh Reynolds is there a half step earlier, he probably is able to connect and make that play. Jalen Ramsey just gets there and breaks it up. And then I think on like the fourth and two or fourth and three where he puts it on,

I think, Garrett Wilson, Jalen Ramsey just blows him up and then ends the game. And so like Justin Fields kind of, I felt like played a much better game than I would have thought. It's really funny because when we previewed the Jets, we talked about how much fun they could have running the ball. And we saw that. Like, Brees Hall had 100 yards today. They ran for 1802. He looked really good. He looked explosive. It was really nice to see this version of Brise Hall today. And Justin Fields was a part of that. Obviously, the naked boot to score late in the game was so much fun. And that's why you have Justin Fields to do stuff like that. And we

talked all this talk about how much fun they could be running the ball. They had six explosive runs today, by the way, which before the Ravens did their thing was second in the league for week one. so I'm sitting there thinking like, yeah, this, like, you can have a lot of fun running the ball. And then to Derek's point, Justin Fields made like as many as four or five big boy throws in this game where on early Sunday watching it like, like you. I'm like, okay, that was good. But was it good? And then I went back three hours later and I'm like, holy shit. Yeah.

That was really good. He like, he stepped up in the pocket. He got away from Cam Hayward coming through like the A gap, got into the vacated space. and just is firing darts, 8, 10, 12 yards down field. Like, it was a really impressive day against the defense. Even if this isn't like one of the best

Steelers defenses we're going to see over the last 15 years, it's still the Steelers. Like, there's a standard there. And he was great today. That throw on the touchdown to Garrett Wilson on that scissors concept of coming across. And that's just a beautiful ball in structure, wonderfully placed.

And then I'm with you guys on the pocket movement. I'll say this. I think the more impressive part of the pocket movement, to me and his ability to kind of subtly extend plays today was actually what the offensive line was doing. This is a perfect example of where pressure rates can be a little bit misleading. So if you look at the pressure rate that the Jets allowed today, it's like 40-something percent. It's one of the highest in the league on Sunday, yes.

But when you go back and you watch these plays, there is pressure technically because he is getting moved off of his spot a little bit, but that play you're talking about where he steps up and finds Tyler Johnson. John Simpson on that play does a fantastic job of a very event. eventually clearing Cam Hayward out and providing Justin Field's space to step up in the pocket. And that happened over and over again today. John Simpson had some really nice moments in pass protection. Fashanu had some really, really nice moments in past protection.

He had a one-on-one rep against T.J. Watt where it's like, okay. I mean, if we're going to do that, I can get on board with this. And the guy I actually was really impressed with multiple times in this game was Joe Tipman moving over and playing guard. Like the fact that they looked as good as they did without Elijah Vera Tucker, Tucker after him getting hurt so late in the process and them having to shuffle right before this game started, that's something where if I were a Jets fan, I'm like, all right, this is, combined with the Justin Fields part of this, combined with the fact that the offense seems

to have some juice with Tanner Anxren, the fact that the line played this well after losing AVT a week before the season started, that would make me breathe a lot easier about what this season might look like. The cliche is that there are no moral victories in the NFL, but this feels like a big time moral victory. I feel like the Jets won the game. But they did not win the game. For the record, they did not.

And one of the reasons that they didn't is because the Steelers passing game was humming in this game. And if you look at the numbers, Aaron Rogers was 22 of 30 for 244 yards and four touchdowns. He did not play that well in this game. He played well, but he did not. Those numbers are a little bit misleading in terms of what he was contributing to the passing game. But it's not to take away from the passing game overall because my biggest takeaway in this game was, one, the Jets tackling in space was horrendous on a couple of these plays. Dude, the screen with D.K. McCaff. The little bubble that D.K. McHaff is a play that Michael Carter

just like, it's not a good, I mean, that's a tough moment. And then there was a play early, I think it was on the first or second drive where they just throw like a little speed out to D.K. And Tony Adams just takes a terrible angle. And so there were a couple of those moments. But I think even beyond that, like let's give a credit back to the Steelers, some of the designs of the passing game, especially to Calvin Austin, like that, that, That's to me, if I were like trying to stack up, right, how would I feel if I were a Steelers fan? It would be the construction of the offense felt like it was put together. It had a lot of, a lot of juice to it.

And I thought that Calvin Austin, like, they've been trying to sell Calvin Austin as like, he's better than you think he is sort of player for a couple years now. And I actually thought he might have been like the most impressive pass catcher on the Steelers offense today. And so all of that stuff coming together, it's like, oh shit, well, all right. Like, this is something where it had a lot more giddy up than I probably expected coming into the year. I couldn't agree more like this was Aaron Rogers played well and there were parts of his game that did surprise me a little bit. I mean, him still having the arm did not surprise me,

but he was a little more willing to hang in the pocket and like take hits than I thought we were going to get from this version of him. So that was impressive to see. But I'm totally with you on the way that they were using Calvin Austin. Like the first big one he gets is they run like a scissors concept versus quarters, which that's exactly what you want. Safety stays a little bit high and he's just like wide open. Nobody's covering him. And then shortly after that he gets one on one coverage with Brandon Stevens wins on the wheel route, which like, I think Calvin Austin can win against a lot of guys, but like he's also particularly geared to beat a guy like Brandon Stevens, who's a little bit taller, a little bit like he's a little bit, um, you know, he's a little bit more stiff. It's not

him winning against these quicker receivers is not, uh, the best way to use them. And then I thought some of the other things that they, uh, were doing in the red zone was really good. Like they caught the jets in man coverage in the red zone and like got, they were booting Rogers a little bit to the right and had the the running back just flare out. I, or sprints out. I, I, or sprints out. I think it was Jalen Warren. And knowing that you're going to get a lot of man coverage from the Jets because it's Aaron Glenn, that's just like a perfect call to get the linebacker to bite on the run action to the left and have him sprinting out to the right.

So I thought all the play calling today from the Steelers was like pretty damn good. I don't want to hate because it was very impressive, but also just one of the funnier go-ahead field goal drives I've seen in a long time. And I just want to shout that out because if you saw this game on Red Zone or if you were watching your team and saw this out of the corner of your eye, You see Chris Boswell drill a 60-yarder and you're like, oh, hey, holy cow, the Steelers, well done, getting into position. Ridiculous drive to get to that point.

Like, it's a 19-yard DPI to Calvin Austin. Very next play, Rogers hits D.K. on a slant. That sauce breaks up. It hits D.K. And then it hits John Hym Smith's lap and falls into D.K.'s waiting hands because he at this point has fallen under the bobble. And from there, the jets go backward. they lose yards and they're like

ah shit well this wasn't really the plan but Chris can you can you hit this and of course he does because he's one of the best in the NFL it's just I love how romantic that sounds where you're like yeah game winning field goal drive and and they did pull it off but just nowhere near as heroic as it

maybe looks on red zone you mentioned that Calvin Austin play where he kind of sells a little over and then kind of breaks back out against quarters that was a huge chunk play and then on that same drive I believe he had that out and up where he actually makes a contested catchdown on the right sideline. And you just mentioned it.

He draws the DPI to get them in range for the game-winning field goal. And then the touchdown he scored is a beautiful play design where he kind of inserts on play action. He stutters and then takes it to the corner. And so the number that sticks out to me when we talk about Aaron Rogers' role in all of this, Aaron Rogers today average negative 4.7 air yards to the sticks, which was dead last among any quarterback in the NFL in week one. So again, this is a passing offense that did not ask a lot of the quarterback.

necessarily, but that was the version of this offense that I kind of wanted to see and thought would be the best version of it. Like, if we can ask Aaron Rogers to not have to carry this whole thing and have him just throw a wide open touchdown to Ben Skoronik off of a boot, like, if that can be, if we can put him in like a little bit of a box and the offensive construction can kind of carry this a little bit, that's the best version of this. And that's exactly what we got today. So I think there were a lot of encouraging signs about what this version of the Steelers can be that I had some pretty significant doubts about, but the early returns looked pretty darn good.

I did too because I thought we were going to get too much of the Aaron Rogers. I'm going to call the offense the way I want to call offense. Exactly. Today, those parts of the offense were bad. Like they were not good. A lot of what they were doing was the schemed up stuff that Smith was doing. And that second Calvin Austin touched on that you mentioned where they like insert him almost as like the wedge tight end and like get him that free release so he can go and. run that route. That's just like when you have a player as small as Calvin Austin, like doing

any little thing to get him those advantages. Like, again, when he's going to get a matchup against Brandon Stevens like that, a corner, you know if you give him space he's going to be able to win. Just really, really good play calling. Are we a little bit worried about the fact that the Jets and the Steelers are supposed to be driven by their defenses, at least in part? And the defense is excited to not show up today. Yes, we are, but it's week one and we did not expect to, like, we did not expect to have this much fun watching the game. So like, we'll let that sort of self-off. I think the gear the offense has showed is probably more important

than whatever concerns we have about the defenses one week into the season. I'm willing to land there. And like if you're a Jets fan, like the pass rush was active. Like, you know, Will McDonald, Quinn and Williams looked like Quinn and Williams at times today. Like there was enough there that I'm encouraged even if they did give up 34 points. Last one here. Ameca Buka is somebody

we talked about throughout the entire offseason essentially. All of training camp, like we were ready to give him a gold jacket from the first week he was on the field down there in Tampa. And so far, looks pretty good. Two touchdowns in his debut, including the game winner,

Ameca Buka and the Bucks, you have my attention in a big division win to kick off this season, Dave. They were road favorites. So I guess you're supposed to win. And obviously they've controlled the NFC South for four years. So you're supposed to win this game, but we talked about it before kickoff.

Like they shuffled their offensive line to account for Tristan Wirf still being out injured. So you move Graham Barton to left tackle. He's your center, by the way. So you just, you shuffled everything. Those three, Graham Barton, Ben Brayerson and Michael Jordan gave up like 12 of the 15 pressures on Baker Mayfield today. So like you're coping with that. You're starting a rookie at receiver.

It did not look great for the bucks all the time. They could not run the ball today. They looked like disconcertingly like 2023 Tampa Bay. So to get that performance from your rookie who, who you have high expectations for. It just, it makes me feel like the bucks are going to be okay during this stretch where we're waiting on worse to come back.

It was reported this morning. Maybe Chris Godwin is back by week five, maybe week six or seven. If a mega Ibuka is capable of doing that in his debut, then I think they can weather that storm until they stabilize a little bit when those guys are healthy. And I think my favorite part of Igbuka having the game that he did was that all of his big plays were down the field,

like as a vertical player, whereas I think coming into the league, a lot of it was like, oh, he's going to be like Robert Woodsy, and we're going to throw him some screens, and he's going to get us some tough yards after the catch, and he's going to block, and he's going to be this guy out of the slot. And then he catches two huge, like, in traffic plays down the field, like down the seam. The second one in particular was super impressive to me, both from him and from Baker Mayfield. Baker pinned that on him.

The way he attacked that ball, too, like in the end zone, like went and got like, a very confident play for a rookie with a chance to win. the game. That was like Baker's spanking that with almost no room in the back of the end zone to work with and a Buka attacking it the way he did like that's like that looks like how elite elite passing offensive and it didn't look like that the whole game but like you get those flashes from these guys. The Falcons threw some weird stuff at the bucks today. Some weird pressures and I think that's how they're going to try to live Atlanta on defense this year where it's like we're going to bring some extra bodies. We're going to be a little bit funky on the back end and Jeff Rolberg

has talked about this. The fact that I think he's interested in evolving from what he might have been as the Jets defensive coordinator over the last couple of years. That first touchdown, one of those wonky plays got them in trouble. They tried to run like an inverted cover two where they have Mike Hughes as the deep half player on that side. And Ibuka is running that crosser and he's already got the leverage. And Baker, the safety's dropping down into that window

and Baker layers it over him perfectly. And on the second Ibuka touchdown, they had run this concept a couple times earlier in the game where you have a dig from the inside receiver and then a post behind it. and they saw Jesse Bates clamp down on that dig earlier in the game. They knew he was going to again. And as soon as he steps down, Baker throws that post over the top. I think the biggest takeaways for me in this game outside of the Bucks being able to kind of eke this one out is what the Bucks were able to do to an Atlanta team on offense that was really efficient last year.

Even if there were some fits and starts for the Falcons offense, they were able to move the ball when you look at success rate, just down to down efficiency, really, well and consistently all of last season, especially on the ground. And they just were not able to do that today. They had a 25% rushing success rate in this game against the bucks. And the other part of it that was a little bit surprising is that I thought with Michael Panics, we would see this team really push the ball down the field. And I know Donald Mooney didn't play today. But 35.7% of the Falcons attempts in this game got to the sticks.

35.7. No team in the league last year finished lower than 37. I just don't really want to watch that version of this falcons offense. Like a falcons offense that can't run the ball officially and isn't going to push the ball down the field is not what I was expecting to get this year. And that's what we got in week one. Yeah. The whole point of the offense was that we can run the ball so that we can get under center a little bit and chuck it down the field. And again, maybe when Mooney comes back, they'll be able to do that.

And again, it's like this is Michael Pennix's first like week one type of start. So maybe that's all part of it. but like that part of it was certainly concerning to me. And it did feel like this is, I think, going to cut both ways over the course of the season, but it did feel like there were certain times where Michael Pennix was very obviously just forcing the ball to Drake London, which I do think can be good.

But at the same time, it's like it feels like the offense a little bit lacks an extra gear because we're doing that. They ran like the same reverse pivot route in the red zone twice in a row. Like that's the definition of them just trying to like force feed him the ball in those situations. And it's probably your best option in those moments. but clearly that did not work.

The funniest part about this game, Dave, is that at what point in the game did I call the fact that the Falcons were going to lose on an excruciating misfield goal? If you're listening at home, it happened. I'm not, I wouldn't lie to you. It happened like early third quarter probably. Like I can also confirm.

With a solid hour to hour and a half left of gameplay, Robert was just like, this will be decided by the most excruciating field goal problem. And that's exactly what happened. It was a very falconsy way for that game. You can have enough experience with Atlanta football. ball you come to expect these things obviously the field goal at the end is a is a frustrating moment i think the other like sequence in this game that i can when i was rewatching it i was like oh man that's one

where you'll you'll you'll think about that for the rest of the night with about nine minutes left in the third quarter baker forced the ball over the middle on against like a robber look where zavier watts was dropped down and Xavier watts dropped the pick and on the next play baker scrambles for 20 yards and the buck score a touchdown like two plays later to go up 17 to 10 and so they're going to be a lot of Falcons fans and a lot of people in that building right now that are just going over these plays in their head being like, I cannot believe that we lost that game, which this like Baker's stat line is is pretty not like three touchdowns, no turnovers. It's so close to being a completely different story.

And like Baker missed a walk-in touchdown to Kate Otten, like a shaky day overall, which makes it that and much nicer that Ibuka had the debut that he did where it's like, okay, like this kid can pick us up even if he is a rookie. Like, that's really exciting if I'm a Tampa fan. Just a surprising version of this game. The Bucks are a 36% offensive success rate again, talking about the Falcons inability to move the ball, especially on the ground.

Like, when you consider what the games looked like between these teams last year, the fact that we had like an ugly stop and start game from both offenses in week one, it's just not really a world I want to live in. I just don't want to see this version of either of these teams. I thought this would have the score that the Jets Steelers game did. Like, I was, you know, I thought this was the 36 to 33 game.

Yeah. Falcons or the Bucks I can at least give a pass, new coordinator, you're missing worse, all that stuff. And I know the Falcons are missing some guys too, but like you've had, these are your guys. Like you kind of made your bed here. The last thing I want to say about this game, the play that Anton Winfield made at the end where he just,

thank you for remembering. Because I forgot. Just smokes. I think it was Casey Washington to break that play up. Like that is just, that is peak safety play. That was incredible. He is incredible at making plays like that.

And like he makes them inside of 10 yards. from the goal line too. Like he is the king of the touchdown saving play. I love him so much. Before we get to some of the low lights from week one, let's take our first quick break. I don't know if I'm allowed to swear as we do the shows live. And so we'll figure that out later,

whether or not Belor can do some live bleeping for us. But let's get to the rough moments from week one. And let's start with the Miami Dolphins. The last time the three of us sat at this table, we were previewing week one. We were talking about the Colts and the Dolphins, and we said one of these teams, as we get started with this game,

we'll show us that it is going to be a rough year. One of them. That was our hunch about how this game would go. And Derek, the Miami Dolphins very quickly showed us that it was going to be that. It was very quickly. Like there were so few games this week one where it felt like one team from start to finish

just did not have it. And the Dolphins at no point in this game. Did not have it. They just did not have it. On both sides of the ball, And like, I can understand, there's some part of me that can understand being like, okay, this Dolphins offense, like, I said like, I kind of pinned the Colts defense as like they're kind of a sneaky good unit. Like the front is really good. This Dolphins offensive line is not good.

Like, you could have funky stuff today too that we're going into. They really did. And like, you could have sold me on the world where like, okay, maybe Dolphins offense doesn't have the greatest day. And I know the Dolphins defensive roster is not that good. But to let Daniel Jones for like a good chunk of the day be the day's passing leader, like you, you can. You cannot allow that. He did for 200 yards in the first half. Nicole had a 57% offensive success rate in this game.

Daniel Jones had a 30-point fantasy day. How many people do you think started him in fantasy football? Not enough. A 30-point day from Daniel Jones. The bleakest two-quarterback league. The bleakest, the 16-team two-quarterback league, you're getting Daniel Jones today. When I fully felt like the dolphins had no shot anymore was at some point, I think Daniel Jones had converted four straight third downs.

And I turned to Dave and I was like, you cannot let Daniel Jones convert four straight third downs on you. Like that is unacceptable to allow. There was, I think it was two straight drives. Tua overthrows Tyreek Hill gets picked off by Cambyn. So that's our first moment of the Dolphins offense. And think on the ensuing Colts drive,

it's second and 20. And the Colts score on that Michael Pittman touchdown where they believe it's covered two. Storm Duck does not get enough depth in the flat. And Mel Phone Wu, Tyler Warren's running a seam. And Melphoon was the deep half player kind of clamps down on Tyler and so Michael Pittman was just wide open down the right side line.

That's a play where it's just like, all, you can give up second and 20, like, walk-in touchdowns. And the other play that I was just like, this is just not a good sign for you as an NFL team is like the 20-yard reception that Moe Allie Cox had, catching the ball in the flat. And like what Jack Jones looks like trying to tackle Moe-Hawley-Cox. Yes.

It's just like, this is everything about what the dolphins were today, including just some of the sideline body language. And it's just like, the vibes were there. They were there the entire offseason. And again, we don't want to react too much to week one or overreact. But this is one of those things where it feels like, you know what? Like, if there's smoke, there's fire here. The dolphins can dig out of this and prove us all wrong.

I think this is a case where it's okay to overreact. I think it is okay to say, how can you be this bad? And how can things already look this crappy? Like Tyree Kill is venting on the sideline at, I believe that happened before half time of your first game. after all of that, after the I'm out of here stuff at the end of last season and Tua talking about how he's got to like win his way back into everybody's good graces. Like how do we get here?

How do you think you did with that today? How do we get here in less than a game? Like sure, if that happens in week five because things finally come to a head, that is normal and understandable. We didn't make it until 2.30 before this happened. I mean, it's absolutely unbelievable. And it's all there for the dolphins in a vacuum. Like they can prove us wrong, but this was a performance that it's okay to say the vibes suck.

The team looked awful. Like they're the un, there's no doubt that they're the biggest loser of week one, period. And I think the framing of like when they're smoke, there's fire is a great way to put it. Because sometimes teams have week one games like this, right? Like the Packers like four or five years ago when they got murdered by James Winston, like, if it was just week one, then I'd be feeling a little bit different about this. It's the last two months. Exactly.

And like for that to be the case when we had. had all these like two months of terrible vibes for them, or really even going back to again the end of last season, for them to lay a stinker against. And like the Colts, if the Bills did this to you, like, you know,

they can do that. But it's the Colts who we pinned as like, I don't know, one of the worst teams in the league. We also have bad vibes. Like Robert said, like we equally imagined that it could have been the Colts on the other side of this.

And instead the Colts just took it to them. I also, to me, like when this really, really felt extra bad and where I also started to feel like decent about Lou Anerumo and the defense, when Tua got picked by Laiatu Latu,

like playing zone eyes in the flat, and he's like moving out towards the sideline, and then he cuts back to pick Tua off a little bit closer to the hash. That was just like, okay, Tua is not seeing it. And also, like, Lou is doing some weird stuff if he's using Latu as a dropper like that. You can just tell that Lou loves the fact

that he has a defensive talent. Like, it is fueling the creativity. And that was, it was generally the vibe I got when I was there is that I think that the amount of pieces they had, especially up front was going to give him some juice this year. And you felt that.

There was a sack that Saps and Ebukam had in this game where Latu was lined up as a three technique. Buckner was lined up at defensive end. And then they had Latu all the way on like a twist where he's coming all the way back around. And I believe Ebukam like cleans up the sack as two tries to step up in the pocket. That was one play.

Kenny Moore is coming on a slot blitz and gets the strip sack. And then you mentioned the play where Latu is dropping back in coverage. like this front and if you include kind of Kenny Moore in the core of the defense, there is a lot to like about this group. We'll see what 67% snapshot for Xavier and Howard means against an offense that's not folding in on itself. But I do think there are enough strengths of what this Colts group has with Luanarumo that it's a unit I'm excited to continue watching this year.

Yeah. How do we feel about the Colts offense? Again, when it's when you're looking at it in the fun house mirror of what the dolphins were today, it's a little bit harder to pull everything apart. The Tyler Warren stuff seems very exciting, right? I think that we can all agree with that. And then I, there was a moment the catch the A.D. Mitchell had down the right side line. I knew where that was going.

I will not quit him. I can't, I refuse, I refuse to quit Aidy Mitchell. If you guys go back and you watch the all 22 of that play, he, it's just like, he's one on the right side line and believe against Storm Duck. The vertical push he gets and the third. throttle down he has and the separation he creates on that play, that is like the platonic ideal of like what he can do as an NFL player. And so I do think that even if it's an incomplete group, the combination of skill sets that the past catchers have kind of in cohesion with one another,

I was excited about it coming into the year. And I'm still excited about it after today. I just, I'm not sure how excited I should be considering the fact that the dolphins were on the other side of it. What if I told you you don't have to wait very long to get a definitive answer? because the Colts week two opponent is Denver. There you go. Oh, well, that'll answer a lot of questions. We're still recapping week one, but that'll be a very interesting test

to see how much of this is for real. Speaking of Denver, let's get to our next WTF of week one. The Tennessee Titans continued to be an extremely frustrating NFL football team. That game was there for the taking. Bo Nix had a rough day in his debut in his sophomore season.

And the Titans just refusering. refused to accept this game from the Broncos. I mean, just so many different moments where it's just like, if I were a Titans fan, I would be pulling my hair out. The election to throw the ball three times with 47 seconds left at the end of the first half when the Broncos only had two timeouts and then punting the ball back and allowing them to go down and kick a field goal. Cam Ward taking two horrendous sacks after that muff punt and getting them out of field goal

range. The Titans is a team that had way too many penalties last year, way too many operational errors. It's like, all right, there's no way they shoot themselves in the foot this much in year two under Brian Callahan. 13 penalties for 131 yards today. Oh my God. And that's before we get to the series of drops where Kim Ward is trying just throwing seeds all over the place. And all I want is for somebody to catch the ball on the other end of this thing. So maybe this is on me, Dave, for having some excitement about the Titans coming into the year. But this was an extremely frustrating opening out, opening act for this group. We will not take the blame for this because like the excitement was there.

If you watch this game, like if you if you box score watch this game, you're probably rolling your eyes at why anybody should be excited about Cam Ward. This is the best like 112 yard no touchdown performance you'll ever see. He was exactly what I wanted him to be. You guys were with me today. The throw that he had, it was in the second half. He was on the O in the word Broncos in the end zone, 12 yards behind the line of scrimmage, second and eight, and he rips it across his body.

It's a 25-yard throw to pick up 12 yards to Calvin Ridley with somebody bearing down on him. He got hit on the throw. My soul jumped out of my body. I was like, yes, I love watching this guy play. That was ridiculous. maybe it was ill-advised. Like there's not very many people that I think should even try to do this. But Cam Ward can.

The throw he had, I think it was four averts or something similar. Like he had Calvin Ridley down the seam on that. He had multiple seam throws. The one of Chigua as well. I mean, like, that was the most egregious drug probably. It was terrible. And I don't, maybe you mentioned it and I just blacked out because I was so mad.

But the second play of the third quarter, Bo Nix throws his second pick. The Titans get the ball on the Denver. 24, they run three times to set up fourth and one and just kick from the Denver 17. That was the wimpiest sequence I've ever seen. And I get it. You're on the road. Denver is a crazy environment.

It's a great defense. Rookie quarterback. Give me something a little more, either something more imaginative or something a little braver than three runs and kick in a situation where Bo Nix gifts you with the best field position you'll get all day. I just feel like we're in this. And we're in the place now where that idea of we're an underdog. on the road. It's a tough environment. That's why you go for it in that situation.

Because you're not going to have that many situations where you have a chance to kind of take control of the game and the way that they did in that moment. That's why you draft the quarterback like Cam Ward. Like that's the he lives to play in those moments. Like it's the whole reason you drafted a guy like that. And so I get that there were some frustrating moments with Cam Ward. Like the, it's funny, the sack sequence he takes when the Titans got the ball in that sequence, I remember turning to you, Dave. We had a whole moment about it. And I told you you were going to jinx it. Because they got the ball in like the 30 or something like that because of the turnover. And I was like, oh, the only reason they wouldn't put up points here is if they have like some sort of kicking miscue.

And then Cam Ward takes two different kind of miscue. Horrible sacks. He was not perfect at all. Yeah. I mean, that is a devastating sequence. Second and third down back to back sacks that take you from a makeable fuel goal to like we can't even kick now. I mean, that's terrible. But Cam Ward was not the problem with the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.

And the thing I'll say about Cam's, I think when the ball came out, out his decision making was good. He was generally like giving his guys, and he was a little bit aggressive in some of those moments and like testing windows, but that's just what he does. Like that's, that's what I want from him. But he was generally giving guys chances, putting the ball into tight windows and like, I think as a decision maker when the ball came out, it was good. He did hold on to the ball way too long in this game. That's probably going to be like the growing pain with him is he's just going to learn like, how much can I get away with athletically and how much can I strangle around and do stuff like that? Obviously that field goal sequence is bad.

There was also a red zone rollout before the half. If he just wait. a quarter of a second longer, the guy on the corner running for the pylon is going to be open. And it's also like, you're sprinting out in the red zone. Like you kind of don't really have chance to like turn around the way that he wanted to

and sprint back to the other side of the field. He tried to do that, took a sack there. So it's just learning what he can and can't get away with as a ball carry. I think is going to be important. But like as a thrower, Dave, like it was everything that you wanted it to be.

He is so, he's just, I'm glued to every Titans game. Like every throw, every decision. And sometimes it's bad. I was going to say. Godspeed to you. It's just a rollercoast. Hey, if I'm not emotionally invested, I just want to see what happens.

And it is a lot of fun. You mentioned the Titans penalties, but specifically, I think you got to shout out the Jeffrey Simmons fiasco where like the Titans get a stop near midfield with like three minutes to play. And Jeffrey Simmons just pushes a ball carrier who's clearly stopped. He's clearly down. And Denver goes on to not turn the ball over. until there's one minute left to play.

I wrote 400 words of notes about the amount of stupid things the Titans did in this game. And like that says it all. And like that was just one of them. egregious. I do like Denver's defense was awesome, by the way. Like not to take all the credit away from Denver. Their pass rush was phenomenal in this game.

So that's the thing is that you can imagine Cam Ward and the Titans offense having a rough day on the road against a defense that has a chance to be the best in the league. it's a little bit harder to wave away the performance Bo Nix had at home against the Titans defense that I think collectively we all agree that Dernard Wilson did a very good job last year in tough circumstances and with better talent

and just a more complete team this year this Titans defense could surprise some people even with that sort of framing for Bo Nix to look how he did today that's a tough opening moment for a Broncos team Derek that has some real aspirations this year he it was like he did not start off last season obviously very well

and then I think they kind of PCA of the offense where he could really show some growth at the end of last year I thought today he might have been the worst quarterback that played like he just was spinning he did not look like he knew and again, Dinard Wilson does throw a lot of interesting stuff of you but there was the strip sack where he is like faking the ball the wrong way and ends up taking the strip sack thereby I believe it was Jeffrey Simmons

there was a pick he almost threw to Amani Hooker where Hooker is like he's lined up, I think, just over the B gap and then he ends up popping out to go and play the flat. Nix just never sees it and throws right at him. And if Hooker's hands are 10% better, he probably catches that. He threw another pick out of the half where he's kind of staring at his guy running this deep outbreaker to the right side. It's squeezed by two defenders the whole way. He's looking at it the whole way. And he just throws it anyway. And it felt like he was making a lot of those mistakes of like, oh, this is supposed to be here.

And it was open in practice. And now it's not open. What do I do? and he kind of threw it anyway. And I felt like, again, week one, you can get away with those mistakes. If we see a game like this again in like week five or six, I'm going to start hitting the panic button a little bit.

And that bizarre choice that they made to go for to that a fourth and eight, where he has a moment a sudden wide open and doesn't throw it to him. I mean, just there were a lot of tough moments for Bo Nix in this game. And one of the things we talked about all off season in discussing where he had to be better and where the Broncos offense had to take a step

is what he did under pressure. It was a struggle for them all year last year. when you look at every single advanced dad under the sun, he was one of the worst quarterbacks in the league when pressured last season. Today, only pressured on 18.6% of his dropbacks per next gen. Two of seven for eight yards and two interceptions. You cannot have as many. You can't throw as many caught balls to the defense as you throw to your own team.

Yeah. Doesn't work that way. Yeah, same amount of completions under pressure to his team and to the defense in this game. So the Broncos get out of here with the win, but I think some stuff to be a little bit concerned about as we move forward. We got plenty of WTF candidates today because there were some frustrating moments all across the board. Dave, what did you think of the Seahawks decision at the end of that game to kick the field goal, knowing that you were giving the ball back to the Niners with a chance to come back and win the game?

I applaud every opportunity I get. I love the way that Greg Olson advances the cause for aggressive, calculated decision-making. it felt like a mistake in the moment. Obviously, the only benefit of the decision is that the Seahawks had enough time to drive back into range to potentially rewin the game. Obviously, Nick Bosa had something to say about that. He called game. But yeah, in a situation like that, I think, and look, I'm contradicting myself a little bit because I said I would have, I was okay with the punt in the Baltimore Buffalo game, right? But that's four from three.

And maybe it's a long three. I mean, you've got fourth and one. And also, it's completely different field position-wise where you're in the red zone. I mean, even if you don't get it, it's a long drive to go and potentially take the lead for San Francisco. I just, I think you've got to be more aggressive there. It's obviously Mike McDonald is a defensive minded head coach. But Greg Olson was imploring him like, hey, man, this is what the situation calls for. And like, the numbers don't say that the Seahawks ran the ball.

particularly well, but Gray's able was making a difference there. Like go watch Zach Charvone's touchdown run. Like they were getting push. I think if all you need is a yard, I trust what they were doing on the offensive line in this game. I trust that you can pick it up somehow, some way. But obviously they opted for a different tact. Yeah, I feel like in a vacuum, you have to go for it on fourth and one.

And there's part of me that I get why he didn't. Like the defense was playing very well up to that point in the game. They'd only allowed 10 points to the Niners. Like they picked off Brock Purdy multiple times. I get why Mike McDonald in that moment felt like, given the way his offense wasn't playing that well, was like, we're just going to lean on the defense.

But like when you're giving it up to like to the chance of like letting a quarterback who like Brock Purdy is not the best, but he's going to go and give his guy's chances. And he did that multiple times. Like in this game like him throwing up the ball to pierce all where woolen kind of loses it. That was the other thing we're going to bring up is that. Yeah.

And then again, tacking woolen in the red zone. Yeah. The fourth and three, the fourth and one decision is part of this, like, is the W2F aspect of this game. The Tariq Wollin moments at the end of the game is just like, that's the frustrating part about it is. It becomes the right, it's the wrong process, but it can be the right outcome if Wollan makes either one of those plays.

Instead, you get him misplaying the ball, the pierceol, and then Tungis makes the game winning play against Tariq Wollen. It's just, just week one nonsense. George Kittle comes out. And Tangis is the one that ends up catching the game. I'd never heard the name Jake Tangis until some time in the second half today. I like honest to God, shout out to him. He was, the Niners were clearly, because they're missing a million receivers,

were clearly committed to playing like 12 personnel, 21, 22. They played over 60% of their snaps in three of those personnel formations, either 12, 21, or 22. So they were putting multiple tight ends on the board no matter what. And so once Kiddle went out, that was like, are they going to be able to get away with this? And then Tongis, I think had like a third down. version where he like slides across the that was so great like that was so drag like it's a great line and then he catch just the game winner it's like for them to be so committed to this no matter what

and have your third tied in come off the board and make that play it's just like that's that's just like awesome to see in week one the reason i'm laughing so hard and this is going to be such an esoteric joke and i know i shouldn't make it on the most recent season of righteous gemstones there is a like a joke throughout the entire season where uncle baby billy plays teen where it's teen jesus and the moment that i heard it was pronounced tangis all i can think about is walton gagan saying tingeus in his baby billy voice in my head the thing come on now tngis well now we need to say tundges so it's just that's how by the time we got to the end of their second slate of games that's how much my brain had just melted from all the overstimulation

today is i just kept hearing tangis in that voice it's like i said so much stuff happened after mcdonald elected to kick that fuel goal. But I've talked about that with people before where a defensive mind and head coach, like the unit that he calls and the unit that he understands, like they want the defense to have the chance to affect the game with the outcome on the line. I just, I don't know how to delicately tell defensive mind and head coaches like that. I think that's wrong. Even if you're the best defensive play caller in the league, like it is a reactive unit.

The whole goal is to be reactive. win the game with the proactive half of your team. I mean, everything that happened after that, it didn't need to if you play that differently. I have one more note on the Seahawks. It felt like watching this team, every screen was the worst thing that I've ever seen. The Seahawks threw six passes behind the line of scrimmage today.

They completed five of them for a total of negative seven yards. The negative six-yard completion was one where I truly like, how does that happen? Yeah. live reactions in that way. And like Sam Donald almost threw one of the swings to Zach Charbonnet, like behind him where it would have been like a fumble out of balance. Like it was just their whole operation of trying to hit the easy ones was not good today.

I mean, you look at the numbers, 30 teams played today. The Seahawks finished 20th in EPA per dropback. And you felt that when you watched the passing game. And their rushing success rate was okay over the course of the game. I mean, because they had some short yard stuff. But the place where Kenneth Walker was running the ball in this game, he's getting hit in the backfield consistently. I want to go back and rewatch.

the Niners defense specifically in this game. Because it does feel like they were doing some interesting stuff. And especially with like the pressure packages they were using. Like I think Winters had like five or six pass rush snaps in this game. Michael Williams had three coverage snaps. Like it feels like because this is a group where it's a young group, the talent is not proven from top to bottom, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised.

The same way we said about Jeff Obrick, who comes from the same world, if Robert Sala was going to do some wonkier stuff this year in order to maybe make up for some of the gaps he has in talent on that side of the ball. I would want to see it. I mean, it's kind of a tree that does need to find some new answers. We've got two more WTF entries. And Dave, I don't, I hesitate to talk about this one, but we have to discuss it based on some of the conversations that we had in the preseason, previewing this season. It was not a good opening day for Bryce Young and for the Bryce Young

believers among us. I thought we were going in a different direction. I don't want to do this one. But yes, yes, please go ahead. I mean, where do you want to start with this? It was a rough outing. Do you want me to start? For the Panthers offense. You can start with this if you want to. As the resident, I'm skeptical.

Take your victory. You were, I will say, you were very dignified and polite about it over the course of today. I'm not conceding defeat after a long of week just for the record. Well, listen, I said week one I was going to be civil and I was not the one that put this on the show docket today. But now that it's weird. We had to talk about it. If we didn't, it feels like I'd be running away from it. That bad, exactly.

So, like, there were just, I think the first interception he threw, that's just tough, where he's, like, rolling out to his right. The safety is clearly hammering down on it. And he just, like, never sees him. And he throws it anyway. Ball gets tipped up. And I think Ola Koon ended up being one who had intercepted that. So there was that.

Yeah, Murray was the one that was driving down. Yeah. Yeah, it was Murray. And then there were a couple of moments where I just felt in the pocket. Like, he's trying to get the ball up and over to a checkdown. And he's just a little. bit smaller. And so he gets popped and ball's not able to come out the way it is. So he struggles with that. The most egregious one to me was fourth and one inside the red zone. He clearly

starts to panic a little bit and he throws the ball away on fourth and one in the end zone in a game where like this is tight and you need to go with it. And so that to me was the moment where like for whatever reason this feels a little bit too much for him again. And I'm a little bit worried of that like snowballing. I'll be honest. My lasting impression of this game, I was really excited about this game. I said it going into the weekend. I had visions of grandeur of Bryce and Trevor just trading blows and just looking great. And it was obvious before the rain delay that this game was a dud. Like even before that happened, I was like, all right, well,

the Jags and Panthers disappointing me again. What else is new? And then they were off the air for however long the rain delay was. And by the time they came back, we had Seahawks Niners going. We had Texans Rams. We had... I resented the game for being on. Yeah. I, like, I, like, every time I looked over, I was like, can you just go away? Even looking over that screen is a bummer for me, not only because it wasn't a good game, but it was just a reminder of my own failure every time I looked over there. I hated it.

I will say he had, I'll give him his credit, the fourth and five that Tederoa Mcmillan couldn't bring in because I think Tyson Campbell like rips it out, which that's just an incredible play by Tyson Campbell. That was a really good ball from Bryce Young. Like he had a couple of good throws in this game. It's just the down to down. is just it just wasn't good enough. The one is Chavian Sanders on the right side line is one that theoretically could have been hauled in,

but he did not look good or comfortable in this game. The fourth and one throwaway, you mentioned it was a bad play. And then the pick six that didn't end up counting because of a cheap penalty on the other side of the ball. That was completely away from the play. So I, again, no, we're not conceding anything, Dave. But that is not a good opening act from the Bryce Young believers in the audience here. Far from it. It was like starting right back over.

Maybe it wasn't as unbelievably uncompetitive as the week one game against the Saints last year, but it was back to just being like, oh, the Panthers look like Bryce Young doesn't look ready for the moment. He just doesn't look like he's there. You want to see me twist myself into a pretzel to

believe that this might be okay? Week one, we've never seen Anthony Campany Eli call a defense before. You truly don't know what is coming. And they did some interesting stuff, right? Like Jordan Lewis gets a, has that sloplets where he blows up that third and eight in the second quarter.

They ran some kind of funky simulated pressures. We just didn't know what it was going to look like. Maybe as we get a little bit deeper into the season, you can game plan a little bit better, has a little bit more information. We see a better version of the Panthers offense. But that is some real cope coming from my side of the table. You know the always sunny meme where Mac is like,

I'm playing both sides. So I always come out on time. There you go. Dominant win for the Jags, which is also, I also enjoy that. So that's fine. So the one thing I wanted to say about that, It was so refreshing to have a game where Trevor was just like mid.

He was fine. Like the pick he threw was egregious. Like if you're going to throw, if you're going to miss throw a deep over route like that, overthrow it to the sideline. Don't under throw it and get picked. And then like otherwise, I think he had some good moments, but was like it was a middling Trevor performance.

But to have him do that and then still comfortably when the game was like, I don't know the last time that has happened for the Jaguars. The Jaguars for 200 yards. I mean, 70 of them were on one Travis E's ETS play. but the fact that that's even possible is a nice change of pace for the Jacksonville Jaguars. But I would agree that this game was kind of a dud. The last thing that we want to talk about in WTF, they won the game.

The Bengals are on fucking notice. They are on notice. This is unacceptable behavior. They had seven yards in the second half of this game, David. Seven yards and they somehow ended up beating this Browns team. I just cannot with this team. I cannot believe that they did this. again and almost lost a game.

They had no business losing in week one. This is why football is incredible. Like we just, we did a whole thing about Mike McDonald not being aggressive enough. Maybe the Ravens should have gone for it at the end of Sunday night football. Zach Taylor, wimped out again. And I guarantee you,

his entire fan base was screaming at him. If you, it's, it's fourth and one on their own, on their own 35. Like, that's how egregious the Bengals were where it's like, just go for it.

Just go for it and get this stupid game over with. The Browns are going to find a, way to win if you give it back to them. They just will. The defense has done too much already. They've turned them away two or three times in a row. And Zach Taylor punted because that's the type of thing Zach Taylor typically does. And lo and behold, it freaking works out because the Bengals get two tip drill interceptions off the same play, by the way, like different receivers. But Jerry Judy and Cedric Tillman both. They dig deep to come up with balls that could have been caught, mind you, Like not great throws by Joe Flacco, but catchable balls.

They dig down toward the ground to get them. They both scoop them up into the air. And Jordan Battle and who was the other one? I already forgot. DJ Turner. They both come up with them. So two tip drill picks are why the Bengals get out of Cleveland with a win, even though I think Zach Taylor made the wrong decision once again.

They just do this, man. Like, I don't know. Like, honestly, I've said it before. Like the Bengals are not a serious team until October. over. And so like this, this should be concerning. But for me, I'm just like, this isn't, if they had won a game like 40 to 20 in September, that would be a WTF to me. This is like, this is regularly scheduled programming. Again, if I'm trying to like, trying to cope with this if I'm a Bengals fan and trying to frame it in a more generous way, I will say that this is the best version of what we want from the Browns this year on multiple different levels. They looked extremely competent. Yes. And competent in the ways I wanted them to be competent. So the way they played man coverage in this game,

if they can do this to teams, if you can do this to the Bengals, I think you'll be able to do this to a lot of offenses. Joe Burrow against man coverage in this game per next gen. Four of nine for 29 yards, 44 and a half percent of his throws on those plays were into tight windows. Wow. And Greg Newsom had some really nice moments against Jamar Chase in this game.

One of those man coverage throws, the play that Carson Swessinger made on that little under route to Chase Brown, just like, oh, man. love in that. And then Miles Garrett has multiple, like, I cannot believe this is happening. Miles Garrett very quietly and slowly is becoming the tungstenarm O'Doyle of the NFL. We are going to have so many games this season where it's the exact you can say it right now. Miles Garrett had five pressures, two sacks and two run stuff today as the Browns lost 17 to 16 in a game where the Bengals had seven yards of offense in the second half.

Back to you, Chris. Didn't the Browns sack Joe three times in a row in this game? Like two of them were Miles. And two of them were Miles Garrett, yes. Unbelievable. So the Bengals are officially on notice. That is how I want to wrap up that segment.

But I will say that the Browns doing that on defense. And then just this weird Browns offense where we're getting eight Dylan Samson targets and Harold Fanon is heavily involved. Like this is the version of the Cleveland Browns that is going to be watchable in 2025. That still does not justify the behavior that we saw from the Cincinnati Bengals today.

I will say this, if you're a Bengals fan, it's probably easy to cope because you're looking at it and saying, hey, we always play like shit in week one, but we won this time. And playing like shit and being one and O is way better than what we've experienced most of the last three or four years. I guess that's okay. All right, before we move on, we're going to take one more quick break. Every week, I want to just take a second to celebrate a couple of the moments that we saw on Sunday.

And we're calling this, how can you not be romantic about football, just stealing a little little bit from Moneyball and from Brad Pitt. Two things that I wanted to point out in this game from today are just quarterbacks that, listen, we love watching play. We love watching play because what they bring to the table stylistically and both of them showed up in a big way today. Let's start with what Gino Smith did for the Las Vegas Raiders. It's against the Patriots defense that is in flux, you know, to be generous.

I think there's some questions about the Patriots defense. That still in my mind does not take away from what Gino Smith did in this game. nine completions of 20 plus yards for Gino Smith and the Las Vegas Raiders. Before Sunday night football, I've not looked at the numbers since, and the Ravens may have passed them. The Raiders had the highest explosive pass rate of week one after the second slate of games was over today. 0.41 EPA per attempt for Gino today.

The Ravens led the league last year at 0.40. When you talk about the Raiders being like a watchable offense because they have a quarterback who's just willing to put on a laser show at any point. That's exactly what we saw from the Raiders offense today. It was the most Gino Smith performance, I think, possible. There was a point in this game where he had been sacked like, I think four times for like 30 yards.

He had a pick. And then he also had like 10 yards in attempt in 300 yards because almost every dropback he was just getting. It was like a lot of five and seven step drop. He was finding his spot. He was holding onto the ball. And the Patriots, to be clear, were actually throwing a lot of interesting pressures. And they were getting to him.

but he was really good about resetting his spot when he needed to, sicking in there and making throws. Like he hit Jacoby Myers, like in the intermediate area a number of times. He started off the game, by the way, ripping a ball to Brock Bowers. Oh my God. Right past the earhole of a linebacker.

As soon as he did that, I was like, this offense is going to be as cool as it needs to be. He found Besh down the field a couple of times, Tucker down the field. Like he was just, Gino was very much, I'm going to get to my spot and I'm going to be a flat cannon.

And that's exactly what I was. wanted him to be in this offense. I love any good Gino game. Like, of course, you're going to have the shots deep down field. I mean, the touchdown was a bust anyway, but you can, like, at every level of the field. Like, he'll do something audacious, but

like from five to ten yards, from ten to 12, from 15 to 20, and then beyond that. Like, it doesn't matter how deep the route is. He's going to make a ridiculous throw that there are other quarterbacks in the league who will do it, but his willingness to do it. And the consistency with

which he is willing to do it is almost unmatched. The first team ripped about ours off play action is just a disgusting play. The touchdown to Trey Tucker, I still don't really understand what the coverage is supposed to be. It's cover zero essentially with multiple droppers from the line of scrimmage. And Gino's just like, okay. So that's the thing is like I kind of love that call against like 27 quarterbacks. We're like you're dropping, you're playing cover zero,

but you're dropping a couple of guys off the front of the line of scrimmage. So it's like quarterback against cover zero, they're probably thinking, oh, then I can just throw this bullet slant. I can get it out quick. I can throw this bullet slant. We're going to convert. Well, if you're dropping guys off the line of scrimmage, Jared Goff is going to get got.

You know, like maybe like Kyler Murray is going to get got by something like that. Gino Smith goes, oh, you're playing zero. I don't care what else is happening. I'm throwing it to the deep sky down the field. You're not blitzing while playing zero. He's going to have the time to do it. He's the wrong quarterback to do that against. So that happens.

At the start of the third quarter, he rips a deep curl to Jacobi Myers, like 23 yards down the field. And then the one to Brock Bowers up the round. right side line where Bowers has to kind of back shoulder a little bit and twist back toward the ball. Milton Williams is like in Gino's face as he throws that ball and it just doesn't end up mattering. He just rips at the Brock Bowers down the right sideline. So if that's the version of Gino we're going to get in this offense where we just see again like eight to 10 lasers over the course of the game. How can you not be romantic about that? Also quietly love that we got the

Jacoby Myers like maybe getting traded fiasco and then he gets 10 targets in this game. So they very clearly want to keep him around. I mean, we'll see what happens with the Brock Bauer side of it. I know that a lot of the fantasy people are going to talk about the sad nauseam over the next 24 hours, but the fact that he essentially wasn't playing in one tight end sets early in the game even before Michael Mayer got, or even before Brock Bowers got banged up, something to keep an eye on because even if Brock Bowers is limited as a blocker, it still feels like Brock Bowers should be on the field as often as possible if you're trying to create the best version of the Las Vegas Raiders offense. One more. How could you not be romantic about football? I'm just going to mention.

in one specific throw from this game. The Matthew Stafford throwed at Devante Adams, talking about back shoulder throws down the left side line. Those two guys, just in terms of like, the sheer flare that they play their positions. They're hoopers, right? Yes. Like they, Matthew Stafford and Devante Adams.

Like there are guys that when you talk to players about peers at their position, there are one, two guys are always the first people out of their mouths. Matthew Stafford and Devante Adams are those. guys. And I think we knew it was going to be fun to watch this pair play together, Dave. That play specifically near the end of that game where it's like, this is it. This to me is like what football is on a pedestal and we got to see it in week one for that really brief moment. This entire game really, and I won't lie. I thought the score might have been higher. Obviously, Houston didn't score a touchdown. The past rushes in this team in this game are good, right? Like,

they're very good on both sides of the ball. Stylistically, this game was everything I thought it would be in terms of just two quarterbacks with like a PhD in pocket navigation and and passing concepts just going at it. And like the score line's not sexy. The stat lines aren't sexy. But Matthew Stafford and C.J. Stroud were just throwing darts all over the field. Like Stafford was doing his thing.

Yeah, the Devante, the back shoulder one that you're talking about, I know exactly which one. But also, Puka caught 10 balls in this game. Just ripping digs over the middle of the field. time in and time out. And Puka was in on the blocking for Kiron Williams' touchdown run early in this game. Just magnificent.

And then C.J. Stroud and Dak Prescott for me this week were the, like, can I get some freaking help award candidates of the week? Like C.J. Stroud, the stat line 19 of 27 for 188 with a pick does not do justice to what this cat was doing on Sunday. Like his interception hit his receiver in the hands and the DB just took it away from the guy.

Like, he was, he, he was throwing the ball all over the yard. Like, this was just a, a quarterback fan's dream matchup. And Stroud and Stafford both delivered, in my opinion. 41.2% pressure rate for CJ Stratt in this game, nine of 10 for 102 yards on those plays where he was pressured. Balling, dude. Like, bawling out of, and, like, he had a couple of scrambles, actually, that were, like, pretty good for them.

Like, he was, again, Dave, you said it, like, the stat line does not look very good, but you watched the CJ Stroud game. And I even, like, watched it back during the end. of the slate and I was like man he just outside of like maybe one or two throws like and there was one sack he took where he could have slid up in the pocket but like he played given

the pressure about as well as he probably Even the sacks he did take again a lot of them not his fault yeah exactly I just think that some of the penalties in this game like they were in disadvantageous down and distance situations for most of the game it just the Rams defense on that front is going to make it tough on you but the fact that the offensive line

this was the first kind of glimpse we got from them I know they were a little bit banged up over the course of the game it's I think a little bit a cause for concern about what this Texans offense is going to look like if this is what we're going to get from the offensive line weekend and week out for sure but cj stroud will still be entertaining to watch there were three explosive runs in that game and one of them was cj stroud scrambling i was going to say that feels like a lot i don't remember the backs do a lot of that the rams don't get explosive running back for it this version of nick chub is the running back for the texans i was

riveted all afternoon by the number of throws that these guys were making before we get out of here. It's time to talk about what we learned today. You know, I think I've learned something today. We were kind of kicking around ideas for what this was going to be because in week one, you don't often learn a lot that's lasting. And I think that there could be a lot of answers to this that would look very stupid by the time we got to the end of September. But I do think the biggest lesson that we learned from this game and from this week

was that sometimes when the vibes feel like they're rotten, they might be rotten. and that feels like it's what's happening with the Miami Dolphins, David. I think it's only fair you direct that at me because I have been at least mildly defending the dolphins for most of the summer. I was talking them up on our Winspool show. I didn't wind up taking them, thank God. But it was an idea that I had less than a week ago, less than a week ago. And yeah, I think it's funny because I fell for my own, I had a blind spot in something that I tell. people all the time where I often remind people where I'm like, don't forget that these, like,

these are people with other things going on in their lives and like you can't separate that from the performance that you see on the field. And I ignored it despite a mountain of evidence that suggests like, hey, just because the dolphins have good players doesn't mean that they're going to play like a good football team. And it is only one week, but it's hard not to be very alarmed by the play, the vibes, all of it when you watch the performance the dolphins put out there. I think just because of the way it's been building too, right? Like, I think sometimes if you get a performance like this where it's like new staff and everything, it's like, okay, well, sometimes you're just not going to be us put together and you don't really

know how to call a game yet and all this stuff. But for the, for a dolphin's core that has been together for three, four years now, and for it to have clearly deteriorated the way that it did at the end of last season with Hill, like pretty openly saying that he did not want to be there anymore. And then even the summer, like him and Tua kind of talking about how their relationship was a little bit fractured. All of that stuff on top of looking at certain parts of the roster that were like very clearly terrible. Like with the way that the secondary had been built, still a lot of questions on the offensive line. You're kind of like we talked about the preventative units.

Like those are the units that are supposed to stop the bad plays from happening. And those are probably the two worst units on the team. So you mix that with like just how bad a lot of this felt. It is a situation, Dave, you said it at the top of the show. Sometimes when there's smoke, there's fire. when it's a team that's been together this long, there should not be smoke. And so it's pretty concerning.

It feels like a raging inferno right now. We talked about it coming into the season if you're trying to build the optimistic case for the dolphins. It's that when Tula has been on the field, this has been one of the better offenses in the entire league, one of the more efficient offenses in the entire league. Today, the only team with a worse EPA per dropback than the Miami Dolphins was the Tennessee Titans, playing on the road against the Broncos

with a rookie quarterback. So even that where it's like, well, yeah, when they've been healthy, they've been really good on offense was not the case today. The Colts defense I do think has a chance to be an interesting unit, but this is not the Broncos on the road. Like this is a team that you should at least look competent against. Instead, they looked like one of the worst offenses in the league in week one. And if that's going to be the case when this group is fully healthy, there's really no optimistic case to be made about what the dolphins can be in 2025. All right, guys, that's all we got. our first recap show from the studio.

Hope you guys enjoyed it. It was so fun to watch the games altogether today. And just be together to watch them. We got a good setup. It would have been fun if it was a mediocre day. But like what a, what a week one, man. Like it would have been great without Ravens Bills. And then you get that at the end.

It's just, that's unbelievable. Derek and I will be back on Tuesday in your feeds. We're doing a version of a show that we've done in the past. just something akin to the Monday hangover we used to do where we're going to break down three or four games that we did not hit in detail on tonight's show. So if you are a fan of a team that we did not talk about tonight, it is very likely that we will be talking about them in depth

on our Tuesday podcast. So please come back and check that out. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.