The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 1 recap: Bills, Bears & Jaguars shine, Chargers & Packers flop

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

With all due respect to the first two games of this season, the NFL is truly back when we get our first full Sunday of action. We just put a bow on that, and we are oh so back. Josh Allen immediately commenced doing Josh Allen things. The Chicago Bears scored 59 points. The Arizona Cardinals pulled off a massive upset of the Los Angeles Chargers. The Minnesota Vikings sprung a massive comeback on the Green Bay Packers, and the New Orleans Saints nearly did the same to the Detroit Lions. Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman recap Week 1 on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Host: Robert MaysCo-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerSenior Producer: Katy DuffySocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @RobertMaysFollow 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, brought to you by the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card. I'm Robert Mays. Week 1 is in the books. Always so good to be back with the new season. We dug into all the important action from week one. Chatted about a notable Sunday night game. The New York Giants taking care of business against the Dallas Cowboys. Big days from Trevor Lawrence and Caleb Williams.

A monster performance from the Buffalo Bills offense against the Houston Texans defense. some WTF moments from the Chargers, the Packers, and Baker Mayfield, and we chatted about what made us feel romantic in week one of the NFL. Me, Dave Hellman, Derek Classen, let's get to it right now. Week one is in the books, except for Monday Night Football, obviously, which we'll talk about tomorrow. But the majority of week one, it's always fun to be back at it. My body is never ready for the, just the wall of stimuli coming at you in the noon window. but a really fun week one to kick things off in the NFL.

My energy was like through the roof until like third quarter of the Sunday night game. And then I was like, wow, I've been wired to wire for like nine hours at this point. It like hit me like a wall. It's the first week and it's overwhelming. And also Mays brings donuts for week one. So like you get the sugar crash in addition to just the football. I probably shouldn't have done that. That was a bad idea on my part.

They're delicious. I said it at some point during the noon window where he was like, how do we do this? The idea of watching it all happen at the same time, your body is never ready for it, because it is something that you haven't done since week 18 of last year. And I don't think anybody's ever prepared for what it's like to try to watch eight football games at once and try to keep track of everything. And even by then, by week 18, half those games don't even matter. And that's the thing about today is everything matters.

And so we're going to try to dig through as much as we can. We have three games that we're going to hit on the hangover tomorrow. A couple games that are always hangover worthy. For anybody that's unfamiliar, we always on the Monday into Tuesday show, we hit a handful of games we do not talk about on the Sunday night show. We're not going to talk about every game tonight. Often those are games that maybe a little bit further down the pecking order. Maybe aren't the sexiest games in the world.

Titans Jets is a hangover game that we circled in like July. So we're going to hit that on the hangover tomorrow. We are also going to hit Ravens Colts on the hangover tomorrow because we do want to try to get one juicy game in the hangover each week. A lot of the time that's going to be the Sunday night game, but because it's week one, because everyone just watched that Sunday night game, and it was particularly notable,

we wanted to kick things off tonight by talking about that game. Just an incredibly impressive performance from the Giants all across the board. I mean, what they did offensively, they had that game in the palm of their hand for four quarters. That is such a great way to phrase it. I am so odd by the game plan. by the execution of said game plan. The Cowboys touched the football twice after halftime.

There's blood the game out in the second half. It was unbelievable, which, and I have the stats in front of me. I haven't looked at them since the game ended. The New York Giants went 9 of 11 on third down. They were 9 of 10 at one point. In this game. Late one they didn't get when the game was already over. I don't mean it to sound derogatory.

I'm very, very impressed, but just a, a masterful game of keep away and of like playing to your strengths and staying on the field. I thought Jackson Dart was so impressive. I mean, the, like, the, the wow throws probably aren't going to be there for you. I think he finished, like, bottom of the league and air yards per attempt for week one. But the decision-making, the operation, the smoothness with which he operated. Incredibly crisp game.

Yes. But he never- crisp game. When you can, I made this joke at halftime, when you consider that one quarterback in this game was year 11 and has been all pro. And the other one was year two and has a reputation for being a bit of a yolo guy, who would you have guessed was one and the other? You know, Dak had that ridiculous interception before halftime where he just had too much dip on his chip,

gifted the Giants with a chance to score points, which they took advantage of. That was the game. Yes. That sequence was the entire game because of how well the Giants possessed the ball in the second half. That's how important that possession was to waste it. Usually you think, ah, it's an arm punt. Yeah. You know, there's however many seconds left in the game.

game. For the Giants to come down and score that touchdown, it was over. That ended the game because of how few possessions Dallas had over the course of this entire thing. The degree to which like snap after snap, Jackson Darr just drop back and it's just that, the dot, da, that's not there. Like, from one to two, like, okay, that's not there. Barely under pressure, by the way. Like, between the Giants offensive line and the just, and the Dallas pass rush, just absolutely not looking impressive outside of a Caleb Downs Blitz. Just a phenomenally cool, crisp. smooth performance from Jackson Dart. The Giants are 1 and 0 for the first time since 2022.

And this is only the second time in the last decade they've started the season 1 and O considering where they've been, of course, like all the prerequisites applied. Week 1 is a liar. We don't know for sure what any of this stuff means. But considering where the giants have been over the last decade and what they hired John Harbaugh to do to play like that and get a game like that from Jackson Dart against Just a team that has basically treated you like a little brother for the last decade, you are well within your rights to be really, really excited as a New York Giants fan.

For the offensive line to control the game in the way that they did, that to me is the most encouraging part of it. I mean, the quarterback playing very well is exactly what you want to see from a second year player. But if you're looking at the construction of the Giants offense, the line is where they were going to do a lot of this damage. It's a very well-constructed group. It's completely out of character from what we've come to expect from Giants' offenses over the last five to seven years.

This is like a real strength of who they are. They showed that today. The quarterback was really good. And for the fact, for the, the notion that Isaiah likely was as good in this game as he was and has important in this game as he was, every, the promise of what you wanted the Giants offense to be coming into this season based on the moves they made this off season, you got that on pretty much every single level. It's the most encouraging start you could ask for, including Malik neighbors playing in the game. Yeah, like he played, the fact that he played, the fact that he played,

played and then Isaiah likely also still popped off the way that he did like I think that there was some concern about like oh well Isaiah likely is going to have to do that if Malik neighbors can miss his time is he going to have to do that when Malik neighbors didn't miss any time and Isaiah likely is able to do that and so the fact that you got proof of concept for both of those

I thought their running game specifically all their lead stuff like anytime they were pulling a guard anytime they were using Patrick a card was just incredibly dominant and like Scadabot is the type of runner that even if he meets the linebacker in the hole he's going to squeeze out a couple yards after that and he did that a lot of times this game. I think the thing too with Jackson Dart, and again, week one, you don't know if he's

going to do this for the rest of the season. It's not that he played well. It's that he played well in a way that he had not ever played well before. Like him playing within himself, so controlled, taking all the checkdowns, getting the ball out on time. You just didn't see that much of that last year. Like you did it a little bit specifically against the blitz last year, but not like on a regular down-to-down basis. I want to be sure not to make this sound like a backhanded compliment, but like what made Jackson Dart so enticing last year was half the time it's wild in a bad way. And then once every six or seven snaps,

he does something insanely exciting. The Giants weren't exciting in this game. Like there weren't all these crazy explosives or, you know, on the run throws to the back pylon like we saw in the preseason. It was very methodical, the entire game. Methodical and smooth.

I never would have guessed. Even, yeah, I could have imagined the Giants winning this. I could have imagined Jackson Dart playing well. But to be as in control as they were, as consistently as they were, I did not see that coming. He had a 72% drop-back success rate

for a next-gen. That's really good for a player of Jackson Darts ilk, right? The idea that we want to see a little bit more consistency in year two. On the flip side, that's heinous for Dallas's defense.

Like this, for as good of a start, and I want to give some credit to Matt Nagy and Greg Roman as well, because that entire offensive staff, there were questions of what is this going to look like, how excited are we for this, how much faith do we have in this entire contingent heading into the season,

they were as good as you could have wanted them to be. Because as good as Jackson Dart was, there were a lot of very easy, simple throws on the table for Jackson Dart in this game because of what the plan looked like for Dallas's offense or the Giants' offense. On the other side, it's about as bad a start as you could possibly have for the Cowboys defense. And I think the areas where they struggled, it leaves you really worried because the linebackers were always going to be a big question for this group, even if you could get excited about some pieces on the front.

They remade the secondary. You have a combination of Caleb Downs, Jalen Thompson, Revelle getting time now. Kobe Durant is there. The secondary is entirely remade. The linebacking core, you trade for D. Winters, but other than that, you got a third round rookie in Jashon Barham, and then you have Demarine Overshone still there.

They got picked on this entire game. The entire game. And Overshone. Oversham got picked on and banged up in this game. It was rough. I mean, the degree to which the Giants consistently and effectively were putting the Cowboys linebackers in conflict the entire game and just picking on them, whether it was in the flat because there was some sort of run-pass conflict or hitting them over the middle of the field, it's about as rough of a start as you could possibly have.

We see this. You know, the two games I would point out if you were trying to have some cope for the quality of the Giants or the Cowboys defense over the course of the season, which Lord knows I need to right now. You think about that week three game that early season. season game that the Broncos played against the Dolphins a few years ago, by the end of the season the Broncos were an average defense. The other game I always point to that we don't really talk about very much, two or three for 460 yards and six touchdowns in game two of the Mike McDonald Ravens. Like there are early season games in year ones of staffs that just look

ugly on either side of the ball. Maybe it doesn't get better, but we have examples of teams course correcting after a rough start. They're going to need to course correct because that's about as bad of a start as you can possibly have if you're the Dallas defense. We don't have to overreact too much or relitigate all of the preseason content. And I certainly am not like abandoning the Cowboys or the Cowboys defense at this point. But this is something I was really worried about in the sense of if this game happens at noon. It's still disappointing, right? But is it the same as like the Dallas Cowboys are going to be on Sunday night football and

they're going to get a shitload of hype when they have an exciting defensive coordinator and a big time first round draft pick and there's nowhere to hide and that's a scary place to be like you're never hiding in the noon window if you're the Dallas Cowboys hopefully not the nude window but they were in the nude window today they got called with their pants down on national television today there's no way around it that's as bad of a start as you can possibly have I mean what happened to them before the half is just unacceptable it's just it's absolutely ridiculous and the touchdown play was all of it this is going to be a defense where you've got to communicate exceptionally well and the linebackers really have to cover.

And so on that play, they have Isaiah likely out to the right, tight to the formation. He's on the ball. They shift Darnell Mooney out to over there and it like pushes the corner out a little bit and the linebackers flip. So now DeWinter's is over there. He gets the Mooney like crashing into him and he's supposed to kind of pass that off and then get back into the flat. He doesn't do it at all.

Likely just takes the high corner. The corner on the outside like panicked. He's like, oh, there's a guy free in the flat now because the linebacker's not coming off. So they both run to the flat. There's nobody under the corner out for likely. It's just like stuff like that is exactly what I was worried about, specifically with the linebackers. And so to see a play like that happened,

the last touchdown is something similar. Like it was pretty concerning. Again, it's week one. Like some of this stuff can get fixed, but it really couldn't have looked any worse. It couldn't have a wood. It was awful. And for them to get pushed around to the degree that they did

and that for the Giants to do everything, anything they wanted to do on the ground. And again, it's as bad of a start as you can possibly have. And year one, new coordinator, first-time coordinator, these things happen, but it can't happen again. This has to be the outwire performance if you were the Dallas defense or it's going to be a long season. Because the offense wasn't great today. But if you're going to look like this, it's the same story as last year.

The offense has to be perfect for you to stay in these games. One George Pickens drop to swing the game shouldn't be the reason that you're out of it immediately. And that's what happened to Dallas tonight. It's, I mean, Dak threw a terrible interception and Pickens had an awful night. He had two drops. Yeah. The dropper right before the interception is like that's one where if that doesn't happen, then that sequence we're talking about at the end of the half.

Calba still probably lose this game, considering how bad their defense was. But that sequence where he drops it and then the interception happens, the game ends right there. The whole point was like the margins shouldn't be that thing. Exactly. And if George Pickens has to be perfect every week for you to stand a chance, this is going to be a shitty season just like last season was.

About as good a start as you can hope for the John Harbaugh era, about as bad a start as you can hope for for a Dallas team. that I had hopes for, I think a lot of people did. I don't think I was alone on that island, and this is not the note on which you wanted to start that season. All right, let's get to some of the other performances that jumped out to us today. It is time for you have my attention.

Gentlemen, now you have my attention. Each week, obviously we talked about earlier. There's a wall of stuff coming at you over the course of the day. We want to pick out a handful of performances each and every Sunday. that really grabbed our attention over the course of the day. And let's start with the Buffalo Bills putting up 36 points on the Houston Texans. The stat that jumped out to me, there were a couple of them. 0.19 EPA per play for Buffalo.

That is the third worst game of the Domeko Ryan's era in Houston. Second worst EPA per dropback game at 0.49 for Josh Allen. All these things are coming from next-gen stats. 25% explosive play rate for the Buffalo Bulls. bills in this game. That is the worst mark of any game of the Domeco Ryan's Houston Texans defenses. So an out of character day for the Texans defense and a Bill's offense that, again, you talk about about as good a start as you could hope for in terms of some of the excitement that we can start building about what this version of the Joe Brady offense looks like in Buffalo.

They got them in every way, man. Okay, some of it was scheme stuff. Like I thought in the run game, too, like the way that they can put you in conflict in the run game, I think is really impressive. with their 13 personnel stuff where their entire run game is built on. We're going to put all three tied ins to one side. And we're either going to run weak zone away from it or we're going to run duo at it. And you have this conflict of like you're either going to get stretched where you don't have many defenders or you're going to have to play the mean match game against a team that like can do that against you.

And so I just thought that they, you know, they popped a handful of explosives there. And then I just thought all the different ways that they were getting Dalton Kincaid open was phenomenal. He had the game of his life. And to open it to do that, in the opener against what I thought was good. Yeah, like what I thought was going to be the best defense. Like, oh, my God. Remember what we said in the preview about how low his snap share was and what a problem that was?

He led the Bill's skill players in snaps this week. He's their best player. I mean, sure as hell looks like it. 77% of the offensive snaps, 130 receiving yards. I mean, even like spiritually he played the game of his life, but statistically as well, 130 yards is his best stat line ever. and he was one of eight players in the league with 40 plus yards of yak this week. Just a phenomenal performance. The two plays that stick out, the jump ball, essentially the 50-50 ball that Josh Allen just chucks down the field on their third touchdown drive.

That's a play that obviously a great play by Dalton Kincaid. The quarterback just gives him a chance. What sticks out to me on that play, you mentioned it a little bit in the run game. 13 personnel for this team is not just a talking point. It's actually a way for them to get their best collection of players on the field and wield them in the proper way. When they didn't sign, when Reggie Gillian moved on this year, there's no fullback on this roster anymore. If they want to get teams in base defense, 13 personnel is what they're going to have to do with those three tight ends. They were in it on about 40% of their snaps today.

21 plays. They had a 48% success rate. They averaged 6.6 yards per play out of 13 personnel. why the 13 personnel stuff to me works for this group as well as any team in the league, maybe outside of Chicago, is that Dalton Kincaid is weaponized most potently out of those 13 personnel looks because he can just be like a supercharged version of what Terrence Ferguson was for the Rams last year. Like you just put him in positions where he just becomes a receiver in those situations.

And that jump ball is a perfect example. He's just running a deep pile on route off play action as the verbi. player on that play. So that is a way that they weaponized him. And then my favorite play from him the entire game, a field goal drive to go up 30 to 28. He is in, Dalton Cade's at number one. He goes in motion across, like just across the formation

and then runs a big circus route and they have to pass it off to read Blankenship and it's a huge chunk game down the right sideline. So just the ways they're trying to build some of the passing game and build a good chunk of the passing game out of the guy that I think is probably even with DJ Moore, their most potent pass catcher. That's what I mean when I say

some of the early returns on what Joe Brady is trying to do with this offense. That shit is exciting. And then even with Kincaid on the last drive, they hit a 35-yard to him where he's like tight to the formation on the left-hand side. And like Lasseter is playing like, the thing is when you have one receiver tight to the formation to one side, in this case a tight end,

the corner like has to play off and outside because you're just going to give up someone. leverage today outside to the boundary if you don't and so if you run that deep over route the receiver tight end whoever it's going to be obviously has a ton of room the thing is that 95% of the time when at the tight end you're like he's not going to outrun me you can't outrun me yeah but like can kinkade actually just straight up outruns kamari lasseter he's a half step latent and josh down 13 personnel as well i think yeah yeah like they just it's for them to find so many different ways to get him activated and then for him to just have the play where he dunks on derrick steingly which

that was the other thing in this game. I think the bills did a lot of things really impressively schematically. They had four or five plays where it was like their guys were just better, which doesn't happen to Houston very often. Can Cancate and DJ Moore did it back to back on that drive? That drive was just incredibly silly. Like that's just the type of stuff that we can talk about how worried we'll be about Houston's defense after this game.

That's one of those drives were just kind of like, well, tip your house. Yeah, you just got to give them credit. The fact that Josh Allen even tries to throw that ball to DJ Moore, is an insane choice. It's a whole shot like 25 yards down the field from the opposite hash and he's flat-footed. It's an insane decision. There's like two people on the planet

that can make that throw. I saw there was some like, oh man, re-blankenship's getting greedy there. And I'm like, I don't know, man. Like, I think sometimes you just sit up your cap against the vast majority of people. Yes, against 99% of quarterbacks ever. He at least gets a hand on that ball.

And like sometimes, sometimes the MVP is just going to do that to you. That is what I was going to say. about just Kincaid in general though and again we'll see but I'm I'm reasonably confident the Texans defense is still pretty good I think they'll be I'm not losing a lot of sleep about that so for Dalton Kincaid in particular to have this game against this team where it's not like well it was it was the Titans but we'll see what next week looks like no you did this against the Texans so that gives me a high degree of confidence that this is repeatable the other thing that jumped out to me about this game.

Beyond the Dalton Kincaid stuff, DJ Moore obviously has a big game. He has five catches per 100 yards. He had a really big deep out that on like a third down. That was really important. I mean, having him, even if I do think you can make a really serious argument that Dalton Kincaid is the most potent pass catcher on the team

after what we saw from last year in a limited run, having him as a full-time player and unleashing him is the thing that could really change this offense. I think even more than DJ Moore. The fact that now DJ Moore could be your second best past catcher is a very good place for the bill's office. to be in considering where they were at the end of last season. Not only that.

And something I wanted to make sure I mentioned came right off the post game interview that Josh Allen gave to CBS because DJ Moore went five for 100, but is still a viable enough threat that defenses are going to play him a certain way. And Josh Allen said after the game, I have never on the post that put them ahead, the post to Josh Palmer 34-yard touchdown. He's like, I've never thrown that ball to Josh in my life, not even in practice. it like you don't even think about it but they were cheating to DJ Moore so hard that it was just there for me and so even like even if DJ Moore doesn't put up these sorts of numbers on a regular

basis how often have you felt that way about a bill's receiver where like the gravity that he draws is going to make life easier on somebody else the other element of this game from the offense that felt different to me and I was talking to you about it and we were just prepping for this watching how consistently and effectively Josh Allen was moving defenders in the middle of the field with his eyes, with his shoulders, just little tiny subtleties that we typically ascribe to the Matthew Stafford's and the Jared Goffs and the guys that are truly limited to being in the pocket. These are nuances you have to bring to the position when you don't have the physical ability that somebody like Josh Allen does. Josh Allen is 30. These are the

sorts of things that are going to start becoming part of his game as he gets a little bit older. And if we're adding those sorts of little tiny tricks, and again, just the nuances of playing the position, on top of the fact that he can just rip off a 25-yard scramble down the middle of the field and score a touchdown seemingly at will whenever he wants, that is when things get like truly horrifying about what he is going to be capable of. We talked about this game for like six minutes before we mentioned a 21-yard scramble where the quarterback bowled over three tacklers at the goal line.

When I said this about him when we did the bill's preview that he's just a force of nature at the position that no one else is and that's the play I'm talking about. Like Lamar had a rushing touchdown in this game when you let Lamar out on the perimeter and he's done it a million times in his career

what he can do just beating people to the corner is insane. Those scrambles where he just bolts to the goalpost and it's just like I don't give a shit who is in my way on the way to get there. He's the only one doing that and the fact that he had one of those in week one on top of everything else

just speaks to the type of performance that we're talking about. It needs to be said that he should have been intercepted by Camarro Lasseter on the second to last play of the game, and that might have swung this thing. And what I think, there's two things that hang on there. One, there's always going to be a little bozo in a movement when he's playing extremely well, always. That's never going to go away.

And it's, I think you just kind of have to live with it. But the other part that I think is worth bringing up with that, the fact that this game was that close, where the bills could score 30 points, and if that ball gets intercepted, they lose, speaks to the quality of the Texans offense in this game. And I think overall, I'm comfortable coming to a conclusion where I'm saying, hey, the Texans defense is going to be much better than they were today.

I'm actually encouraged overall by what I saw because of how good the offense was throughout this game. it ends poorly and that stretch near the end of the game where C.J. Stroud gives the ball away, coming off the heels of the playoffs is not what you want to see. But he played very well, I think, over most of this game. And I think the combination of his play, the way they attack the middle of the field, what the running game looked like, what the offensive line looked like. Even if it's a loss that's going to sting, I think there's a lot about this game if you're a Texans fan that you can take some solace in as you project forward through the rest of the season. I'd be encouraged. Like if you told a Texans fan that we, week one we would score 31 points. Win or lose, you'd take that. Because you're just like, well, if we can kind of project that out to the rest of the season,

like you said, the Texans defense is not going to play like this. Like, they're just not going to get big boy the way that they did in this game against most other teams. Like, the fact that the run game looked alive was just so exciting. Like, a lot of their pull stuff was really impressive. The gas game stuff is what stuck out because we talked about this. Every time they were trying to do that stuff last year, they would just get annihilated. It would get nuked.

And that's why they kept going back to those duo runs over and over and over again. So the fact that that Montgomery touchdown comes on just straight power with Ed Ingram kicking somebody out. It's like, all right, like, we can work with that. And there was enough of that today to get excited about it. It was Ingram. And then the combo that Ersery and Stover put on the backer and then Stover peeling off to the safety, I was like, holy shit, man, if they're just going to move people, like, they got a run game. That was the promise of the offseason is that the tight end depth and quality compared to last year,

plus the additions along the offensive line and David Montgomery, where are we going to see a different version of the run game? And week one, yes, we did see a different version of the run game. This is where I'll point out that the bills were horrific against the run last year. That's fair. Maybe they're just not better. Houston didn't even do this against the race. No, for sure.

We need to take baby steps. That's fair. The ability to do this against anybody is a step in the right direction for the Houston Texans offense. They only had 11 runs of 18 plus yards last year. by like design runs by running backs. So to hit one for a touchdown in the first go of the year was like when Montgomery got to open space, I was like, well, this looks different. Like that's not what I'm used to seeing.

And he's the 39% rushing success rate. I mean, they weren't last year's Rams, but it's, again, I think that there's a lot to build on from what we saw in this game. But they still hit a handful of like really impressive. And I just thought the backs looked good. Like Montgomery, the way that he was seeing it and the way that he was slowing is really impressive. Woody Marks, I thought, looked impressive.

Like they just looked. To go back to your point about baby steps, they had at least two, because they had two fourth and shorts. They had at least two, if not more, short yardage situations where they converted. They converted. Like the ball got across the line to game. It wasn't the most beautiful thing in the world, but I just, I'll never forget what a running joke it was last year when the Texans would go short yardage. And we just knew before they snapped the ball what was going to happen. So to have any progress in that department in week one was nice.

Yeah, I think to put a point on it. Not a good start for the Texans defense, a group that we expect to be better, about as good as you can hope for for the Joe Brady version of this offense. Again, because I think some of the things structurally they were doing. And I wanted to see this team be a play action, attack the middle of the field offense. And we saw a lot of that in this game. It was either that or empty. And that collection, like that combination of flavors with the group that they have, plus, again, all the 13 personnel stuff that they were doing, which makes total sense for them. I think it was a really encouraging start with both the ideas and the execution with a year one head coach, even if he has been their play caller before in Buffalo.

One, can I give one more note before we move on? Of course. Greg Rousseau. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Unbelievable in this game. Like, I just really quickly wanted to give him his flowers.

What if the bills have been hunting for that edge rusher forever and it's just their own guy this whole time? It turns out of PBO and coverage in this game. He was awesome. The Texas were backed up and they dropped him off and he had a PBU. the game ending sack against against Trent Brown. He had a strip sack like he had a run stop

early in the game. It was like, yeah, it turns out the answer was he was on the roster. Let's just take his hands off the dirt and let him do some other stuff. Only one player,

per PFF, maybe those numbers will change, but only one player in the league had more pressures week one than Greg Rousseau. Wow. And Oliver had a couple moments too. I mean, those are the two guys

are going to have to carry the front if that, if this defense is going to be good enough for the bills to be serious by the end of the season. And so a heck of a start for the Buffalo Bills. Another team that had a heck of a start

today. The Chicago Bears scored 59 points today. Comfortably. 59 points. The Chicago Bears and their offense. You guys firmly have my attention. I want to be clear that I did not elect to put this in the show. Brother.

Everyone else is out here. You can be a, you can look, I get it. You don't want to come across like a homer. This is the highest point total in an NFL game since the 2023 season and only one of four performances of the last decade with 59 plus points. 2023 Raiders beat the Chargers

6321 that was obviously the year the dolphins hung 70 on Denver and then in 2019 Lamar did 5910 on the dolphins to the dolphins I remember that game yeah that's it though yeah this doesn't matter who does it

when you score 59 points in the NFL it's a headline how does that make you feel Colson Loveland had no catches and he scored 59 points he didn't impact the game it was it was incredibly encouraging. And we talked about this throughout the off season in terms of what would

need to happen for this offense to take the next step. And there were two things that I kept coming back to really as part of the Caleb Williams extended conversation we had during the lingering questions show we did in June or July. Their scramble drill stuff last year was awful. Like I think people think about Caleb Williams as this out of structure off schedule quarterback and that's where he's best. Their numbers last year in those situations were actively bad. They talked about it a lot throughout the offseason. The first two moments he had in this game in those situations, he chucks a 50-50 heave for Rome down the right sideline who moses a guy inside the 10,

and then he makes that play rolling to his left to find Khalif Raymond on the move. There were games last year where they didn't have two positive out-of-structure plays when he was throwing the ball, not just as a scrambling. So the fact that you filled that bucket up, And then the other thing was, could he just be crisper and more consistent in defined dropback situations? And he was. It wasn't just made up of explosives in this game. There were plenty of them.

I mean, that touchdown to Cole Komet is as good as it gets. That throw is as good as it gets. But to me, it's the checkdowns. It's taking what's there. It's the consistency. You finish with the 59% dropback success rate today. And when you combine that with the explosive nature of the offense across the board that they are going to have, Those are the factors in combination that needed to come together for them to feel like this.

And I think that's the thing. They didn't, I think sometimes when we have these like super explosive players in any realm, the idea is like, well, we have to tone down something to make them more successful. They didn't tone down anything. They were still chucking it all over yard. They were trying to do all the stuff they wanted to do. 10.3 yards per attempt. And he was still just like making the throws.

He's going to sound funny because he's a young quarterback that hasn't proven as much as Caleb Williams. but it reminded me of the command that Jackson Dart just showed against the Cowboys, but with the explosive element. Like with, I mean, Jackson Dart averaged like four something air yards per attempt. Caleb was up at 10. Like he was winging it around when he could. But just the efficiency and the calm demeanor of this and he knew when to scramble. And he was so good at scrambling, by the way.

Like that went really well in this game. The sack avoidance in scrambling carrying over from what. what they were last year, that part is really encouraging. Because there was at least a little part of me than when you look at, those are volatile situations. And so for him to be as good as he was at mitigating sacks last year and escaping pressure when it would happen,

you wonder, does that fall back to Earth a little bit? Really the only play where that happened today is he thought he could beat Jalen Phillips to the edge and took a sack because of it. But other than that, we talked about it. I mean, his ability to sense pressure coming off of his blind side and wheel around and make unblocked guys miss.

is really uncanny, and he did it multiple times again today. His, like, when he retires and when I'm thinking of him in, like, 20 years, the lasting image in my mind of Caleb Williams is going to be he gets a pressure off his blind side, and he does the thing where he steps up just a little bit, ducks, and then wheels back out of it. He gets guys to bite every single time on it. Because if you don't respect it, I mean, Pat Mahomes does that, like, a lot. There's one guy that sticks out to me from 50s.

It was Rogers. He's doing that all the time. That's, this is my own. experience coloring it, but it reminds me of like Tony Romo at his very best as well. Like, Romo was so good at some of that shit when he was still mobile. Just an incredibly impressive performance. And we haven't even mentioned the fact they ran for 291 yards. They've run for 280 plus yards three times in the 20 games that Ben Johnson has coached.

They've done it one other time in the whole history of the franchise going back to the merger. It's, they really did just to shirt themselves on the ground for like a good. majority of this game. You said it in a real time. It seems like every run is going to go. Like every time they run the ball, it seems like it's going to go. It literally, and they only had like a 43% rushing success rate. It wasn't even the best of the day or anything. But it's just when you watch it, you're like every run is either going to pop or it literally does. Like it's just like a feeling. Do you know why I think part of that is? And Caleb said this after the game and I thought it was a really mature observation from him. He said the Monongai touchdown run, that's the type of

offense we want to be. Go back and watch what happens on that run. Roem picks somebody off. Khalif Raymond picks somebody off. Cole Kamek completely caves in that side of the line of scrimmage. The blocking that Jada Walker did in this game, like, we talked about this in real time. The idea that Luther Burden was a guy that was like, how much does he love football? And there were some questions just about makeup coming into the draft. And now he just blocks like a banshee every time he's given the opportunity really speaks to what they want this all. offense to feel like. And I think that's part of why it does feel like every run can go is because 10 guys are

blocking their asses off on every single play. Maybe that's what it is. There's always someone down the field who has hands on someone. There's never a free safety. How easy must it be to get buy-in when you see the explosives that this offense generates? They gave Johnny Walker a touchdown. You're going to get yours if you block in this offense. Burton had the fumble early in this game and it kind of felt like he disappeared for a little

while after that and like revisiting the game getting ready for the show I was like a disappointing debut for Luther burden he had the fumble and then I pulled up the box score and he had like four for 65 like he had a perfectly very good day for a second year receiver in this offense like there's just I mean there there's touches to go around for everybody and they're usually very productive let's get to another young quarterback who had a monster day today you have the stats on hand I'm to let you you take it from this. Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguar's offense, they scored 34 points in this game, but they did it at will, especially when they were throwing the ball. Trevor Lawrence and the Jags passing game, you guys officially have our attention

after today. Yeah, 34 points, 24 of them in the first quarter. And then after that, they kind of just took the foot off the gas. Trevor Lawrence in this game, and this is exactly what their offense needs to look like. He had 10.5 air yards per attempt and a 69.2 percent. success rate. The only other games since 2022 that arrived at that was Gino Smith did it against the Lions in 2024. Lamar Jackson did it against the Giants in 2024. And then there was one other one that I'm forgetting. But it only happened three times in that time span. And he did it week one against the defense that like, we don't know how good they'll be, but they're talented. They're decently talented. Yes. This is not, I think people are going to look at him like,

oh man, whatever they did it against the Browns. The Browns defense, even without Miles Garrett, there is a requisite amount of talent on this defense for them to steam roll them in the way that they did today. Yes. Oh, the last one, Jared Doff did it last year against the Bears. So this is a type of performance we're talking about, the 2024 Giants defense and the 2025 Bears. And he just came out and did it. Also, to your point, regardless of who you're playing, points on your first four drives of the season. Yes. Like your first four times you touched the ball, they were up 24 nothing with six minutes to play until halftime. I mean, yeah, the stats are video game-esque. My favorite one, And similar to what we were talking about with Caleb, Trevor did all of that. I mean, you have the numbers. Second best EPA per dropback of his career. Best passer rating of his career.

He threw a third of his passes 15 yards or more. They're just chugging. I mean, that's exactly what I want to talk from this offense. He threw five incompletions and four touchdowns while chucking the ball down the field. Like, again, this was not manufactured bullshit. This was Trevor throwing lasers at will and pretty much all of them getting completed. I loved beyond the quality and the production. What they were doing offensively was incredibly exciting.

There were like four or five plays where I was like, holy shit, that's cool. I mean, you can go, there's so many of them. Early in the game, like the first like 11-yard chunk to Parker Washington, I don't know this for a fact. I'm curious to ask. I think that they watched some Niners stuff this offseason. Like when you look at what the offense was doing,

that chunk to Washington on the first drive, that we get Brent Strange on, obviously I'm sure they didn't put this in after watching the Niners in week one but that little kind of like banana motion that we see from use check we got that from breton strange play action little inbreaker behind it chunk the Parker Washington touchdown is an incredible design it's third and seven they have lequent Allen in motion they get him out and his route to the flat actually creates a pick on the linebacker as Parker Washington is moving from the slot on that deep corner against miles Hardin it's an incredible diving catch for a

touchdown. They had tons of plays in this game where they just did such a great job of getting five out, using space, yanking guys out of like certain areas in zone coverage. I just, I love the plan. I love watching them go at it. The strange touchdown. I think it might have been my favorite where they're in the red zone. And a lot of times what you'll get in the red zone is teams will try to play like Tampa too. And so what the Jaguars did is they set they're tied into the left hand side into the boundary into the short side and one receiver over there. And then two receivers and the back to the other side, into the field. So the pole linebacker, in this case,

Carson Swessinger, he's always going to open to the strength into the field. Like, that's his rule. And so what they do is they get strange on this, like, switch versus post right behind him, and Trevor Lawrence just rips it. That or the camera touch are my favorite throws of the day. Both of them just like lasers, 100 miles an hour. The laser to Cameron,

the strange thing, what is most impressive and just really sticks out to me about that play, he comes back to that. It's on the back side. He starts on the right side. He comes all the way back to the back side, puts his foot in the ground, and just rips that thing to Brent Strange for a touchdown. He had a couple of those today. Okay.

I love this, and these are all good answers. Also, Josh Cameron, one of my day three pet cats scoring in his NFL debut, incredible. But my favorite is the one that was the most just like F you, I'm better play, which was the Jacoby Myers touchdown, which when I, like when I imagined Trevor Lawrence a decade ago, as a prospect and an NFL quarterback. This is the type of shit I was imagining where like Anton Harrison lost his rep. Trevor's dead.

The edge rushers got him dead to rights. He squeezes between the end and the detackle. Like 99% of quarterbacks get sacked, squeezes out of it, goes left, and then just uncorks a howitzer to Jacoby Myers in one-on-one coverage. Just when you talk about like a mech warrior playing quarterback,

like a very Josh Allen-y sort of play, but like that's the type of shit Trevor can do. He's just explosive, man. Yeah. Like the strange touchdown I just talked about, the play before he just launches like a third down deep comeback to Parker Washington. Just like you just have to have the arm for it, the nuclear arm to do it.

And he put that in there. Speaking of Josh Allen, you just said Josh Allen is always going to have a little bozo in him. Trevor's always going to have a little bozo on him. For all of the great things we just said about him, he still had an illegal forward pass with his left hand in this game. He's just always going to have a little bit of knucklehead in there.

Do it for the plan. My high school offensive line coach used to say, if you give me 60 plays where you're playing as hard as you can, I'll give you one where you play a little too hard. And that's how I feel about Trevor Lawrence and Josh Allen. If they're going to give me the 60 plays they gave over the course of these games, I think we're allowed to give them one. With the Jags and the Bears,

two offenses that took the league by Storm last year, just in the sense of new play callers, new places, quarterbacks that we want to see more from. Teams go to the playoffs, their top 10 offenses by the end of the year. I think hovering over their entire off season was, can they do this again? Like, what does the follow-up act for Ben Johnson and Liam Cohen look like? Like, can these teams stave off regression when it would typically come for you in these moments? And so for this to be the first act for the Bears and the Jags offenses in week one,

about as good a start as you can hope for. And neither of their games, I know the Bears fans in this room might disagree. Neither of their games were overly stressful. I mean, the Panthers gave the Bears a better game than the Browns gave the Jags, but I was done worrying about the outcome of the Bears game in the third quarter. Yeah, it's stressful just in the sense that the defense is going to make me turn into the Joker over the course of this game. Like, it's going to be a rough year if it continues to look like that. But if the offense is scoring 59 points a game, it doesn't really matter.

We will talk, like I said at the beginning, we will talk about the Ravens tomorrow. They would absolutely be involved here. It's week one. There's so many things that happen. and we wanted one juicy game to really dig into. I kind of wanted rewatch the whole game. Oh, I can't wait. And so we will have a chance to do that on the hangover tomorrow.

I will let y'all get into it in depth, but they absolutely did get my attention. Because you said it, Derek, during preview season, where you used to just be able to count on the Ravens to do that shit to somebody week one, like every year. And midway through the second quarter, I was like, oh, no, the Ravens are back. All right, we are going to get.

to some of the stuff that was not as fun in week one, but before that we're going to take a quick break. Are you the kind of sports fan that wants to dig into the story behind the stats? Join the Athletic Live on YouTube to cover all the sports stories you can't stop talking about. On game days, we'll watch the biggest matchups

alongside the Athletics most tapped in reporters, and you can become part of the show in the interactive chat. The Athletic Live is presented by Google Gemini. Subscribe now on YouTube. What the f***? I'm going to love that that's dropped the entire year. Each week, there are going to be some things that just confound us, whether it's a moment, a game, a performance.

So we're going to dig into a couple of those today. The Los Angeles Chargers were the biggest favorites in week one. Everyone expected them to come out, throw the ball over the yard. It was going to be the Mike McDaniel, Justin Herbert moment. Instead, they go down 2614 to an Arizona Cardinals team that not many people had a lot of high hopes for a coming. coming into the year. Los Angeles Chargers,

losing to the Cardinals as the biggest favorite of the week. What the fuck? That game was, I want to work all the way backwards and start at basically the end. On the Chargers's last drive and really like their last play,

it was a fourth and 18. And Injoku is running this like deep over route where he's going to try to get to the sticks and then just sit down. And he shoves Will Johnson to the ground so egregiously, like in so much frustration that it was like the entire,

entire 60 minutes before that had just came rushing out of them. And it was like, you could kind of just feel that boiling over the course of this entire Chargers game. And so for the fact that it like ended like that, against again, a team that they, it's the NFL, things are always going to happen. It's a, it's a any given Sunday type of league. But like that game was, that was tough. I said this to you when we were prepping for this.

But this is my big picture takeaway and we can kind of dig into the specifics. The Cardinals did all of the things to the Chargers. that we expected the Chargers to do to other people as the best version of themselves. And there are two things that really stick out to me when I say that. One, the way the Cardinals just massacred the middle of the field in this game throwing the ball and all the ways they pried open the middle of the field in this game was phenomenal. I think that we were living in a condensed world now offensively, and we thought the Cardinals would be that sort of team.

The next-gen numbers weren't available when I was looking at this. It was only from the Thursday and Wednesday games for in terms of formal. with. I'm very curious to see how spread out the Cardinals played in this game because it felt like it was very spread out coming from a McVeigh world that Michael Flour lives in. And when you do that and you stretch out these shell defenses, you get a ton of space and a ton of answers. And so I thought they did a phenomenal job of manufacturing space horizontally, either formationally or with motions and actions and then accessing things back in the middle of the field. On throws between the numbers in this game. Jacoby Brousette was 17 of 20 for 167 yards. They had anything they wanted.

The first throw of the game was like a monster seam ball to McBride. And they just kept doing that, which was a straight under center dropback that they hit like a 20-yard chunk play out the seam to to try McBride. They did that the entire game. Like they just did such a good job of, again, just manufacturing space in the middle of the field. And the ways they were picking on the linebackers specifically. Phillips and Deion Henley had a rough time. There were so many moments. I'm curious what the coaching point is on this,

where the linebackers are like really flashing to the flat hard, and then they're just throwing stuff right behind them. And I just, and that's the other element of this. The Chargers were a team with Jesse Minter that they felt so buttoned up in zone coverage, where they squeeze things so effectively. And the team that was doing that way better,

way more consistently throughout this game was the Cardinals. Like if you look at the depth, the linebackers were getting what again the safety's just squeezing down on things their ability to really squeeze some of those windows was incredibly impressive over the course of this game and that's the type of team we were used to the chargers being and so the cardinals were essentially just what we hoped the chargers would be throughout this entire game and i did not expect to see that i don't think anyone had that on their bingo card i'm not ready to re-litigate the cardinals entire situation after one week but I mean we laid it out this was one of the most injured teams in the NFL and jacobi

brissette wasn't it wasn't it obviously wasn't all good last year but they were in a lot of games with jacobi brissette like they played a lot of better teams tough and we talk the skill talent is evident i mean tray mcbride was awesome in this game jeremiah i love really nice debut for jeremiah i love tyler al jir our guy kendrick bourne that's the most obvious stat line ever for a guy that Mike Lafleur clearly prioritized when he got to Arizona. He had eight targets today. This just is not the roster of the worst team in the NFL. And Jacoby Brissette's probably not always going to look good enough for the result to look like this.

But good enough, I think, is the right framing. Yeah. He's good enough. If the offense is well constructed with the skill position talent they have and the offensive line clears the bar, he's good enough to do this. This is not a hopeless team other than the fact that they just punt it up. on really answering the quarterback situation this season. Yes. And he is, in theory, the right quarterback for what you laid out for the offense,

where it's like, we're going to be able to get under center, we're going to spread things out and we're going to use every bit of the field. Can you throw through some of the car wash that might happen over the middle of the field? Jacobi Berset is not afraid to do any of that. No. Clearly wasn't in this game. And so if they're really going to lean into that, I mean, like, it's not a one for one, but like when Berset played fairly well in, like, Cleveland a while,

it was a little bit of some of that same principles. And so I think if they can continue to, access that. That would be huge. Again, Tray McBride was, they did so many different things to access him in this game. Kendrick Boring having the game he did. He only had one catch, but like Marvin Harrison did make an insane catch in this game. And like, if he is just kind of going to be like a big play merchant for them every now and then, if the other guys are enough of floor raisers, like, again, we can litigate whatever we want about top five pick, but like that would be good enough for this offense to be interesting. It's not ideal if that's all Marvin Harrison is, but they have a

$25 million receiver now. So they answered it. Like I said, it's not the ideal order of events, but it works itself out, I guess. I was just incredibly impressed by the early in the game, the Chargers were getting some chunks over the middle of the field by moving the pocket a little bit, giving, I think the past protection and their ability to just create space for Herbert early in the game. You saw that on some of those chunks over the middle of the field. And over the course of the game, I just thought the Cardinals did such a great job of squeezing

that space and getting creative in how they were getting bodies there, right? Whether it's Buda Baker dropping, Buda Baker dropping down, just so many different ways of again squeezing that area and the car, the chargers really had no other place to go. And then the other element of this game that is worrying for the Chargers, because this is not something that's probably going to get better. The interior of the offensive line looks like it's going to be a problem again. On that fourth and three, that game swinging fourth and three, Dante Stills just puts Trey Pipkins in Justin Herbert's lap.

And those are the guys we are going to see on the interior for the charge. this year. Like there's no reinforcements coming. Some of that is obviously a shitty break because you lost Tyler Biotish before you played a single snap, but did it feel good enough when Tyler Biotish was available? Probably not. I'm not convinced that that's the case. And I thought that was strange heading into the year. And then guess what? It's a 100% chance of injury game. So the odds that you were going to get through it fully healthy anyway were not good. And here we are again.

Yeah. It's this Chargers team, it was going to be. if the defense was going to take a step back, which I think is reasonable to expect, given the fact that this is still not a defense with a ton of elite talent. Yeah, first time play caller applies here as well, but if this continues, if this version of the team continues,

where the defense isn't quite what it was last year, the offense was going to need to be the unit that picked up the slack. And for them to come out and have such a dud in week one, it's a frustrating start, given like all the ink that we spilled this off season talking about the Chargers offense. And the other thing I would say, and it's only one game,

the Chargers' longest run in this game was 14 yards. What's the point of the offense if that's where we're going to be? Like, I'm sure they will clearly have better games than this, but that is the entire point of the offense is that we're going to create at least one 20, 25-yard chunk at some point, and they just weren't really able to do that at any point. We'll also never know, but it's worth mentioning at least. It was 16-14.

Chargers absolutely still could have won this game. They'd force two punts in a row when Simi Fahoko blocks that punt and it's a three-yard possession to take a two-score lead. I mean, the Chargers were punning from their own red zone. So maybe Arizona takes the ball anyway and changes the complexion of the game, but you just gave it to them. You just gave them a three-yard field to essentially put this game away or at least put you in chasing mode down two scores in the fourth quarter. They absolutely could have found a way to win this game without a completely unforgivable special. teams gaff it was all too familiar that that's what i'll say it was all too familiar the special teams gaff lad mccanke getting peeled off the field at one point in this game it just if there was

any hope that it was going to feel different for the chargers this year this is not the note on which you wanted to start i mean it reminds me a little bit of situation with dallas it's like we can have this conversation over and over and over again like this time it's going to be different this time it's going to be different and then to come out in week one and have it not be different it's a tough way to start let's keep going here the Green Bay Packers up 22 to 10 with 512 in the third quarter, not only lose to the Vikings, but lose to the Vikings by multiple scores.

They lost by 17 points to the Carson Wentz Vikings after being up 22 to 10 with 512 in the third quarter. They led for roughly 50 minutes of this game because they kicked a fuel goal pretty early in the first quarter and didn't officially surrender the lead until there were like six minutes left in the game. And they lost by three scores. The final 20 minutes from the Green Bay Packers, what the fuck?

This entire game was, this game was insane too because Flores, I don't know what the final blitz numbers are going to settle on. It felt like every play. I mean, it was hovering around 80%, depending on which source you want to look at. That is insane, even for Brian Flores. That is like truly insane level of play.

And honestly, for a lot of this game, like I would say three quarters of it, like Jordan Love and the offense like handled it relatively well. Like they were hitting chunks and obviously they were explosive. They were getting chunk gain after chunk game. They were willing to like if Brian Flores was like, I'm going to kill you with these blitzes, Jordan Lowe was like I'll try right back.

And he was hitting a lot of them by the fourth quarter. I think my biggest issue with this team kind of started to rear its head. The offensive line just doesn't have it. And you have two backup guards. You have two back up guards and who like the left guard. I don't know if Jennings, if he had ever even really played. with like the first team or the main team at all over like the preseason or anything like that.

Like I was shocked to see him in the line. Isn't it really Packers coded to do that? We were like we were arguing about the guard situation and I don't think we brought up Donovan Jennings during the preview. And then he's out there with the with the starters in pregame warmups and I mean, it did not go well. Per next gen, Vikings blitzed Jordan Love on 78.3% of his dropbacks, which is the fourth highest rate by a defense in a game since 2018. I can't believe it's only the fourth highest rate. Yeah, that's kind of shocking. Is one of them the Brian Flores-Lamar game?

I don't have them in front of me, but I assume Brian Flores is involved in some of those games. I don't want to, I was so impressed by a lot of what Jordan Love did in this game. And it did make me think of our preview where Jordan Love is just going to have to be awesome. This is the ecosystem he's playing in. The passing game is going to have to be awesome. It's going to have to be incredible.

And I wonder, he had so many sick throws in this game. Like the throw coming out of his own end zone to Matthew Golden for 13 yards, was it made us both like just laugh out loud during the second window. The 42-yarder to Matthew Golden was disgusting. Also, him buying time in the pocket and making that throw was nasty. The early touchdown to Christian Watson was disgusting, but crazy. The reason I bring it up, though, is like on that play, Flores brought heat. And I think it was Theo Jackson.

Like, he whiffed diving for that ball and just, and it, like, that led to the explosive. And I just wonder if Flores was like, okay. Do that eight more times today and we'll see who comes out on top because that's what it felt like where he was like like Marshawn Lynch like I'm going to get got but I'm going to get mine more than I get got like that's how it felt watching this game and Flores wound up on top in the end. We really had the anatomy of a collapse like all the elements that you need for a truly horrifying collapse were in play, a play that will probably be forgotten except by Packers fans that had to live it. When they're up 22 to 10, Miles Price returns a kickoff down to the 28. yard line with five minutes left in the third quarter miles price yeah that's miles price down to the 28 yard line set up a short field they score a touchdown so that is what gets it to 22 to 17 then we have the taking points off the board when it would have been 25 17 and choosing to go for it on the

quarterback sneak and not getting it that is classic collapse type stuff and then the one drive where you have an illegal contact a roughing the passer and a defensive hold in route to a touchdown for the viking It could not have been a more frustrating 20 minutes of football if you were a Green Bay Packers fan than what you had to watch in this game. I was curious because, and they had the penalty that made it fourth and short instead of fourth and like five and a half or whatever it was.

But in the Jordan Love era, Green Bay is 24th in the league in Go For It decisions. They were 20th last year. Like, Malfour is just not the most aggressive guy. And I think that's part of the rationale for why you can be okay with the decision in the moment. trying to put the game away, even if it ultimately costs them. I kind of applaud it, really.

Like, you know, hindsight's 2020. I was, like, proud of Matt Lafleur for like, let's just end this right now. If we get a yard, game's probably over. And he's never going to do it. Funny thing about that. Yeah. Funny thing about that. They did not get the yard and the game was not over.

He's never going to do it again after everything that followed that failed sneak. I mean, what Blake Hashman and just like the linebackers did as Blitzers in this game, I mean, he came untouched on, I mean, the two plays in a row. Dallas Turner comes untouched off the right side, just destroys Jordan Love, and then Blake Cashman comes untouched on the very next play. And that's the one where the offensive line stuff and all the shuffling, I think is where you saw it, because they had a linebacker lined up in the right side A gap and then the right side BGap.

And Jacob Monk, I think, is supposed to take the BGAP player and let the back scan from AGAP all the way back out. That didn't block anybody. Well, but you can see the back he scans and he looks at the A gap player and he dropped drops out and then he's out. And so Monk goes to nobody because he slides to the guy who drops out. And then the guy in the B gap is just like free to go hit the quarterback. And so maybe that's on the back.

I think that's on the guard. And it's just like a miscommunication. But it's just it was that exact stuff where like a backup center is now you're starting right guard. And things like this are going to happen against, especially against Brian Flores' defenses. Speaking of Brian Flores' defenses, the one play I wanted to point out just because it is so crazy to me. Harrison Smith signed like five days ago. He had a huge PbU on that drive where the Packers ultimately took points off. He smoked Matthew Golden, right?

Smoke Matthew Golden. The coolest part about that play, though, he's mugged up on that play. He's bailing deep. And then puts his foot in the ground, has to come back downhill to get the PbU. The man did not practice the entire summer. And he's doing that crazy shit before the play and ultimately getting a PbU by the time it's all over. I've got to believe Harrison Smith was like doing. calisthenics in his backyard, just like shuffling the backyard for when he got the call.

It's not about the physical aptitude. It's about the fact that he hadn't played football the entire summer. He's been practicing for like four days. And then he's doing that short of sort of weird disguise shit. The thing is, you don't need to practice when they built the defense for you. Like, Flores does a lot of that stuff because he had Harrison Smith. That's so true. But that's always been true.

Right. Yeah. Even going back to Zimmer days, I said this when he re-signed. If you actually tracked how far each individual defensive player has moved before the snap over the last decade, he wins going away. Oh, he's the record holder. I mean, it's not even close. Is that information available? I don't know.

If it were, he would absolutely be the winner. Just you think about how many times he's been on the line of scrimmage and ends up 20 yards in the defensive backfield. The fact that he was doing that after practicing for like four days in a huge moment in a week one game, it's a very good thing that the Vikings have Harrison Smith back. The fact that the Vikings won this game after what happened with Kyle Murray, we said in the moment, to be a Vikings fan this entire summer and talk yourself into, man, it's so nice to have just a capable human quarterback again that we can hopefully get the ball to Justin Jefferson. We can be a reasonable team. Just be normal enough for me to enjoy this.

And you lose him five pass attempts into the game is the ultimate gut punch. And for it to end like this, something you could not have imagined, he went down in this game in the first quarter. For so much of this game, it just felt like you were living a slow death, you know, like 2210. It's like, well, it's only 12 points, but what has Carson Wentz done to give me this degree of confidence? Like, it did not really feel like it could happen for Minnesota until it did.

All right. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. One more performance we wanted to dig into the Minnesota, or excuse me, the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 33. to 27. You're going to see those 33 points and think, man, what a huge day from the Cincinnati Bengals offense, something that we've come to expect. They had a 48% success rate. They were fine. The bucks turned the ball over four times. It was a pretty wild performance from the Tampa Bay quarterback, and he is unfortunately the subject of this. Baker Mayfield, so many decisions in

this game. Truly, what the fuck? My first note on Baker Mayfield in this game is he's trying to do more than ever, and he looks less athletic than ever. And that is not... Yeah, that is not a good combo if you're going to try to be Baker Mayfield. Baker Mayfield looked like he thought he was at OU. Like with the, like the amount of time he was holding the football in these... In these snaps where he fumbled or got stripped. I mean, I know on the final one that really like put a nail in the coffin,

that people give Tristan Worf's a lot of shit because he technically gave up the sack. Baker held the ball for four seconds. The time to sack in this game was, I think, like, four point seven seconds. Yeah, they were not like snapping the ball and getting pressure on Baker Mayfield. It was like him holding onto the ball. He was pressured. You felt the front, but it was not, it was not immediate. But it was not like, oh my gosh.

The Bengals defense, I thought all things considered was encouraging. Absolutely. They pressured Baker 10 times per PFF. And he averaged just north of three seconds to throw. Yeah. Like, it was. there, or at the very least, it was there for Baker to get rid of the football and the unwillingness to do that. I don't even really know how to completely judge this game because three of these

turnovers happened in nine minutes of game time. One of them was Bucky Irvings, not all Baker. He waited another hour for the, for the third fumble. But when you, like, when you turn this into a three score game in a matter of nine minutes of game time, I mean, it just, it went sideways before I could even blink. And one of the, the last Baker Mayfield turnover was, like, they were like inside the five. Like they were about to score a touchdown. So you give the first turnover, he gets stripped sacked and Demetrius Knight

returns it for a touchdown. And then you give up the other touchdown. Fumble recovery for six, gives the bingles their first touchdown. The Bucky fumble came right after that and put Cincinnati on their plus 33. That leads to, that makes it 14 to 3.

And then you just mentioned Baker fumbles. He and he did his, he actually looked athletic. He did his Baker Magic thing. He escaped a sack. jukeed a couple guys, and he's going to have them first and goal from the four when he fumbles into the end zone. Like, you're talking like 21 points worth of swings from three plays in a matter of nine minutes of game time. The first one, he's just doing way too much on the Miles Murphy strip sack.

But I think in the big defensive moments in this game for Cincinnati, you felt the additions that they made this offseason. Right? So Mafei gets the initial pressure on that first sack. Even the Bucky fumble, that's a point. play where Brian Cook tracks him down in space. And what do we say? That the front obviously so much talent that they added this offseason compared to what they had a year ago. It's night and day difference. But the other thing that you watched this team last year that was just basement level bad was the second and third levels tackling in space. Brian Cook was arguably the best third level tackler in the league last year. Like what he gives you as a safety in space

is so much better than what they've been working with. And he tracks down. Buck of Irving in space, he eventually gets there first. Mafay finishes it off. And you felt Mafay multiple different times in this game. And even the strips or the sack phone bowl at the end that Mafei gets, if you go back and you watch that play, the bucks are trying to run like a dagger-like concept with Chris Godwin coming back across the middle of the field. Brian Cook is the one that gets underneath it and then Mafei finishes it off.

So Baker contributed to this, again, just trying to do too much way too often. But you really did feel all of the additions that the bang. made this offseason. Most of those guys had at least one moment where they contributed to what this game felt like for Cincinnati. It's also not to give some credit to the Bengals and not just put it all on a Tampa implosion. It's got to be refreshing to be a Bengals fan and just like benefit from these things. Yes, absolutely. Please run off the cliff and just let me be the less stupid team in this game for a change. Jonathan Allen had a sack. Yeah on a stunt where he was the penetrator.

I mean, just everybody that they added seemed to have a moment in this game. And I think that's very encouraging place to start. The one Bengals offense thing I wanted to mention was just the drive after the fumble inside the five to me is a perfect expression of what they want this offense to be as they play more under center, which they did a lot more of in this game. I don't have the numbers in front of me. I have one. So at least since 2023 in games with Joe Burrow, this was their fourth highest under

center game and if you just look at the first half it was their highest. So like they were doing it a lot. They were 28.6% under center per next gen, which is I think they were last year where they were under 20%. Yeah. So that's at least like a 10 percentage point or about a 10 percentage point tick up. That drive where they go down and they score a touchdown after the fumble inside the five, the first big play of that drive, they're under center.

It's play action. Jamar Chase is in the slot. They're in, I think 12 personnel. Bucks are in single high, right? And so single high under center play action, we get Jamar Chase on like a big corner route against a single high coverage for a chunk. There's a little dump off to sample in the flat off of play action, which again, just easy completions that this team didn't always have off play action. And then you combine that with really efficient, quick passing from the gun, just the type of stuff we're used to seeing with this team. And then to start the third quarter out of gun, they run a little pinpole where they get Chase Brown onto the perimeter.

So we're diversifying the gun run game. We're doing things under center play action-wise we've never done before. And if we want to just play ball control, consistent, efficient offense from the gun, we know our quarterback can do that. Like when you watch all those things get mixed in together, that to me is what the promise of the Bengals offense is supposed to be this year. And you saw it all on that drive. It really was everything.

Like the one to me, the one that was really encouraging, obviously the one to chase where they get him on the little sail route, I thought was nice. the one you mentioned with Drew Sample where they're in the high red zone and they have like they shuffle the wide receiver in to make it look like duo and then he inserts and runs that corner it clears out the space and samples wide open that's just a Rams play yeah it's just a ram's play they needed some of the Rams play to let their gun stuff breathe because that's all it is like you can still be 70% gun and that can be your identity that's fine you just need to let it

breathe like you need something to force defenses to think about other things we still have and we do see this right I think Plenty of teams really weaponized this type of play action in week one as we went more under center, where you're trying to get the linebackers to step up, or trying to hit crossers behind it. I'm just think about some of the stuff the Jags did in this game. But a lot of the things the Rams did with their under center play action game last year, out of those heavier personnel looks was just having spitting the ball to a tight end in the flat for a 10-yard game,

just giving yourself easy completions. And the Bengals just didn't have many easy completions like that that are, they have easy completions, but they're not plays off for everybody else. Like, that's a playoff for everybody else that gives you a 10-yard completion. And having more of those within the offense, on top of trying to make yourself more explosive, there are benefits coming in multiple directions by playing this way. And we saw them access a couple of those. T had a couple F-U balls.

One of them got reversed on that challenge by Todd Bulls. But, like, T did some T stuff in this game. But, like, the Bucks held Jemar Chase down. And this was still a perfectly efficient at times explosive bingles offense. I thought that was really encouraging, even if the turnovers did get it out of whack. We're going to wrap up, we're about an hour and ten minutes into a week one show. We're going to wrap up all of these shows with a moment that made us feel or a game or anything from the week that made us feel romantic about football. Last year we all picked one.

This year we're collectively going to land on one. And where we landed in week one was that the Lions Saints game, everything about the Lions. and Saints game is just a perfect distillation of what week one and a return to the NFL should feel like on so many different levels. We had a game that felt over. It was 21 to nothing. We had a random comeback that somehow snuck up on us. We game went into overtime.

There was a controversial choice in overtime. There was a controversial call at some point in this game. There were guys who were just like, oh shit, look at that guy, right? Like the game that the game that Tyler Shuck had in this game, so many of the throws he made in the second half. there was just a little bit of everything in this one. And as we got down to the wishing hour and we're all sitting there watching that thing finish up,

that is what a week in the NFL should feel like when you get to the end of the early window. And this was a perfect encapsulation of it. I really think this was a perfect early window game, especially for where it was on the card. Because like if you're going into this week, just trying to figure out what you want to watch, like, of course Texans' bills is going to be like

the big top of the, top of the billing and then Bengals, Buccaneers, you've got the quarterbacks going against each other. And like, I don't know, probably fourth or fifth on the pecking order. You're really excited about this game. Like we, but like, but it's it's down a little bit, you know? And like quickly into this thing, you're just like, oh, this isn't really living up to my expectations.

Like the lions aren't really firing on all cylinders. The Saints haven't done a whole lot. Shuck at two horrible turnovers, like multiple horrible turnovers. He definitely. Well, two in the first half. And then, well, he had three total because he had the sack fumble as well as two interceptions. Yeah, the two interceptions were gross. The pick I will, I think I will put on Noah Fan act.

Okay. They're running like a choice route and Phant breaks it out. I think what Shuck saw was that Fan is running the choice route and the safety playing over the top is so far away from him that he's expecting a fan like just sit down. Let's take the five yards here. We'll be fine. Fan breaks it out. The DB is there by the time the ball gets there and it's over. But still, that's like week one miscommunication.

I just really love, like, by midway through the second quarter, I was just like, ah, I don't know how many more times I'm going to be looking over here today. And then that like sealed it when the lions went up 21 nothing where you're just like, Tyler Shuck, we're not closing the book on you, but the lights were a bit too bright in week one, Bubba. And then my favorite part of this whole thing, like I said, interception early, throws it to Barnes coming right out of halftime, and then missed the blitz by Roger McCreery, strip sack, That's when Amin Ra scores to go up 21-0.

I didn't even see this in the moment because I had six other things to worry about. First play after that, Tyler Shuck just bombs it deep to Chris Oliva. He's like, fuck this. I'm like, I'm not going out like this. Who had 182 yards today? Because he just like, Tyler Shuck was just like, screw it. I guess I got to throw us back into this thing. Tyler Shuck at one point in this game was 10 for 23 for 85 yards with two interceptions.

He wound up throwing. like 56 balls obviously went over 400 yards. He threw 20 passes in the fourth quarter and overtime alone. And it's like some darts. Like Alave obviously dropped one in the bucket to Devon Velae. The play before the touchdown in addition of the touchdown, like he threw like eight insane passes from like mid third quarter onward. The fourth and 12 he hits in the fourth quarter is a nasty play.

The deep shot to Alave with like 119 left is he's getting hammered by eight Hutchinson and then the out and up to Joanne Johnson in overtime. Oh, beautiful. Just a gorgeous throw. His, the touch he puts on some of those throws, like second and third level throws down the field. I, he's just a, he's a very good thrower of the football. Just like purely as a thrower of the football, I really enjoy watching Tyler Shuck play.

And that's why the beginning of the game was so disappointing. Yes. It was just like, man, coming off of the way that he ended last season, like the fact that this is act one of year two for Tyler Shuck, what a bummer. and then for him to come back and play the way that he did down the stretch, just encouraging if you want to be excited about the Saints moving forward this season. Absolutely. Because like, and like, especially about him, because I think the run game like did not look as good as you wanted it to.

But the fact that he was able to rally back despite that and despite the early turnovers. And like, Chris Olive is really good. But like, otherwise this is not like a star studded, no, past catching roster. Like, Devon Velae's fine and did make a couple of good plays. Like the touchdown he catches and then the deep diving one. down the right side is like a crazy play by him. Joanne Johnson is like a fine tight end, but again, he's not like a needle movie

that everybody's super excited about. The fact that he was able to do that, we were talking on the NFC South preview about who is the third receiver for this team until Jordan Tyson's healthy again. And for one week, at least, it did not matter. We were wondering what the Saints run game was going to look like after a rough year.

They did not run the ball effectively in this game. And I think that's where the lions need to be good. And so that's a good sign. We also talked about whether the Lions running game would be better than it was last year. Box checked. 55% rushing success rate for Jemir Gibbs in this game who had 29 carries. We're going to see a lot of Jemir Gibbs this season. And I think that's probably the right path forward for the Lions.

34 touches for basically 200 scrimmage yards. It's pretty good for your debut. I was going to ask you that because you have been so dialed in on the Saints run game, are you more worried that the run game looked like more of the same? I got to go back and watch it. I know that's a cop-out answer, but I couldn't even begin to tell you where the issues are. I was just sitting there debating.

I was like, is it bad that the Saints still can't run the ball? The answer to that is yes. Well, yeah. But also is it or is it sick that Tyler Shuck did this without a complimentary offense to help him out? That's down 21-0. He was just like, screw it.

I guess I got to just drop back and bomb away. And it worked? I mean, they obviously didn't win the game, but it still worked. Yeah, the fact that the Lions run game looked like it did against a Saints team that was an incredibly good run defense last year. Like that was the calling card for the Saints defense down the stretch is that they were one of these light box teams or neutral box teams that was really able to defend the run out of those shell looks for the Lions to be as effective as they were. That's what you want to see for a Lions team that needed a bounce back on the ground. And to put a point on it, the fact that it was like success. Yeah.

Like success rate, like down to down wins. Because last year they were still as explosive as anybody. I mean, Jemir Gibbs is unbelievable. But the fact that like they got the five and six yard runs that they wanted on top of all the explosives. What did you make, you mentioned the controversial call. What did you make of the Chase Young touchdown recovery fumble that wasn't? By the letter of the law, it's the correct call. I've just never seen that rule before.

So I want to read the actual the verbiage. like the text that comprises the rule. Terry McCauley tweeted this out during the game, and I felt it's a very clear explanation of why they called it the way that they did. I'm just going to read it word for word. If contact by an opponent materially affects a passer after the passer begins his throwing motion,

it is a forward pass if he passes the ball, and this is the key part, regardless of where the ball strikes the ground, a player, and official, or anything else. When you watch that, play, just your gut feeling of what you're seeing there is, well, it's either a fumble or he threw it. And if you're going to call it an incomplete pass, he threw it backwards. So shouldn't that be a fumble? Like that's how my brain is processing, watching that play in real time. But if that's the

rule, then technically that is the correct ruling. Yeah. I think it's a bullshit rule. Like I just don't understand why that should not be a fumble if the ball ends up going backwards. But if that is the actual letter of the law, I guess that's the correct way to land. It is strange that like, so we talked about this before the show. Like he doesn't lose control of the football. He's obviously like still going through his throwing motion and moving the ball with his arm. There's a lot of empty hand examples that other people were using. This is not one of those. He had the ball. He had the ball. But my question is why so clearly it's the defender redirected him to where he's throwing the ball backwards yes why isn't that a fumble and like to your point like no no no i know i am with you

when did we decide that that was okay it's like well the defender redirected him it's like yeah well that means he did a kick-ass job exactly exactly i i just don't really understand the penalizing a defensive player for doing that like the defensive player should be rewarded for that play. His point, the point of him is to make the offense do the thing they don't want to have done. You're supposed to redirect people as a defensive player. That's, that is your charge. If you forced Jared Goff to throw the ball backward, that should be a fumble. I agree. Although, but like, I spiritually, I agree. Even if I understand that the rule say that it's not. But like, by the letter of the law, I watched it and I was like, yeah, like, they, they definitely got this right. It's just

why is the rule on the books? Yes. That's where I land with you. I mean, it's obviously an incredibly strange and specific rule that we don't often see. I mean, we may never talk about this again. Yeah, I've been doing this for a long time. I can't remember that rule ever being placed in front of me. Now I'm just thinking about the fact that we agonized about Jared Goff's hand size coming out of college.

Look, that's strong. The fact that he held onto it with his baby hands is kind of amazing. Again, week one, no reason to make sweeping proclamations. How are you feeling about both of these teams coming out of this game? game. I think I feel fine about the, like, I think the Lions' offense is going to continue to be really good. They obviously a little bit of a slow role in this game, but if the rushing offense is

going to have that gear to them, and I did think some of the offensive line changes look good, like Sewell, left tackle looked too good. I thought Miller had a good game. And so that, I think, was pretty promising. The Saints defense, I think, is probably the thing I would have, like, going into the year I had the most concerns about, but week one against the Lions' offense. Like, I'm not really going to freak. Yeah, they didn't get run over for me.

There's a lot of short fields. They ran the ball efficiently, but again, I think the Lions are a team that we expect can run the ball efficiently, even if the Saints defense was very good in that area last year. I think this is actually also why this was another good and perfect week one football game. I came out of this not like second guessing anything I thought about these teams going into it. Like this was like kind of mostly what I thought about these teams and someone had to, it was a little closer than I would have guessed, but like not out of the realm of possibility for either team.

I'm not saying I thought the Lions were going to blow their doors off. but they were seven point favorites at home. I thought they would cover that spread. Like I thought this would be a touchdown to 10 point win for Detroit. And so for it to come down to, I mean, the Saints could have won this game. We didn't, we haven't talked about the Kellynne Moore. Yeah. Love the decision.

Absolutely. You love the decision. You have to do it there. Lions played the play extremely well. I hate to like armchair quarterback, but it really looked like, Olive was clearly the Reed at the front pylon. And DJ Reed did a phenomenal job of getting around. on the trash to cover it.

And I know, like, he threw the corner to the back pile on, but it didn't really seem like there was somewhere for the ball to realistically go after Olavé was covered. And I was like, maybe, maybe we could have called a play with more than one real read, but like that's the epitome of armchair quarterbacking. Yeah, I think you go for that every single time. Every single time. You're not getting the ball back. And so you're playing for a tie at best.

Especially, you kick that extra point. You were, your seven point underdogs with second year quarterback, like, nobody's got high expectations for you and you've got to steal one you got the lines on the road yeah so i i loved it um and just to go back to the part about this being romantic i mentally checked out of this at like one 45 p.m and i was just like ah maybe next week saints you just weren't ready and then i was riveted to the last 40 minutes of this game like i think texans texans bills ended and i was like okay i don't give a shit what's going on with packers vikings show me the saints lions game and that's that's what the early window is all about. That's exactly right.

Like that's, we have not had that feeling in quite a long time. And so to have that feeling one witching hour moment that was worth it in week one, that is why we love doing this. And that is what made us feel romantic about football one week into the season. All right. That is all we've got with our week one recap. Again, we will hit three more games on the Monday hangover show that we do that will be available for you on Tuesday in all of your podcast feeds and here on the YouTube channel. three games we are hitting. Ravens Colts, Raiders Dolphins, and Titans Jets are our three hangover games.

We're back, buddy. It's like an inverse of the three-headed monster meme. Ravens Colts is going to be awesome. I'm actually really excited to watch Raiders' dolphins. I'm very excited to see what the Raiders' offense did in this game. Because the other thing, too, really quickly, if you look at all just like the team efficiency stats from today, the dolphins are at the bottom for like everything. So I'm kind of curious about like how bad that got.

I'm looking forward to watching the Raiders offense and seeing some of this stuff they did today. It was nice to have Ashton Genties show some life. I'm looking forward to that. And I'm curious to see what the Jets did. You know, the fact that the Jets won convincingly, I'm curious to go back and watch that. Again, we do not hit all the games on this show. We've never done it that way. It's just a way to be able to talk about them with a little bit more depth. That's why we do the hangover show each and every week. And we will be back tomorrow with that show right here. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to hit that subscribe or

follow button so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment, and leave a rating. We'll see you next time.