The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 16 Hangover: Bills and Texans get necessary, but unconvincing, wins over bad teams

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

The Bills and Texans both appear ticketed for the playoffs, but neither exactly covered itself in glory in Week 16 wins over the Browns and Raiders, respectively. So, were those performances cause for concern? Or were they simply late-season, "do-what-we-gotta-do" wins that don't really have much, if any, bearing on their playoff prospects? Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen dig in on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)5:00 Bills-Browns recap24:55 Raiders-Texans recap41:07 Monday Mourning: Todd Bowles and the Buccaneers49:29 Monday Mourning: Is it all over for the LionsConnect with The Athletic Football ShowYT: https://www.youtube.com/@TAFootballShowPodcasts: https://podfollow.com/the-athletic-football-show/viewX: https://x.com/TA_FootballShowIG: https://www.instagram.com/tafootballshowTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tafootballshowDiscord: http://discord.gg/theathleticfootballshowCall us: 847-448-0701Email us: [e-mail]: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerVideo Producer: Katy DuffyAudio Producer: Michael BellerSocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. The Week 16 Hangover with me and Derek Klesson. Pretty simple. Dove into two games today, Bill's Browns and Texans Raiders, two games in which playoff teams looked not as dominant or as convincing as they probably should have.

And we talked about why. On top of that, we dove into a couple of your guys' calls, Monday morning, Lions and the Bucks, which I think are two teams that are experiencing some pretty similar dread existentially this year based on how the seasons have gone. So shoot on that as well. Let's get to that conversation with me and Derek right now. It's the week 16 hangover here on the athletic football show.

We got two games that we're going to be hitting today. We're going to do a little Bill's Browns and a little Texans Raiders. There are a lot of games we could have dove into today, Derek, because we didn't hit a ton of games on the recap show yesterday. When you get into like week 16 or later, it just feels like they're diminishing returns for like doing a deep dive on the Cardinals Falcons game. Yeah, there were so many games here that like if it was week seven, they would have been perfect hangover material.

And then at this point in the season, it's like, I would rather at least see why a clear contender like the bills needed only a three point win over the Browns. I think there are a lot of big picture conversations that are worth having about pretty much every team in the league as we get to the end of the season. and just kind of a, okay, now that we know this team either fell short of or exceed, I guess fell short of, the teams that exceeded expectations, most of them will be talking about as we break down the playoffs over the next month. But the teams that fell short of expectations on whatever different level, either they're going to be picking in the top 10 or they were a team maybe was projected to miss the playoffs, it's going to fall a little bit short.

We're going to be doing a lot of that over the next couple weeks. Our midweek show this week, we're going to do the teams picking in the top 10, I think really the top eight. that are the worst teams in the NFL. What sort of silver linings can we point to for those teams as we get toward the end of the season? We did that show last year. And I do think there's value in it, like just kind of checking in with those teams one

more time before we get into the playoffs. And I think we're going to do something next week rather than, again, doing a hangover type episode for a bunch of games that probably don't deserve that level of attention. I think next week's hangover, I want to sit with where the lions are right now, where the chiefs are right now, maybe where the Ravens are right now, where the, the Falcons are right now. Teams like that that wanted to be playoff teams this year that might not be and just kind of sift through what that means.

And so for pretty much every team that's not going to be participating in the postseason, we are going to do some sort of season long check-in post-mortem over the next two weeks here. So if you were a fan of one of those teams, do not worry. There is a conversation coming. Yeah, we're not going to leave them to the dust here. No, I don't want to. I got to get the Lions yesterday is a perfect example.

It's just like, I want to sit with what the Lions are. this season is. It's just in the midst of a 90-minute recap show yesterday, that was hard to do. So those are absolutely worthwhile discussions. And so those will be coming here over the next couple weeks. Just one more housekeeping thing, bear with me today. You guys are probably here that I'm struggling, but I'm going to do my best to get us through this. It's, it's winter in Chicago, and I am not feeling 100%, but we're going to power through. I thought you were going to go with, here's the week 16 hangover. And I sound a little bit like I've got a hangover today. I thought we were going to open with that joke.

No, unfortunately, that's the, I wish that were the reason that I was feeling like shit, the sounding like shit. That is not, unfortunately not the case. All right, let's dig into Brown's bills here. Obviously, a much, and so there's a theme that ties these two games together, right? We have games between likely playoff teams that felt like they escaped a little bit and were not as convincing or impressive as they probably should have been. And so I think the plan today is to take both of these games.

dive in with that in mind and kind of sort through how underwhelming these games actually were and how overwhelming these performances actually were. So as you look at Bill's 23, Browns 20, how disappointing or underwhelming would you categorize this Bill's performance as being from yesterday? I think the defense has some stuff that I could pick on a little bit and we'll get to that. The offense, honestly, and maybe this is cope, this kind of just felt like a game where they were like, listen, we're going to win this game. We're not going to let Miles Garrett ruin this game. We're just going to stay on pace.

We're going to keep on schedule. We're not going to do anything crazy. And we're going to get out of here. And I think they just wanted to control the game. Like, this was their highest under-center game of the entire season. They ran the piss out of the ball as much as they could. They had a 54% overall offensive success rate. So, like, they were moving it consistently, just didn't hit any of the explosives that you want for them.

Because they didn't really go for them. It was a lot of running. And even when they were throwing, it was like, a couple of, of boot rollouts and stuff like that. Like they just weren't trying to be very aggressive. It was actually their lowest EPA per offensive play in a win this year. And I again, I almost think that was intentional. I think it was just so like we're not going to let Miles Garrett potentially ruin a game that we shouldn't lose.

It just felt like ball control. I think I come down with a similar conclusion, but for different reasons. I don't want to wave away them being like, oh, we were going to win this game anyway. We didn't really need to put the pedal down. I think that in the first half, the offense was phenomenal. They had an 83% offensive success rate in the first half. I mean, they just were moving the ball at will. The run game looked excellent.

I thought the 44-yard James Cook touchdown run is an insane run by James Cook. Like, truly an insane run. There are two unblocked guys in the hole, and he somehow scores a touchdown on that play. And so the combination of James Cook, and I thought the right side of the offensive line overall, and you can throw Jackson Hawes into that conversation, we're just purely excellent in the first half of this game. Having somewhat or I don't know how close to 100% he is, having Spencer Brown look like Spencer Brown within this offense is so important.

And he looked really good again yesterday. So that's what the first half felt like. In the second half, I just think that they ran into a bunch of issues in some high leverage moments, especially on third down. And I think that was a combination of a lot of different stuff. I think Josh Allen did not have his best second half in this game against the Browns yesterday. There were a couple just straight up misses on third down.

There was a turn down to tie Johnson on like an angle route that I just didn't understand that he just didn't throw. And then Dawson not. And then Josh takes about with like eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. It's a third nine. He takes another sack when the checkdowns seemed to be there. And so that was another player. That just feels a little bit misaligned. and then Dawson Knox misses the fourth down in the end zone.

And so the way that I would kind of bucket this is that I think it was a frustrating second half for the bills. I don't know if it was a concerning second half for the bills, if that makes sense. That's kind of where I land with it. It felt very much like if they wanted to have turned it on they could have, which is kind of how I came away from this, which again, like maybe that's just cope because they got away with the win. But I really did feel that way.

Because again, like you were saying, they were doing whatever they wanted in the first half for the most part. And like to the point of the run game, obviously having Spencer Brownback, I think was huge. Even a lot of his moments in space were really impressive. They hit like three or four crack tosses in this game, like into the boundary where whether it was Knox or one of the receivers. Like I think on the first one, Tyrell Shavers just absolutely dented the defensive end back into the line of scrimmage and got Brown free up into the down the right sideline.

Like they did an awesome job, I thought, with a lot of those. And then yeah, on the cook run, that to me like the, the, him making the first two linebackers miss, that to me is like Diabate like a little bit overrunning his fit and then cutting it back really well. When he gets to the third level and then cuts all the way back across the safety, I was like, what is wrong with like, why did you even think to do that?

Oh, he made him miss and he slips two guys anyway and he's gone for a touchdown. I was like, all right, if he's just going to do that, then they're going to have a day. And then even the third nine that he takes the Josh Allen takes the sack on where it seems like he does have the checkdown into like a pressure look. So that what happens is Swessinger kind of, kind of loops all the way around on that play.

And so my assumption is Josh Allen thinks he has like maybe a little window to take off if he wants to. But because Swessinger flashes in front of him, he pulls it down and then eventually can't escape and Swessinger finishes that play off. But even the play before that, he throws like a big crosser to Brandon Cooks and the ball is catchable. He just can't quite hang on to it. And so it was just a lot of plays on the margins again that either were on third down

or led to some coin flip third downs over the course of this game. I think your point about the under center stuff, I think that's worth mentioning in part because I like overall, like the structure of what the bills are trying to do on offense right now. Like them being an under center run game and then trying to blend in some of that play action stuff off of it. I mean, one of their big chunk plays in the first half, it's similar to what we've seen from them a lot over the last like four weeks or so.

it's under center. Josh Allen flips his hips immediately after getting to the top of his drop, flips it to Tyrell Shavers for a chunk gain. We've seen them do that a lot. And I think that's probably based on their current receiving personnel, their best avenue to create explosive plays through the air is on that sort of stuff. And so them kind of realizing this is the family offensively they should be trying to live in given their current makeup. I like the direction overall of what they're trying to do. I couldn't agree more. And again, I've talked about before how I feel like that structure just gives like a steadiness to Josh Allen's game. Like I think when he only has to be Superman seven or eight times a game as opposed to 20,

I think you just, you more often get the good version of him doing that. And then again, I do think a lot of that stuff is working, especially when they have their tight ends healthy. Like I mentioned that this was their highest under center overall game that they've had this season. I think the last three weeks are also their highest percentage of offensive plays being play action plays.

So like this is clearly something that they've like, kind of pushed away from some more of the spread stuff that they were, I think, flirting with more early in the season and really trying to stay in this undercenter. We're going to run the ball 21, 12, 13 personnel on the field all the time. And I do think that they have a lot of different answers in the run game with it, which to me is important. Like I love what the Rams do on offense and in the run game. They run duo.

Like that's kind of it. The bills have a lot more pitches in their bag. It's honestly impressive how explosive the Rams run game has been. despite the fact that that's the structure of it. I think Blake Corum is part of that. Like Blake Corum just has a little bit more pop than Kyron Williams has had over the last couple years. And so the fact that Corum is getting more work,

I think lends to that a little bit. But I totally agree with you. Like the bills just have more avenues and more ways on the chalkboard to kind of scheme up explosive runs. And if you're going to have questions, concerns about the ceiling of your passing game because of the pass catching personnel,

you better be able to consistently find explosives on the ground. And so it is nice to see that they can tap into that version of the offense a little bit. The other thing that's worth mentioning just in a blanket level, the fact that Josh Allen didn't really look that sharp in the second half, he was hurt in the second half. I mean, he would limp pretty badly into the tunnel. And so that's something just to keep an eye on moving forward. Like how healthy is he going to be?

Is that foot issue that he got on that crazy, like 25-yard sack that he takes inside the five yard line, like how long does that linger and does that become any sort of consistent issue? Because if he's at less than 100%, that to me, again, I said this was mostly frustrating, not concerning. That is when this gets pushed into concerning because they need him to be the best version of Josh Allen considering how this thing is put together. Yeah, that would be if he next week is on the injury report longer than we want or it looks funny in his first game. That's when I'll start being concerned. But like just seeing this game in a vacuum, I'm like, he, he's a trooper. He'll probably, he hopefully he's okay. What does you think about the Brown's offensive performance in

this game? And I guess by extension, the bill's defensive performance. I, I thought it was a, a game that was called very well, uh, on the part of the Cleveland Browns. Uh, I thought them getting some of their like, obviously, they basically opened the game with like that reverse. Um, and they have the jet player coming in from the left slot. And so the, all of the bills like bumped their second level and then they have the reverse like toss back the other way into the wide side of the field. Cole Bishop thought he was like the cutback player into the jet run. And so he way overruns his feet into the boundary.

Brown's got a ton of space to go pop that run. And then they had a number of screens in this game. Like the third and 12, it's it's a good call. It's a good design. I also thought this was another example of like the Bill's second and third level just does not want to come downhill and hit people. Like they could have gotten to that run and made that a little bit. bit messier and they they just didn't. So I came away frustrated with the bill's defense in the

same ways that I usually am, but also like I thought Stefansky called a good game to try to to take advantage of it. Tommy Reese is calling the plays now. So credit to Tommy Reese for for putting all that stuff together because I totally agree. I mean, this is a play. This is a game plan that whether you should or not, I think projects a lack of confidence in your ability to just drop back and play. Unfortunately, you lose Judkins at some point in this game, and they were really having some success on the ground and just getting him the ball in space. I mean, you talk about the screen that hit, a couple ender rounds that hit. They had a 40-yard drawplay to him on their second drive that gets called back because of a holding penalty. And so the Brown's ability through just smoke and mirrors runs, screens, play action boots and dump-offs.

That's majority, almost the entirety of what the offensive game. game plan was. And for the most part, other than penalties and then a couple tipped ball interceptions, which the quarterback and how he handled those moments, I think, allow those tipped ball interceptions to happen. I'm not wiping those away. But if those don't happen and you don't get a couple of those bad penalties, they were moving the ball down to down pretty consistently, despite how limited the menu of stuff

they were trying to access actually was. Yeah, they could have reasonably won this game, like with a couple of more balance is going their way. They only get, again, them doing it in the way they did it. I think they only attempted three passes beyond 10 yards and I think they only completed one of them. Like this was a screens, we're throwing flat routes, all that sort of stuff. And yeah, the two tipped interceptions, I think it's easy to be like, oh, well, those are just unlucky. And there's a little bit of of misfortune there. The first one, he's trying to throw an angle route to, I think, Quinnshaw Junkins, he fires a missile like on his back shoulder. That's a pretty hard catch for the running

back to go and make. That's exactly what I meant. And then I think that he's, it's lending to that. And then even the second one, he hangs on to that ball too long and allows Joey Bosa to get into a position where he can tip that ball to Dequon Jones for the interception. And so typically when you have tipped ball interceptions, it's like, eh, you know, they're fluky plays. Maybe a receiver drops a ball. I think that there is some culpability on the quarterback side for both of those tipped ball interceptions that probably didn't need to happen. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And then honestly, some of the other, like in terms of the way that this thing was scheme together,

the Harold Fanon touchdown that they get very early on in the game. Just a beautiful like him. He's lined up in this like, he's the second tight end just on the outside. And they have him like set at like a 45 degree angle to the line of scrimmage, by the way, before they snap it. But they motion him into the backfield to look like he's going to be a little bit of a fullback. Everybody bumps that way. He flies back out to the right hand side. Terrell Bernard is biting on the run.

So he just gets completely mixed up in the run fit. And Fanon is is out the gate for a touchdown. I thought that was just like a great little design to, again, kind of attack a Bill's second and third level defense that has not been this that good. I also thought like Bernard in particular, I think had kind of a tough game. There was a later in the second quarter, they threw a little bit of like a flat route in the high red zone to Quinchard Junkins. He just puts Terrell Bernard in the ground. Like there were just too many moments like that where the Browns reasonably did have a chance in this game because they were hitting on some of those. I mean, there were a couple of drives.

I mean, when the Browns were down 13 to 7 early in the second quarter, there were a couple really nice moments on that drive from Shador with his legs. As a scrambler, as a designed runner, they picked up multiple first downs. It's kind of why I mean how I mean where it was kind of a maddening game for the bill's defense, where you're allowing the other team to pick up first downs in the most frustrating way possible. Again, screens, jets, end arounds, all of those sorts of things. Then there's one entire drive where he makes like three or four plays with his legs. on that drive, that's the one where he hurts his finger.

And then Dylan Gabriel has to come in. They come away with a field goal on that drive. And then they don't get a field goal at the end of the half just because there's a bad snap. And so it just, there were like four or five small little mistakes from the Brown's offense or just unfortunate breaks in the case of him having to go out for that drive where you leave points on the field. And so I do absolutely think they could have won this game if a couple of things had gone

slightly different. But again, I think it's more of a frustrating. game for the bills than it is one that's setting off alarm bells for me. I think that's probably true. I think it just, I continue to get annoyed that it's like the same problems every week. But I guess at that point, I think it's a little bit different. On defense, I think it's the same level of concern I brought into the game as the level of concern I leave the game with.

I think that's fair. Yes, 100%. Last thing I wanted to talk about with this game, fourth and two, five minutes left in your own territory. Shradour gets sacked on that play ends up you know, and the bills don't score

a touchdown on the following drive again because that's the one where Dawson Knox doesn't catch it in the end zone on that fourth and one. But on that fourth and two, there's five minutes left in the game. Are you going for that fourth and two

if you're Kevin Stefansky in that exact situation? I mean, given the way that your defense was playing in that half, like I, man, I don't know, actually. That's one where I think I pun it.

Even though, I think even though Josh Allen is not playing his best second half, I think the idea of giving him in that offensive line of short field is a little bit scary to me. I don't know if I love that. I just think based on overall game flow, I think I probably punt that ball away. And we're going to get to another game where I, again, I'm usually somebody that wants to push it in those situations.

And so I was a little bit surprised that that happened. The numbers here say it was like a based on the next gen numbers, they had it as a go in that situation from the minus 44 with five minutes left. But I don't know. And I was just a little bit surprised. I think part of it is also the call in that scenario was a little bit surprising to me. Like the entire game, you've had some success with motion, misdirection, play action, all of these different things. And so to go with like a straight dropback on fourth and two, that was a little bit surprising to me.

And so maybe I'm conflating how they approach that fourth down. with whether or not I think they should have gone for it. Yeah, and like I know that this is also like a separate thing, but I also, they shouldn't have even been in that fourth and two, in my opinion. Like if Shadur on the play before, the third and 10 hits his band in a little bit more of a stride, I think it was Cedric Tillman. That's a first down. But he throws it a little bit behind him.

He's got to like kind of slow his role and he's not able to get to it. So like that was another play where I really almost think they shouldn't have even been in it. And it forces a pretty frustrating decision in that moment. There was one other kind of like little. swing moment that again, I think is pretty indicative of the mindset that the Brown's offensive staff had. With like nine minutes left in the third quarter, they have a third and three and plus territory. And they call a jet sweep to Malachi Corley that gets completely blown up and they kick a field goal on that drive. And so that's pretty often throughout this game, I think that the approach that

the Brown staff had was an indication that they were trying to do everything they could to manufacture offense rather than trusting the quarterback. Whether that's the correct approach or not, I think that was absolutely the mindset that they had pretty much throughout this entire thing. All right, let's take a quick break and then come back and chat a little Texans Raiders. The Texans beat the Raiders, 23 to 21. The Texans are now 10 and 5. They are the seventh seed in the AFC of things currently, if the playoffs started today, our numbers at the athletic have them with like a 98% chance to make the playoffs.

And so they take care of business. They continue their march toward the postseason, which is impressive, considering how the early part of the season felt for this team. But here's what I'll say. That framing of, to me, it was a frustrating game for the bills, but not one that left me concerned. I don't feel that way about the offensive performance specifically from the Texans in this game.

The defense is kind of like, it's whatever. Like the Raiders hit three or four explosives in this game that were impressive plays. It's the same as what we said about the Broncos, right? Where it's like sometimes you just lose a couple one-on-ones and the fifth overall picker, whoever, makes an incredible play. All right. You can cut them.

You have the huge cross-country play action to Jack Bash that sets up the first touchdown drive. That throw to Bowers on the touchdown is incredible by both guys, by the way. I mean, the little stick knot he puts on Kalin Bullock in a short area to create that separation and then the touch Geno puts on that ball is gorgeous. So that's touchdown number one. Touchdown number two, you get your top 10 pick on a sluggo out of empty against Henry Toa-toe, who's a backup linebacker, and you're picking on him in that situation, which is an incredible play and an incredible play.

in an incredible throw. Gentie looked awesome, period, in this game, by the way. And then, speaking of, the third touchdown is him ripping off a 55-yard touchdown run because he gets a tiny little crease at the line of scrimmage and your post-safety takes a bad angle and just doesn't fit that in the way he probably should. Genti turns it into a touchdown. Those are your three plays. There's three plays that led to those three touchdowns. Down to down, the Texans defense is the Texans defense.

On the other side of the ball, I do think that this. is the sort of game where it's like, I don't know, man. Like, I just don't know if this group has it to actually be like a legitimate threat as we get into the postseason. I thought they got better as the game went on. This was a weird game because I, I didn't really mind how the game was called. And I actually thought that they got some receivers open. CJ Stroud just wasn't accurate for the first half of the game. He was not.

He was just missing. He was just missing throws. Like he missed one laden outside on like a deep out route to Nico Collins where Collins like gets hands on it, but there's just no way he can reasonably get his feet down. And then I think either later on that drive or the next drive, it's like another 10 yard out route to the left hand side that he overthrows. And then I think on the next drive after that, he throws like a speed out to the right hand side to Collins and just misses again. Like he, I think over the middle for the most part in the day he was fine. But just for whatever reason outside the numbers, especially in the first half, he just wasn't connecting. and I think that that put them behind the eight ball run game really never got going, which

it was awful. That's almost like the bill's defensive tackling. Like it's like, yeah, no shit. This is kind of what they do every week. But you should probably be a little bit better than that against the Raiders. They had an 18% rushing success rate in this game. Like that's bad. They popped like one explosive and that was it.

That was it. It was the last one. It was like the last drive where they had the explosive to Nick Chubb. That was it. And I know Woody Marks didn't play in this game, but like, come on now. Like you should not have a 17% rushing success. access rate against this Raiders team with eight stuffed runs. And so I know both tackles ultimately went out in this game, but this was a problem when

the offensive line was healthy from the start. They were getting so many plays blown up in the backfield, torpedoing drives, just a complete inability to get anything going on the ground. And so I think that only magnifies every single miss that you have in the passing game because you're consistently putting yourself in these third and five to nine situations and they failed on several of them. I mean, they got hot on third down late in the game, and I think that's part of the reason they were able to put the game away.

I mean, on that final drive, the completion to Higgins on the third and five, which is a really nice play where CJ kind of steps up in the pocket and finds Higgins over the ball, and then obviously the incredible throw to Nico Collins on the final play that actually ends the game. But those moments in the passing game felt like exceptions for the Texans in this game, rather than how the rhythm of the game was going. And that's a little bit concerning to me. It was a little bit concerning.

I also think, too, like, this is the type of game where the Texans' offensive line is not good, obviously. But I think they are a little bit more stout along the interior. But that's also not where the Raiders beat you. Like, the Raiders beat you with some of their edge guys. Like, Max was the second and five run that he blows up in the early second quarter where they've got two tight ends to the left-hand side and they do like a little toss that way. Crosby immediately like outside swings just like nice back and gets like to the midpoint of where the running back's path should be like before he even gets the ball. I'm like that guy is just an absolute freak show. And so he does that and has that play.

But he was also pretty good in the passing game. Malcolm Coontz actually had a number of really impressive pass rush. He sure did. The swipe that he put on Arante Urstery like to he like engages him and immediately just swipes him outside, bends around the arc. And I think he might have got a sack on CJ there. Like that was an incredible. play by him. So I think in my mind, when I imagine, like, what is the biggest issue with the Texas offensive line? It has been their tackles. Like, you've got a rookie on the left two. I think it's

gotten better this year, but it's still struggling. And then on the right side, obviously, he goes down at some point in the game. And so I think with the way that the Raiders are constructed, they were kind of built to give them some issues there. But I was a little bit concerned that they weren't as consistent in the dropback passing game as they wanted, as I wanted them to be. And I think this game, again, is a really good representation of, what it looks like when the quarterback isn't perfect is probably overstating it, but he has to be really sharp. He was just less than good.

It's not even like he has to be perfect. He has to at least be good. And for the first half of the game, he wasn't. I think he settled in. He has to be definitively good. He has to be like definitively good to lift this thing because of the scenarios and the situations he's going to be put in because the running game is so bad. Like the quarterback of the passing game have to be such a defined positive.

for them to be anything on that side of the ball. And I think this was a really good indication of that. And there's, again, multiple 50-yard field goals because they're stalling out as they get into plus territory on the edge of field goal range. I mean, it was a frustrating game for the Texans overall. And I think multiple different plays where if I'm the Texans offense right now, and I understand that it's tempting to look at your defense and say,

We can come away kicking a bunch of field goals and be fine. The mindset where you're kicking on fourth and one from the 31 yard line, when you're kicking on fourth and three from the 37 yard line, I just don't love that. I just feel like that. I'll be curious what that mindset looks like when it's the Chargers on Wild Card weekend and not the Raiders in week 16. I'm open to the idea that it might change,

but I just I don't necessarily love how those situations are unfolding for this team right now because I think when we get down to it, if you're going to be approaching it that way, it might come back to bite you. I agree. I think if they do this against better teams where they are in terms of offensive output, clearly outgunned, I think that that's going to be an issue for them. And in the playoffs, that will be most of the teams that they probably play. And so I think that that would be concerning to me.

I do, there are a couple of like individual. other moments for the Raiders defense. I want to shout out. In the late third quarter, Houston had a third in one. Isaac Palomow flies down into the alley and just absolutely takes out the runner. I was like watching him every now and then is like,

I'm not sure how good I think he is, but he is at least like an incredibly fun player to watch when he moves downhill. He has like one or two plays a game that are like, oh my God. And that's where they kick the field goal on fourth and one. That was the exact situation where they kicked the field goal on fourth and one. So he had that run stuff. Tonka Hemingway had a big TFL.

Malcolm Coonswee talked about. I thought that some of the stuff that Patrick Graham was doing on third down was really nicely done, especially early in the game. They were doing some like designery man stuff on third down that was giving the Texans a little bit of trouble. I think on the first third down of the game, they had a pressure with a man look behind it where they had two droppers that created a tight window throw for siege. I think it was the Nico Collins that they didn't end up completing. And then there were two plays where they ran two man the Raiders did on third down. And so sticky man coverage underneath really nowhere to go with the ball, both of those end and incompletions and punts for the Texans.

So overall, I think that the Raiders defense played well and gave them a lot of trouble over the course of this game. I'll say we talked about the Texans forked down decisions being a little bit frustrating. I get you not wanting to go for those fourth downs when you're the better team, when you have a great defense, all of that. A couple of the fourth down decisions from the Raiders in this game are like, come on, guys. Yeah.

Like, what are we doing here? Like, this is a lost season. This is a game you absolutely can win based on how it's going. And they had a couple punts where I was just like, I'm just not okay with this. In the fourth quarter, they're losing the game. They have a fourth and three from plus territory, and they punt the ball. And that's not just my sensibilities. Like, looking at the next gen numbers,

right now. That is a pretty clear go from them. And then in the second quarter, they had a fourth and four from their own 42, and they also punt that ball. And so I just, multiple different plays where this is a lost season. Like, I just don't understand how you're not doing everything you can and pulling out everything you can to try to win this game. And it just feels like that's the story of this Raiders season, is that even in a moment or even in a game where you have some splashes, I actually think the offense kind of looks like how I wanted the offense to look heading into the season. Like some of the moments we got from the offense in this game, I was like, that's kind of just what I thought they'd look like this year.

And so the fact that you had that on one side, but still weren't doing enough of the little things to actually put this thing over the edge, that left me a little bit frustrated. It was frustrating. Like, I think with a lot of these teams who are clearly cruising for a top five pick, like, I don't know how much a win at the end of the season really does for you, but if you think this coaching staff might be back. Like a couple of vibes wins at the end of the year are pretty nice to have. And I think if you had beaten what is a clear playoff team in the Houston Texans, like,

especially too, like if Pete's whole thing is like compete and like, you know, all that jazz, like going for a couple of funny fourth downs with a quarterback you know is willing to go and throw it. Like maybe you probably should do that, especially with the way that like Bowers was playing, the way that Ashton Genti was playing. Like just give those guys a chance. Maybe it's just a part of the elegant tank. Maybe that's why they weren't going for it, is that this really was all about cosmetics. And honestly, like, I'm open to that.

And they've got the take game next week. They play the Giants. They do. And so maybe this is all part of, like, the grand plan. But I still think in those moments, I'd be curious to see what it would look like you've actually tried to win the game. And they almost did. And the fact that ultimately, this comes down to a third and 20 pass interference call that allows the Texans to maintain possession and kind of bleed out the clock.

That's just one more element of this game. If you're a Raiders fan, it's just like, Jesus Christ. That play, that third down, and then the other third down from the second half that's worth mentioning, the back shoulder ball in the fourth quarter that C.J. Stroud throws to Nico Collins down the left sideline is just such an absurd, ridiculous catch by Nico Collins. If you watch that play in slow motion and you kind of slow it down, he's levitating while moving back toward that ball. incredible player, incredible athlete.

Like I probably still don't give Nico Collins enough appreciation for what he actually is. He is so awesome to watch, man. Like when he's really rolling, it just, I don't know, the connection that he and C.J. Stroud have when C.J. Stroud is not missing him on these 10-yard out routes early in the game. It's one of my favorite duos to watch. Like some of what he did, this was also just a cool,

this was just like a very cool individual offensive player game. Like Nico Collins obviously had a couple of those moments. moments. And then on the other side, I know we've talked about some of the gentie plays here, like the big run and all that stuff. But like, I just, we don't have to relitigate. Like, do you take running backs top 10, all that stuff? I just thought it was so cool to finally get a full game where it was like, that's why we all thought what we thought about that guy, where it was so obvious when he gets two feet to work with out past the line of scrimmage that he can just make plays and like kind of generate touchdowns out of thin air. I also thought that,

again, like this is, I don't think the offensive line would be good. I didn't think it would be catastrophic in the way that it has been for a huge chunk of the year. And in this game, it wasn't catastrophic against a really good Texans defense. I actually thought there was some flashes, especially from the interior in this game. I thought that Dylan Parham. Both big runs were behind Parham. I thought Parham had some nice moments. And like, so Caleb Rogers has come in.

They're the rookie they drafted in the third round who they refused to play for a huge chunk of the season. He's been playing right guard for them. I think he has looked decent. in those stretches. And so again, I just didn't, the Raiders have been a mess, right? The Raiders have been just like an absolute mess. There's no way around that.

I just didn't think they'd be this much of a mess. And so to see them have like this level of competency on Sunday against the Texans just kind of like, why didn't it look like this all year? Maybe this is all Chip Kelly's fault. I don't know. Maybe. That's the thing.

Like, where was this for three months? This is also, again, a reminder of how long this season is. It's so funny that for the first week of the season, it looked like we would get this too, because they beat the Patriots. And then for the next three months after that, they just kind of fumbled around. All right,

we're going to take one more quick break here and then come back and take a couple of your guys's calls for another edition of Monday morning. All right, Bellard didn't tell me or tell us what the calls were going to be. And so these are going to be surprising in terms of which fan bases we're digging into here. Bellar, hit us with the first one.

I watched my bucks lose in person to the Dave Canalis flood Carolina Panthers continuing one of the more epic collapses in recent NFL history. Dave Connell is one of our previous office of coordinators recently. Another recent office of coordinator, Liam Cohen, is currently leading the Jacksonville Jaguars to a 12-plus win season, making people like Derek believe they're right about Trevor Lawrence all along. Meanwhile, we are employing a head coach who is now 35 and 35 with the bucks and somehow managed to have a losing record with Tom Brady. A coach who this week openly stated his goal was to run the ball 30 times to limit possessions, a coach win at halftime asked why we'd only thrown the ball eight times with all four of our receivers back,

said he was happy with it because we had won the time of possession battle, and if we continue to do that, we would be fine. Well, congrats to Todd. We ran the ball 30 plus times, had only eight possessions in the game, won the time of possession battle by nine minutes and lost. I just want to know, how am I supposed to cope with the fact that we had one of the difference-making play calling offensive coaches that everybody dreams about, McBae, Shanahan, Reed, Leflour, Bay, C, O, C, Ben Johnson, in the building,

but we were too worried about bad PR to make the move that was necessary. This is a tough one, man. I think when you frame it through like the PR thing, yeah. This is a tough one. Because that is like a who does that type of situation, which is not to say they should or shouldn't have done it, but it's like who does that? I mean, the bucks did it once.

Yeah, I mean, I guess, but. The bucks did it once with dirt cutter. There's really no way. Yeah, exactly. How did that go? Not that dirt cutter had like the, you know, the cachet that it. it seemed like a Liam Cohen or even a Dave Canales did, but still. Again, we talked about this last week on the preview show, and I wish I had a more comforting

response to this. I don't. This is like the worst case scenario. When you have a defensive-minded head coach and you've created multiple years in a row, and 2024, be very clear about this, the buck's offense in 2023 was better than we thought it was going to be with Baker Mayfield. But it was still not like. an objectively good unit. I want to say they finished like 19th an offensive DVOA with Dave Canales.

That was enough for Dave Canales to get a head coaching job. And I think rightfully so, garner interest for that, considering what our expectations were for that unit. But the bucks with Liam Cohen were one of the best like three or four offenses in the league. And so when you are cycling between those guys over and over again, you're potentially going to land in this place where the next guy isn't as good as the other guys. And you have a defensive head coach who isn't quite difference maker on as many levels as you want him to be. This is always the potential downside. And the bucks are realizing every single ounce of that downside right now.

I wish I had something more comforting to say than that, but I really don't. I don't either. And like part of it is like, I think when you are also an offensive guy, like you also run the risk of like having to potentially cycle through defensive coordinators. And that can turn out bad for you. But that probably hurts you a little bit less than it does if you're offensive. It hurts you way, way, way, way less on multiple different levels. One, the pool of defensive coaches is much deeper than the pool of offensive coaches.

And it gets because it gets churned through less. Exactly. It's like a, it's like kind of both things at the same time. It just gets churned through less. There are just more guys available. Like just there are so many defensive coordinators available in any given cycle just because we have not dipped into that nearly as much as we have with the offensive coaches. and I've said this over and over and over again for the last like 10 years in terms of hiring practices and who we're seeking out for these jobs.

Even if you are a defensive-minded head coach, quote unquote, you need to get the offensive play caller right to have any sort of sustained success. A combination of the offensive play caller or you have one of the alien quarterbacks, right? So those are your two things. Mike Vrable is going to be held up as this champion of what we should be looking for as a head coach. That's great. Mike Vrable has done a great job. Mike Vrable is rightfully going to be in the conversation for Coach of the Year. Josh McDaniels has been incredible this year.

Josh McDaniels has been so, so good. And with the Patriots, I honestly think it's a little bit of both. I think we have the right offensive play caller who is an established track record as an offensive coordinator, no matter what you think of him as a head coach, getting your quarterback to a place where he might be one of the alien quarterbacks. So it's like 60-40 in terms of like why the Patriots version of this is working. and then the other guy who I think is going to be held up as, okay, you can bring in like culture guys, whatever,

and have them be like, have them hit for you as head coaches, is going to be Jim Harbaugh. Jim Harbaugh has one of the alien quarterbacks. He already has one of those guys. And then the last one, Mike McDonald is going to be mentioned with all this all the time. Mike McDonald had to hire a new offensive coordinator because the first one didn't work out. And we'll see how long this lasts with Clint Kubiak

and whether he'll get those jobs. I think he might be there for a while. I think that might be a hit, but you still needed to get the offensive play call right in order for the Seahawks to be the team they wanted to be, which they were not last year, despite having a really fucking good defense. And like the other part of this is like,

you can be the defensive minded head coach and like maybe they're going to be ruts where you can't figure out the offense the way that we've seen with stretches for the Texans or last year with the Seattle Seahawks. The defenses were elite. Like the head coach was making good on what his side of the ball is supposed to be. And I think with the bucks, that just hasn't been true in a few years.

And I don't think that's all on Todd Bowles. I do think, again, we've talked about some of the personnel issues that they have. But like at a certain point, if you're a defensive head coach, the defense sucks. And then on the other side of the ball, you're obviously running the risk of like it being churned out constantly. That's how you end up in a spot where you are like barely clinging on to the worst division in football. You're leaving yourself with it anymore, technically. You're leaving yourself with zero margin for error. Zero.

That's the problem is that if you're not going to be able to be a true difference maker on the defensive side of the ball, no matter who the players are, and your offense is going to slip from being a top five-ish sort of offense to way worse than that, then you're leaving yourself with no answers. And that's kind of what the Bucks feel like right now. And we hinted about this a little bit yesterday. And depending on how the rest of the Bucks season goes, we'll have plenty of opportunities to talk about this more. what Baker Mayfield actually is right now and why he actually is that and what that means for the buck's future, that's a conversation that is going to be worth having because he just has not played very well after like the first five or six weeks of the season. And I think it was easy to explain some of that away because of injury.

They were so banged up for a huge chunk of the year. But now they're a lot healthier. And he's just not playing at the level he was a year ago when Liam Cohen was the offensive coordinator. And maybe that's the answer. Maybe he's just so situation dependent that if you're going to have, if you're going to go from one of those true difference making guys to not having one, maybe that's all that needs to change for us to get a much different version of Baker Mayfield. But that's a tough place to be. Like that that's a tough place to be for any franchise and especially a team that has committed to him as their starter for at least this year and next year. Yeah, I think the thing with Baker Mayfield is like he is like quarterback like hovering around whatever the middle of the league is.

and those guys can give you top five offenses. Again, when the offensive line is kicking ass, you have one of those play callers. And like Mike Evans is healthy and all this stuff. Like you can get those guys to produce top five offense for you. Otherwise, they look like the 20th best quarterback in the league or whatever it is. And like that that range of like. So you're saying that Baker Mayfield and Trevor Lawrence are the same.

Uh, no, because to answer the caller, I was always right about Trevor Lawrence, by the way. I don't know, man. Trevor Lawrence needed Liam Cohen to look like a top five quarterback. I'm not sure. It based on your rationale here, I'm not sure that Trevor Lawrence and Baker Mayfield are any different. Trevor,

here's my argument. If Trevor had some of those Stefansky offenses in Cleveland that Baker had, they would have been absolutely rolling. Anyway. I bow. We got one or two more here. Hey, guys. I'm a Lions fan.

First all, congrats to Mays and Beller. I'm just so happy for both of you for all of the, success and joy you've had with Ben Johnson seems like a lot of fun. As I spent today watching another Lions game waiting in vain for them to put it together in a season of waiting in vain for them to put it together again. I couldn't help but think at the end of 2023 and Dan Campbell's words after the NFC championship, which is maybe that was their shot.

I spent money to go to that game with my friend, because we always said after a lifetime of pain, if the Lions made it that far, we would go there. So I was on hand for that, but I left it inspired, even amidst Campbell's words. And now we go into a season where I don't think, they have to tear anything apart. I would die for Dan Campbell.

I love Brad Holmes, but the brilliant core they've established now has Sam Lipporte with back surgery, Brian Branch with the torn Achilles. I don't know what Kirby Joseph's knee will look like ever again. And I find myself staring down the possibility that just

maybe that was their shot. and they will be good, but just never good enough. That's a deep sigh from you. Yeah, this, I totally understand this, by the way. This, we've talked about, I think we said this coming into the season. With the Lions, they had the very rare development case of the line was literally always going up, which like, that never happens. That doesn't happen.

Either these teams find this new head coach and it instantly pops kind of the way that, like, the Jaguars had this year with Liam Cohen, or it's like, you have a couple of of vacillation, some good years, some bad years, whatever it is. With the Lions, it was you literally won more games every year for like four years. And that just doesn't really happen. Eventually, it had to come crashing down. This being the crash down where, according to Aaron Schatz's numbers, who works for FTN and does DVOA, this is the third best team that has ever missed the playoffs. I think they're still pretty damn good. Like, I think this was just a year where I think we knew they had to retool the offensive line specifically and,

maybe it ended up being a little bit worse than we thought it was going to be for them. And so they'll get another chance to retool it this coming off season. And then I think obviously them having to shuffle through the offensive coordinator losing Ben Johnson. We knew that there was going to be some sort of dropback. But again, it was probably more than they wanted. I think it is more likely, again, we'll see what the off season looks like, all that stuff. I know they've got a lot of these long-term potential injuries on defense and maybe Osam Laporta. This still, to me, to me, feels like the bones of a team that consistently wins 11 games.

and they just, a couple of things didn't go their way this year. I don't disagree with that. And I actually think that if the injuries hadn't piled up and the potential long-term injuries hadn't piled up, I wouldn't be that worried. I think it would more be about this team being a study and how fragile it is when you have a CEO type head coach and a non-NVP-level quarterback, right?

It's the same conversation we're having about the bucks. It's no different is that these scenarios, they are volatile from season to season. The comparison that I made coming into the year that a lot of Lions fans didn't want to hear was to the Eagles in 2024 or in 2023. It's like you can be super, super talented. But if you don't have one of the best four or five quarterbacks in the world and you swap out a lot of the component parts when it comes to the ecosystem on offense and defense with your team, it just becomes a lot more fragile. And that's exactly what it felt like this year. If you look at the aggregate numbers for the Lions over the course of the year,

they still scored a lot of points. They were still a very good offense. It was just much more inconsistent. So last year, the Lions had one game where the opponent had a defensive success rate of more than 57%. One game. This year they have eight of those games. Wow. Eight.

Wow. And it just... When you were built on being able to control the game and hit your explosives around your quarterback, who is good, but not one of those aliens. And then you can't control the game as well. Like, again, you mentioned they still got their explosives. Like, Jemir Gibbs had an unbelievable season. Jameson Williams was great.

Amon Rossi Brown still got a lot of his moments. But if you can't control the ball the way that you want, it's a little bit of a different calculation. Especially with the defensive injuries piling up for like what feels like the 800th year in a row. The 2023 lion or Eagles were a disaster show. Like a disaster show. They won the Super Bowl last year. right this like one year after losing your coordinator's thing it can come with some dips it's going to be a

process that you have to work through and the lions are going to be in that place this offseason where it's like okay what do we have to do to get ourselves structurally back to a place that we feel really good about and if you think that you can tinker enough to get back to a spot where it's like okay this is the right plan moving forward maybe we didn't have it correct last year this is what we have to do and the roster talent can still be overwhelming in all the ways you needed to be, this thing can turn around pretty quickly. We have evidence of that. The question becomes, with some of the injury concerns,

does the second component of that fall into place in the way that the Lions needed? That, to me, if I were a fan of this team, that would be my biggest worry, is that the injuries plus the fact that you traded away some picks this year, you have two third round picks, you sent out for Tesla. He's been nice, but would it be nice if one of those

was some interior offensive line depth. Like it just feels like some of the roster elements of this may be a little bit more worrying than we thought they might be for the Lions heading into this. And injuries are a big reason why. It is just the injuries. Like the wins and losses doesn't really bother me that much and not getting to the playoffs, all that stuff.

But the injuries, I will say, I think in my mind, if I'm trying to imagine, like, teams who built great rosters and had stability and had some of these runs with imperfect quarterback play, to me it's like the best version of that is obviously the Eagles right bouncing back. I think the other version of that is like kind of like the Titans having their run. I think like I think that Titans run feels very similar to the way that the Lions built this. The difference is there was so much instability between like Vrable fighting with the

front off is that yes. That just doesn't exist in Detroit. Like it's the complete opposite. If anything, they're in such lockstep that I have pretty good faith that they'll find their footing one way or another. I also think overall, I think this Lions team is more talented than those Titans teams were. I think that the Titans had a couple like really dynamic pieces. Like the offensive line was solid and then Derek Henry was obviously a star. A.J. Brown was a star. I think the Lions have more defensive talent than those teams did. To me, this is mostly going to be a question of health.

But I think that's another really good comparison. And I've made this joke a bunch of different times. Winning in the NFL is if you're a GM, if you're an organization, is trying to win with Ryan Tannehill. That's what it is. And the Lions are in that place. Jared Goff is a very good quarter. he is not one of those guys who erases all of the potential missteps that you have.

When you are in this situation, you just have less wiggle room and less margin for error than other teams who have the guys that make you right no matter what sort of issues you can have. I mean, just think about how many team building moves, how many small things that Brett Veach didn't necessarily get right in Kansas City that ended up not mattering because of what Patrick Mahomes is. Jared Goff is not that and the lion's offense is not that and this is the life you have to live when you're in that situation. All right. That's all we've got for today. Just a quick heads up.

We're going to have one more midweek show this week. We're going to record that tomorrow. It's going to be coming your guys way on Wednesday. Me and Derek are going to talk about the silver linings for some of the bad teams around the NFL, the teams that are currently slated to pick in the top eight. what do fans of those teams have, you know, to look forward to next year? What can you hang your hat on in what has been a down season for most of those squads? So we will dig in that tomorrow.

There will be no building the beast this week, given those guys the week off because of the holiday. And then we will be releasing our week 17 preview. That will come out on Friday, but it'll come out a little bit later on Friday than the preview show typically would. It's not going to be out overnight, obviously, because we're not going to record it on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. We're going to record it early on the 26th. It is going to be available for you guys on the 26th. Similar to Thanksgiving, it's going to be kind of like a truncated version of the preview. We'll probably hit one thing from five or six games while touching on what has become a truly gross slate of Christmas games. We'll hit on those in some way, but I'm not sure how much we'll sit with

all of the third string quarterbacks are going to be playing on Christmas Day. There's been a lot maybe this is just one of those things that I don't remember it every year, but there's been so many games where you look at the schedule this year. And it's like, I understand what the schedule makers thought in July. It is not what they thought it was going to be now. Yeah. I mean, it's been that kind of season. Like, it really just has been that kind of season.

All right. That's all we got for today. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon.