The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 16 recap, part two — Russell Wilson drama, Packers still in it, Tua problems & Buccaneers slip by Cardinals

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Time for part two as we recap a busy NFL Christmas weekend. So busy, in fact, that we had to split the Week 16 recap on The Athletic Football Show into two parts. In part two, Robert Mays and Nate Tice focus on Sunday's games. First up, it's the Packers staying alive with a huge win over the Miami Dolphins, Russell Wilson drama hits an all time high in Denver after their blowout loss to the Rams, the Buccaneers slipping past the Arizona Cardinals and more.Subscribe to the TAFS YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6gWjMSDj7-8j3iCc2ZGo3g1:00 Packers top Dolphins7:00 Why is Tua Tagovailoa struggling?13:00 Can the Packers make noise in the playoffs?17:00 Denver Broncos fall to Rams / Russell Wilson situation33:00 - Bucs barely beat Cardinals45:00 - BREAKING: Broncos fire Nathaniel Hackett Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays, joining me today. It's my good friend Nate Tyson. How you doing, buddy? I'm having a feeling of deja vu. That's how I'm feeling right at this moment. But no, feeling great.

Feeling great after my quick little water break and hopping right back in here and do Sunday's games. Yeah, just a little break, just a little, like, two-minute break here. If you guys have not listened to part one of our Christmas weekend recap, We talked about the Saturday games. That one pretty much like one of our normal Sunday recap shows. Got to do a bunch of different stuff. Talked about a bunch of games.

So if you have not listened to that, you can wait until after you listen to this one. But please go check it out. Really good conversations about the Eagles and the Cowboys. Talked a lot about Justin Jefferson and the Vikings win. The lions getting just their asses kicked by the Carolina Panthers who showed up in a big way on Sunday. So please go listen to that one if you have not. But let's do this.

Let's dig into the Christmas Day game. which started off with a doozy in Miami where it was very cold for Miami standards, by the way. It was like 42 degrees. My fiance is from Miami. Yeah. So she was like, that'd be the, that's the coldest that would have ever been. It was like 40 degrees. Meanwhile, my pipes froze here because it was negative 25 with the wind chills.

So I'm feeling really bad about those Miami folks with their 40 degree weather. Whenever I think Miami Christmas, I think of home alone too. And because aren't they down there and it's like pouring rain or something? something like that. That's right. That's right. We go for Thanksgiving every year. So that's always strange. I always try to force the sweater because it's Thanksgiving. Like I have, what do you? I have to. 60s. Oh, it was 85 this year on Thanksgiving in Miami this year. It's 85 degrees. Oh, God. I'm not built for it, man. I'm just not built for it. This I obviously negative 25 is in a different conversation. But this place where I live, this is my, my natural state is in a sweater all.

the time. And Miami just does not align with that. I'm permanently shorts and sweatshirt weather, which is, which is Pacific Northwest, but I live here in Vegas where I get about, I get eight months here. It's great weather. And then you get like two months of hell heat and then a month on the kind of bookends of that. After like 9 p.m. though, you can do shorts and sweatshirt pretty much all year. Because it does get cold in the winter. During it night, it gets cold. It's chilly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We get down to the high 20s here at night. No, it's a desert, you know, which I love. I get my four seasons, even if fall and spring are about two weeks each. But I do get all four seasons here at least.

All right. Let's talk about this. A huge win for Green Bay, obviously. I mean, they're very much alive in the NFC playoff picture now. They still need some breaks in order to do it. But, I mean, depending on where you're looking, they now have like a 25% chance to get into the playoffs. And that is comparable to what the Lions have. It's comparable to what Washington.

has, if the Packers win out, they're pretty much in. You know, they likely need a little bit of help. You know, if the Giants win, beat the Colts, they're in, no matter what happens against Philadelphia in Week 17. But if the Packers win, and that includes a loss for the Lions, so I think that's why that's important to take into account. And then if Washington wins out, they would be in, even if the Packers went out. Okay.

The thing to watch there is that Washington is playing Dallas in week 18. Dallas might have nothing to play for. Right. Because they might be locked into the five seat. So those are just kind of all the moving parts. But the Packers have put themselves a very real position to make the playoffs. If the Packers go on a playoff run in this year where it was all fallen apart and it seemed like the wheels were coming off and I don't know what I'm going to do.

It's, I think it could, I think it could break me. I'm sure it would. We did a loser leaves contender town segment, Packers of Box a few weeks ago. I think, I think it would break me.

I don't know if they're necessarily ready to do that, even if they get in, but if it were to happen, I just don't know if I could handle it. After the first couple drives, I was like, don't worry about it, bud. The season defense isn't stopping anybody.

But they all did. But no, if they rally for the playoffs after what this season has been, it's like, God, dang it. Like, they just, that's what happens. You just, they got enough talent. They got Aaron Rogers being Aaron Rogers. And they got enough coaching to, like, put them in good spots. It's just, I don't.

I don't know how you can handle it. At least I'm a neutral. Early in the game, obviously, Miami just explosive play after explosive play. And it was kind of frustrating to watch. I mean, they're trying to pass stuff off and just guys not picking up people in zone coverage. I mean, Jair, Alexander, pointing and pointing on that J-Wan Waddle touchdown. And they were struggling consistently. Did you see any noticeable tweaks from what the Packers were doing down the stretch that you think allowed them to really give Miami problems in the second half?

They barely blitzed. I noticed that. And they just generally just mixed up the coverages. That's what I noticed more than anything. There's some two man, like one or two snaps of that. quarters, cover six, which they usually do, some man thrown in there with some pressing. I think that's what they did the most, was just without blitzing, they change up the post snap picture.

And really, it wasn't like true disguise, I would say. It's just that they made it a guessing game in the sense that it's like, okay, is this two, is this four, is this six, is this man, is this, you know, running the smorgasbord, the spectrum of coverage is. And I think that's really what helped or what hindered to a. and maybe just this passing offense, really just this dolphin's offense, especially over the last four weeks, their last four losses, they just don't run a lot of ball plays. They average 49 plays over the last four weeks, which is just, which is super low. They ran 45 plays against the Packers, and 10 of those were explosive, by the way.

45 plays, and 10 of them were explosive. But the thing is, their success rate was under 40% for the third time in the past four weeks. They have over the last four weeks, the dolphin's success. rate, just being efficient, play in play out. They're 25th in the NFL, which is about what the Titans are. It's not, that's what this offense is built. It's built off those big plays. I think that's what the Packers were getting into.

They were like, okay, what's limit some of these big plays, the offense is getting. This is what everyone wants to do against the dolphins and make them work for it. And really, they held up. A couple big runs, but really held up in the run game. You know, the interceptions like this, the big play, the Waddle touched out at the beginning, and also the interceptions to the Jire Alexander. where he, where Tua sells it. Yep.

That is just, it's the, I've said this before is that that's Tua trusting and not anticipating or not progressing or reading. There was a lot of that in this game. Oh my, over and over. And this was the good and the bad of it. That's what Tua is like when he, he knows what his one is, he's going to get, hit the back of his drop and let it loose. And this, but this is what happens when your offense is built off that and off of alerts.

What if bodies get in the way? What if they make it hard for you? What if, you know, the second interception to Mozart, Mozart, Mozart, Moserr, Mosert, Moserr, sorry, Bach. Bates Oven. But anyways, he was in the slot on the secondary reception. Tua, you know, he reads everything like an X's nose. I think that's how the best way I can paint how Tua reads the game.

He paints it how you install the plays and how he sees it on the drawings and how he's seen it on the cutups. I'm throwing it's single high. It's cover three. I'm going to throw the seam because that is the read on that play. But my running back is in the slot and my running back's not looking for the ball until 12 yards. And he misses the throw anyways. But I think that's a lot of him going like, oh, shoot, he's not looking and he misses the throw.

But again, he's day one read. He's not even paying attention to Devadre Campbell in that play. No. It doesn't even start to account for him. No. And I don't want to talk about both sides of my mouth and compliment like Kirk Cousins or Burrow and saying like, man, they really just throw that anticipation. There's a difference with that because they're confirming a read post snap and then throwing it.

Tua is determining it at pre-snap and then go, boom, that ball is coming out. And so that's just that difference between trust and the anticipation. And you could just see it happening. And even the third interception. I could just paint this picture by the three interceptions. The third one, the Rousseau Douglas. It's three cloud, which is, you know, so it's cover two basically to that boundary side. He's not reading it like that.

They're running a high, low. he just assumes I can throw the corner against that cloud corner. And Douglas just sinks underneath. I was like, okay, thank you. They hit him on a very similar design early in the game where Douglas bites on the underneath and he hits the whole shot to Gisicki. So that's in his mind. Based on the design of the play, I've already done this today.

Yeah. Like I know that whole shot's going to be there based on how the play is designed. It throws it right to him. Yeah. And that's the problem. And I think that you and I both early in the season. I the Detroit game sticks out to me. Yes.

Is where he's reading one guy. It's barely reading it. It's like I'm putting one defender in conflict. If he does this, I do that. That is how their passing game. If this, then that. Yes. If this,

then that consistently. And it was one guy. So on that last one to Douglas in his mind, well, if the, if the corner goes inside with Tyreek running that, just like a little crosser, it was just like immediately.

The corner goes inside. Yep. A little under route. I have the guy in the hole. I have. If this than that. But if the first part of that logic puzzle doesn't play out, that's where they run into problems. And I think that is what has consistently happened over the last few weeks.

Yes. Oh, no, I totally agree. There's a reason why you see all those bombs. Those are the alerts. And that's Tua going, well, go balls and posts over and over because that's the alert. That's the one. I'm taking it over and over. And again, those are explosive plays.

I'm never going to dog an offense. I guess they're explosive plays. But then there's no that sustainability. Okay, they take away the post. What now? If this, then that. If this, they take away the post, then what? What do you have to?

And that's where you can see these plays come unraveled. I keep coming back to this graph that Austin Gale posted, now with the ringer. And he posted where it was the EPA by dropback for all these quarterbacks by time to three. row. And I thought that was so interesting. You know, everybody peaks at about two seconds and then it slopes back down. Mahomes just stays high and peaks usually again after like three, three and a half seconds. And then you watch Tua's number.

His inside two seconds is almost near Mahomes level. Yeah. But then it drops off a freaking cliff after that and then just barely dips back up like at the end after three, three and a half seconds. And that I love when you can see a number and a graph illustrated that shows how a guy plays because that's exactly it. As soon as that first read is not open or that predetermination, that pre-snap read does not paint out how he expects it to.

It's just like, hold on your hat. And it's just, it's chaos not in the great way because he's not a great scrambler. He's just an okay athlete. He's not an ad libber all the way. That's where his arm's straight comes into effect too because those holes get really tight when you're ad-libbing. So that's where it just kind of comes unravel.

That offense is not getting those plays open, getting those players open and defenses have been adjusting. And they have been. I think that Packers losing Christian Watson at some point in this game. You feel the lack of juice when he's not in the game. Even though I do think that Dobbs had some nice moments. Against Man coverage, a couple of return routes where they were really trying to put Zamin Howard in tough spots

that end up becoming huge. They're really trying to force him. Not just Watson, but Dobbs. They're trying to make him do hard stuff. I think in the long run it's going to work out for him. Those return routes against man coverage, like that's a you got a win on this. Yep. And they asked him to do it multiple.

times in this game. We got a couple completions, a penalty. You know, Packers, this is one of those games where you get some breaks. If that fumble doesn't happen, if that, if the roughing the passer doesn't get called on that third down. After the roughing the passer, Dylan puts the ball on the ground inside the five and they jump on it. But you make some plays on defense, come up with enough turnovers, and, you know, Rogers makes a couple ridiculous plays that throwed to Mercedes-Lewis on that third down where he's getting outside the pocket. Even if you didn't catch it, I don't even give a shit. That's a rule, cool thing. Like, that one counts. Ball, don't lie.

That one stays on the board, even if it did come loose late. So if Green Bay does make the postseason, do you think as currently constructed, like, they would be enough to threaten some of the teams at the top of the NFC? Oh, yeah. I mean, I think so. I kind of think so, too. I mean, say there's a seventh seat, I'm just making it up, and they play the Vikings. I mean, like that's, I think that's a pretty evenly matched game. No, I think they could, I could easily hang with teams. No, that's how it is with this NFC, especially is that there's a lot in the middle.

And I think they're one of the, I wouldn't say best of a bad bunch, but best of a mediocre bunch. And I think, of course, and they got Aaron Rogers. And of course, the receiving talent is still up and down. It's young and all that. But they have answers. I mean, they run the ball as best with any of them, maybe not this past weekend, but they can run the ball. The defense is up and down,

but they can hang with anybody because they have enough talent and they have Aaron Rogers. Hope the offensive line gets back healthy. Obviously, Bakhtiari is still not playing in this game because the appendectomy.

And then Yashina got hurt pretty early. So now you're just starting to move around tons of different pieces. And they, Miami's front had some nice moments in this game, I think as a result of that. Christian Wilkins, we mentioned him on the show we did earlier.

Just an unbelievably good player and has had a really, really nice season. Came up big, bunch of different times in this game. So Miami still seems like they're in a really good spot to make the playoffs. I think that even after losing that game, they still have like 66%, 70% chance. If they beat the Jets even in week 18, then they're probably going to get in.

Right now they have like a 90% chance if they win one of their next two games. But now, you know, they're just. The Jets are potentially, you know, back in a position to do something here. You know, they, it's not, it's not over yet, even if the dolphins are still in a, in a much better spot being one game up on that. Mike White's checking out his next 10 doctors to make sure he can get cleared and all that. Also, I want to say, too, is I think why you saw Rogers kind of have some FU throws in this game, at least. And he had to go ball to Lazard. Yeah, it was beautiful throw.

Yep. So, so. Oh, he, he felt that one too. He put a, put a little stank on that one. He let it go and held it up. But it's because the dolphins kept playing man and they kept bringing pressures over 20 blitzes in this game. So that's why he saw Rogers scrambling a few times. But also he was pushing a ball deep.

His air yards against the blitz was over nine yards per attempt. And I think that's what exactly what it was was that he, Rogers, that's how they're getting their explosive plays in the past game is if you play man or blitz against them, he's going to throw slot fades and goes. That's what that we, this offense has been built off layups. And we've talked about this year, they haven't hit these threes. And that's what this offense needs. They need threes to just give everything else breathing space.

And it's like, well, if you're going to be aggressive against somebody, it was good to see that they actually can punish that, even if they're throwing wheel routes to Mercedes Lewis. But they did it. It still worked. The one other thing I think this offense absolutely needs down the stretch is Aaron Jones getting back right so they can start using him again. I mean, obviously, he's getting worked on the sideline. He's not getting a ton of work. That ankle injuries is limiting him, and it's definitely slowed him down. So if they can get back to full strength offensively with the line and then hopefully him being healthy and we'll see what happens with Watson, I think they do have enough to be a problem.

Like a potential problem and an annoyance in the NFL playoff picture. Yes. Not an easy out. Are you worried about the dolphins at this point? Like genuinely concerned, like this is going to prevent them from being a threat in the post-season? season based on what we've seen from their offense over the last three weeks? No, I think because they're just so explosive that they're going to, they can hang, you make a bunch of mistakes and they find it like they can hang points on anybody.

And I think that's right. I think their defense is fine enough and their defense is going to punish you if you don't play sound because they're so aggressive. So that's what this, that's what this team is. If you're not sound, they're going to, they're going to get you. They're going to pop you on offense and defense. But if you are sound, you can get after them. But I think the explosives that it is a, it keeps them in every game.

It cures a lot of ills when you, when you can make those plays happen. And they still can't do that. It's really nice to play offense like that. All right. We're going to take one quick break and then get back and talk about the Rams and Broncos here in a moment. All right. Next game here.

There's not a ton to talk about from an on-field perspective, in my opinion, in this game. We've reached the Nadeer with this Broncos situation on multiple different levels. the on-field performance aspect of what the quarterback is doing is truly troubling, but we've known that for a little while. The body language from the rest of the offensive players in this game, a couple different examples of it. On the pick in the end zone, Corwin Sutton is stomping his feet like a toddler

because he's open and Russ refuses to throw him the ball. there was a sack at one point where Russ bails out of the pocket and Dalton Reisner is just fuming. It's just, I haven't, you very, very, very rarely see an offensive lineman react like that. When a quarterback bails out of the pocket in those moments even when he shouldn't. And then apparently, Reisner and Brett Rippin are getting in like a shoving match on the sideline. Right. Because Rippin tried to come over and say something to him. This has gotten to a point where I truly wonder where this goes from here and what they have to do.

Because we could be looking at some unprecedented potential solutions in terms of the dead money they're willing to eat, how they're willing to get out of this or how they need to get out of this because of how unprecedentedly bad this situation has gotten. It's just it keeps hitting a new low. And it's shocking. It actually is shocking because, man, just the difference between what you're experiencing. expecting the season. But it's, like you're saying, like the offensive lineman going palms up, palms up going, what the hell are you doing? I mean, the only other time I've seen that this season or the lineman truly doing that

was I think George Fant with Zach Wilson. Yes, it is. Yes. So, okay. So Zach Wilson and Russell Wilson are now in the same bucket as far as just how that's going along. We've had fights on the sideline, teammates yelling at Russell Wilson. Wilson actually, I just realized that.

But yelling at Russell Wilson on the sideline, you got Hackett trying to clear things up. But just like... Listen, put in the ball in front of his face while he was talking to the offensive line. Did you see that? I didn't see that one. He put a football in front of his face while he was talking to the offensive

linemen because he was trying to hide what he was saying to the line. Oh my God. Like he's a baseball. Like he's holding the front. Oh my God. No. So like he's broken right now. I mean, the interception that he threw to Bobby Wagner is like day one install

Hank. Hank is curls and flats. You see every team from high. school on upwards run this play. It's a great play. It's Hank. It's got a name. It's universal name. It's Hank. But what Hank is, is there's a ball, a player that sits over the ball, about five, four to six yards. You got curls on one side, flats on other side. You can dress it up in a bunch of different ways. That's why it's great. You're an empty, two by two, three by one, whatever you want to run out of. So they run Hank, just to get the drive going. You know,

that's what you use Hank on. Hey, let's get a little bucket. Let's just get a lamp. That's right. That's what it is. It's just get a lay up. It's got answers to every coverage, more or less. Okay, so I'm going to teach everyone how to read Hank because this is how simple it is. You read the guy over the ball five to six yards. You look at him. If there's a squeeze on him from any defender, you go to that side. So say if you have number 45 for the Rams, Bobby Wagner, on top of the over the ball route, you look to that side to the curl route.

And you read the high low of the curl in the flat. Russ throws, though, over the ball route with Bobby Wagner draped over. I want to say it was a dula, I don't know who it was, but over the middle, just right at him. Day one install play, I mean, hits the back of his drop and just throws it

right at him. And that's what just, he's not reading the game out. He's just, uh, this. I gotta do this. But then on top of it,

then he has the next interception. They come back from it, like this offense is devastatingly bad. They come back from it. You know what concept they run after the second interception? And this is why I'm going to lose my mind. They run three step,

quick game, under center stick with Russell. What are you doing? Like that, what are you doing? doing like that he's not good at that stuff he's not good at quick game he's not good to under center quick game on top of it the only other team that does that is like kirk cousins uh with the vikings and that can go haywire sometimes and they're doing with russ it's like what are you guys doing

like you're just calling these plays and just to call them there's no just rhyme or reason for anything they're doing it i sense the frustration we're talking about the offense jerry judy since like week two has been like really like slit everybody's throats but then you look at the defense defense which has been their calling card this entire season been loving what they do on this defense side of ball. You see Pat Sertan, all pro Pat Sertan, like going palms up after the first touchdown, first or second touchdown. They ran like a little pick thing on him or like just in and out. I might even just with stick. I think they're fucking over it, man. That's what it is. When Patrick Jeter, who's a pro, I can tell he's a pro's. His dad was a pro. This guy knows what

the NFL is about. He's like, screw this. And like he didn't even care. Like it was just, and I'm not dogging him. I'm dogging the situation because it's just, it's bad. I mean, this is like, Like you say, there's going to be maybe some unprecedented moves. And I think there's already whispers of it because there has to be. I mean, more than whispers, I should say. So you're looking at it right now. Obviously, the dead money has been a consistent conversation. What is it?

Some of it's a little bit misleading just because there's a bonus that kicks in at some point. And I think that if they were to convert some of the bonus, they could probably get out of it after next year if they wanted to. Like that's a possibility, but it would still be an astronomical amount. his 2024 option bonus, excuse me, his 2025 salary becomes guaranteed on the fifth league day of 2024. So right now, I think the last thing that is guaranteed is his 2024 salary plus the option bonus,

which would put his cap hit that year at like $25 million. So it now becomes a question of whether or not a team would want to take on this contract without having to pay any of the signing bonus, which was $50 million. Okay. So there's still a decent amount of guaranteed money left on that deal. I'm wondering if there's a team out there that's like, let's just do the Osweiler.

Like, you give us a pick and we'll take it on. I'm just trying to find some sort of creative solution here. No, that is the great solution, though. I just don't know what, they can't cut them after the season. because he has $107 million left in the money after the deal. Yes. But I would not be surprised. Quarterback contracts.

That's what he's got going on. If they found some way to just start over. If ownership, which is in their first year of doing this, I can't even imagine what they're thinking right now and just how bad. Because they took over this team and every decision had already been made. Yes. So I just think that you have to consider every potential option.

and you have to make every single phone call because there have a new coach next year. I would guarantee it to you. But even a new staff coming in with what this looks right now, you can't feel good about even the best case scenario with how he has looked over the course of this season and what the vibes must be there right now. Oh, and it's statistically like an all-time back here. And that's what it makes even worse with how the expectations of it at all. and this is supposed to be the franchise guy and everything.

It's just too bad. They never reached that. There's so many of these franchises. I was with one, like with our tenure with the Raiders, is you hit some highs and then, you know, it comes unraveled.

They never hit any highs. They started off on the worst foot possible with that Seahawks game. So it's just they had no goodwill to build off of. There's no, you know, you talked about this is just the valleys of it all. There's no peak that they can go like, hey,

when this worked, we could do that. So that's why it's just, it's a total. Newk Fest. When you see players, like, players just like over it. Like, that's how you said it. They're just over it. That is so hard to come back from because even with a new coaching staff, man, trust you have to build up. Like, if they still have to go, well, you might have this great play design for me, but the quarterback is the same. Like, or I could still play coverage. I love the

coverage that you're calling, but are we going to score more than 10 points this game? Like, they still have them in the back of their mind. That's why it's just, this situation is just like unprecedentedly just bad, dire. I keep saying the word dire, but that's the only word I can use for it. We've had teams take on Carson Wentz. We've had teams take on quarterbacks who have had kind of a stink on them and cost a decent amount of money because quarterbacks are still a scarce resource in the NFL. Yes.

I don't know what that team would be that was willing to take a chance on him right now, just because there aren't that many teams that are deeply rebuilding. Yeah. And would maybe just, we want to take on the contract because they want the pick. Right. You know, Atlanta's down at the bottom of the standings. I don't think they would be willing to do that. The bears obviously have a quarterback.

You know, I don't. And if there's a team that even at that stage of things, we're like, yeah, it doesn't matter. We'll take the pick. We'll take it on. Well, he can be our quarterback. It doesn't. What we do in 2023 isn't that big of a deal. You still think about the cultural aspects of it and what it means for the building.

And it almost things that feels like things have devolved. much that bringing him in and having him be the quarterback of your franchise, you wouldn't want that around because of how bad things are going right now. On multiple different levels, I think that they've painted themselves into a corner that I can never really remember, but certainly in my time covering the league, but even anecdotally before that. Not in the sport. I've seen this in other sports, you know, maybe a bad NBA trade, you know, or, you know,

like a John Wall contract, you know, something of that. Sorry, that was injuries and everything like that. But not like this. No, it's, it's, it's, it's just crazy to me. But it's, that's the thing. It's not, it's just where he's like playing average and it's like, well, that's not what we paid for. At least it's average. It's just so dire and so bad that that is what creates this situation with this contract. Pulling it up, every time we talk about him, you pull up the contract and you just see that five year, 242 million and change and change. It's like, Jesus. And then, And you're like that that's how long they were committed to this. Like, can you see the potential out after, like at 2026?

Like they were committed to this. Like they're committed to this for two, three, four years. Like this was a big move for them, obviously. And that's the thing is that now it's a total nuke. It's a total nuke session. I don't know. Sorry. I know I'm rambling, kind of ranting here.

It's just kind of like just. It's, it's really hard to wrap your mind around. It is. I can't remember anything like it. I can't. And especially this quickly. That's the thing. It's like, it never got off the ground.

It happened immediately. Immediately. It happened immediately. And I guess if you're Denver, the best way to handle this is still probably going to be saying, let's bring in a new coach. Yep. Let's get somebody new in the building. Let's see if that can be the start of a solution. You see what you maybe have next year with a new coach, but I would 100% bring in another starting caliber quarterback next season.

I have to. I would go sign a Jacoby percent or somebody kind of in that realm of things that is somebody that when you, you know, you can't pay a ton of money because you don't have a ton of money. But Russ has a $22 million cap at next year. Okay. So let's say you paid Jacoby one year $8 million to come in and be your backup. You're paying $30 million to your quarterbacks against the cap in 2023. It's reasonable.

That puts you probably somewhere in like the top 12 of teams around the end. NFL. And if he's bad, you go to somebody else and you, I think that there are some levers they can pull contract-wise, where they can move on from him after 2023. If they make him like a post-June first cut and they convince him to do something with his option, Jason Fitzgerald over the cap did a great job at breaking it down where it would be like 50 million dead money next year and 50 million in dead money the year after that. And it torpedoes your team. Yeah. I mean, it's very, very, very difficult to come back on that. And, you know, teams have done it. You know, what the Rams were able to to do balancing all the dead money that they have what the eagles were able to do balancing all the

dead money they had on the wents contract you know they've they overcame that by doing things like turning a seventh round pick into a star caliber left tackle and having the best offensive line coach in the NFL like that helps a lot of things have to come into play and fall into place for and also hitting on a second round pick immediately and having that guy turn into an MVP caliber player with the coaching staff and the talent, everything else that you put around him. The little slides that you have to do to get out of this and the little sneaky ways that you have to overcome this

are very, very difficult to do. But I think that if you're the Broncos, you have to start thinking about what that life looks like because I just don't know how much longer you could do this. I agree. Can I talk about a couple of things, Rams things real quick? Yes.

Sean McVeigh, the ball coach. It's fun actually when you see some coaches in bad situations. Like even Kyle Shannon's first year at the 49ers. It's just kind of fun to see them like coach their asses off. Like the take, you know, kind of take it as a challenge. Like I'm going to make Baker Mayfield look like a stud today. But I thought it was McVeigh. They ran 12 personnel on half their snaps, which I thought was super interesting.

They had all the receiver injuries make sense. But 32 snaps of 12. Wasn't expecting that. But I just want to talk about one play. This whole thing is just to talk about one play. They ran a counterplay with Rob Havenstein. And I tweeted this and Powell the 180 pound receiver as the pullers. I thought that was awesome.

I thought it was so cool. I don't think I've ever seen that. First, I thought it was wine back, which they do all the time, which was a receiver tied in winding across. And I realized it was a tackle polling as well. Thought that was awesome.

And it's a good reminder. It's like Sean McVeigh can coach up some football because you can just even see, this is a difference. The concepts that they run, not only just a bunch of 12 personnel, which is hilarious that Baker gets into a spread out system. And then it's like, oh, no,

we're going right back to the Browns ways with all these. these tight ends on the field. I know you're comfortable with that, Baker, is that McVeigh is doing all the reads. And part of this with the offense is not a quick game, which Baker isn't great at. He's just like Russ. They're very similar players in a way, but also a lot of progression reads where it's left to right, right to left. Just pure progression. I can scan, which is like some quarterbacks are much better at that. A lot of quarterbacks, that's a nice way to lift them up. And all their concepts seem to be those types of concepts where Baker can just go left to right, right to left, and not have to

overthink anything, read coverage or anything like that. So it's just like, yeah, the Sean McVeague, I can coach his ass off sometimes, especially on offense. So it's kind of cool.

24 or 28 in this game. Yeah, dude, it was, it was, it was, it was, I know they're being up on a zombie team right now,

but I was, I like sometimes watching these good coaches when they kind of got some these doldrum teams because you can see them kind of like get creative a little bit. All right. We're going to take one more quick break and then we're going to get back to talk about Bucks Cardinals before we get out here.

all right i want to start off this by talking about a fantasy football story which no one cares about i had a buddy of mine in my league in my like home week that needed four combined points from tom brady and dandre hopkins to go to the finals okay deep into the fourth quarter of this game he had still not won and we're it just the the chat is a blaze like this should be the greatest thing that has ever happened in the history of fantasy football if he loses this game he needed four combined points from those two guys. And into the fourth quarter of this game, they'd almost hadn't happened because of the two picks that Brady threw.

Eventually, they get there. Obviously, Brady racks up a ton of yards. He almost won on that one completion to Leonard Fournette. But that speaks to how terrible that Bucks team looked for the first three and a half quarters of this game. And I understand you're already on your backup left tackle. Then you lose your backup left tackle. and what that does to your pass protection,

how consistently they were throwing the ball short of the line of scrimmage, just getting the ball out of his hands. But whatever the reasons, this offense is borderline unwatchable for stretches right now, and it is a shocking place for them to be. 79% of their passing yards was generated by yards after the catch in this game, which is easily a season high. Their season average is 49%.

So basically a 30% jumped in one game. It's crazy to see how side to side this offense is for an offense that I've always loved and thrived on how at you it is. Down at you, always. And there's all these screens and bubbles. And like you said, it's probably to mitigate some of the offensive line woes. But that's the thing.

The offensive line can't get anything going. In the rug game, it's just, they always just seem to be missing one guy. Poor Rashad White, I swear the offensive line hates him because every time he gets the ball, there's like JJ Walt waiting for him in the backfield. It's like,

last night, by the way. Oh, my God, I know. Yeah, a little Christmas boost that it looks like. But it's just watching this, even stat-wise, like for Brady football reference, which I love, pro football reference, you can look at the adjusted passing numbers, which is like basically what the league averages is 100 for that year. So you can really see how stats rank over time and, you know, inflation and deflation based on passing numbers and all that. And this is Brady's, obviously, his worst year basically since his rookie or his second year. It's the first time he's been under 100 and a lot of those stats. And the other time it was, it was to 2019 Patriots when he was throwing the ball to a bunch of

farmers. But it was basically, that's what he's at right now. And it's just, it's such an hard offense to watch because there's just, the screens and the bubbles and all this stuff left or right, but then they just have nothing else. It's just creating on those plays, but not all the down drop back passing game just seems hard because Brady, you can tell is like, I got to get rid of this ball in two seconds. so there's no breathing room on this whole offense. The defense is playing well.

I will say that, but I just can't stand this offense either, which just sucks because when this offense is cooking, it's one of my more favorite types of offenses to watch because it's so aggressive, but there's just no, there's no aggression. And it's tough to watch. It was so bad,

and you're bringing up those points, fantasy points literally, is that I was looking up, because I wanted to tweet it, was I was looking up how many points George Blanda had scored against a Cardinals team in his 40s. He scored five points one time when he was like 45 years old. I was looking at it out because I wanted to see who had the record for 40 year old players against the Cardinals in NFL history. So Brady did manage to beat that five points by the end of it. But the fact that I was

even looking that up is yeah, that's all I need to say. They look so much better when they're they have to show urgency, whether it's in the two minute or whether they're trailing, wait in the game. And I think that's a couple different things. One, Brady's probably calling those plays, which I think is a help there. It's not been a great year for Byron Lefrich. And two, things are spread out and they can just kind of go to work. And it's because every time, even after halftime yesterday, if Todd Bowles come,

they talk to them after the second half is about to start. And like, yeah, we just got to run the ball better and run the ball more. It's like I can't, I can't do this anymore. It doesn't matter the opponent, Todd. I just, I just can't do this anymore. It is just in such a bad situation, but it's obviously not that simplistic where you say, well, they just need to like spread it out and just throw it 65 times game because the offensive line can't do that.

You need to give your quarterback a breather, but every time you give your quarterback a breather, it's first and 10, you're gaining two yards. And it's just everything about the sequencing of it and the overall construction of how they're trying to go about this on offense is been off. It is off. And it puts them in really bad spots. And I just don't know what the immediate solution is because by the time they make the postseason if they do. But even that is not a guarantee at this point. Like they got a play in game more or less against the Panthers this week. And that is not going to be a gimmy. No. No. And that panthers defense will make it tough on them. That that's the thing is that they've had so many

chances and so many matchups where they could get this right and really just figure out the balance of their offense. It's just the chemistry of the offense, not just personal chemistry, but just the equation of what to lean into against the game has just been off the whole year. It's they just pound the rock. They run to the back of their guards for one or two yards a pop. And it's just, I don't know. The number I always come back to is they're dropping empty numbers. And I get it. They don't have a great offense aligned. But Tom Brady can still get rid of the ball in 2.2 seconds. So just let them cook. That's how you get those five to six yards. Chris Godwin eating up the middle of the field as opposed to just the screens and everything to decide.

I don't know. That's where I'm at. It's just they never figured out that equation the entire season. And now it's like, I mean, you got two weeks left. And like you said, you're basically playing for your playoff lives now when this should have been a walk-in for the box. I really do think I'd rather see that Panthers team in the playoffs than this box team. Just because of how hard the Panthers are playing. You just want to see Sam Darnold.

I get it. I do, I do, I'm with you though, because I wish it's fun and interesting and they're doing some cool stuff. It's like, this is, this just feels sad at times. I thought there was an interesting note on the broadcast yesterday. I can't remember who was saying it, but might have been Toriko talking about them talking to Godwin this week and him just saying that how I've played this year and the process of coming back from the ACL gives me a lot of respect for the level I was playing at before. I thought that was, Chris Godwin's a very smart, thoughtful person. Yes, he's a very powerful guy. So I, but I thought that was incisive just because that, think about how far he is away from that now.

So just one more reason why they're a step down. This guy getting a dozen targets a game for them is openly talking about how he's not the same player he was last season or the year before. So just there's so many different layers to this where you start off with an off. Jensen goes down the first day of training camp. Yes. Blow number one. Yep. Okay.

You have Ali Marpet retires. You already have a replacement there. Yep. Okay. Your left tackle is just not playing at a high level the entire season. Just, I mean, just a step down from where he's been. Then he gets hurt. Now you're on left tackle number three.

Now you have a guy who has been a huge part of what you've been offensively over the last couple of years. It's kind of like a skeleton key with the blocking that he can do. What he can do is some of those screens. He's a vertical threat. He's at 80% of what he was a year removed from an ACL. Trying his ass off. too. Always. And you know he's not, and he's no, you can't, he just can't get to that full gear, understandably. You have a defensive minded head coach whose offenses were terrible the last

time that he was doing that. Every time. Coming in and now he is the one kind of setting the overall mindset for what the building feels like, how you want to play. You have Byron left, which now truly running the offense by himself under a defensive minded head coach with the influence, the feel everything about Arians no longer being there. Ariens is input no longer being a part of how they're constructing the game plans, no longer being on the headset, just removing his presence from what the offensive version of the team feels like.

And also the decision-making. Like, when you move, change out your head coach, even if he's a guy that is heavily respected by the guy who he's replacing, who's coached on him forever, has been on your staff, their decision-making

and their overall situational choices that they've made this year are bad. Like, they are just not good. So I think they're just, from 20 different directions. That is why we've come to this place with this box team. They have no room for error. And they give themselves no room for error.

It's just so funny with Todd Bulls as a defensive coordinator or play caller and him as a head coach and being so conservative and everything is that like, you watch a game like this when he's going against Trace McSorily and you just see him like, it was Christmas for Todd Bulls. Like what he got to call like as far as blitz wise and everything, like the strip sack out of empty. Like, they blitz them out of empty and they just, he had no shot. They brought like a will corner combo, which I brought up earlier.

I just love those, those blitzes because if you have a quarterback doesn't know that they're coming, they're screwed. But it's just so funny to watch this aggressive defensive coordinator. And then he becomes a head coach. And he's just like, nope, conservative. Like, I'm going to make sure, you know, we're punting all those fourth downs. We're not burning the time out. Remember when they played the Panthers the first time.

I think they had a clock management stuff at the end of that game. But no, it's just this, they don't give themselves any room for error. They make their offense hard. Their offense is built off three, four-yard gains when they used to be built off 12 to 15-yard chunk plays. That's the difference with this team. The Jensen injury, I'm glad you brought that one up. That has been more devastating. I knew it would impact you.

Losing your center, of course, you're all pro center. Pro Bowl center is going to hurt you. Losing him just as that leader and also just taking the load off time. Brady. You could tell it feels like Tom Brady sounds like Sam Punk in his press conference where he's like, I'm with a bunch of fucking children. Like that's what it feels like he is like right now. He's like, I'm with a bunch of kids. And I can't do this. I'm done. Like I'm, I'm exhausted dad right now on vacation. That's what he kind of seems like because I feel like Jensen's that kind of spiritual leader. Yes, 100%. So that's the combo. You always need that kind of yin and yang as far as leadership.

And I think that's what's really hurting them because they just don't have that. It's just Tom yelling at kids as opposed to maybe, you know, the cool older brother, you know, kind of bringing everybody else up. But that matters. That shit matters. Breaking news. The Broncos have fired Nathaniel Hackett. Wow. Before we even finish the show.

I don't know what there is to say about it. When you watch that game yesterday, you have to do it. I have to. I mean, there's, I was, would have been surprised that they had let it keep going any further after what the game looked like on both sides of the ball yesterday. Just open fighting on the, on the sidelines. line, a defense that after being the best defense in the league for most of the season looks completely checked out. I mean, we've seen what the Panthers firing that rule did to their season.

And just even if you're trying to salvage the vibes for a couple of weeks heading into the off season, I think that has to matter. But we've talked about this multiple different times over the last month or so. I can't remember anything like this. You have a team that is supposed to win 10 games. Was there over under in Vegas before the season started? They were 17 to 1 to win the Super Bowl. They traded away multiple first round picks and multiple sets.

second round picks for a quarterback that a lot of people think belongs in the Hall of Fame. They gave him a $250 million contract. They just fired their head coach the day after Christmas with two games left in the season. That's insane. That's insane. We did our AFC West Preview Show. And I keep coming back to this, but went over their coaching staff. That's when I really dove into it.

And I looked and I was like one of my alarm bells really started getting louder because not to say like any of those coaches are bad or anything. There just wasn't a lot of experience. On the offensive side, nothing. Nothing. So that's the thing when you get these guys, sometimes having just the old time West Coast vet, you know, on your staff is really helpful because you're like, shit, man, they keep doing the assess on third down. Anyone got on the ideas.

But when everyone's just these young guys going, I don't know, what do you got, Nathaniel? Like, what do you got? Like, that hurts over the years. And if the quarterback's not giving ideas as well, or he's telling you what you want to hear or he's saying, yeah, what's getting to empty again or what's around the under center or quick game. But that's what just this. that's what this team always felt like. It was just that as soon as things went bad, which was day one,

it felt like, or game one, it's just they never had the pivot point. They never had a way to turn to or change their tone. And this is it. It's unbelievable. I mean, it really is.

Like you said, when we broke it down, I think when they lost to the Panthers a few weeks ago, wherever game that was, and you went over the Super Bowl odds of all the coaches that have been one and done. And then it's like 100 to 1, 150 to 1, 120 to 1,

and then you get to this team, 17 to 1, which was probably like the 6th, favorite and that's insane and he's going to fire a day after Christmas. Look at the offensive coaching staff. I was just looking at it really quickly. They pretty much everyone on the staff was elevated to a role that they had never had before. Justin Outen was the tight ends coach with the Packers.

He was elevated to be their offensive coordinator. Butch Berry, their offensive line coach was the assistant offensive line coach. First time for the 49ers. Clint Kubiak was the offensive coordinator for the Vikings last year. He is the passing game coordinator and quarterback's coach who is. the play caller after Nathaniel Hackett ended up giving that up. But really everyone else, Jake Moreland, their tight ends coach, I believe, was the assistant offensive line coach for the Jets the year before.

So every single guy was in a new role. And there was a lot of inexperience. And on the defensive side, I actually think that they have some really promising coaches on that side. They do. Christian Parker, their defensive backs coach, was the defensive backs coach last year under Fangio. I think that Evereux will 100% be.

defensive coordinator in the league next year. Deservedly. Somebody would be lucky to have him. But on the offensive side, it was a disaster from day one. And some of the stuff that they were even saying before the season about how Russ will make the decisions. We'll build it the way the Russ wants to build it, all of that stuff. That meme of the Grim Reaper going from door to door.

Yes. And there's just blood pouring out. Just all the faces of the coaches over the last five years that no longer have jobs because that's what they were trying to do with Russell Wilson. It's true. I'm telling you, go back, anyone, listen to AFC West Preview, let's know us talk about the Broncos. And I remember this is just when I was like, man,

and that was middle of August, late August. And it was like, man, this is maybe not lining up how I think everyone thinks it's going to. And sure enough, it went Murphy's law as far as how it ended up. But that's what it is. They tried to appease it. We talked about it. Hey, yeah, they're going to bring the extensive empty package with Russell Wilson. And you look at the stats and Russ is like the worst empty quarterback in the last three years.

going into this year. It's like that's the thing is they were trying to build this system that really had no groundwork at all. I don't know what happens next. I don't know who wants this job. I don't know. There's a new GM as well. Like is that? I don't know.

I know. That's, that might be a whole nuke. I really don't know. It's crazy. It's absurd. I just have no idea what things are going to look like here and what they do at quarterback, what that conversation is. the guy who interviews for this job when he comes in and starts to sit down,

like, all right, what are you guys going to do with Russ? Yeah. Like, what's the plan? Like, do I have to keep them? Is there any way we can get out of this? It's an unprecedented situation. It's a word we've used multiple times on the show. And that's what it feels like.

So we're going to have a lot of time to dig into what comes next for the Broncos, what went wrong for the Broncos, all of that. For now, that's all we've got for today. If you have not listened to the Part 1 Saturday recap that we did breaking down the Christmas Eve games. That is available in your podcast feed right now. Also, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you have not done that, we're doing a lot more YouTube stuff down the stretch here. Also, as we get into the off season, we'll be doing plenty of video first content. So if you have not subscribed, please go subscribe to that. I will be

back on Wednesday with our buddy Buns Sulac from the ringer. We're going to do a wildcar threat index. You used to write it every single year. Just looking at all the teams playing on wildcar weekend. Who's actually the biggest? threat to these real contenders. I think the only three teams that we're not going to talk about are the Eagles, the Bills, and the Chiefs. Okay. Those teams are like in a spot of their own.

Like Brock Purdy is the quarterback for the Niners. Like I feel like we could talk about that. But bingles are wildcard. But they're playing on wildcard weekend. So if you're, yeah, yeah, yeah. The teams that are playing on wild card weekend and like not hosting, like, all that kind of stuff. So I think we're going to put the, put the Bengals in there. You can make up there.

however you want to do it. You make up whatever rules I want. It's the best part of this. So please come back and check that out on Wednesday. In the meantime, appreciate you guys. Listen. We'll talk to you soon. This was the athletic football show.