The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 2: Baker vs. Burrow, Questions for the Cowboys and Can Russ Cook the Patriots?

Episode Date: September 17, 2020

It’s been a hectic week for wide receivers, from Michael Thomas and Chris Godwin’s injuries to Allen Robinson’s contract riff. The Athletic’s Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones break down all the news and notes across the league.Later in the show, they get you ready for Week 2 by discussing the marquee games on the slate, what position matchups they’re watching and who has the most at stake.Plus, Lindsay explains what it’s like covering a game with no fans and Robert shares his love for Sir Purr. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visa, official partner of the NFL. This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, the Athletic Zone, Lindsay Jones, Lindsay, how are you? I'm good, Robert. How are you? I'm doing great.

So this is our first Thursday show of the actual NFL season. You and I are going to be coming to do this every Thursday. We're going to be previewing the fall. following week's games. We're also going to be doing a few other things, kind of breaking down some of the news. We're going to be chatting about some, you know, bigger picture NFL stuff, a lot of the work that you do. So before we get into anything this week, let's start with the biggest news of the week. It's been a very kind of hectic week for wide receivers in a lot of different ways. A couple guys who are reportedly on the trade block, but maybe not.

There's been some Alan Robinson and O'Dell Beckham stuff. I wanted to talk to you about the Alan Robinson situation. It seems like he's unhappy with his contract spot, which makes a ton of sense when you consider how many guys at that position have gotten extended, even in the last few months. His salary has stayed flat. He's in the last year of his deal. And there's clearly some friction between him and the Bears.

So when you've been around guys who are looking for new deals, whether it's on the Broncos or elsewhere, how does that manifest? How do those guys kind of talk about it? Is it kind of like an open secret at all times? How many of those situations have you kind of been around? and what is it like? Yeah. So, I mean, one of kind of the, in theory, like in unspoken rules in the NFL, and I think

across professional sports is that you, you know, you don't talk about guys' money with each other, but they're, these guys all know what's going on. They, they see the headlines. They have ESPN or NFL network in their locker rooms at all times. They understand what contracts are like. It's very rare for a contract to get done in season. So the fact that he, that Alan Robinson went and kind of made this a thing in week one is, is pretty telling about either the lack of conversations in the months, you know, the months previous during the off season and certainly into training camp. And then also just kind of, it could be a thing because he is going to potentially be trade fodder, right?

I mean, until we get to the trade deadline and this is all still out there, it is something that he's going to get asked about. It's something that Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy are going to get asked about. It's something that his teammates will get asked about. He did speak. Alan Robinson did speak with reporters today in Chicago and said that he cleared the air with Ryan Pace and things were all good. But I think that date, week eight, if he's still on the roster, then I think those things can go away a little bit.

But he has a valid point, right? I mean, if you look at complete salary, he's 16th in the NFL among wide receivers right now. He's his 10.9 in a base salary, $14 million, including his bonuses. But that's behind guys like, you know, Keenan Allen who got a massive new deal just before the season started. Odell Beckham, another guy who seems to be unhappy in his situation, although I think he, being unhappy in his situation might just be his default setting. But, you know, it's Adam Thielen, it's Tyree Kill, it's Brandon Cooks. So I understand why Alan Robinson believes he deserves to be paid more money because he absolutely does. And to have some sort of security moving forward.

That's really what a lot of this is about, right? It's, it's, if he gets hurt now in week two or week three, I mean, that's going to hurt his earning potential when he goes in goes potentially to hit the open market next year. So it's a little bit of, you know, I understand we as frustrated. It's not great look for the bears that they didn't do right by him when they were handing out some other interesting contracts earlier this year, Jimmy Graham, talking about you. Yeah, thanks. Appreciate that.

Making me feel great over here. Hey, I just picked him up on one of my fantasy teams. So I'm not feeling. very great about this either. That's even bleaker than the bear's signing him. Well, it says a lot about how I play fantasy football, unfortunately. But you know what? It doesn't, I don't think it's going to be a major thing. Like, I don't expect this is something that you derail the bears or, you know, I'm glad that they kind of, they nipped it in the bud this week. They talked about it. He addressed it. He came out. He spoke with the media midweek instead of

it being a thing that they're going to have to drag out. But it is something that we should pay attention to if the bears end up, you know, struggling over the next few weeks. If they, they're in a position to be sellers heading into the trade deadline because, you know, if there's already this friction there, he's a guy that could get moved because I'm sure there's going to be contenders around the league. There's a bunch of teams out there right now that actually really need wide receiver help. And you could probably get him for fairly cheap because, you know, the bears might just be looking to get something for him with the understanding that he could leave in free agency next year. The bears may be closer to being sellers than I think a lot of people realize

because if this goes south, which it absolutely might this season, they're in a very strange spot because you have Mitchell Trabisky, it's not going to be there anymore. You have a lot of guys that are expensive. I think there could be some turnover in the front office. They could be closer to what the Jags have done this offseason over the last six months than people think. If the Bears trade Alan Robinson right now, I will not handle it well.

I would just like to put that out there right now. I'm going to like put out a backpack full of some provisions and walk into the wilderness for a little while. while if the Bears trade Alan Robinson. He is, I don't, and all those other guys that got contracts, I think it's telling, because and just the way he's been treated compared to those guys, he is absolutely in that group of wide receivers, in my opinion, in terms of overall ability and talent. But he has played with such terrible quarterbacks and just the overall baseline quarterback

play has been so bad in Chicago that his numbers don't compare. And that's why I just think that he needs to be a part of this. The fact that he wants to be is surprising. If you can get Alan Robinson in a fairly reasonable deal right now, and he wants to play in Chicago despite what's going on, I absolutely think you should because even if they do try to solve the quarterback situation in a more aggressive way next year, whether it's drafting somebody, whatever,

Alan Robinson is the perfect sort of piece you want around to facilitate the development of a young quarterback. He's been one of my favorite receivers in the league for a long time. His teams have always done terrible by him, and if he gets dealt, I will be very upset. And I will say one last little negative. get on Allen Robinson and that it just really speaks to 2020. I just love that the way that we report on this and find out now that a guy is unhappy

is when he pulls his team name out of his Twitter bio or his Instagram. It raises all of his Instagram posts. This is good for me. I just don't have a very robust Instagram presence. It would take me two seconds to take out any photos that refer to like my employer or anything like that. For somebody who has a lot of Instagram stuff, it feels like that would be a pretty intricate process.

If you have like 20 pictures up there, I wouldn't even know how to go about doing that. So good for him. He's very committed to this apparently. One guy that in the wide receiver, you know, conversation that has been put into a good position over the last few years is Michael Thomas. He has been the focal point of an offense that features Drew Breeze has been one of the, you know, more prolific offenses in the entire league. Word came down this week that he will miss several weeks with the high ankle sprain, which is probably the right way to handle this. You know, when guys haven't sat out and they've tried to play through injuries like this, we've seen them struggle, tends to have long-lasting lingering effects.

But my concern now is what this Saints' offense will look like. They didn't exactly look explosive with Michael Thomas in the lineup against Tampa Bay. Now they lose, I would argue, the most important piece of their offense. I mean, Drew Breeze is probably in that conversation too. But I think Thomas is almost as important to what they do as Breeze was. I think you saw that last year. How concerned are you about the Saints' offense ability to just kind of keep things rolling if Michael Thomas is going to be out for a month?

Yeah, well, thank goodness they got Emmanuel Sanders who without Sanders, they would have no receiver depth. And I think maybe I have a little different view on Emmanuel Sanders just because they covered him so long in Denver. And I really like what he added. It absolutely is. And I really liked the element that he brought to San Francisco during that trade last year. And I thought it was a huge mistake by the Niners to let him leave. Ultimate pro. Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, he does really good things for the young receivers. is in that room. He pushes them really hard sometimes to the point of fighting like he did with Cortland Sutton a couple of years ago. Hey, Coralyn said came out on the other side just fine. I think Coral Sutton probably appreciates that now. Yeah, he probably needed it.

You know, but look, I mean, Daniel Sanders is not going to replace that sort of production that Michael Thomas brings game in and game out just on sheer number of targets, the volume. And it was one of the reasons that they needed another receiver is that it was, their offense last year in New Orleans was. skewed too heavily towards Michael Thomas. And he is awesome.

And he deserved every penny that he got. He deserved first team, all pro, all of those sorts of things. But in terms of if you want to have diversity within your offense and if one guy gets taken away or one guy suffers a high ankle sprain, you're going to need to have other guys. So, you know, they still don't really have that great downfield threat. Are they going to be kind of going to younger guys now? Is this going to be more of a possession offense like it has been? It's just now the possession is. is going to go to Amanda Sanders and Jared Cook.

I do have questions about kind of the long-term viability there, just in terms of how dynamic they can be. But you are right about this is what they have to do with Michael Thomas right now. You can't force him to play too much too early. High ankle sprains are not a joke. And you're going to need him. I mean, look, the Saints are going to be one of the best teams in the NFL this year. The roster is stacked.

We've talked about this at length already. Their defense was really good. And that was my big takeaway from week one with the Saints. was how good their defense is going to be. So just survive these couple of weeks without him. Let him get right and get him back in October. Yeah, I think so their buy comes after week five. So their next four games are against the Raiders, the Packers, the Lions, and the Chargers.

I think they can muck those games up and try to win ugly over the next month, let him sit out the buy and hopefully come back against Carolina in week seven. That to me is how I would approach this. I think they can beat the Raiders without them. You know, the lions I do not think are a very good defense. think that their defense can take care of the Chargers. The Packers game, if Rogers is going to continue playing at this level, and the passing game is going to play at the level they did against the Vikings,

maybe that's a game where you need a few more points. But I believe if you're the Saints, you have to understand that this is a long game. You are a team that built to win a championship because of your depth. Now it's time to lean on your depth in the rest of your roster and not bring him back too fast. Another guy that, you know, not as much. The outlook here is not nearly as long. Chris Godwin is poorly in the concussion protocol. a huge part of that offense.

And to me, the more disappointing part of that, I think I wanted to see if the bucks could kind of iron out some of the issues they had last week. Some of the timing issues look a little bit more comfortable, just overall as a cohesive unit. If Godwin has to miss this week, it's just one more bump in the road. One more bump in the road is kind of getting where you want to be offensively.

We'll talk a little bit about Brady and that process a little bit later in the show. But it's an upsetting. I mean, that you want to just kind of see this group as a complete unit as fast as possible to hit the ground running. And it seems like this is going to be, you know, just a detriment to that. Yeah. And it's just really interesting because he, you know, he didn't leave the game on Sunday with an issue. He was cleared Monday and Tuesday. And he reported concussion symptoms midweek, which is concerning, but also speaks to just how difficult head injuries are going to be. And I'm sure it's frustrating for him. It's frustrating for the buck's offense. I will say

it is slightly encouraging that those measures of the concussion protocol. are working because I think a couple years ago, we never would have seen a guy report midweek concussion symptoms, especially a guy who's as important to the buck's offense as Chris Godwin is. So let's move to the other side of the ball. Richard Sherman went on IR today with a leg injury. I keep every time this happens over the last couple weeks when guys go on IR, I'm like, oh my God.

And then I realize it's only three weeks. They said explicitly with the Richard Sherman one that it seems like this is only going to be a few week injury. But it's an important point to make because when I was thinking about the 49ers outlook this season. I had concerns about their ability to hold up in coverage. When you look at the numbers from the first half of last season, or to the second half,

they took a huge drop off. And the quality of quarterbacks had an impact on that. But that unit on the back end, I think, was definitely the number one question about this team, even before guys started getting hurt. Now you're going to lose Richard Sherman for a chunk of time. And last week, the Cardinals just continued to go to the other side, away from him.

Now, if you can attack both sides of that Niners' defense, I think it's going to put a lot of stress on the rest of the members in that secondary. So if they start losing guys like Richard Sherman, I think we're going to see a huge drop off from this team in a way that we probably didn't anticipate. Well, one of the things that worked so well for the Niners last year is that they were able to kind of sustain injuries here and there on their defense. And they just really had that depth that I'm just not sure that they have right now. I don't think it's going to be a critical issue this week against the Jets or potentially

in week three against the Giants. say. But given the moves that they've made elsewhere, throughout this offseason, some of the pieces that they let go, some of the guys that they did not resign, it just is something to monitor if depth is becoming an issue for them on defense. The difference is last year you lose a guy like Jaquist's guitar for a couple weeks. You can sustain that. But Richard Sherman was always there and he was always playing at an extremely high level.

Now you go with Emmanuel Mosley and Akella Weatherspoon, whatever, just the drop off there is so much higher to me than it was from Juquist's guitar to whatever your safety depth is. That's why I think this is a little bit different. I think it can have a little bit more impact than whatever they had to deal with last year. I'll be curious to see what the Giants' offense looks like when they're not playing the Steelers. Because I feel like Daniel Jones actually had a pretty good game against a really good defense and their inability to run the ball kind of torpedoed them.

But I think the Giants have enough wide receiving talent to give the 49ers offense or give the 49ers defense some problems. if they can't really get after Daniel Jones. So it looks, the Jets, I think they'll be absolutely fine. But I think two weeks from now, we could see Richard Sherman's absence show up a little bit more than we think. So staying on that side of the ball, AJ Boya looks like he's going to miss a few weeks with the dislocated shoulder. You know, the Broncos defense just keeps taking hits and the Broncos offense. You had Colin Sutton and Cajan Hamer missed last week, so you're receiving court isn't where you thought it'd be. We already know about Von Miller.

I mean, this team is not deep enough to take shots like that. I mean, especially on guys that you're paying a premium like Boye. We'll see how that affects them. And then Philip Lindsay's going to be out for a few weeks. So this Broncos hype train, we're very excited about them coming into the season. And it already looks like, you know, hit after hit is kind of taking the shine off of them a little bit. Yeah, I'm feeling better about my position as like the driver's ed teacher, like pumping the brakes early on that. Because that was, it is, it is really rough.

And there was a stretch on Monday night where, you know, right after AJ Bouye got hurt and Philip Lindsay, too, where you didn't see Philip Lindsay get hurt. He just all of a sudden was gone. He, during halftime and they came back out and said, you know, Philip Lindsay is a toe injury and he said, wait, what? And that they were playing without, I mean, these are their pro bowl players, right? It's Cortland Sutton, it's Philip Lindsay. It's Vaughn Miller.

We talked about on our AFC West preview pod with the Broncos have the highest paid defense in the NFL. And two of the biggest pieces of that are A.J. Bouillet and Von Miller. And I think combined they're paying those two guys, $37 million who are going to be off the field for a little while. and it was very clear that Bouillet dislocated his shoulder. Just you could completely see it by the way that he fell. You immediately knew that, okay, that's exactly what he did. Not a season ending type of thing, but they're real, real, real, real young at cornerback outside of him.

You know, Bryce Callahan has played his first game for the Broncos last week, which is bonkers after the big contract that they gave him the year before when he missed. He was out all of 2019. But, yeah, I mean, they're playing like literally undrafted rookies. they called up another guy off the practice squad today. It's not great. And now they have to go to Pittsburgh this week to play Ben Rothesberger and Juju Smith-Schuster and a pretty good Steelers team. I feel like if you were excited about the Broncos offense,

you were going to be excited about the Broncos offense in spurts, right? Like, Drew Locke isn't going to be somebody who's going to be a consistent presence for you week in and a week out. The flashes may be there with him in that skill position group when those guys were healthy, but the defense needed to be the stabilizing. factor for this team. And if it's not going to be that, then the volatility on offense, you're going to have nothing to kind of carry you through that. So it's going to be much more of an up and down season for Dender. They're going to be able to win in fewer ways if the defense

is not going to be there a week in and week out. They should get Cortland Sutton back this week, as well as KJ Hamler, who practiced fully last week just wasn't quite there. So they could get a boost that way. That said, losing Philip Lindsay for any stretch of time is not good. So let's stay with the Broncos, and more specifically, the in stadium Broncos experience that you had last week in week one. Because you went to a football game last week. I did not. And each week, we're going to try to do a segment here where we just dig into, you know, your experience as a reporter, some of the stuff that you're kind of going through working on, the people that you're talking to, take people behind the curtain a little bit. So what we want to talk about today was just how kind of strange that in stadium experience has been versus watching it.

home because as someone who hasn't been to a game and is just watching on TV, I've kind of been struck by how normal it feels for me. I didn't notice outside of maybe being able to hear a little bit more between players, some of the stuff at the snap, everything else, how kind of accessible and comforting that TV experience has been. But when you went to a game, you just said it was jarring how different it is to be there without fans. Just talk me through what it was like to be sitting in that stadium on Monday. Yeah, so it was a really interesting weekend. spent Sunday at home. Like I do a lot of the, you know, this is not unusual that I'll watch Sundays and work from home, but, you know, kind of doing the normal thing, Sunday ticket, red zone,

you know, the four box, all of that sort of stuff. But then Monday night, I went to the game. So I wanted to get the different sense of, okay, how is the viewing experience different now? How is it different on TV in 2020? And then compare that to what's going on in the stadium because, you know, I think one of the biggest questions or a big concern, confusion going on heading into the season was all this debate about like what's the crowd noise going to be like and is there going to be a competitive advantage and they're two very distinct pieces of that. There's what is it like for the people who are sitting at home watching on their couches? What's that experience going to be like? How different is it without actual crowd noise and what are the broadcast networks going to do

to kind of make up for that? The other side of that is what is it actually like for the players inside the stadiums? And it was very weird. It was very, very, very, very different. And you heard this from guys across the league. The Saints players talked a lot about how eerie it was that the only sounds that they heard were the practice squad players who were sitting in the stands. In a dome, it's got to be bizarre. It's got to be so weird in a dome. I'm trying to even think about what it would be like. And it's just so strange. I'm sure it's just cavernous and echoey and just weird. Yeah. So they've tried, the NFL has tried to figure out ways to make it not be as weird, but the fact is is that it is going to be, especially in those indoor stadiums,

like New Orleans, like Atlanta, Minnesota, these, you know, these domes to try, you just can't replicate that. So basically what the NFL did was they created this like baseline track. To me, when I first heard it, when I went to one of the Broncos scrimmages a couple weeks ago, it sounds like when you're just sitting in a baseball stadium where there's just kind of this noise. A hum, yeah, it's like a dull noise. hum, you'll hear some whistles, you'll hear some claps, and then it's intercut with the music. So the musical pickup between plays as soon as the game clock starts, they have this track

that goes along. And it's not super loud. It's not disruptive. Basically, it's meant to keep each sideline from hearing everything and to make it so it doesn't totally echo. But the fact was it did echo in some of these stadiums. So I'm very interested to see how these like audio mix. fixers, basically the guys who work at the stadiums trying to figure this out, if that adjusts week to week.

The NFL set the range at 70 to 75 decibels, which is not loud. It's about half as loud as a normal stadium. So it was not meant to disrupt offenses, not meant to disrupt defenses. There really wasn't any sort of advantage to it. And I missed it. I wish they could make it a little bit louder in there. I think offenses wish that it was a little bit louder so they could better protect what they were saying. Drew Locke after the Monday night game so that he was actually in the huddle making his calls really quietly because he was afraid that the Titans could hear it.

I know defensive players had a lot of issues with it with snap counts and hard counts being a lot more of a lot more effective. Hard counts and just little tiny code words. I mean, you can hear everything coming through about what the code words are. And I'm sure that teams are going to end up picking up on that if you're not sort of. up your code words by, you know, whatever. I mean, there was a lot of like Oscar calls you heard, teams going the opposite direction of certain runs. But I'm sure there are checks that are a little bit more transparent than that.

And that could become a problem. I think it's definitely going to be just a back and forth kind of chess match that teams have to figure out over the course of the year. Yeah. So it was an odd experience. I spent a lot of time watching, like, what were the guest relations people doing? What was like mask etiquette going on in the stadium at one point I saw?

I saw a guest relations person go down and scold Drew Locke's girlfriend because she didn't have her mask on. So that was a little awkward. But she didn't. She put it on. It just happened to be I had to have my binoculars watching what was going on in the stands. But you know, you're noticing different things when you're there and it's quiet. And I'm not going to go to a ton of games this year just because of travel and we don't get to talk to players in person. So the value of, you know, going there and getting to go to open locker room and stuff isn't there.

But there is still value to being inside the stadium and what you see. And on Monday night, what I basically did was I focused my binoculars on Stephen Gaskowski throughout the fourth quarter and was able to. It was brutal. But you could just feel that game building to it to the point where like before the kick, my heart was pounding. And I was just sitting in a press box. But, you know, I think it's just going to be a different experience for all of us who cover it,

for everybody who watches the NFL. And I think as more and more fans get led into stadiums, like here in Denver, the next time they play at Mile High Stadium, they're going to have some fans. It's going to be 5,700. It'll start to feel a little bit more normal. You know, I think in Arrowhead for the kickoff game, they had something like 20,000 fans. And they didn't need to pipe in any noise, both into the stadium or onto the broadcast. And it felt a little bit more normal. So I will say, the empty stadium gave me, gave us, gave the football.

world the most important thing that happened this week. And that was the Sir Per video that the Carolina video team or digital team or whatever put together. I have watched the video of Robbie Anderson, DJ Moore and Curtis Samuel talking about the name of the Panthers mascot 170 times today. And every single time I watch it, it gets funnier. If you have not seen it yet, it is everywhere on social media. Robbie Anderson is sitting there looking up at the JumboTron as the very large cartoonish panther dances alone in the stands. And it's DJ Moore trying to explain to him that the name of the mascot is Sir Per. And the first thing that Robbie Anderson says is, what's that bear doing?

And DJ Moore responds, the bear. I lose it every single time he says the bear. It's when I watch it, it's like watching an episode of like 30 Rock or Happy Eddings, like a very joke-dense show. It gets funnier and different things are funny. every single time I watch it. Because it's just ridiculous. The whole exchange is really funny. You guys really call him that?

You guys call him Serper? Well, to be fair, it is a ridiculous name. It's a ridiculous name. We also have to acknowledge that for Robbie Anderson's NFL career, he has not had mascot exposure. You played for the Jets. They only have Fireman Ed. There is no large, like, cartoonish animated mascot in the Jets stadium.

So this is not something he's used. to. Look, he had hooter the owl, though, when he played at Temple. So maybe he just has, does not remember his days with hooter the owl, but he seemed genuinely confused about the idea of a guy in a mascot suit. And guess what? In an empty stadium, he has a very real point. Because it was odd because he looked up and you're like, dude, where's that bear?

What is that bear doing is a totally reasonable question? I will say, though, one of my, I'm a very simple man with very simple tastes. One of my favorite types of comedy is people mislabeling animals. Like on Parks and Rec, when they're having the memorial for Lil Sebastian and Sean Ralphio goes, you can be like that cow in the video. Tom says he was a horse. He said, yeah, because he followed his dreams. Stuff like that crushes me every time, which I think is why I like the bear line.

All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break. It was sure nice seeing the team's back out on the gridiron over the weekend. Lucky for us, that was just week one. There is no better place to get in on all of the action than with Draft Kings, the leader in one-day fantasy sports. To add to this week's excitement, Draft Kings has millions of dollars in total prizes up for grabs. If you haven't tried Draft Kings yet, head to the App Store now because you don't want to miss this. Draft your lineup now and feel the sweat like never before. Every run, pass, and catch means more with Draft Kings.

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Kings. Make it rain. Minimum $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com for details. All right. Each Thursday, we're going to talk about one or two kind of high profile marquee games of the week. And we're going to start with the Sunday night game that I certainly am looking forward to, the Patriots and the Seahawks. It was a very weird day for the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday. After we went an entire offseason discussing the Let Russ Cook movement,

I cannot say let Russ cook without stumbling over it. After we went an entire off season discussing the Let Russ Cook movement, The Seahawks came out and had the highest situation neutral pass rate in the entire league last week. I am very curious whether this continues. What are you looking for in Patriot Seahawks this weekend? Yeah. Well, I want to see if this was a one week. Let's really game plan something special for week one that nobody will see coming.

Or if this was a real philosophical shift by Pete Carroll and Brian Schauchenheimer to realize we have one of the best downfield passers in the NFL. and let's actually let him do more things than hand off the ball on first and second down. And it was so fun to watch. It was really encouraging. I'm remaining skeptical that this is going to be a long term, a completely a long term shift. I'm not sure if guys can change their coaching DNA as quickly as that. This, though, heading into this game, Patriot Seahawks, it is such a fun coaching matchup. Because was this a long game where Pete Carroll says,

is, okay, week one, we're going to pass all the time knowing that we're playing Bill Belichick in week two. And Bill is going to be scheming, you know, what Bill Belichick does, right, as he changes the game plan week to week in his defensive scheme to take away what your opponent does best. And are now they going to say, okay, well, that's Russell Wilson. They want to throw. We got to take away the throw. And then all of a sudden, Chris Carson is going to get 35 carries. That might happen. Are you, you're not discouraged.

You're a little bit discouraged by P. Carroll coming out. this week and saying that there weren't enough rushing attempts in that game. He actually said that as his team destroyed another NFL team on the road. He came out and said, ah, you know what? Not enough carries. What do you want, Pete? So I am with you. And I think that the Patriots point is a good one.

So Russell Wilson threw the ball 35 times against the Falcons. None of those passes. Zero of them were into tight windows, which is certainly an indictment of the Atlanta Falcons past defense. I do not think that's going to happen against New England. I mean, you think about the depth, the versatility they have in the secondary. They threw Joe Juan Williams and Adrian Phillips in there in the mix at safety. They both played a lot of snaps.

Jason McCordy did. This is a group that is really set up and built to stop a high-profile passing attack like Seattle wants to be. So what do the Seahawks do? What is their response? I think New England has a lot of great talent in the secondary. They do not have a lot of great talent at linebacker. And we saw Chris Carson be a little bit more involved in the passing game. Do they throw to Chris Carson a little more?

Do we see more runs to Chris Carson? I do not think we're going to see the exact same type of game plan from Seattle that we saw last week. But I'm not thinking that it's Pete Carroll going away from the Let Russ Cook stuff. I just think it's not the way to attack the Patriots like it was attacked the Falcons. Yeah, I think when it comes to the Seahawks and this, as you called it, the Let Russ Cook movement. It needs to be all capitalized. I think we need to maybe we need to get four games in, right? At least four games in till we can make any sort of decovalued.

on if they are changing who they are fundamentally. This is fine. It's all well and good. Everybody's having a good time until this doesn't work. And Pete decides they need to run the ball 50 times in the next game, which is definitely on the horizon if they have clunker next week against the Patriots. Yeah, absolutely. And I guess on the flip side of this, if we, you know, we just completely switch sides of the ball. I am really interested to see what the next level of evolution of the Cam Newton Patriots offense is going to be. because he ran a lot. I think what he had 17 carries. I think it was 15.

15 carries week one against the dolphins. I don't think that's a sustainable formula, but I also like to think that Josh McDaniels is playing some sort of long game here where they say, look, Cam Newton can run and we're not showing that he can pass. We all know that he can throw. And what are those wrinkles in the passing game going to look like? And what is their balance of their offense going to look like? are they going to do, you know, kind of something similar,

or are we going to see a completely new offense for week two against the Seahawks? Yeah, I'd be curious to see what that looks like. I mean, I think the Seahawks, their red defense was solid against Atlanta. It wasn't great. The Falcons were behind for so much of that game that they really just dropped back to throw a bunch. So can the Seahawks defense stack up? You know, I really do believe that they can. I mean, I think they have the personnel to kind of lock down and be just fine against the run.

And I don't think until the Patriots show it, they're not an explosive passing attack right now. Can they push the ball down the field? And I think the answer to that is no. The other thing I'm watching for in this game is the Patriots typically like to play a lot of man coverage. They have the personnel to do it. Does that mean that Russ's legs show up in this game? You know, last week, they did such a good job of kind of attacking the intermediate areas of the field when things down the field weren't there. And that was kind of the checkdown.

Through a lot of crossers to Tyler Lockett, things like that. In this game, if the defense has their backs turned everything else, do we see Russ taking off to really pick up some yards in the ground? We've seen that happen against Patriots defenses in the past for quarterbacks who can run. Typically tend to have a little bit of success doing that. So I expect the Seahawks to be fine. I just think this is such a different matchup than what we saw last week. Yeah, maybe they're watching the Ravens game from last year. Pete Carroll's got that on and trying to find some ways that you can exploit that Patriot's defense.

I really did enjoy, though, seeing Chris Carson involved. in the passing game as much as he was. He had six catches last week that ties his career high. The 45 yards he had was a career high. They threw that screen to him in the high red zone, which a lot of teams have started to do that, and I love it as an approach. The Rams have done that really well for a couple years.

They do a lot of wide receiver screens in that area of the field. When things start to compress and teams usually play a lot of man in the red zone, going to a screen in that spot is a really good idea, and I saw a lot of teams do that. So if they want to continue to have Chris Carson be a part of the passing game, I think that's a way to kind of make Pete Carroll happy in the sense of getting easy, the layup type plays while also being able to rely on Russell Wilson's arm. So there's a way to kind of meet in the middle here, and I hope they find it.

The one other thing that we need to just like keep in mind when we're talking about this game is what's going on in Seattle and their air quality. Right now, it sounds like the game should be able to go on. They played some baseball games there this week that absolutely should not have been played. It was really, really dangerous. So let's just all cross our fingers and hope that the air quality is good and it doesn't become a major issue and that the NFL makes smarter decisions than Major League Baseball does or did if it comes to that on Sunday.

Let's move on to the other marquee match of the week here, Ravens at Texans. And we talked about this a little bit before we started the show. I think the Texans could be in trouble this week. I do not see a lot of areas where they have an advantage over the Ravens. I actually think this is a terrible match. for Houston kind of across the board. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think Aaron Reese, who I know you had on the show yesterday, he tweeted this

during Thursday night's game against the Chiefs. And he's like, well, the good news is that the Texans have to play the Ravens next week. And it was like, oh, crap. I mean, because I think, I do think the Chiefs, I have them number one in my power rankings and all that stuff right now. I think the Ravens could be a better team in a more dynamic offense that we saw week one. And like you said, a really, really bad match.

matchup for the way that the Texans are playing. And the frustrating part about the Texans, right, is that they didn't show a ton of offensive evolution from last year. And I think that just matches up really, really poorly against the way that the Ravens are built defensively. I just don't see them being able to score as many points as the Ravens. Because look, we know the Ravens are going to score a lot, right, on this Houston defense. I think we should expect that they're going to score into the 30s. And I just have zero confidence that after what we saw in week one,

that the Texans offense is going to be able to keep up. With the Ravens defense at full strength, I just think there's such a bad matchup for what the Texans want to be personal-wise. Because you watched the Ravens game last week when the Browns were coming out in defined passing situations. The Ravens cornerback depth is kind of insane because you have Marcus Peters and Martin Humphrey on the outside.

And then Tavon Young is back now because he was hurt last year. And Jimmy Smith is their fourth cornerback. When Jimmy Smith is your fourth cornerback, you're doing just fine. And the Texans have all that speed at receiver. And I just think the Ravens are so set up to deal with teams like that. And I also feel like you can take advantage of the Texans up front. If you want to send extra bodies, their offensive line is better, but I still don't think it's a great group.

You know, Patrick Queen had that sack last week. I thought he made his presence felt. I thought Malik Harrison had a good game at linebacker. I love the back seven talent for this team. And I just don't think, I think if Houston's going to take advantage of teams this season, it's going to be teams that don't have that much talent, that much depth, the sort of personnel you can attack on the back end. And the Ravens certainly are not that sort of team.

I think the most encouraging part that we saw out of the Texans and from Deshaun Watson in week one was that he was getting rid of the ball really quickly. And one of the knocks on him is that, you know, he's taken a lot of sacks in his career because he extend plays. He held onto the ball a long time. looks like that was something that he's made a concerted effort to work on this year. I'm just not sure if that's going to matter against the Ravens where, like you said, they're so good on the back end and they have the ability to bring pressure at the same time.

I'd be curious to see what the Ravens' office looks like against this Houston team, because for as dynamic as the Ravens passing game was on Sunday, which it was incredible. I mean, just the efficiency numbers are off the charts. I think their DVOA was 149% above average, which is, I mean, it's one week. it's a silly kind of thing to care about, but that just shows you how unbelievably efficient they were. Lamar played great. The running game, though, wasn't very good. They did not run the ball kind of at will, like we've expected them to, in the way they did last year.

So I'll be curious to see what they can do against a Texan team that really struggled against the Chiefs and Clyde Edwards her later last week. Yeah, and it's so tough when you play a team like the Chiefs or the Ravens and you try to figure out, okay, well, who do we take away? And obviously the Texans went into that. going. We're going to put light boxes out here. We're going to focus all of our attention on Travis Kelsey and Tyree Kill and try to make them find another way to beat you. And Clyde Edwards Hilaire was phenomenal. And I think he's going to have a fantastic rookie year. And all of the excitement about him was legit. But he also was not running against these loaded boxes. And the Texan, or the chiefs found a really, they were really able to capitalize on that. And, you know,

I would expect that they're going to have some sort of similar challenges. Like the tech, what does the Texans defense do there? I mean, do you load up the box to try to stop Lamar Jackson in the run? Are you going to, you know, I don't know. I just don't think that there is a good defensive answer when you're trying to figure out how do you scheme against the two best, best offenses in football. And man, that Texan staff really, I'm sure when that schedule came out, they were like, oh, shit.

Like really, you know, new defensive coordinator. trying to figure out how you're going to stop these two teams week one and week two and obviously didn't go well week one and I'm not feeling great about their chances in week two. It was interesting because actually last week against Cleveland, Mark Ingram only ran into an eight-man box, eight or more man box 10% of the time, which you don't really expect from, you know, I have to go back and watch the all 22, which still is not available so I haven't been able to watch it yet. So I'll be curious to see what they look like because even last year, if you wanted to stack up and play the run in an aggressive way against the Ravens,

they could still run the ball on you. It didn't really matter what you did. Their rushing efficiency was kind of this mindless monster that kept on rolling. But it's really, it looks a lot different on the interior of the line for them this year. Matt Scour is coming back from injury. Phillips actually started for them at right guard. So there's just literal moving pieces in that group. And I just think they're going to fight, it's going to take a little time for them to find their footing in a way that it didn't last year. So I think this is a good. week for them to do it against the Texans team that really struggled against the chiefs. But I just expect this Ravens team to be able to run the ball at will whenever they want.

And that was not the case last week. So just something to watch. All right. Let's move on. Beyond the games, we're also each week we're going to talk about one specific matchup that we're really interested in. This could be an offense versus a defense. It could be a receiver versus a cornerback. A lot of different ways to go.

Keep it vague. Gives you flexibility. So, Lindsay, let's start with you. what is the matchup that you are really kind of honing in on this week? All right. So we don't have to spend a lot in time on this because we already talked about the 49ers. Let's do it. Let's spend some time on it.

All right. Well, I am so excited for Frank Gore versus the 49ers. And it's partially just because I wanted to kind of write a love letter to Frank Gore, who is one of my favorite players of all time. And right now, I believe he is the Jets only hope to ward off complete disaster of this season in a lot of ways. And, you know, they obviously they have a lot of injuries. Frank Gore is now going to be starting at running back because Levyon Bell has gone on IR at least temporary,

at least for three weeks with this hamstring injury. And, you know, the fact that it's Frank Gore getting to play against the 49ers. It's not the first time that he's played against the Niners since he's left. He's been gone from there long enough. And there's actually not a lot of overlap now that Joe Staley is gone from the Niners. But I actually saw one of my lasting memories from the Super Bowl. February was Frank Gore inside the 49ers locker room. You know, the game was in Miami. It's Frank Gore's hometown where he lives in the offseason. And he was standing near the entrance

to the Niners locker room, like locked in this like really intense conversation slash embrace with Joe Staley. And it just shows so much about like who Frank Gore is as a guy of how embedded he still is with the 49ers. What a good teammate he is. And what a good teammate he is. And, even if he's not your teammate anymore. And I love watching him. It blows my mind that at age 37, he still looks, literally looks exactly the same as he did 17 years ago. Iron Matt Barrows or San Francisco 49ers beatwriter tweeted a side-by-side picture today from Gore's rookie year and his New York Jets headshot. And it literally looks exactly the same except for the camera quality.

And it's just we do not appreciate him enough. I'm so excited for someday him to get into the Hall of Fame in Canton because he's absolutely going to deserve it. And a couple of years ago, I had like a very spirited, should he be in the Hall of Fame conversation with, I believe it was C.J. Anderson and a couple of the other Broncos running backs. Just one of those. I probably shouldn't share my feelings here.

Well, you don't, because you don't, do not think he should get in? I do not think that Frank Gore should be in the Hall of him. See, I just, I think he's the longevity aspect. And it's funny, too, because I believe, I thought that Teryl Davis should have got, you know, deserved to get in. I do think Toronto, Terl Davis should be in the Hall of Fame. But to me, those guys are on the exact opposite ends of the spectrum. I go for the high peak guys that really defined the sport when they were a part of the

league over the compilers. That's my typical kind of taste. And I do think that's fair. And I just think that the Frank Gore conversation is going to be so different than that because of how just the how long he has played and who he is and what he is meant to every place that he's gone. And God, I hope he plays a couple more years. he gets to 40. I hope he somehow gets to play with his son, Frank Gore Jr.

That's what I want. That's why I want him to keep holding on. If they can play together, it would be the coolest thing that's ever happened. I mean, it's not baseball. Like the Griffey's doing it. You can play baseball until you're 55 years old. You should not be able to play running back until you're 40 years old. I want to go through. You shouldn't be able to play running back till you're like 33 and here he is at 37. It's a really incredible. You should be able to play running back till you're 30. It's unbelievable that he's still in the league. I want to go over some of the guys who were drafted the same year as Frank Gore. Let's, let's do this. This is a fun exercise.

Ronnie Brown, Cadillac Williams, our Entral role. We also have Marcus Spears and David Pollock. The guys who have been doing ESPN's football coverage for like the last decade were drafted the same year that Frank Gore was drafted, and he's still playing. It's unbelievable. Heath Miller was drafted the same year that Frank Gore was playing. These are guys who haven't thought about in like years.

And Frank Gore is just catching still playing. Well, is that Heath Miller. came out on the list today of the first year eligible modern finalist for the Hall of Fame. I hadn't thought about Heath Mill until I saw his name on that list. You know, he's not going to get into the Hall of Fame. Spoiler alert. The guys, oh, my God. There's the names on this list.

This is the 2005 draft, right? The 2005 draft, this is incredible. OJ. Atagway, a name I haven't thought about in a very, very long time. Charlie Frye, Andrew Walter. It's Mike Williams from USC was drafted that year. where that's like six Mike Williams is ago, it's unbelievable that Frank Gore is still playing football. And he is still playing football for an offense that could legitimately use this version of Frank Gore,

not even the 28-year-old version of Frank Gore, because they have no running backs. Levyon Bell won on IR today with hamstring injury, which, man, the Levyon Bell situation is fucking bleak. We can talk about that at a later date. One of the only bright spots for this team last week was the way that Mackay Beckton played in his first game. He's now hurt. It could go south in a hurry for this jet's team. I could see this falling apart by the time we get to like week four. Frank Gore is literally going to be the glue holding

this Jets team together. He's he's that kind of type of guy that everybody in that locker room is going to respect when they might not be respecting anybody else in that building who's in charge. So Frank Gore is their only hope. And I don't think it's going to go well for the Jets this week. I don't think it's going to go well for the Jets this entire season. They're the bottom team and basically every power ranking that exists on the planet for good reason. And you know what? May we never have to speak of the Jets again on this podcast? Oh, we'll speak on them, but it will be in a way that it's just trying to mine as much comedy possible from the final remnants of the Adam Gase experience.

All right, the matchup I wanted to get to, we wouldn't have to go along on this. I just want to see what the Rams defense and the Eagles offense look like in week two because I thought both of them. were particularly interesting. You know, the Rams defense played pretty well against Dallas, an offense that I think is going to be great and expected to kind of take over the league before the season started. And the Rams defense is a unit that I had significant questions about. And you think about all the turnover on that side of the ball,

whether it's the players or the staff. You know, Brandon Staley coming over, calling a defense for the first time, a lot of unproven players, especially in the middle of that defense. So I'll be curious to see they can kind of keep this rolling. and can the Eagles bounce back? You know, they're getting Lane Johnson back this week.

They're getting Miles Sanders back. I think both of those are significant against this Rams team in particular. Because the Rams, the Cowboys last week, one of the only things they did well was Zecchio Elliott had a nice game both as a rusher and a receiver. Getting Miles Sanders back, who's a huge part of that Eagles passing game, can he do some work and really give Carson Wentz an out what he didn't have last week as they tried to push the ball down the field? and if they continue trying to push the ball down the field, is getting Lane Johnson back and being able to lock down that right side,

does that open up, does that give Carson once more time, allow him to be more comfortable, and are we going to see just a more put-together version of this Eagles offense? So that's just a matchup that I did not expect to be as intrigued by as I am right now. Yeah, and if it doesn't go well for the Eagles, they are officially into like, oh, shit territory. Absolutely.

I want to know just like makeup-wise, how they come out in week two after, you know, that collapsed. I mean, that was really bad. You were starting to see some, yeah, it was so bad. There was a lot of bad body language stuff, a lot of bad responses from, you know, some of the best players. So, yeah, I have a lot of kind of just philosophical questions now about who the Eagles are. And, you know, I think they could, if they lose that game close, you know, if they,

you know, lose by a field goal or something, maybe we don't feel awful about them. But if they come out and are a mess again, like they played in the second half against Washington, then I think there's major, major, fundamental issues going on there. I feel like one of the reasons that the Rams played so well against Dallas is that the right side of that Dallas offensive line was such a mess. I mean, having your third offensive tackle in there and Leonard Floyd and Ecobown both made plays. I just don't think those plays are going to be there against Lane Johnson when he's back in the lineup. So are they going to be able to get enough pressure? And also, you know, because Dallas really couldn't push the ball down,

field. They only have two throws of 20 or more air yards last week because of how quickly Dak had to get rid of the ball. They couldn't test some of the more inexperienced guys than that Ram's secondary. Jordan Fuller, who was their sixth round pick this year, is starting for this team. Over Taylor Rap, he's getting a lot of work. So if the Eagles can hold up up front a little bit longer than they could last week, are they going to be able to kind of take some shots and try to take advantage of somebody who hasn't played a lot of football? So just little things like that. Again, it's a group and it's a matchup that I didn't, if you would show me the calendar a month ago. That's not one of the ones I would have honed in on. But I just think the way both

of those teams played last week, there's a lot to watch there. All right, we'll be back after this quick break. This is the Athletics Shield Capadia here to tell you about liquid IV. Nobody likes to feel dehydrated. Maybe you get a little bit of a headache, dry mouth. You just don't feel like yourself. But believe it or not, dehydration still occurs daily in three out of four people. With liquid IV, you have the fastest, most efficient way to stay hydrated. Each serving helps you get as much hydration as two to three bottles of water. Maybe you use it after a really intense workout. Maybe you went out socially distanced with friends and had a couple extra beers the night before. That's where Liquid IV comes in. It is healthier than those sugary sports drinks, no artificial

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All right. Let's get to our next segment. Each week I think we want to both ask a question, you know, who has the most at stake this week? Which guy really kind of has his season kind of teetering, needs to show us something, you know, in a given week? For me, this week, and I did not expect to say it this early in the year, that's Baker Mayfield.

I was so disappointed with the way that he played last week against Baltimore. They're playing on Thursday night. It's a primetime showcase for him. Just a simple question for you, Winsie, are you worried about Baker Mayfield coming out and playing, starting the season like that after the year he had last year? I absolutely. I definitely am.

And it's been a rough start to his career. Obviously, he's had so many different coaches and scheme changes just now in his third season. I mean, his head coach was fired halfway through his rookie year. And I think it was a much needed coaching change heading into this year. So it's been very tumultuous, no consistency. That said, we needed to see more out of him and out of that passing game. And he just looked really, really lost. And, you know, he regressed in year two.

And he can't afford to regress again. And, you know, one of the things that I, you know, I spoke with Quincy, Quincy Avery yesterday. And I know you spoke with him for the podcast, too. And one of the things that he and I talked about, because I called specifically because I wanted to talk about the second year quarterbacks. And there's so much turnover on the coaching staffs for most of these second year quarterbacks. Kyler Murray is the only guy who was coming into his sophomore year in the NFL with

the same play caller. All the rest of these guys have a new offense coordinator, new offensive scheme. So I wanted to know what I wanted to see what are they going to look like in week one. And one of the most notable things in Quincy Avery brought this up was that those guys, the second year guys, Minchu, Haskins, Drew Locke, Kyler Murray and Daniel Jones, as a whole looked a lot better than this third year group, specifically Sam Darnold, who we just talked about what a mess the jets are and Baker Mayfield, both guys who regressed in year two. And now you're, you're having these really substantial questions about what is their future with this franchise, did this franchise mess up? I don't want to write off Baker Mayfield yet. But we're getting very quickly to

the point that almost every week is going to be a referendum on who he is, who the Browns are and what their long-term future is going to be. When I went back, I went back and watched the game today. Again, I didn't watch the All-22, like I'm bitter about it. But going back just to watch the broadcast angle today, I wanted to go back and watch all the throws because the initial impressions I got are that he looked really uncomfortable and just unsettled. And going back to watch them all today, I have the same takeaway. I mean, there are so many plays. His first play action throw, I really wanted to see what the structure of that offense and more play action

and just more timed throws and defined reads could do for a quarterback who, when he's left to his own devices, tends to struggle. and the first play action throw they ran on the first down. It was a first and ten on their second drive. He bailed from the pocket. It was a clean pocket and he just starts rolling to his right again. It's this weird tick that he has. There was another play later in the game where they ran that.

It's a play we see all the time. It's a little play action run to the right and then you boot back around to the left and the tight end comes across the formation for a little flood concept. The Shanahan tree runs it six times a game. We see it all the time. It's a very simple play. But Baker, the play is going to his left, and he stops and then sort of drifting back to his right. And the stuff like that is where I'm starting to get really worried.

When the actual play design is to take you the opposite direction and he falls back into that, it's worrying. It is truly worrying. And his footwork just seems to be all over the place. There was a throw in the first half that Malik Harrison picked that probably should have been intercepted or tip that probably should have been intercepted. And he's just stepping so long. And this is a nerdy thing. But one of my favorite things about Baker is that his throwing motion was so compact at Oklahoma. He's a small guy.

But the torque he gets in his upper body really allows his feet to be settled and have him still get a lot of power behind his throws. And now he's late, so he seems to be overcompensating. He just looks really all over the place. And I would like to see what they can do in more advantageous situations because they were in a bad game script for most of that game. it didn't really allow them to run the ball as much as they did. It didn't allow them to use play action on early downs as much as they probably want to. So if they're winning a game, if they're in front, what does that do to their approach and to the way that he looks?

Because when he's scrambling, he looks really bad right now. And I think that this is the type of game that he might be able to get back on track because they're in control. And I was just disappointed that Stefanski didn't do more to help him, that there wasn't, I don't know, I guess I just expected more out of this partnership where, you know, Sfansky comes in and, yes, he's a young, youngish head coach, first time head coach, but you kind of had this feeling of like, okay, they've got an adult in the room again. And they looked just as lost and as bad as they did last year when Freddie Kitchen,

who was by all accounts over his head in running that offense. So yeah, I was, I was very disappointed. And look, if he plays poorly against the Bengals and if Joe Burrow outplays him, that's going to be real bad. And that's going to be a real tough look. the state of Ohio. Yeah, I think that one of the reasons that he didn't do much to help him is because the game just really didn't allow them to.

They were down three scores early in the third quarter. And that's tough. I mean, when you're in defined passing situations, you can't really put your quarterback in good spots. He was also four of 12 on third down. He had a 16 pass a rating. When they're in spots where you know he's going to throw the ball and you can kind of tee off, especially that Ravens team that loves to do it, he looked so uncomfortable.

I mean, their hots were really bad in blitzing situations. I just want to see them look more settled than they did because if he's going to keep playing like this and just look like he has no idea what's going on, then they're in a lot of trouble. All right, Lindsay, how about you? Who do you think has the most at stake this week? All right.

So my focus is I'm staying here on quarterbacks and I know it's been a really quarterback heavy week here, but you can't go wrong. It's the only place to go. But my big concern in the stakeholders here are the old quarterbacks because in the oldest quarterback specifically, Tom Brady, Drew Breed,

and Philip Rivers all looked really bad in week one. And yes, I know the Saints won, but there was not a lot that was encouraging about the Saints overall passing game. And it's going to be more difficult, as we discussed, without Michael Thomas. I have a lot of questions, though, like philosophically about who the Bucks are and what their offense was in week one with Tom Brady. And, you know, you're hearing this stuff about what the languages that they're using and how much integration was there between what Brady has done, what Brady likes to do,

and who Bruce Ariens and Byron left, which are just fundamentally in what their offense is. And I still believe that they're going to figure this out. And I do look back a lot to really the only comparable situation that we have is when Peyton Manning joined the Denver Broncos in 2012. And it was really rough at times early in the season. I remember week two of that season, the Broncos played a Monday net football at Atlanta. And Manning through interceptions, multiple interceptions in the first quarter. He looked bad.

He was figuring out. what he could throw, what he couldn't throw. And they realized that there was just stuff that they had to pull out of the playbook, that it wasn't working, that they needed to lean a lot more heavily on what Peyton was comfortable doing, what his body would allow him to do, but also just what he wanted and what he was familiar with. And I want to see if the bucks are going to go through some sort of that same shift here and realizing that maybe asking Brady to be this kind of yolo downfield thrower,

maybe that's not the right way to go right now. and maybe there's ways that they can lean a little bit more heavily into what Brady wants and what Brady has done well in the past rather than expecting him to be, you know, 2014 calls of Carson Palmer. So that's, so I just have a lot of questions for those guys. And then for Philip Rivers, you know, that was one of my most disappointing performances of the week. You know, I think maybe we all just were like naively optimistic that getting Philip Rivers out of Los Angeles slash San Diego into a new offense with better players around him on the, the offensive line, it would remove some of his, the worst qualities about Philip Rivers.

And that's his instincts late in games to really do too much. And that didn't happen. He was making the exact same mistakes that we saw him make over and over and over against with the Chargers. And that was just really frustrating. And big challenges ahead now for the Colts, right? I mean, if they're playing the Vikings this week who are also 0-1 and I think we officially enter, I said this with the Eagles, they enter, oh, shit territory.

if you were at O and 2 and because the offense isn't working. And, you know, they made such steps. You know, it was a big move to go get Philip Rivers. And if you fall to O and 2 because of Philip Rivers and not in spite of Philip Rivers, I think that's going to be a major, major problem. I feel like the Phillip Rivers conversation is not dissimilar to what I was talking about with Baker Mayfield, where having control of the game is very important because you don't want him to be trying to be doing too much. And the Colts didn't have that control last week because

they didn't get a fort down, down in the red zone. They missed a field goal down in the red zone. And they let the Jaguar stick around, stick around, stick around. And there was a moment where Philip is having to scramble a little bit at the end. He throws a terrible pick. So can they kind of take control a little bit more than they did last week? Can they take advantage of that Viking secondary in the same way we saw the Packers do it? I still have a lot of faith in the overall just ceiling of the Colts offense. I think it's a really good group even without Marlon Mack. I would love to see, you know, T.Y. Hilton play a little bit better.

He talked about the passes. He dropped had a huge impact on them. So I'm with you. I want to see both of them play better because I had high hopes for both of those teams, both of those offenses. I picked them to make the playoffs. So, you know, we'll see what happens. All right, Lindsay, before we get out of here,

you and I each week are going to ask our one big question for the week. What is the question we want to have an answer to by the time that weekend's games are over? Why don't you start us off? All right. We touched on this just a little bit when you were talking about the Rams, the Rams defense and what they did against the Cowboys offense last week. But I want to focus on the Cowboys offense. Sure.

We had such high expectations for them. I know you especially were, you know, like over the moon excited. I was ready, man. I was ready for just like the rocket ship takeoff. I was probably too excited about it. Yeah. And there was no rocket ship. It was like barely with Terrence Steel at right tackle.

No, it was like barely a paper airplane. I mean, it was really, really, really rough. And, you know, we didn't see any sort of dynamic downfield element. There was just nothing new and innovative. Like, you know, they could have just CGIed Jason Garrett onto the sideline instead of Mike McCarthy because there was really nothing different about watching the 2020 week one version of the Cowboys as what we've seen. Fun fact. There's no difference. Fun fact, there's no difference between a Jason Garrett hologram and Jason Garrett.

So it actually, it would have been perfect. It was totally fine. That is absolutely 100% true. The only reason that I noticed was that Mike McCarthy was there was because they just kept showing all the shots of him with like his mask. The teeny tiny mask. And like, can't we just get them in like accurate sizes? Like I appreciate that he was wearing it. God bless you, Mike McCarthy for actually putting your freaking mask over your nose, unlike Sean McVeigh.

But like, could we just get him on the fifth? My favorite one was Robert Kraft, Jonathan Kraft was sitting next to him in the game and they showed them in the booth. And Jonathan Kraft was wearing one of those like terrible cloth blue masks. It's like, can we get Jonathan Kraft, who's worth billions of dollars, a slightly nicer mask than a 10 cent one you get at Walgreens? Like, what are we doing here? He has like the 50 pack that you buy it. Yes. Like, how is this happening? It's little tiny things.

Like, if I had a ton of money, I would just have a little bit better mask situation than the one I wear in a pinch when I can't find my decent one to go out. And you can find all sorts of really cool ones on Etsy. So we should be able to make this happen. But yeah, but look, I was I was really disappointed by the. the Cowboys Offensive Performance Week 1. And part of that, I think, was that the Rams, we maybe underrated. We slept on the Rams defense a little bit. As you mentioned, they played really, really well and they really exploited the areas

that they were able to, the weaknesses in the Cowboys offense. I think they're going to be okay just based on the sheer talent, but I am now suddenly concerned that talent isn't going to be enough there because that's what we've been talking about with the Cowboys forever, right? Is that they should have these really good players, but the scheme has been holding them back, the decision making of the head coach. has been holding them back. And where is the stuff that Mike McCarthy supposedly learned in his year away?

You know, with the stuff that he learned. One time. There you go. That's a step in the right direction. I mean, it's a little tiny incremental stuff when it comes to Mike McCarthy, but I'll take that one.

So can we, can we start a movement to let Kellyn Moore cook? I'm curious to see what it would look like when they feel like they have a little bit more time. It just felt like they're just discomfort. with DAC being able to get rid of the ball and how quickly things seemed to be crumbling. It just felt like they were never in a groove when it came to play calling

and kind of having a feel for that game. Well, Robert, do I have some good news for you? You know who they're playing this week, right? If there's a team to get back on track with, it's the team that allowed 35 open window throws to Russell Wilson last Sunday. So if the Cowboys offense still looks bad and still looks boring after this week,

then we have some real, really big concern. and that's why they're my big question of the week. I think it's a great one because you're absolutely right. If you can't look at against the Falcons, then it's time to start getting worried. I'm going to go the other way. I'm going to ask, can the Bill's offense keep this up? Because I went back and watched that game earlier this week, and I was so impressed by the structure of their offense and just by the way everybody played.

I love the combination of those backs, Stefan Diggs, John Brown, Colby'sley, and even Dawson Knox. I just think that collection of skill position players can, do so much for you. And I think that Brian Dable is a really underrated play caller. I felt like even when Josh Allen wasn't playing well, he was putting Josh Allen in really good spots. And now when you just have the overall talent on that offense combined with decent play calling

and Josh Allen doing a much better job of taking what was there, you know, not trying to do too much, I was so impressed by what they looked like offensively. I know the hilarious Josh Allen throw in the end zone is the one we're going to kind of fixate on. but he looked excellent in that game. And I just thought that they put him in, we're talking about putting quarterbacks in positions to succeed. They consistently did that.

A ton of play action, the second highest play action rate in the league. A lot of early down screens as well to kind of get them easy gains. They were another team that was using screens on the high red zone. That's how John Brown scored that touchdown. I just really like the overall approach that they had. I don't think the Jets are a very good team. And I also don't think this is the week that we're going to find out

if the bills are a real offense against the dolphins. But I just want them see them just get in a groove, continue showing that they have a really good feel for their personnel. I was excited about this group coming in. And what I saw in week one did nothing to diminish that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I put them pretty high in my power rankings this week. I just, Josh Allen was fine.

And he did still have some of the ball control issues, ball security issues that he's had in the past. Yeah, the fumbles are worrying. But that's, yeah, the fumbles are definitely worrying. And I know our Tim Graham, who's the columnist there in Buffalo is really concerned. just about some of the hits that he's taking and the positions that they're putting him in. None of us want to see Matt Barkley running that offense.

That's for sure. Or Jake Frum playing in that offense. So, yeah, they need to be careful with him a little bit. But he's so dynamic as a runner. And he just gives that offense with all of those other skill position players that you mentioned. It just makes the potential to be really, really fun. And I'm with you that I'm excited about it. And I want to see, I want to see more.

And look, it's been a really long time, I think, since I've said I wanted to see more. of the Buffalo Bills. I really like it. I just like the talent. I've always been a big Stefan Diggs guy. I think there were a couple plays that his ability to separate, his understanding of spacing were really on display. I mean, Alan made a really nice throw to him.

It was kind of a sliding throw near the sideline. Just the ball placement from Alan in the intermediate areas of the field. I was impressed by. I mean, it's very strange. Do you play golf? Do you play golf? Yeah. No.

No, I watch a lot of golf, but I don't play it. So as a very bad golf, one of the things I struggle with every once in a while is like if I am just taking a full swing with a club if I'm having a sandwich I'm hitting like 110 yard shot I can do that just fine but sometimes when I have to not hit a full club when I have to hit a 60 yard shot I have a difficult time getting a feel for how hard I should swing and just what the motion's supposed to look like and every once in a while that's how I feel with Josh Allen yeah when he has to kind of just put a ball over somebody that's a screen or when he has to work in the red zone when it's more about touch than anything else. I think he can tend to struggle. I think when he has to short arm stuff, his accuracy sometimes will falter. When he can really rare back and throw, he's fine. I mean, that's when he's okay.

But when he has to think about it, that's when you run into some issues. I think that's where you saw with some of those red zone throws. But, I mean, beyond that, beyond just those kind of hiccup moments, I thought he looked excellent and I'm excited to see what it looks like moving forward. Absolutely. All right. Lindsay, that's all we got. Our first Thursday show, it's in the books.

We have more football this weekend. I'm excited. I'm even excited about Bengals Browns on Thursday night, which just tells you how starved I was for football. That is the absolute proof that we are early in the season and that we haven't been beaten down quite yet. Soon. Very soon we'll be depressed by the Thursday night matchups.

It won't take long. It'll probably be by about the third quarter. Guys, as always, Thank you so much for listening to The Athletic Football Show. Please subscribe, rate, review us on your favorite podcast platform. We will be back on Monday, me and Nate Tice, with a complete breakdown of week two. Thank you so much for listening.

Talk to you later. This was the Athletic Football Show.