The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 3 Reaction: Another Falcons collapse, NFC questions, fixing Carson Wentz & finding the Secret Sauce

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

Can you believe the Falcons blew another lead? Well, maybe you can. Robert Mays and Nate Tice discuss the best and worst from week 3 including the benching of Mitch Trubisky, the trash of the NFC east, Josh Allen's ascension, why teams don't embrace play action more and the debut a new segment, 'Secret Sauce.'Remember you can get access to The Athletic for $1 at theathletic.com/footballshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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I'm Robert Mays, and joining me tonight. My good friend Nate Tyson, Nate, how are you? I'm doing great. That was a fun Sunday of football. Finally, it was fun seeing a full slate of almost like playoff games and just diving into that and just getting juiced up, watching all these close games throughout the whole day. Yeah, it was a fun day of football.

We will get to a bunch of stuff. We'll get to the Falcons blowing yet another lead. We will get to what happened in the Bill's Rams game. Just a ton of stuff to take care of and a ton of stuff to kind of keep up with today. It was overwhelming. I just caught myself cackling at times because of how weird and crazy some of this stuff was. Before we get to any of that, though, let's start with the NFC in general. I think that that's a way to kind of talk about a lot of the best things that happened today.

If you watch the afternoon slate plus the Sunday night game, I think you could absolutely make a case that we saw the four teams that may very well win the divisions in the NFC. The Packers, the Saints, the Cowboys, and the Seahawks. If you look at the standings right now, I think that's kind of the logical conclusion. I mean, you throw the bucks in there maybe, who knows what's going to happen with the Rams. But right now, I think those four teams are probably in the driver's seat. So I want to talk about how you'd handicap those four teams right now and what that means. what it's telling us about both those teams and the season.

So if you come away from today, and again, we can couch every single one of these conversations with. It's only three weeks, but it's all we have to go on. So if you're sitting here right now, three weeks into the season, after watching those teams in essentially prime time, how would you kind of stack them up against each other right now, one through four? Of those four you listed, I really, the Packers and the Seahawks are kind of the most, and they both have huge flaws.

I know we're going to talk about that. It's those two at least have put together complete games or at least games where I can see a path to success for the rest of the year. And it also helps that you get guys like Russell Wilson and Aaron Rogers playing out of their minds right now. And really that's going to be kind of the key to it is that they're playing well. They're going to carry these whole teams with how much it's going to go kind of crazy this season with all the unfamiliarity that's going on with this season. And those two are kind of like, and I don't even want to consider them face. favorites because I do really like the Rams. And I'm kind of biased towards the Rams this year.

They're kind of my little sneaky pick. And ones I'm really high on, I'm now getting to watch a couple weeks of film. They're a team that I'm a little higher on than maybe in general. But of those four teams you listed at the Seahawks and Packers are kind of the ones that I really see had the path to success for the rest of the season. We can get into this right now. The idea of them being flawed, I think is important. Because when you watch these games and you watch Seattle today and they just get dice. stuffed by Dak Prescott for a good chunk of that game.

Their past defense has not been good all year. You watch the Packers just get run over by Alvin Kamara as both a receiver and a rusher, which I thought was going to happen coming into this game. Both of those teams have clear flaws, clear weaknesses that when you're talking about a contender, you'd be concerned about it. Like, yeah, is that going to come back and bite them? But if you look at some of the stuff that's happening right now across the league, just the sheer amount of injuries and the attrition that we're,

we're going to have to be watching for the next couple months here, there are going to be no perfect teams. All of these teams, whether it's injury or team building faults, are going to have downsides or weaknesses that we say, ah, can they really overcome that? But if everyone has one, then it becomes what is your weakness and how strong are your strengths? Do you think that this year, with all the things that are going out with the injuries, with all the attrition, with all the turnover, with how weird these circumstances are, do you think it's an oversimification to say that having the best quarterback and having the quarterback that's

playing the best is more important this year than it's been in years past? No, I mean, it's it's really the basis of football is Occam's Razor, right? The quarterback kind of, you follow your quarterback, how well they play, the whole team plays. And really building a team is you, ideally you're building through the spine, you're going inside out. So the teams that seem to have the best quarterback, best O-Line and maybe best D-Line play right now might have an advantage over everybody else, whether it be familiarity, cohesiveness, or just overall play. And I think it's just when you get a season like this with so much craziness going on, you have to go back to the basics. And what's the basics of football? Hey, follow the quarterback. You know, the quarterback is going to win

his games. Hey, that's the guy. That's the golden boy. I think it's not oversimplified. I just think that's the clearest thinking. It's one of those things where it's maybe the clearest thought is the best thought on it. And I just think with all these flaws, like you mentioned, where the NFC is basically the big 12 right now with all these defenses there just seem to be in slice and dice and the quarterbacks are just having field days doing what they do like I think that is kind of the path that this season's going to go on and maybe defenses shore up maybe as um teams are getting more used to just this because every season is like almost a four week season or everyone adjusts after three or four weeks so we right now as we sit it's like oh yeah this is this can be a cuby fun

year like this is going to be so much where cubies are just going to be the story of the season, but you can say that about every NFL season. Well, last year you didn't really, right? Like the 49ers were a team that played almost independent of their quarterback, and they did it for most of the year. And it just doesn't feel like, especially in the NFC, and again, it's so early, I don't want to make any big sweeping conclusions, but from what I've watched so far, that's how it feels. It's like, oh, if there are no real teams top to bottom that can beat you in complete ways,

isn't it going to be about the most important players? And if you look at those four teams, it just feels like you have Russell's, you have Russell and Rogers, and then DAC is playing extremely well, and the Saints are doing some weird stuff with how they're moving the ball at this point. They're almost manufacturing offense with Camara and Breeze and the way they did it today. So let's talk about Rogers and Wilson for a second. We talked about Wilson a lot last week. I don't think there's much else to say after that game he played today. I tweeted this, and I firmly believe it, he is seeing the fucking Matrix right now. The game is so slow to him. It just doesn't seem to matter what's happening. I'm thinking of

the completion he had to Olson on the sideline right before the half where he's just drifting out bullet right to the one yard line just not even it doesn't even seem to phase him when he's having to make these plays is there anything else about that offense outside of just his pure greatness that has jumped out to you so far yeah he has seen the matrix but it's one of those things where everything he's doing has a purpose as opposed to maybe it's not frantic at all yep correct correct it's not it's you know it's not even the organizing chaos that he used to be kind of like the controlled scramble chaotic plays that he would make the fran tarkenton plays now it's everything is planned it's like he has that clock in his head he's

like all right i hit two seconds look to scramble all right that two and a half seconds i'll have my eyes up at three seconds i'll pump fake you know it's like it's almost like he has this planned out improv uh like robin williams kind of thing where you just if you practice improv enough that the improv seems fluid. Every play he has a plan on. It doesn't seem like he's overwhelmed where he is truly gone. I only know one route on this play. So that's a testament to maybe the study he's doing and all the offense that he's doing with Schottenheimer and maybe getting another year in that system. And it just, you know, he may put it in. He's getting comfortable with the D.K. Metcalf. I mean, Lockett had a great game. It's just their whole system is just coming together very nicely.

And it's a nice puzzle piece right now with Russell being the big puzzle piece of that. of that puzzle. I want to go back and watch them a little bit this week because they've been in prime time, so I haven't watched as much all 22 as I've watched their teams that haven't been in big games where I've actually watched it start to finish. And I'm just am curious how the routes are fitting together. It just seems like they're getting locket on crossing routes over the middle so often. Watching that game today, I'm really starting to like Metcalf, man.

He's becoming one of those guys that I'm just watching all the time. The play where he should have scored the touchdown while embarrassing was incredibly impressive. Just the subtleties with which he's running some of those deep routes where it's a little shoulder, a little this. Similar to kind of the stuff that Tyree Kill does when you're moving at full speed, you don't need to do much to throw people off. And that's what Metcalf seems to have now. He had a comeback where it is just he's going full vertical and just shuts it down. And it's like, oh, man, if he starts getting that stuff, we are in scary territory. Yeah.

And you mentioned it. You mentioned it last week, too. He was getting on Gilmore. And he had a route last week. and when I finally got to watch the All 22 that game, he ran a stop route and he just, Gilmore had a respect to speed. And then he was able to create separation,

like three yards of separation on the top, one of the top corners in the game, which is pretty absurd. It's not like it was like, oh, a split second, the ball got there and Gilmore was on it. It was like, no, like he had time to catch,

turn and get upfield before Gilmore had got to recover. And he's doing that now on several routes. And that's, yeah, like you said, that's scary. It's really scary. It's Julio throttle down stuff.

That's a, Julio does it the best, where Julio has that comeback that he does, those deep comebacks, and teams are so scared of him beating them over the top that that's always been free money, whenever the Falcons have run that during his career. Because very few guys have that ability to threaten you vertically where you have to turn and then just stop. And Metcab is doing that now, and it's terrifying. Let's get to the Packers, because, you know, we know Russell Wilson's good. We know Russell Wilson's been playing well.

This isn't a surprise necessarily. He's taking it to a whole different level. I think he has the NFL record for touchdown passes in your first three games, right? Yeah. After today. I mean, you tweeted it. I mean, the amount of completions to touchdown passes is just insane. But you could have made an argument, you know, that he was the best quarterback in the NFL outside of Patrick Holmes coming into the season.

The Packers have been better than people expected. And I want to ask you, what elements of their offense beyond Rogers playing unconscious are better than you expected than be coming into the season? Where have they surprised you? Shot plays. you know it's kind of a seem i'm seeing more meshing of lafleur stuff and rogers come and what he likes to do it seems like they really i wouldn't say take the reins off but maybe now we're getting into more of that rogers and we saw it last year a little bit too but rogers really controlling things at the line of scrimmage and i think he's just more like i think they narrowed down what their playbook is

and they went from hey let's get all your great stuff and all my great stuff and what's put together and then they got a whole off season where they're like okay what's like like chop like chop that and down. So it's just get it down to more concepts that we really, really like. And then that's when Rogers can start playing around with it and doing what he wants to do when he wants to tweak, use hard counts. Now he's not going like, okay, I don't really like this play action play. But, you know, so I can't really do the hard count because I don't know what I would do if I did drop a guy, get a guy to jump. So I think it's a lot, you know, the shot plays are coming together. Even they didn't even have Adams tonight, which is, I mean, it's crazy. Yeah. And he was just playing

absurd. And I think there's a whole offense is coming together really nicely where they ran a couple really nice reps. It's going to be like a broken record, how much I love this play, but duo. And, you know, they're running not just the outside zone stuff. They're running a little bit of everything. And it's a fun meshing of parts going on right now in Green Bay. You know what this reminds me of

everything you just said, it's 2016 Falcons, man. Right. I mean, it's the same sort. I mean, everything you heard, and I've talked to both of them about it, with Kyle Shanahan and Matt Ryan in the past just about the partnership in the year two. And I went to Atlanta to talk to Matt Ryan in the middle of that MVP season just about that process and what it was like. And it sounds exactly like that. You just kind of figure out what works, what doesn't. How do we mesh our styles together while having this cohesive vision for what we want the offense to be?

And if that's the case, then we're talking about really scary stuff. I mean, when they're doing this without Tivante Adams, and I know the Saints defense isn't playing that well. And again, it almost felt like Robert Tanya and whoever and Mercedes-Lewis were just combining to be Darren Waller tonight. But it still is just, I think that's exactly right. It's just a distillation of, all right, this is what we want this to be. We're coming to meet each other in the middle. I'm still a very good quarterback. Here we go.

Yep. And that's where the kind of the human element of this all goes. Like that first off season together, it's like everything's sunshine or rainbows. Yeah, we're going to use that stuff. We're going to use that stuff. That's great. And then once you're in the week nine and week 10 and everyone wants to kill each other. Then all of a sudden it's like, you know, it's a little edgy at that point.

It's like, well, that stuff's been working. Why don't like it? Well, it's been working. I don't like it. And, you know, those arguments kind of happen. But then you have a whole off season where it's now it's a full, you're not stressing about the game that's that Sunday. You can have 10 meetings on it. You can have 10 phone calls on it talking about, okay, let's tweak that play just doing this.

Let's call it different so I can check to it a little easier. You know, so now they see what actually did and did not work. And yeah, and now we're kind of seeing it come to fruition right now. Cowboys and the Saints on the losing ends of those games today. Do you feel any worse about either of those teams right now than you did at the start of the day? Or do you feel like kind of trading punches with Rogers and Wilson at this point shows you that they'll probably be sticking around here for a while? Cowboys are exactly what I thought they're going to be. I mean, almost to a T.

They got some injuries and granted, you know, so that's going to affect it a lot. But this is kind of how I picture it would be. I pictured him almost like my dad's old teams in Minnesota, where it was just every week's a shootout. you know, that's going into this season. I kind of thought that's how they're going to be and they look like that. So I think they're fine. I think their defense is going to shore up a little bit. They're getting a decent pass rush.

There's some real bad plays and coverage, but that's what's going to be this season. I think they'll have some games where maybe they create some turnovers and they run a team out of the gym. And it's 5210 because they get like two turnovers early and the other team has to throw and they can blitz. They can do whatever they want. And as far as the Saints, their defense is actually a little surprising. And it's kind of funny that Mike Nolan was the Saints library coach is now with the Cowboys. So it's like he's kind of tied to both teams. And but with the Saints, it's they're not generating those kind of like I was just saying where they run a team out like where they are creating like just these big plays on defense it seems like it seems like they're kind of get pushed around a little bit.

And that's surprise me. And I think that's a little more worrisome than what I was picturing. But we've seen this with the Saints early on, but usually they shore up after week two. And you want to maybe see something week three, maybe, but it's kind of been consistent week and week out so far that they're struggling a little bit on defense. And that's before we even start talking about Breeze's arm again and what they have to do on offense. Because their offense is looking a little hard right now. When you're relying on Kamara, breaking about 10 tackles a game, that's not sustainable for a long season, especially as injuries start piling up. So the Cowboys, I completely agree with you.

I think that they're going to be fine. Their deck through almost 500 yards today. Yeah. They keep coming back, and it's one of those things where they're not playing well. It just feels like they are able to kind of zombie version of them. They keep coming and coming and coming. Even though the defense just keeps letting up scores, the offense is unceasing. And I think they're going to be okay.

I mean, they had a, Zach Martin was playing right tackle at one point today. I mean, their offensive line, if they get healthier, I think that the offense has no issues and they're going to be totally okay. And with the rest of that division, they've got some leave. way. They've definitely got some wiggle room. I tweeted this earlier today. They're one and two, but it feels like they have a commanding lead in that division. Right. And the schedule's probably going to open up.

Two game lead already. Yeah. I mean, the schedule is going to open up. I have no concerns about some. So going back to the Saints, what you said about Breeze, I think, is the right thing to kind of focus on here. At this point, if they have to survive like this on offense, and Michael Thomas is going to come back, so there's a chance they'll be fine.

And I kind of, I tend to think they will be. But what are the limits of an offense? that can only make plays in the short intermediate areas of the field when you're having to rely on a yak guy like Kamar. What's the ceiling for a team that has to play like that? If a team just starts squatting on your stuff, and I know there's going to be another team we're going to talk about later that I'm going to maybe dive into this more, but we kind of saw it tonight when they go down two scores. And all of a sudden you have to hit chunk plays. And so now when that offense is opened up and everything can't be really schemed up.

And Sean Payton's one of the best at it where every game plan is like a piece of, art, you know, and it's one of those, also, and you get into basically a two-minute drill, and you have to run maybe to three, four concepts. They're all big chunk plays. And it's like, that's where all some of those windows start closing on Breeze that they weren't closing before, even three, two, three years ago. It's as opposed to pushing it down to field, getting these 22, 26-yard gains. Now they're 12-yard gains, and he's checking it down because he feels like he's late on something

because everything has to be perfect for Breeze now. So that is where those issues come in. It's the game plan has to be on fire. And you also, which we can trust with Sean Payton, but there's going to be games where it's not. And maybe the defense is dialed in where they weren't tonight. But, you know, the Packers defense wasn't on their offense. But, but all that stuff, it's hard to sustain when you're really relying on yak and you're relying on broken tackles and you're relying on precision. We talked about after week one is that that offense, it's relying on Breeze being efficient.

And for that passing game to be that and being sustainable, he has. to be efficient every single play because now they're not creating explosive plays naturally. They're generating it with with Kamara and Michael Thomas a little bit. I mean, he's hurt, but what they generally do. But now it's kind of one of those things where it's hard to sustain because defenses are going to start figuring out a little bit. Yeah, I mean, after the week one, I kind of thought that they would have to win ugly a little bit more often than they have in previous years.

They could lean on that defense and that doesn't seem to be an option for them. So I feel like they'll be okay. And, I mean, this is a team that they have so much talent. I assume that they'll figure it out. And the Bucks are a really complete team. I mean, you could probably make an argument. The top to bottom, they might be the best team in the NFC right now. Well, I didn't really watch much of that game.

We'll talk about them later, I'm sure. But, I mean, the Saints are one of those teams where even if it's a little rocky at the beginning of the year, it's like, all right, we've seen this before. There's too much ability on that team for them to not figure it out at some point. It just hasn't happened quite yet. All right. we're going to talk about who won the week, but before we do that, let's take a quick break. This football season will be different, and Pepsi is here to get you ready for game day no matter how you watch this season. I know at times I've watched with friends, I've watched with family members, I've watched out in public.

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All right, Nate. Who won the week for you? The Bills. The Buffalo bills. Two weeks in a row, they've been in this spot. And it's more, too. I'm high on the bills anyways. But, you know, they played the dolphins who, we really don't know what the dolphins are.

this year because they've had division games and that's always skewy and then a Thursday night game so those whatever but they put a nice game together against the ramps yes they almost blew it and they needed a little luck at the end there which i thought was an offensive pass interference if i'm being if i'm being unbiased about it but i just thought their offense is just cooking right now and their defense we already seen what mcdermit and leslie fraser have done they can put together a nice sound defense it might not be star studded i mean they have some great players, but it can be this nice, cohesive unit. And really, the question mark was, is the offense sustainable? Offense has been sustainable for three weeks. And Josh Allen has like really,

really played well. Brian Davel's doing such a great job. Josh Allen, it's coming together mentally for him. It seems like it really is slowing down because he's anticipating these throws now. These throws before, he might have thrown late, try to gun it in there. Like I was talking about a couple quarterbacks last week where they're throwing weight and they sail the throws. He still has to hone in his mortar deep balls but these overrouts that dable is getting they're scheming up against miami they hit like seven of them and he's throwing these great throws one after another on time hitting the guys right in stride and it's just like the whole team has really come together it's a fun cohesive well-coached team and like just like a play like this this just speaks to what the bills are doing tossin knox fumbled on

this play against miami i know i'm referring to last week but this is all i got to watch the film on is but they lined them up in the backfield and they ran like a little inside like a release through the A gap ran out route it would have been like a 20 30 yard gain knocks fumbled but it just showed they're getting creative with stuff and it's sound stuff none of it's like oh that's just RPO shit it's like no this stuff is like good solid football they got a great run game they'll line does some good stuff like they're good in protection Josh Allen's doing a good job too and pre-snap stuff and like I've seen him point stuff he's made a couple checks he looks very comfortable in the whole system. And that just kind of speaks to the coaching and that whole organization at this point in time. If I told you that we just watched the two best teams in the NFL play in that game today, would you say? I would agree. Those are two of my favorite teams right now. They're two.

Honestly, they're the top tier for me. They're two of the top six teams in the whole NFL, I think. I mean, I guess I mean more when we get to the end, if they were the teams that were left, it wouldn't surprise you. It would not. that's kind of how I felt watching that game today, too. And I felt it for one specific reason. I think both of those quarterbacks have gotten better. When I watched Josh Allen over the last few weeks, it's obvious.

The gaps in his game have started to get smaller and smaller. He's playing on time. He's more accurate. He's delivering the ball to all levels of the field. The thing that impress me the most today that keeps showing up week in and week out is that he's not dipping his eyes and looking to run. When he's extending plays, he's looking to throw and he's looking to be sound in the pocket, not dive out of there.

At the end of the game, he started to lose his mind in a way that was old Josh Allen-esque and it was kind of terrifying. You're talking about the lateral that they call it? The lateral, just running around, shucking the ball into traffic, that is a little bit concerning. The fact that when things really start to fly around, the regression happened that quickly. But I think that it was a big moment. I can understand that.

For the most part, is the good and the batter flipping a little bit. Like all his flash plate, whatever Josh Allen plays, whatever, Captain Chaos, whatever you want to call him. You know, it's, you know, he's the human craps table. That's what he is. But it's becoming more where he's actually hitting the numbers you want to hit. He's rolling this. I said today it was like the Malini horse in the hospital bit. He doesn't know what.

Nobody knows what the horse is going to do. No, he's to fall of a horse. He has no idea what he's going to be doing. And he's flipping it, though. So like those flash good plays, now there's eight to ten of them a game. as opposed to one, two, and three. And then those flash, I guess, shit plays that used to be eight to ten a game are now one or two or three a game. And it's just like, can we get that down to zero is going to be the big thing.

Because you can see it already. You saw it in this game when, like you said, he kind of lost his mind. And we got a picture back like the playoffs last year. He was through the lateral. He's thrown go ball still full back. It's one of those things where it's like, all right, hey, just when bolts start flying, we can't all of a sudden just lose your mind and start shooting from the hip. But he's shown it through three quarters, three and a half quarters now.

Now it's just get a full game out of them without having those crazy horse in the hospital moments. He's looked so much better. And a lot of people have talked about how he's looked better. And a lot of people have kind of done the do I owe an apology to Josh Allen thing? And I think a lot of people owe an apology to Jared Goff. Yes. Because there were a lot of, is Jared Goff terrible? How could they give Jared Goff all this money?

Dada, da, da, da. Jared Goff looks awesome right now. I mean, and we know the play action stuff. We know when he's kind of the point man in that offense and they can do the things they want to do, it can work because he's a cog in the machine and the machine is well built and well run with McVe kind of calling the shots. I was so impressed today in the dropback game and just some of the subtleties of the way that golf played. In the past, and this stuff, maybe this is a blip, this stuff is not always, it's not always sticky from even game to game the way quarterbacks play under pressure. But his pocket awareness today and the subtleties with which he was kind of skirting pressure, stepping right, stepping left, stepping up, delivering throws was incredibly impressive.

He had a third and 11 completion to cup when it was 2817 where he's just drifting a tiny bit. He doesn't look skittish when there's guys around him. He just looks so much more comfortable in the traditional aspects of playing dropback quarterback right now compared to what it was last year or even the year before when they were just flying. flying. Smoking people. Yeah. And I've been super impressed with him. You look at the numbers.

After three games, number one, two, and three in drop back EPA in the NFL through three games. Josh Allen is number one. Jesus. Aaron Rogers is number two and Jared golf is number three. Wilson is number four. Sacks are why Wilson is a little bit further down there. But it's, I mean, that is, that's the group right now.

And watching those guys today, that was not surprising. So I know we're going to talk a lot about Josh Allen this week. It's going to be a lot of, you know, Josh Allen MVP, Josh Allen Redemption tour, all this stuff. But I came away from that game thinking that both of those quarterbacks can take their teams where they want to go. Yeah. And that's the thing we got. It was so good to see too is as soon as they went down, I was like, well, Rams are kind of done. We know what we've seen this story.

Exactly what I saw. I've seen it. I kind of even wrote a note. I think I did. I go, well, they're coming from, I think I wrote. They tried to come from behind. I just didn't think they would get there. and they got there.

And yeah, like you said, it's, it's, McVeigh has been dialing stuff up all season. The third down stuff's been awesome. And that shows that a guy is really feeling it as a concept designer because he's seeing what the defense is giving out on third downs,

which is just its own little world of football. And now he's doing, he was doing that on all the dropbacks now. It's not just the PA's with a go and over and an under route. You know, it's like now it's true like, hey, he's really scheming stuff up.

And what's great is that he's communicating to golf because Goff is obviously seeing it as well. It's fun to watch the game slow down for quarterbacks. And we'll get to the Bears here in a second, and we'll get to other quarterbacks that clearly it's not happened for them, including one that was drafted the same year as Jared Goff. But when you can see it start to slow down and see their commands start to grow when they've been able to work with a play caller for a while,

it just there's a, you get on the same page. There starts to be a connection, and that connection just fosters such a comfort, and the game starts to slow down, You start to play more in control. And I think that we saw that from both of those guys today. One more candidate here for who won the week. I just wanted to talk about them very briefly because we haven't really on this show.

The Steelers defense, man. It was looking rough through the first half against Houston today. DeShawne Watson was unconscious in the first half, just doing stuff that no quarterback should be able to do. Putting the Texans on his back and it looked like they were going to possibly win this game against Pittsburgh. and then the Steelers defense just put the clamps on. David Johnson, it's Blitzberg. It was, I, watching, and even more than the Steelers defense, I want to say the Stewards front won the week.

Because when you watch them play, so David Johnson had 13 carries for 23 yards in this game, he didn't have a single box of eight or more people in this game. That's insane. Normally, when you dominate a team, when you dominate a team against the run, It's because you put more resources there than they could account for against the rock. They sat there in seven-man boxes and just beat the shit out of the Texans up front the entire game.

And when you watch the game back, that shows. It's not fluky. They are playing on the other side of the line of scrimmage consistently. Tyson Alu-Alu is playing out of his mind, which a deck in his career. He's just pushing people around. Stefan Tuitt had a two-play stretch in this game where he played down the line of scrimmage for his no gain, did playing two gaps over as Hayward and Alaw O'Alo is dominating the point of attack. And then he had a sack on the next play where he just threw the right guard out of the way.

And they have guys all the way across their pass rush packages when it's to pre-2it Hayward and Watt. Mr. Watt. I almost forgot. What? Plus whatever extra guy they send. So it's Williams or whoever, because they're doing a ton of five-man pressures. They came into this game blitzing about 60% of the time. And it's really similar to,

you'd think that when teams have really good pass rushes, you wouldn't want to send five guys. You want to drop seven, bring four. But this is what the Wade Phillips Broncos teams used to do. They know their five guys are better than your five guys. So by sending five, they're essentially ensuring at every single play that we have one-on-once. We trust that we're going to get there so we can kind of hedge a little bit.

We're going to get this. Exactly. We're going to just create edginess and someone's going to win. Even if they don't win-win and get a sack, the quarterback's not happy. He's not feeling it. And it was amazing to kind of watch them really put the clamps onto Watts and say, we're going to control this game in the second half. That's exactly what they did.

Their offense, is there anything that's jumped out to you about the way Rathasperger has played, about some of the stuff they're doing? Because it feels like they're doing enough. And with the way that their defense is likely going to play all year, enough is probably going to get them somewhere. Yeah, the run games look great, which is good. Connor actually looked like he had decent legs. And it's just so funny watching Big Ben now.

Just I know he's kind of been like this, but not last year, but the year before that and then the year before that, almost like doing a Philip Rivers impression. That's actually a really good comparison. Yeah. And it's like this little like shot putty throws that he's just dinking, dunk in. He's not dinking and dunkin,

but just like a little efficient throws. He's getting out right on time. And it's living on pre-snap reads too. He's throwing the ball into space. Yeah. That's the comparison that sticks out to me. There are a couple throws where the Giants game he had one of those. He had a couple today where they're trying to bring heat.

And he essentially knows exactly where his voids are going to be. And he's just putting the ball into the void. Yep. And it's one of those. He's like a point card. He's like, all right, I'm not going to be throwing the alleyups for dunks all the time. But hey, this pick and roll is going. pretty nice right now and I can kick it out out there. Yeah, he's really in control right now.

Is the Texans defense amazing? No, but they're okay. And it's, you know, but he looks, he looked comfortable and the arm didn't look like any worrisome. Like it didn't look worrisome at all. His arm strength or anything like that. There is no, I'm not seeing any concerning signs with his play. Actually, I'm seeing positive signs with his play. And like going, their defense is going to play like this, that that's a winning formula for them. All right. That was the good. Let's get to the bad with what just happened.

I mean, I don't even know what to say about the Falcons at this point. Before we get to the Falcons, another Falcons collapse here, though. Let's talk about the bear's side of this briefly because, hey. I don't even know how to collect my thoughts with this. So Mitchell Tribesky gets pulled, which let's talk about this briefly, okay? Walk me through, if you're in the building, what the thought process is here. Foles is clearly better.

Like, clearly. So why was it necessary to try out Chubisky for two and a half games? If the leash was going to be this short, why put him out there at the start? It started the season or started the game? Start of the season. I don't know. They're just hoping that, hey, maybe once he gets in the game, it's going to click for him. But it's kind of, he looked exactly how he had looked.

it's more that the offensive scheme has improved his play because it's simplified so much. But then I didn't, it seemed predetermined this week, didn't it, that they're going to bench them. Like, it kind of came, it came after a mish. It took one pick. It was a bad pick. It came after a misstep. Yeah, it was. But it was like as soon as they found that little blemish dark, they brought the hook out.

So it seemed like maybe this week, they kind of knew. But it's kind of curious that they're two and oh. You know, it's just a weird time to do it. If they were going to do it, should have been, like you said, going into the season or even week one when they were maybe struggling a little bit against the lions. But nope, nope, they're going to just do it in middle of week three and just because and another three and oh, and yeah, go bears. I just, I would love to know, I would love to just, at some point and why I'm sure we'll

never know, just know what the thought process was and what the conversation was the entire time. And I just love to know it. So you watch that, you watch Foles in the second half of that game, he played pretty well. I mean, the Bears needed a hundred breaks to win that game. I mean, just think about all the little. things that had to happen, whether they were penalties or they throw to Jimmy Graham that should have been intercepted that got them inside the five. Alan Robinson scoring that crazy touchdown. There are so many things that had to happen in that game.

But for the most part, I thought Foles played significantly better than you normally see Trubisky play. Just giving his guy's chances. You know, there was that throw to Robinson in the end zone that probably should have been a touchdown, but it was an interception. There was the throw to Mooney down. That was a comeback, deep comeback inside the five that should have been caught. So many out plays in this game where he's just giving his guy a chance to make plays. The Miller play that should have been a touchdown that was dropped that I thought the game was over at that point and it clearly wasn't. So I think that credit to Nick Foles for playing as well as he did making a bunch of throws that I don't think Mitchell Trabiski normally makes.

He is a better quarterback than Mitchell Trabisky, which is why I'm surprised that he was not the bear starting quarterback at the beginning of this. And we had to go through this two-week Mitchell Trabisky farce. So now that the Bears part of this is out of the way, you worked for the Falcons, okay? You have been there when things were bad. You were there at the end of the Mike Smith era, and then when they transitioned to the Dan Quinn side of this. I don't want to get into every little detail

of how the Falcons lost that game because I think that there's a lot of stuff that happened. The Bears defense played much better than I think the score would indicate in that game. They had two roughing the passer penalties that extended touchdown drives for Atlanta. They did a fantastic job down the stretch. The defensive line really took over.

Akeem Hicks was playing out of his mind. Mac had a nice game. So there are a lot of things that led to this loss for Atlanta. But I want to talk about the ramifications and just the overall impact of this loss. And on Tuesday, in Flowery Branch, what is it like in that building? And what do you think the conversations are like right now about just the status of the Dan Quinn era in Atlanta? Well, it's going to be like a graveyard in there. But it's one of those things where it's that stigma of the Super Bowl loss.

get Falcons fans want to remember it, forget it, whatever. Everyone wants to refer to it every day. But those things stick. When you're, the leaders are still there and still the faces of the franchise are still there. Those thoughts are still going to come up. And it's like it's, I mentioned confidence all the time. But confidence doesn't just apply to a person or a unit. It applies to a whole team, a whole organization. Because as soon as those things start slipping and sliding, I mean, you're a Cubs fan. You know. You, you know, you did it for, you did it for years and years. As soon as things start sliding, all of a sudden you get those bad thoughts. And what happens with the bad thoughts, they kind of, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy a little bit. And I think with

the, you know, with Coach Quinn and Dimitrov and what they're doing there, it's, they're at a crossroads. They really are. It's the entire franchise. They have a, unique situation. They're capped out. They get older every day. They kind of have nice pieces, but it's like, you know, they're a little miss, misshaping a little bit as they fit together. it could be a time for a reset. But it's, that's so hard to say that because, you know, they're in these games.

They're winning these games. They could be two and one. And we could just be like, wow, wow, Falcons are really putting it together right now. And that's what's so incredible about football and so awful about football. It truly is a game of inches,

a game of bounces. And but the thing is, you want to be reflective and be, you know, very open and see what's going around the league and justify and go, hey, these bad things happen. Shit happens.

That's how football is. It's an oblong shape of, leather, ball of shape of leather, you know, it bounces in random directions. But, you know, when these things keep happening, you know, it's a stigma, it's a black cloud that just sticks around the whole franchise. And it's tough. It's really tough. And it's, it's a hard pill to swallow. And they had to do it twice in a row, two weeks in a row, really tough losses. Thomas de Mitrov is not a rash man. I mean, he is, he does not make flippant decisions. He's very smart. He's very considered.

I'm sure that 0 and 3 is less important to him than if we had two bounces, we'd be two and one. There's a lot of stuff that's going to be going into just the way they're looking at this start and the way they're looking at their future. Yeah. But at a certain point, I think you have to ask what you need to do to get different results. Not even better results. I just feel like the same old Falcons. It's the same story. That's the thing.

It's not the end. It's not the embarrassment of these losses. It's not like, oh, I can't believe we keep losing these games. It's where the same version of the team that we've been. What have been the two excuses or the two complaints about Falcons is, oh, they can't score in the red zone. Okay, that's an anomaly. That was whatever that we, okay, Sark did nothing wrong, whatever. You want to talk about hashtag that.

And the defense can't stop anybody. But it's the same story. That has continued. And it's continued. And it's continued now, what, over a half decade. and you know and that's supposed to be the the breadwinner of coach Quinn and it's you know you're getting your pieces you're getting your guys you're getting your coaches you're getting everything that you want with that so results have to happen and like you said though is dimitrov's a very thoughtful guy he is

going to look at every avenue and every aspect of this but it's got to change the tune has to change at some point it reminds me a little bit of what it was like at the end of the mike smith where there was some success and he was a nice guy and it wasn't necessarily an obvious move and I'm sure that people were upset about having to do it. But at a certain point, you've spent so much and you've built this team in a certain way and you have a window now with Matt Ryan. It just makes sense to probably go in a different direction in order to give yourself a chance with this roster.

It's not like this is a disaster. Again, they're two bounces away from being three and oh, but it just feels like a change might be best for the way this team has been built and what they need to. to squeeze out of it. And I don't want anybody to ever lose their job, but it just feels like a similar situation to other words that we've seen where it's like, you know what, maybe we just need to go in a different direction.

That's it. It's that as if he's doing a terrible job. And again, this is a pretty decent team that's gotten unlucky. But I don't know. That's what it feels like. It just feels like it's gotten stale there in a way that holds teams back. Stale is a great word for it.

All right. Let's get to one more with what just happened here. The NFC East quarterbacks, what is happening to the NFC. NFCE's quarterbacks. So if you look at the numbers right now for Carson Wentz, it is really, really bleak. So he's 42nd of 43 quarterbacks in EPA. Only Sam Darnold is worse.

I believe he's averaging 3.2 adjusted net yards per attempt, which is one of the worst averages ever. Ever, ever. For a quarterback of his age and experience level. So if you were on the offensive staff for the. the Eagles. If you were Press Taylor, the quarterback's coach for Philadelphia, what are you doing this week? What are you trying to do to fix Carson Wentz and what is going wrong right now? Square one, you look at, okay, it's the obvious answer right here. What's working? What's not working? And why is it not

working? And why is it working? But all their stuff that they're doing, it's really the same offense the Eagles have been doing for the last few years. And, you know, the bad first, the first interception that Wentz had, you know, the ball got tipped, but the linebacker was undercutting anyways because they're running mesh on third down. It would have gotten picked anyway. What had gotten picked anyways? Because, you know, why? Because they run fricking mesh on third down all the freaking time.

So these defenses are know this because they, they haven't really changed much. They got seven quarterback coaches on that staff. And I called it, you know, maybe sometimes, you know, a guy like Press Taylor or something is, you know, nothing against him. I don't know coach Taylor at all. But I always call it the Texas issue when Mack Brown was there. when you looked at their staves, everyone was having, hey, at Texas for eight years, graduated there,

at Texas for 12 years graduated there, G8 at Texas, been there for four years. They're getting no fresh ideas. And I know they brought on some guys to bring it, but I'm not seeing it on the field. And so much of their stuff, they're running these quick game, they kind of deviate a little bit less RPO's than they maybe have.

Defense is just squatting on their shit. And last week, against the Rams, the Rams were running college fronts. They're running tight mint fronts, which is like a nickel or dime version of basically a three four. It's a three, three five defense that you'll see a lot in the Big 12, actually. But it's a way to kind of help defend against RPO's that you see so much of college football and the passing games in college football. And against the Eagles, they run a little bit of that. So in the Rams were just, they were guessing every route.

Like they knew what every concept was coming. It was unbelievable. It was a great performance by the Rams defense. But they're running so much quick game. And he will stay in that. pocket, which Carson Wentz, we all know, is almost like, like too tough. Like sometimes it's like, hey, dude, save yourself some hits. He'll be in the quick game. He'll be sent in the pocket. Quick game is really, it comes down. It's a pre-snap breed. And maybe if someone jumps it,

then you get to number two and then that's it. And then the checkdown is your legs. Wentz is staying in that pocket. And he's, no one's getting open for him. I mean, really no, a quick game and you're going against man, someone's got to win. And if they're running that much quick game, like, you know, they don't have a lot of guys that can win. And so he's holding on to the ball, which then, and then he doesn't kind of create the plays. He did it a little bit today. I think he had seven rushes. But then he's not getting out of pocket.

I legitimately think that's a bad thing if he's running this much because it shows you that he's playing really slow. No quarterback in the NFL has lost more EPA on sacks this season than Carson wins. It is, it has destroyed their offense. And I think that what you're saying makes total sense. If you watch them right now, there, even just from the broadcast angle, you can tell on some of this stuff, third downs, in the red zone today,

especially you took a couple sacks where there's just nobody open. There's legitimately nobody open. So in your mind, teams are just kind of daring them to beat them in man coverage and they can't do it right now. That's kind of what you're saying. Correct. And that's where the scrambles come from

because he's scrambling against man coverage because they have their backs turn. And so that, another thing, like another stat that stood out, they had 21 third down attempts today. That means they weren't getting the job down on first and second down. So when you have 21, that's two games worth of third downs basically in one game. I know it went to overtime, but still, it's, that's a crazy amount. That shows they're not really doing

it on first and second down. And that's because they're not completing any balls. Like it's, digs at the feet and, you know, throws that they're just trying to get away because the pressure starts getting there because no one, again, no one's getting open. And and then also holding out to the ball, their old lines banged up too. And little creaky and all that. And again, that just, they're compounding issues. It just seems to be every issue is being exponentially worse because of everything that's going in together. Run game looked okay. I'll give them that. But yeah, that's great. When you can run the ball a little bit on the Bengals, that's a win. I think compounding issues is the perfect way to explain it. Seth Galena from Pro Football Focus did a nice little clip of a couple different stretches from last week's

game that he threw on Twitter of when it's just missing throws. So he's missing throws and he's being an actor. A couple of those, yes, the one to Earths was egregious over the middle of the field. And then the Miles Sander double move the sluggo route on 3rd and 10. And that would have been a huge play. And Miles ran a great route too. So he's missing throws and he's playing slow mentally and nobody is open. So that's the problem is that there's not one thing they have to fix. There's not one what's working and what's not. The what's not working has several different answers. And that seems to be the biggest problem is that as soon as they're going to put out one five, there may be another one that they have to put out. They are all over the place right now. I am genuinely worried not only about their season, but what, I mean, they just gave Carson once $100 million like six days ago.

I mean, this is a huge investment that they've made. And where we see Jared Goff playing a little bit faster, another iteration of that offense, growth, development, progress. There has been none. And it almost seems like Carson Wentz is regressing. So where you see golf playing a little bit faster, when's playing even slower and you can just see it all over that offense.

So let's stay in that division right now. I have a question for you. Okay. What is the last time you threw a football? I would say I threw a Nerf ball about a month ago. When is the last time you threw an actual football? Oh my God, almost a year. Yeah, over a year.

So are people that do not know, you played college football at Wisconsin? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Lose term play. Okay. You were a college quarterback on a roster at a Big Ten school. There you go.

There you go. So you're not just some guy. You're not me. Okay. If I flew you to San Francisco on Monday and you had to start for the Niners on Sunday against the Giants or the Jets, do you think with Kyle Shanahan you could beat the Giants or the Jets? It'd be just how the offense was when I did have to go there at Wisconsin. Just pound the rock and a couple of naked throws, you know, just a couple of bootlegs. he could put something together for me.

He would just be like, all right, what do you like? And I'll be like, I can throw a fade. And, you know, he'll just probably dial it up for me. But that's incredible what he can do, isn't it? It's just whoever he gets put out there, he puts on different training wheels for whatever quarterback it is. It's embarrassing with the Giants and the Jets have put forth against the Niners team. It's essentially just a bunch of random dudes and Nick Mullins being coached by Kyle Shanahan right now.

I mean, it's absolutely unbelievable, just the fact that Nick Mullins was 25 of 36 for 243 in a touchdown. game. Those are real numbers. Those are like almost 10 yards per attempt numbers against an NFL defense. It's just incredible how you could plug anyone in there and still have him win. And then you get to the other side of the ball. And it's the contrast is you have an offense completely set up for quarterback success in San Francisco. And then you have an offense that's not helping its quarterback at all with the Giants. The Niners essentially, if I'm watching that game back over again a little bit today, it seemed like their defensive game plan was we're bringing. heat, we don't think you can do anything about it.

They were bringing so much extra pressure, which they don't do all the time. But it just felt like they believed that Daniel Jones and the Giants had no answers with hots, whatever. They did not believe they could burn them if they kept bringing extra pressure. So if you're watching Daniel Jones right now, is there anything to kind of give you hope about what he is going to be for this team? Do you think it's a system issue? Do you think that there are inherent flaws in how he's playing?

what is your takeaway kind of 20 games into the Daniel Jones experience here? Yeah, I was maybe hoping to see more or I should say less of kind of his where the clock just kind of keeps turning in his head at post snap. He is, you can tell, I mean, he went to Duke, but you can tell he is very comfortable in the offense. He against the Steelers, I still remember first play of the season, he made a check against a blitz and it was just like real comfortable. And then the whole game he was doing it. But then post snap, it's like he has those moments where it's just like he just, freezes because he's locked in on the guy he wants to come open. I was hoping that maybe some of that would be get better.

And, you know, he started a lot of games in college and he started games as a rookie. And, you know, he has a lot of starts under his belt. The fact that he hasn't really progressed from those moments where the loading bar is still going is kind of a little worrisome. But having said that, he does do a lot of nice things in the fact that he's aggressive. He's tough, obviously smart. It's just maybe, you know, you want him to be. less have of those Eli moments where he just tries to make something happen and turns the ball over.

Like he, it's truly, it's funny how much he has some Eli in him, except much more athletic and everything, maybe a little more powerful as an athlete. And yeah, I'm back to where I was maybe a month ago. I went on around the NFL on their podcast. And I kind of said the same thing about Danny Jones. There's a path to success with him because he can do a lot of things that are uncoachable. The fact he stands in the pocket, the fact his eyes are downfield. That's a really tough thing to coach into people. He can do it. Now the fact is they got to rein him in and maybe make it easier on him.

I don't think he's getting a lot of help, to be honest, either by scheme or by personnel that's around him. And I think so it's a good old long, too long didn't read TBD. But I still think there is a path to success for him. But maybe that's it went from maybe a 10% that he could be a good, good starter. It might be more like 5, 6% now after these first few weeks. because I was really, he also played three pretty good defenses, even though the 49ers are beat up. It's just a little, little worrisome that he's still, that clock is not speeding up on them. Why don't we see more defensive coordinators just blitz the shit out of young quarterbacks?

What's the downside? I don't think there is much. Sometimes these young guys, too, they can run. So defenses are petrified on third down. It's third and 12, and the QB just keeps scrambling for first down. So it doesn't matter what the freaking coverage you put behind it. So I think defense defense coordinators always have that in the back of their mind. You know, what the coaches always do.

They think of the worst, right? What can happen on fourth and one? Well, I can't make it. You know, it's I won't make it. It's like, no, well, 60% of the time you are going to make it. But okay. But I think that's the same thinking maybe for the defensive coordinator. So like, oh, he scrambled on 30 and 12.

It's like, yeah, but you sack them the last two times. I just think it's a little bit of that where it's a little overthinking. And, you know, it also depends on the young quarterback. But I always think that's a good strategy because the most. I know it. I wasn't a great quarterback is I love soft zone. Sitting quarters, sit and cover two. That's amazing.

No pressure. Oh, I love this. And, you know, so it's one of those things where I think it's just defense cornerers. Like it worked too well. It's, you know, the other shoe is going to drop the next time we blitz. But, you know, that's just coaches. You're probably scared and you're protecting yourself against the big play in just the sense that the downside is probably bigger. But watching that game today, when they were sending heat, it just felt like he had absolutely no prayer.

that he was just running around. There was no way that they were going to make a play. It's just surprising to me that more teams aren't dictating the action like that defensively. Yep, that's a good way to put it. Dictating the action is the best way to put it. All right, let's take a quick break. Talking about erectile dysfunction isn't easy. Usually, men just brush it off or blame themselves saying things like,

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I want to do one quick thing here that's a little bit different. We haven't done this yet. I want to call this the secret sauce. I want to get into a couple smaller things that we're, we watched today that really drove victories for teams in kind of subtle ways. So I want to talk about the Patriots and some of the stuff they did in the red zone and then just outside the red zone, the high red zone. Is that what you would call it? The high red zone? Yeah, high red zone is the, yeah, 11 to 20. Some people do middle red zone.

But yeah, high red zone. So and then just outside of it, I think that the, from the 20 to the 30, a lot of teams are doing this year too. So the Patriots on a third and four ran a toss play to Rex Burkhead for seven yards just outside the Red Zone of the 25. The Falcons scored a 30-yard touchdown on this today, a similar type of thing, where they ran the ball on third and medium. The 49ers scored a huge trap play touchdown in the NFC championship game last year in a similar situation. So why do you think more teams are willing to run the ball on a third and three to five

in those situations right now? And why is it working? It's a nice, bowl-o punch. It's a nice, hey, so many. defenses now are so sophisticated in their coverages and their pressures. This is a way, what do you teach football first? What's the first thing everyone gets taught? Run game. So, okay, so let's make it real easy on our O line against a front that's pretty nice to run against because you have a lot lighter bodies, DBs that are heads are turning back. The safeties aren't

coming up to fill the run on those types of plays. You can catch guys in pressures, what two guys are accidentally going in the same gap, like what happened on the trap play against the, against the Packers last year and the FC championship game. It's, you're alleviating some stress for your offense and the fact that the O line doesn't have to think through protection. The QB can just hand it off. And maybe it's a nice to maybe just take a deep breath. But then also you see the positives of it. It's a low risk, high reward play.

It can be. And it can be one of those things. It's a nice, when you're passing, passing, I mean, third and six, third and five, third and four. Okay, almost always going to be a pass. And it's not even a draw play. They're running, the Falcons ran split zone. Like you said, the Patriots ran a fake jet suite. toss outside of burkehead trapped by the 49ers last year it's real normal run plays and last week

the Patriots ran power read on 39 I was freaking out about it I'm still him and it's so one of those things where it's it alleviates a little stress for the offense and also it's the defense it's it's it's almost like game theory is the defense is so expecting the past and so expecting and doing all these things that they've been coached up all week hey remember they're they like sale on display so all week they've been trained hey they run sale they run Hank they run all these pass plays and then all of a sudden they have to worry about freaking split zone, you know, from the same way. Coming downhill at you and getting your ass kicked as you're trying to shoot the gap and pick a guy.

You know, they're trying to pick people on these plays. And also I'm trying to pick a play a guy on a run play. Okay, that doesn't really work that well. It's just a nice change up for these offenses. And I think you see more and more of it as these defenses keep trying to get, you know, real blitz happy and have six guys across the line of scrimmage on third down. It also dovetails nicely with more teams going forward. on fourth down.

Because let's say if you're running it on third and four and you feel like you can gash them, even if you don't, you're still willing to go forward on fourth down. A lot more teams are. So the risk reward is even more dramatic than you're talking about because your floor on those plays is even higher because if you don't get it, you could probably go four on fourth down. So I think it's a really good way to think about it. Best case scenario, you gash them. Worst case scenario, you just go forward on fourth and two.

You're treating third down like second down. That's what you're doing now. You're like, oh, no. But defense is art. That's the thing. You're one step ahead of them. Defenses probably are still thinking third down, third down, third down. You have your third down packages.

They're in this mindset. You could take advantage of that. Something else the Patriots did on the same drive, a few plays later on another third down, is they threw a little swing screen to Burkhead from like the 11-yard line. I tweeted about this earlier this week. It was a play that the Titans should have scored a touchdown on last week, but Derek Henry dropped it in the long, in the deep red zone. Oh, yeah. It's a screenplay. A ton of teams are going to screens on the 25 and in. I'm seeing it all the time from really smart offensive coordinators. What are the benefits of a screen play when the field starts to shrink? Yep, right there. It's field starts to shrink and there's more bodies that. So you'll see a lot more of these man coverages in the red zone, low red zone especially, you know, or in between that five to 12 yard line. So you'll see manned. You'll see some red four, red eight, you know, versions of quarters or two in the red zone.

And, you know, going with that is you get picked, as guys will get picked on these plays. And all of a sudden, those screen plays, especially the Titans love them right outside the red zone. And what happens is, okay, if it's man, it's man coverage, there's one guy guarding Henry or one guy garden Burkhead. We pick that one guy. It's a score. You know, you only have one guy you really need to block as opposed to maybe a normal screen where it's, okay, you're building the alleyway for the guys. And it's boom, boom, you have to hit three blocks. some of these plays on a little swing screen like that you pick the whole player or you pick the man

defender and you're scoring so i think it's it's your and some of these teams too will have kills with those plays so they'll go hey if it's zone we're running this play if it's man coverage we're going to kill to the screen so that happens a lot as well so you're getting the ideal look that you're going for i just think it's teams taking especially with all this movement on them and the the burk had touchdown it's man coverage guys are running into each other on defense because they had a motion with it and then all of a sudden they got a guy pulling so you have a defender keying the pole and then you all of a sudden got the screen as well that's bodies in a really tight area that have to move through each other and they pick each other and sometimes you don't even have to block

the guy so I think it's just as the vertical gets tighter the vertical of the field gets so much tighter it actually benefits the offense to do this more horizontally attacking plays with a lot of bodies hitting each other and I think that the Patriots has done such a good job of this season of doing that horizontal stuff. Motion, misdirection, play action screens. It really speaks to their identity, and I think it's one of the biggest reasons that they keep winning and that they won today. Sticking with that, teams understanding their identity, the secret sauce today for the

Titans was they got more than half of Ryan Tanna Hills Yardage on five completions. So if you look at some of the numbers on their play action shots, Timo Risk from PFF tweeted this. Today, they had 0.77 EPA per dropback on play action, negative 0.38 without. That's a pretty big discrepancy. For the season, it's 0.63 EPA per dropback on play action and 0.09 without. It's incredible how different this is.

So if you look at it today, they had the two shots to Kaleef Raymond. They had a 30-yard or Davis. There was like a 12-yard crossing route in the air, but it was still a huge chunk. Smith had a 20-yard catch and Humphreys had a 30-yard catch. That's 180 of Ryan Tanna Hills 320 yards on those five plays. They are relying so much on these chunks to swing the field. Because they're the exact opposite of what the Saints are. Where the Saints are this efficient, we're going to move the ball.

It's like it's marching, marching. The Titans are all at once. We're going to get it 60 yards at one time. And I think it's so interesting that they've built it this way. So is there anything you've seen with how they, they're getting those shots that make them more effective than other teams trying to create those shot plays down the field. It's, well, it's just the whole, they build everything together.

I kind of said this before is that they, it's their own version what the Rams are doing where it's every formation and every kind of play is building off one another. And they know what they are. They got, they kind of were battling with the Vikings today. And rather in panic and maybe go three dropbacks in a row, they just kept pounding the rock. And they kept running their play action stuff. And they're generating chunks. Like you said, it's it's, it's the opposite of what the saints are doing.

So it gives you some more leeway that maybe you don't, you only hit one of these three. It's like shooting a three pointer basketball as opposed to shooting a 15 foot jumper. So as opposed to maybe, you know, I only hit one out of three of these or 35% of these. Hey, but that's more efficient than that two point play that I make, you know, 40% of or whatever. Oh, God, I hope my math is right there. So it's, but it's one of those things where it's, they know what they are. So they, the run game is great. You know, Henry, I'm really becoming a.

believer, even bigger believer, I'm always going to be bound to the run game just from my pedigree and everything. But the body blows accumulate. And when you start having to worry about the body blows, those headshots come in. And all of a sudden you start getting knocked out by all of some, those defenses start coming up and you're getting hit by these 20-yard, 30-yard plays, which is the one thing your defense is telling yourselves, don't get hit with a chunk play. And how does that happen? Because that is my question here. If you're on a defensive staff and you're playing against this team. The most egregious one during that game today, there was a second and 20 at one point.

I can't remember at what point in the game it was. Second and 20. And Gladney's in the slot. And he has his eyes in the backfield on a play action, play out a shotgun, and Smith just sneaks right behind him for a 20-yard completion. If you're on that staff, if you're the Vikings defensive corner, if you're Adam Zimmer, for example, what are your coaching points? What are you trying to tell them about not taking the cheese there?

because there is just no excuse for looking in the backfield on second and 20. You have to kind of beat it out of your head that the run matters in that situation. Are they just so ingrained with what those run fits are that it's impossible to separate yourself from it? I think so. I think it's one of those things where what is a fan think of when you think of the Titans like offense? Okay, Derek Henry, get in the rock. You know, of course, some of us will know the play action and everything, but that's what you're picturing. So that's all week.

That's what the coaches are hitting on. But even with the emphasis of, hey, we can't get hit with these play actions too. The human element is still there. A coach is maybe the last time they were in a second and long, they got just gashed with a long run or something of the same look. That human element still comes into effect, even with great coaching and great players. There's still things that they worry about. Maybe the last time he had to tackle, Henry, he got his ass ran over. So now he's like, I'm going to make sure I get full head of steam making to tackle him.

And that's all he can think about. You know, it's like, yeah, I know my assignment. I know what I have to do here, but shit happens. You know, and I think that really comes up. And that's where the body blow stuff comes up because now it's in their head. Like, I really don't want to get run over again. And like this sucked. And I really want to get like make sure I get a nice sound tackle here as opposed to

eating a Derek Henry's knee in my face. So it's one of those things where now that's what they're thinking about. And then also they're like, oh, shit, play action. Or oh, oh, my assignment's right behind me, five yards behind me right now. It's just that that's what the play action and having offense that a pass game that builds off that run game, having a strong run game, that's where it kind of combines together because you put these strain on these guys that have to try to defend two things at once. It's amazing to watch it just work even in situations where it's not plausible or not advantageous to run the ball. I just, it's why it's one of those things where I've become almost a parody of myself talking about play action as much as I do. but you just watch it work over and over and over again.

And I just don't understand why more teams aren't just saying this is what we're going to be. I just don't care. This is what we're going to be. It is the biggest way to help your quarterback and it works consistently. Even in situations again where it shouldn't work. You're in a shotgun formation on second and 20 and you have your cornerback looking in the backfield. There is no reason. And it's, and it was so funny.

I was going back to watch the Bears game today against the Giants from last week. And I'm watching some of these plays. And there was a Montgomery play action play where the linebackers didn't react at all because it clearly wasn't play action by the way that the line moved. And then when Patterson was in there, it was more of his own look and the linebackers flowed with it. It's like, yeah, the running back and who's the running back doesn't fucking matter with this. And none of this stuff matters. It's all about the action. It's all about the action.

and it's all about just making it seem plausible, even in situations where it's not. And I think you're right. I think it's just a human reaction to this stuff where when you see a stimulus, even if the logic in your brain tells you not to, you don't have time to get to that point. It's almost like an instantaneous thing.

And watching that game today, it was just amazing how the Titans understand, we know how people are going to react when we do this, even if they shouldn't. And we're going to keep taking advantage of it. And it works. they know exactly what they want to be and they I was talking about

I wrote before the season started about what speed how speed matters in the league at this point and I was having a conversation about Kaleef Raymond and just about how he's this little seasoning that the Titans can put into their offense that's what it is. Just this little thing you can sprinkle in every once in a while and he essentially flipped the game for them today.

Two catches for 100 yards flips the game for them. It's so illustrative of exactly how they understand what they need to do offensively what they want to be and how to use their players. The one thing I loved, Kyle Shanahan said, that he likes his receiver units to look like a basketball starting lineup. And that's where, like you said, they have a little seasoning, the little spice,

they got the burner. That's their burner. That's their microwave, the six man off the bench kind of thing. And I always just like that, looking at a receiver court like the core like that, because when they all complement each other and maybe you have a couple balanced guys,

you know, you got a couple guys that might be combo guards and maybe a power forward, you know, but it is nice to have that balance for the whole team. And that's just good just knowing it's the whole square peg round hole thing. It's knowing what these guys are good at and highlighting them with their strengths. And for, you know, for this, it's taking the top off the defense and actually feeding them as opposed to just having run post routes and whatever. No, they actually have to honor them because they're going to throw it to them if you let it happen. Yeah, it was, I mean, even the first one was like a double move on the outside and there's, it shouldn't play the game. it's a play action throw.

Because it's just the corner is the only, I couldn't see the All-22, so I don't know if the safety came down or whatever, but it's just even the corner is thinking about the run. They are so good at understanding what they need to be. And I don't think it's an accident. Their offense continues to play very well. Until teams say, we dare you to beat us for six yards to carry on the ground. We're not overreacting to this. I think their passing offense is going to keep doing this.

All right, before we get out of here, do you want to take a Justin Jefferson victory lap? Well, we're talking about this game. Oh, God, that was fun. It was like every time I looked up, I thought they were shown the same highlight. But no, it was like he just kept getting these plays. And it was, oh, I love it. I love Justin Jefferson coming in. Seeing a little more explosiveness than even I gave him credit for, that was fun.

But yeah, I'm stoked. I'm sure you are too. How do you feel about the Vikings offense after watching today? Do you feel like they kind of, I know they lost the game, but do you feel like they're, they figured it out a little bit? You feel much better about them today than you pride it yesterday. I did. I think today was the first time I saw the offense play,

exactly how I pictured their offense to play. You know, they just can't make mistakes. They just don't have the defense that can hold up like they used to. And it's, you know, but it's nice that they actually put together a pretty good game on offense overall, like the whole team did,

you know, Jefferson stood up, cousins, whatever, but Rudolph had a nice catch. But, you know, and then Cook had a couple nice runs. The one touchdown run on a load counterplay was unbelievable.

He had a really nice jump. I love the SimCity View or the GTA 1 and 2 view, by the way. They did like this weird overhead. It makes me sick. I can't watch it. I can't believe that you like it. It makes me completely disoriented. Oh, it feels like I'm playing SimCity or something.

Yeah, Ted called it a God view or Jesus view, which I loved. And so I said, I'm waiting for the all seven billion tape. It's going to take two weeks to come out. It's going to be delayed. All right. Nate, that's all we got. As always, guys, thank you so much for listening. Do me a favor.

If you like the show, please rate and review it on your podcast platform of choice. I would sincerely appreciate it. We will be back on Wednesday. We have a great lineup for you this week, very excited about it. Until then, though, thank you so much for listening to The Athletic Football Show. We'll talk to you later. This was The Athletic Football Show.