The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 5 recap: Ravens-Bengals shootout, Texans outlast Bills, Caleb Williams' big day, and more

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

Ravens 41, Bengals 38 in overtime. Texans 23, Bills 20. The Jaguars and Colts combining for 41 points in the fourth quarter. And that was all in the early window on Sunday. Yeah, Week 5 was the craziest week to date of this NFL season. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen break it all down on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.RundownRavens beat Bengals in OT thrillerYou Have My Attention: Texans get huge win over BillsYou Have My Attention: Caleb Williams stars in Bears' win over PanthersNFC West...WTF?!?Raiders...WTF?!?Did You See That?!?...Jayden Daniels shines, but in a different wayDid You See That?!?...Jaguars-Colts fourth quarter fireworksDid You See That?!?...Andrew Van Ginkel making big playsDid You See That?!?...Xavier McKinney is ballingWhat Did We Learn Today?Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football brought to you by Thursday Night Football only on Prime Video. I am Robert Mays, a fantastic week five slate, a long week five slate. We talked about this at the top of the show, but the fact that we started at 9.30 a.m. Eastern and we had a weather delay that pushed us to like 1 a.m. Eastern. And it was a breakneck pace the entire time. You got to love it. But it makes for a very long day. We talked about the Ravens Bengals shootout, which is probably the highlight. of the entire day. A big win for the Houston Texans that stifled Josh Allen in a way that we really have not seen this year and really in most points of Josh Allen's career over the last three or four years.

Talked about Caleb Williams' big day. Derek made me talk about Caleb Williams' big day. Enjoy that conversation. Chatted about what the hell was going on in the NFC West after today, that bizarre Cardinals' Niners game. The Seahawks getting beat up by the New York Giants. And a little bit about Jaden Daniels, what he continues to do, some Colts Jags, and a few more nuts and bolts about what went down in week five. So let's get to our conversation

with Derek. Well, Derek, that was an exhausting day of football. That's what I'll start things off with. Not only are we recording this at about midnight central time, so almost 1 a.m. Eastern time, but our day started at 8.30 p.m. Central time for me. So we're going about 16 hours straight of football, and that would be okay if the games themselves weren't exhausting. I mean, there were so many pockets of today where there was like four games that were close and there were crazy comebacks. I don't, there was really the only time I think today where you could actually rest a little bit was probably in the first half of the second slate where there wasn't anything insane going on. But other than that, this was the day that was really going to test your nerve

overall. This was the most wire-to-wire Sunday we've gotten the entire year. I mean, first, the first time we're getting a game over in England this year, starting it, yeah, for me, at 6 a.m., which, because it doesn't go as late for me, it's not as bad on that end, but on the front end, today was tough, like having to wake up at 6 a.m. to watch Sam Darnold and hobbled Aaron Rogers was certainly interesting. But then that game, like kept you interested the whole time, like you said, that first morning slate was every single game. It seemed like was completely insane until the end. We got that mini reprieve and then all the afternoon games also went down to the wire.

So it was just you had to be on your toes. It was a lot of coffee today. I'll say that. Are you a morning person or like a night person? Are you functioning better at midnight or 6 a.m.? So I typically am functioning better at 6 a.m. But it's still to have to get up and start your workday like 10 minutes after you get out of bed and then run through your entire workday like until midnight, it's still a long day

even if I do function better typically when I wake up. These are very long days. Let's start with what was the best moment, I think, and probably the most notable moment from that very long day, and that's the Ravens winning a barn burner against the Cincinnati Bengals. We talked about this game on our preview, and I thought that the Bengals defense would have trouble stopping the Ravens. I didn't think it would be on these terms.

I thought they'd have trouble stopping the run, and then maybe their offense could keep pace because the Bengals' offense had been playing very well, but for the most part, we had seen them against awful defenses the last couple weeks. So instead, they stopped the run fairly well for a good chunk of this game until the last play that mattered. And Lamar just slings it all over the yard,

but he needed to because of what this Bengals offense was doing to the Ravens defense. This was a dizzying game. I kind of forgot until I went back and watched it that there were two separate moments late in the second half where the Bengals were winning this game by two scores. Yeah, this game had everything. And I even kind of tweeted this. I think the second time Lamar did this, on the big touchdown he has to Isaiah likely at the end of the game

where he scrambles to his right and chucks up a ball to Isaiah likely in the end zone, he drops the snap, which he is prone to do. And then later in the game, I think maybe their first overtime drive, he drops the snap again. And the Bengals pick it up and they almost get into field goal. I literally tweeted that. I was like, what a Lamar Jackson way to lose a football game. And then lo and behold, they didn't lose the football game. So it was just this game had every, single thing from every angle. And the ending was like the most perfect, just bizarre way to end this one. It was beautiful.

Let's start with that sequence after the Lamar Fumple. The Bengals get the ball in position to just put this thing away. And instead of showing even a smidge of aggression in that moment, they decide to run the ball three times and settle for a 52-yard field goal. I understand that 50-yard field goals are now commonplace in the NFL, like a shrug for a lot of these guys. it's still hard to make a 50-yard field goal, especially when you don't need to make your guy kick them.

So the fact that they ended up treating the end-of-game situation that way, I feel like there was a little bit of justice in that ball going wide left, because I cannot support how they handled that. That's what's funny is that it's actually not the kick itself that went wrong. Like, the process is bad, right, to just kind of allow yourself to take this longer field goal. And then what goes wrong is the hold. The guy just can't put the ball down, and it's sideways and the ball goes left. And it's just like that almost is one of those carmic things that because you handled it wrong,

your holder just ends up making the worst play of the game. Yeah, it was just kind of a tragic way for the Bengals to lose that game because I thought otherwise they played really well. And then for them to get the break that Lamar will typically give you at the end of the games every now, like more than you would like for a player of his caliber for Sincere to not capitalize, especially where they're at in the standings. Like they really, really needed that moment and they failed. What do you want to start with this?

Which performance from which unit do you find the most notable in this game? I want to start with why the Ravens offense versus Sinci defense looked the way that it did. Because we came into this game thinking, you know, you kind of mentioned it. Okay, Sinci has not been a good run defense. The Ravens have passed two games. It seems like Derek Henry is just running over everybody. Lamar Jackson is getting his yards. They have been able, it seemed like a really poor matchup for Sinci on that side of the ball.

And then what happened is Lua and Aruma came into this game. said, all right, we're going to throw eight or nine bodies at the problem all of the time. Run game, pass game doesn't matter. We're going to not let them get into down and distances that they want. We're not going to let them run the ball. We're not going to give them explosives on the ground. And we're going to make Lamar Jackson win as a passer. And then guess what happened?

The two-time MVP quarterback won as a passer. Yeah, I was very impressed with how they handled the pressure, especially at the end of the game, because they were really trying to heat them up in the fourth quarter. And if you look at the drive that started with that big Mark Andrews crosser. So he hits Mark Andrews on the big crosser. Can I say, by the way, Andrews is like, I always get scared in big moments when Mark Andrews needs to catch a pass. When he came down with that, I actually thought I was like, wait a minute, I think the Ravens,

the vibes are good here. They might win this one. So he makes that play. And on the same drive, it was almost like a throwback Ravens drive to an extent on like multiple different levels. One, teams are trying to heat them up, which is what they've tried to do to Lamar for. for the last however many years. Two, we get a couple big Mark Andrews plays.

They had a GT counter bash for 15 yards, which was like such a throwback to like 2019 Ravens where Lamar keeps it, the guard and tackle pull. They get a huge chunk off of it. And then Ronnie Stanley had just an incredible play on the big hit to Mark Andrews inside the five. They bring a nickel pressure. He blocks two guys on the same play.

And later in the quarter, Roger Rosengarden did that, twice. I thought that the Ravens offensive line and Lamar in that fourth quarter just did such an incredible job when the Bengals were trying to heat them up of sorting out those pressures, and then Lamar just finding space in the pocket, getting those throws off consistently. I really thought it was a remarkable job by everyone associated with the Ravens' offense with the game on the line in those moments. Absolutely. And like you said, this is a team where typically teams have tried to heat up Baltimore, and they've over the past few years have had good

success with that generally in certain spots. obviously Lamar has had his moments. And this was one of those moments where Lamar was incredible. And then like you said, there's those couple of times where I thought the offensive line in general played well today. Like Lamar got pressured a lot. But at a certain point, they were throwing enough bodies at the problem that that was going to just happen.

But I thought generally they were picking stuff up well. Like you said, those couple of moments where they block a couple of guys, you don't need to fully block the guys and take them out of the play. But if you give Lamar Jackson that quarter of a second, that extra bit of like half yard of space to navigate in the pocket, he's going to bounce around a little. little bit, and then he's going to go find and make a play. And he did that, man, 20 different times this game, it felt like. So Lamar Jackson was just incredible. And that offensive line, they really stepped up. Credit to them. Like, I think generally this year, outside of maybe

week one, they actually have played better than I had anticipated, and they deserved their credit for that. And the last guy I wanted to shout out, Justice Hill, there was a third and 10 on that final drive before the insane Lamar touchdown where Justice Hill takes on Jermaine Pratt in the hole on that sliding Taiwan Wallace catch. So everybody chipped in in this, and they needed to because the Bengals offense for a huge chunk of this game was absolutely ridiculous. This, again, kind of reminded me of those moments a couple years ago where Burrow was playing at such an incredibly high level.

And those two guys, Higgins and Chase in this game, every time they had a one-on-one on the outside, they were just posterizing people. And then you combine that with the explosives. I mean, we'll get to the Bengals and their outlook here in a second. But I actually came away from this game feeling more encouraged about what they could be over the course of the season if they get their right breaks. And that's partially because they are thriving right now on offense with those two dudes healthy. The thing that stuck out to me is just, and this is an obvious thing. Anybody who watches football on any level could say this.

The talent on that team is just so overwhelming when they are really clicking right. because there were a couple of instances where it was like, okay, the Bengals did something cool here. For the most part, it was like, oh, T. Higgins just won on a curl route again. Oh, they threw a screen to Jamar Chase and he broke three tackles and he's gone for 60 yards. Or Jamar Chase catch and run on like a shallow route or something. Like they just, their two receivers were incredible. Andre Yoshavaz had a couple of moments too. Mike Asiqi had a couple of moments.

That is probably the other thing is that maybe the last iteration of this roster didn't quite have the guys who could fill in behind. the two superstars quite as well. There was also less some vertical juice in the same, in like the tertiary, complimentary pass catchers. Tyler Boyd, for what he was, it made sense with the other pieces. And even some of the tight ends that they've had,

Hayton Hearst when he was there, or Smith when he was there, they were more underneath options. You got Gassiki on big corner routes against safeties. You got Yoshibos all the way down the field. This group of past catchers, and we'd mentioned Eric All,

who had some really nice moments as a blocker in this game. I thought their offensive line played really well again. Like, I'm actually really impressed with that group. I thought Ted Karras had some really nice moments in the run game. This offense, I hesitate to say this, but I think this actually might be like the best version of the Bengals offense that we have seen since Joe Burrow and those guys got there.

And the fact that this team is one and four is just hard to wrap your head around. Right, because we've been saying this offense needs to get to a certain place for so long, just in terms of the construction of it all and like filling in something. some of the holes that they had around the superstars and the offensive line, and they're here, and they're one and four. Like, how tragic and how annoying is that? Even as not a Bengals fan, like, that's frustrating to me. So here's the optimistic case that I'm going to make about where the Bengals could go from here.

If you look at the rest of the AFC, there are not that many teams in like wildcard contention. And we're recording this while the Sunday night football game is going on. So not exactly sure where the Steelers are going to see. it after this is all said and done. But if you look at the wild card picture in the AFC right now, you have the Steelers and the Ravens both with three wins as we currently record this. The Broncos are three and two, and that's it if you look at like the second tier of the AFC teams.

So right now, the Bengals are one and four. Their next four are at the Giants, the Browns, the Eagles, and the Raiders. They play the Broncos at some point this season. I think that's week 17 they play Denver. they still have two games against the Steelers. The fact that their defense with BJ Hill back in there and Miles Murphy was healthy again, even though he didn't really do much in this game, they're getting a little bit healthier. They at least showed some life in areas where they haven't over the course of the season.

Sam Hubbard had a couple of plays after looking really rough for the first four weeks. I'm not willing to give up yet. I'm holding out some hope that there is a path to a wild card for this team. So digging yourself out of a one and four hole is obviously incredibly difficult. However, like you mentioned, the schedule, especially over the next month, is pretty favorable. I mean, what their toughest game is the Eagles. And I think this Bengals team is better coached than that team. And like talent-wise, especially on offense, at least probably pretty close to equivalent.

And then the other thing is, if you're going to dig yourself out of this one and four hole, you probably do need to have a team that can score 35 points at will. we're kind of seeing outside of week one that this team can do that and at least force teams into shootouts and if their defense like you said they can go from bottom five to like the 22nd best defense that might be enough to dig them out of this hole. Compare their offense to the offenses that they're going to be fighting against to get one of those wild card spots.

I mean, there are leaps and bounds better than pretty much every other offense of a second or third tier team in the AFC. I don't even think it's really a conversation. It's whether their defense can kind of hold. Exactly. So I think it's a matter of whether their defense can hold on for dear life in some of these games. It's funny that a game where they gave up 41, I came away from it being like, yeah, maybe their defense could actually do this. But I kind of do feel that way because it took a superhero performance from Lamar to make this possible. That is true. I still do want to, I want to see it first. Because while Lamar was incredible, I still like these Ravens Pass catchers, I still.

think, even though they did play above their level I felt like today, I feel like if you allow 40 points to those guys, your defense still has a lot of issues. So I would still like to see it first, but it's not like they're going to be super tested over these next few weeks. So it might give them a little bit of a chance to like get right, get healthy, lock into what you want to do and be. And then, you know, maybe they can figure some stuff out. Yeah, I really do like the style that they're playing offensively. Like pushing the ball the way that they are. Burrow is five of five for 1-13 and two touchdowns against the Blitz. Every time they sent an extra body at him,

he was actually slicing and dicing. I mean, both of these quarterbacks today just played phenomenal football. I think it was in the middle of the first quarter. It might have been their first third down. It was like a third and six. Oh, no, it was the one right before the half, where Joe Burrow slides up and throws that dig route to Jamar Chase.

Oh, my God. It gets them in range. It's one of the best throws I've ever seen him make. Dude, I was like, yo, that is the exact play I've wanted to see more of him. Because obviously, I think Burrow is good, but one of my criticisms has been like, sometimes he just doesn't make those really tough throws you want over the middle. But him to slide up, take a shot to the gut,

and then make that throw to the Jemar Chase. I was like, all right, now we're cooking. That was a beautiful throw. And he dropped the arm angle down a little bit. Like, that's truly one of the most impressive throws I think I've ever seen him make. And then the next play was the chunk to Jemar for the touchdown. I thought by design they did a lot of really good things. How do you feel about the Ravens defense right now?

Do you feel like this Bengals offense is just such a problem that you're willing to write this off? or are we treating the Buffalo game almost as the blip game compared to the rest of what they've put on tape over the course of the year? I think it's two things. And I'll start with the like rational way that I'm looking at this, which is I still think they are trying to figure things out in the secondary just in terms of communication. Like even on that, the Jamar Chase touchdown, we just talked about like right before the half, the Bengals are running like they have a trip set to the left and then a nub tight end to the right. And Marlon Humphrey is playing. He's like the deep third defender to the nub. side. And so when they run all the vertical stuff back up to the to the side, he's supposed to float up and get

into that window that Jamar Chase is on on that deep post. Instead of being a one-on-one with the post safety like it was. Right. Exactly. But Humphrey instead gets stuck on like the overroute that's running just under it. Like he just doesn't follow up the way that he's supposed to. And so I think just stuff like that, they kind of get caught on. So that's kind of an issue. I still think Rowan Smith, it's just not the coverage defender that he has been in years past. And I think that is, again, a huge, huge issue. And again, he's been so good for so long that I'm willing to give like, okay, let's see. If this is still a problem in November, then I'll be really, really worried. For now, it's like I'll give them a little bit of time.

So that's my rational thing. I think communication-wise, they're still figuring some stuff out, especially in the back end. Front-wise, I think they'll be okay. My irrational thing is, I think there's some level of like Joe Burrow, T. Higgins and Jamar Chase are just in these defensive backs heads. Like they just, no matter how good this Ravens team is, this Bengals team just gets them. And I think there's like some level of like mental warfare going on that they just cannot handle this team.

The play that Higgins made reaching over Marwin Humphrey on that. Dude, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Such a nasty play. Let me say this and the Ravens won this game. But if you look at the offensive performances on both sides, combined, these teams finished 18 of 29 on third down in this game. Both teams average 6.8 yards per play. So to put a bow on this, the Cowboys just won 20 to 17.

So now the Steelers fall to three and two, and the Bengals are two games back of them and one game back of most of those teams in the second tier of the AFC. So we'll see what happens. But another very impressive performance from Lamar Jackson and a very impressive performance from this Ravens offense. I mean, Lamar's, you can make an argument.

Lamar's playing better football right now that he was last year when he won the MVP. He's going to be in the race again. It's going to happen. All right. Let's get to you of my attention. Gentlemen, you have my. my curiosity. Now you have my attention.

Each week, we like to pick out a couple performances that really reached out and grabbed us, especially in that early slate when there's so much going on. It's kind of hard to keep track of everything. And let's start with the Houston Texans getting a big win over the Buffalo Bills. I really just wanted to talk about this game. I don't really, there's not

an aspect of the Houston Texans that has my attention. I guess it would be their defense based on what they did to Josh Allen today. But the Houston Texans, who have been uneven to say the least over the first four weeks, we were waiting for them to kind of have a statement moment over a really good team. I think this applies.

So C.J. Stroud, this defense, you guys have my attention. Yeah, this was kind of like you said, I still don't know if this was the most convincing win necessarily, but to finally go out and after being kind of shaky-ish for the first month of the season to go out and have a win against a team that we think even though they've been, you know, the bills have been shaky the past couple of weeks, we still think is a really good team. Josh Allen is a really good quarterback. For them to make him look like one of the worst quarterbacks in the league for a majority of this game, like he played, Josh Allen played some of his worst ball at the very beginning

of this game. And then, you know, he kind of had a head injury later and then he came back and played really poorly. There was a stretch in the middle where he played okay. But beginning and end of this game, he just did not have his stuff together. And I think the Texans did a really good job of getting pressure on him and forcing a lot of tight windows. Yeah, that was what really jumped out to me in this game is that there was nobody open. I mean, Texans played a decent amount of man coverage. And when they played man coverage, the margins were so slim. Every single a time there was like a throw down the sideline thinking about the Kincaid throw down the right side on third down where he barely gets a foot out of bounds. All of the contested plays in this game

went the Texans way. Josh Allen against man coverage in this game, one of 11 for 49 yards. And the Texas played about 35% man against cover one specifically. His one completion was against cover zero. Against cover one specifically in this game, he was 0 of 8. Wow. I mean, and this is what You could feel it. You could feel it over the course of that game. Think about all the pick plays. And that was my biggest problem with the bill's approach on offense in this game. When they were getting man coverage, it was a lot of designery shit where if that play wasn't open, right? If there was a slot wheel where you're trying to get a rub on it, if that wasn't open, they weren't reading stuff out.

And part of the reason for that is it was like third and nine for a good chunk of this game. So that's what they had to do. They had to take these designery shots down the field because you can't run mesh on third and 11. The bills in this game had nine third and seven pluses. They went 0 of 9 on those. I mean, I believe it. This Texan team, and the thing is they've kind of done a little bit more leaning into a little bit more man coverage than you're probably used to. Again, we talked about this on a previous show.

It seems like they've a little bit just like more simplified stuff and just throwing bodies at the problem a lot this year typically than Damiko Rines would maybe want to. And I think for them to have like a game where I think even for some of the questions we've had about maybe a guy like Camarie Lasseter, I think to go into. this game where you know the bills receivers, especially without Khalil Shakir, are not the greatest just pure one-on-one separators for them to go out and be like, all right, beat us. Yeah. Like, beat us while we- That's exactly what it felt like. And I love the fact that that was the approach. Yes. And especially when you know you have two really good pass rushers, too, like, okay, we have two of the best pass rushers in the league. They're going to go, you know, get you in the

pocket, beat our guys. And I think for them to have a game like this where that actually finally coalesced and came together where it's been a little bit uneven, I think, at previous parts of this season for it to finally come together the way it did, I thought was really good. Also, Lassiter, Lasseter had a handful of great plays and coverage. He made a number of really good tackles and hits in the perimeter, too. And that is like the embodiment of what this defense is supposed to be, where every dude down to the cornerbacks is trying to lay people out. The Texans defense just took it to the bill's offense in this game.

All over the place. They won their one-on-one matchups in coverage consistently. And I think they really control the line of scrimmage for a good chunk of this game. On the play where Josh Allen hits his head on the ground, Mario Edwards just roast David Edwards. He did that twice on that drive. So they're winning those sorts of one-on-ones. I thought that Spencer Brown had sort of a rough day

against both the Neal Hunter and Will Anderson had their moments when rushing off of that side. And I thought Fadu Kasi showed up in the run game fairly often. Henry Toh had some really nice moments in the run game. They were playing on the other side of the line of scrimmage consistently. And we talk about the overall formula we've seen from the bills this year. They've been able to run the ball on their terms, pretty consistently. James Cook, I believe, at a 30% rushing success rate in this game.

The Texans were playing on the other side of the line of scrimmage for most of the day. And when you're getting into those third and seven, third and eights because of that, and you can play man coverage against these receivers that we have some questions about their ability to separate in those individual matchups, I think that's kind of the formula and the recipe that leads to a day that was as frustrating and kind of as demoralizing as this one was for the bill's offense. Absolutely. And I would wager a majority of those successful rushes came in like the first three-ish drives

where like very early on in the game, James Cook was just, it felt like he was bouncing off of every single tackle very early in the game, like kind of in the first quarter. He had one for his screen where he did that too. But then after that, like you said, like the Texans were doing a really, really good job of getting in the backfield and then getting him into a lot of those third and longs, like you said. And when Allen is at his best and on a good day, that is a okay place for him to live and he can make those plays. But this was one of the worst Allen games we've seen in a while, which is mildly concerning after last week was also not a very good performance from him. So obviously still a player who's fantastic and I trust, but it's been a shaky two weeks for him, which is concerning when this team kind of needs him to be a superhero or they are not a very good team.

Yeah, I'm 100% with you on that. I just think that this was another one of those games where he's looking like just a little skittish in the pocket, right? Those games where he just gets the zoomies a little bit. And I understand that when you feel like their pass rush is not overwhelming you, but their past rush has the advantage in this game. Like they have the upper hand when you're dropping back to throw because of some of the guys dudes they have up front. But I think that his internal clock was sped up even a little bit more than it needed to be. There was a play that stuck out to me that kind of just explains why the game felt like it did. There was a third down in the first half where Tim Settle pushes the pocket a little bit.

I think it was against O'Sirend's Torrance. And so Alan feels that coming from his right and he quickly escapes to his left. And instead of settling down and trying to reset and make a throw, he tries to make like a trick-shot throw to Matt Collins back to the middle of the field and he skips it in and it's incomplete. When you're living in the volatility of the Josh Allen world, there were a lot of moments over the first two, three weeks without. those plays were going the Bill's way. And today, almost every single one of them went the Texans way. And I thought that that one was a pretty good example. And that's why they really need Khalil Shakir out there because he is like the...

He's their separator. Yes, he's their separator. And he's, he is Josh Allen's like, okay, I don't know who else I want here on this first and 10. Let me get seven yards. Like he's just the guy who keeps this offense ahead of the sticks and keeps things very comfortable along with the run game. Like when they were able to pair the run game, with Khalil Shakir giving them a lot of that. It was like, okay, they could stay in these down in distances

where they could then go get their shot plays. Because this is not a team where explosives come naturally because they just have overwhelming players, kind of like the Bengals do, where it's like, okay, well, we have T. Higgins and Jemar Chase. They're just going to get explosives. The bills don't really have that right now. Like, you kind of need to be in favorable positions

where you can scheme them up. If it's harder to get there, then it's going to be harder to get in those spots and generate those explosives. And I think you saw that today. Yeah, I don't need the slot phase. to Matt Collins on third down. And when we got a lot of those today,

because that's the position that this team was in. On the other side of the ball, people are going to look at the final score and think, oh, man, the Texans' offense kind of struggled today to move the ball. CJ Stroud had those two turnovers in the fourth quarter. The one, the Terrell-Bernard interception,

just a great play by Terrell-Bernard. He falls off of that and makes the play. And Stroud's mind, he's gone. Like, he's cleared out because of the vertical route that's pulling him out of the middle of the field. He falls off of it and makes a good. a great play and then obviously the fumble happens. But for a good chunk of this game, I thought that C.J. Stroud played some remarkable football. For the first 52 minutes, which is right up

until he threw that Bernard interception, which by the way, even before I talk about how well C.J. Stride played, that interception, like you said, that's an incredible play by Bernard because the only way you're really going to get C.J. Stroud is by like being a step ahead of him in terms of like what he's going to anticipate because he doesn't really make mistakes on like base, vanilla stuff, if that makes sense. Like, you have to do something that's a little weird and get out in front of him. You have to be somewhere you're not supposed to be. Yes, yes. You have to be somewhere you're not supposed to be. And Bernard was crazy and confident enough to go do that and make the play. And that was incredible. So up until that point, CJ shot was genuinely playing one of the best games I've seen

all year. I truly think he played like a better game than even like Joe Burrow did today. Some of the throws the CJ Stroud was making under pressure, changing his arm angles. He only got sacked once today for, I think, zero yards. He was under pressure the entire day. He escaped at least like six or seven that I can remember very vividly. Just the way that he moves around the pocket, keeps his eyes up when he's doing it, consistently finds guys down the field, and just his willingness to make a lot of the most difficult throws on the field, like to throw some of those dig routes, those seam routes,

those deep overs that, you know, aren't perfectly open. Like, he's just, I could go on and on, man. What he did today was like the full CJ Stroud experience in terms of what it looks like when he is really at his best. He was 9 of 10 for 139 yards against the blitz, according to next gen. And it felt like that. And when he's rolling, one of my favorite things about watching him is when there's an unblocked defender, his ability to just pop the ball over a defensive player with

touch and put it into space for his guy. He does that so well. I think it was on the second drive where there's an unblocked defensive end because they're sliding one way. And he just pops it over him on the third and seven and they get the first down. And the next play, they hit Collins first screen into another blitz. And they go down and score a touchdown because they're actually running the ball fairly well on that drive. They gashed the bills on a couple of those run blitzes.

The bills were trying to bring some heat on early downs because I think that they've had some, obviously had some issues defending the run last week. And the Texans caught them a couple times. But so when they were bringing extra bodies at the problem, whether it was against the run or the pass, the Texans were consistently catching them. And a huge portion of that is what C.J. Stroud can do. And then the Nico Collins touchdown, that's a ball where Cole Bishop has his eyes in the backfield for like half a second longer than he should. And it's over. Like it's immediately over because Stroud is taking that right away. And of course, Nicco Collins gets hurt in this game.

And I think that probably contributes to some of the relative struggles that we saw from the Texans in the second half. But again, 23 points may not really jump out to you. But I thought that he was really, really good yet again and has again put some really good football for me. most of this year. I think the best way to summarize the Nico Collins' experience is first of that play, where he scores on the deep post route, where he runs by Bishop, where he just, he looks like he's cruising. Like, he just doesn't even really look like he's straining himself to run. And I think that part is super impressive. But then there was another play, I think in the first half, they throw just like a little screen to him to his left side. They get down there and like, they get a hand on him

as he's behind the line of scrimmage. He just slips by and makes the guy miss and gets 10. And it's like, the fact that you're six for, like 200 whatever pound receiver who can run a deep post route and get wide open can also make that play. He's a superhero, dude. He's incredible. He's such an amazing player. What do we want to make of the Sean McDermott decision making at the end of that game to throw the ball three times and not try to take a little bit of time off the clock and not make the Texas use their timeouts? That is the, I, that was completely baffling to me because I saw some people saying it doesn't matter that much, but like it does matter because they only had a handful of seconds when the Texans got the ball back. And that changes what they're allowed to do in

terms of where they can throw the ball and move the ball to get into field go range. And so it does matter because if they didn't have any of their timeouts and they had to throw to the boundary, it's like, okay, there's a shot. They don't get as many yards as they want or you can because they have to throw to the boundary, like you can break it up. It mattered. And for Sean McDermott to completely throw that out of the window and like try to pass, pass, pass. After like I said, Josh Allen had a head injury in this game and came back and wasn't playing all that well. And so to like put the game in his hands in that moment just felt, I don't know, it just felt kind of bizarre. Yeah, I, I'm with you. I think it was the wrong decision. Again, I understand people saying that where if you're going to

get the ball in midfield anyway and there would have been, I don't know, how much time would there have been left. It was like 10-ish seconds. Yeah, probably. And probably would have been around the same if they'd had to use all three of those timeouts, right? And then they wouldn't have had any timeout. So I'm with you. And the fact that not having any timeouts changes the way that you can approach that situation. It probably is the wrong move. I don't know if that is what ultimately loses them the game. I think the way that they played offensively is what ultimately loses them the game.

The last play I want to mention, again, this is just like to me what the game felt like for the bills. There was a third and 10 at one point in the second half where they tried like a comeback to MVS against Derek Stingley. Yeah. And that was just the moment where – and there's a lot of them in this game. We talked about the Matt Collins ones where I'm like, this team needs one more guy. Like even with Khalil Shakir back, this team needs one more guy. And I think it was laid pretty bare against this Texan secondary and the way that Houston's defense could approach the bills in this game. Yeah.

One of the only things we said about this Texan's defense coming into this game is just throw it the not Derek Stingley guy. And it was hard to do that for the rest of this day, to be fair. But still don't throw it the Derek Stingley guy, especially when you absolutely got to have it. You worried about the bill's offense at all after the last two weeks? I feel like Josh Allen has a stretch like this every year, even when he's at his best. He was 9 of 30 today, man. I know, but he does this. He has his moments where it looks bad for two or three weeks and then he figures it out.

So I'm willing to wait to see until we get to the other side of it. I mean, he played like an MVP last year. He was really, really good the first three weeks. Like, I'll wait and see, especially once they get Shakir back. But I'm like mildly worried, but I don't think I'm in panic mode yet. Yeah, I think, again, if a lot of those 50-50 plays in this game, just the tight window throws and those marginal plays go the other way, half of them go the other way, this feels a little bit different. So I do think that they're going to get better luck just moving forward. I mean, that plays a big part of it.

But the lack of separation and a team being able to dictate the game on that side of the ball and the way the Texans did today, part of me is a little bit concerned about that. It is a little bit worrying that they don't have a lot of speed. It feels a little bit like last year's chiefs where it's like, okay. That's a good comparison. It's like I get some of what you're trying to do efficiency-wise, and I think the bills for the most part have been running the ball better than the chiefs did last year. But still, the general idea of like we can just march down the field, at a certain point, it's hard to do that because you're just not going to always be in those great down distances that you want against every single defense.

Like you're going to run into teams like this. So I'd like if they had a little bit more speed that probably would help them a little. I will say that they're not going to play against a team that has two terrors in the way that the Texans do. And I think that the Texans' ability to affect the pocket while even I'm only bringing four when they did blitz, not everyone is going to have that. I think the bill's pass protection was one of their biggest selling points over the first few weeks of the season. And again, I thought they got pushed around off front in this game. I don't think that's going to happen consistently a week in a week out. Let's get to our next one here.

And I want to make it very clear to people before we start talking about this. that you are the one who wanted to discuss this. So why don't you lay out for the folks what are second you have my attentionist? Yeah, the first overall pick from the NFL draft, Caleb Williams, you have my attention. And this is kind of like a months long. Like we've been building up to this because I don't think Caleb necessarily had like the most insane game you've ever seen today. But I think people were freaking out.

It's just like blinking lights. It's the panthers. It is the panthers. But he played very poorly in week one. And I think people started to freak out. Week two wasn't so great either. But I think since then he's been stacking games really, really well. I think you're seeing him take better control of the offense, better control of the pocket.

His accuracy is really improving. And he's a little bit more willing and able to make some of those downfield throws that we've wanted. Like people freaked out the first two or three weeks. They were like, he's zero of 11 or whatever down the field. And it's like, yeah, man, it's his first couple of starts. behind a really bad offensive line. And he looked so unsettled on those throws. Yeah.

Just like the utter lack of confidence that he was playing with and what he was seeing. We talk about assertiveness in the pocket, like conviction and what you're seeing and how that plays into just being a quarterback in the NFL. He had zero over it over the first couple weeks. And seeing that grow a little bit, that's been really, really nice. That is why the DJ Moore touchdown that he threw in this game is so important, where they've got trips to the right side. DJ Moore is like kind of in a tight-ish split to the left side.

Before the snap, Caleb makes some sort of check to the trip side and they run like a little. Yeah, he does like a little hand signal where he puts everything together and they run like a little flat route with two vertical stuff. Like it kind of just looks like a BS screen to that side. The point being, the Panthers end up rotating their safety down into that trip side. So the other safety kind of starts to come back to the middle of the field. But he sees those two dudes clearing out from the trip size and goes, oh shoot, I got to get over there. So he clears out to that side. Caleb instantly turns back to the back side, throws the post to DJ Morranges.

I also think his eyes going to that side. It is. He played with him a little bit. I mean, he held that safety to that right side and came back to it. He knew he was coming back to it. It was beautiful. And that's the thing, to make the check that he did, and then to do that little bit where he's probably manipulating the safety a little bit

and making sure that he's over on that side of the field so that he can come back and make that throw. I mean, that's why I've been so encouraged with Caleb is they are putting so much on his plate and really asking him to play big boy quarterback. And obviously it's not going to be perfect. It's really hard to play quarterback in this league. But when you get these moments where you can see everything come together, like it's five, six year NFL veteran, it's like, oh, man, with his talent,

this is the kind of stuff that you're really, really chasing at the position. There was part of me over the first couple of weeks that was a little bit frustrated in everything that they were putting on him. I'm like, look, guys, the operation is horrendous right now. You're going to be letting him check protections and change plays and do all of this when you can't block anybody, like just let him focus on one or two things. That was part of my brain while also knowing that this is one of those things where even if there are some lumps early on, the benefits on the other side of this, if you're putting all

of these things on him before the snap, they are going to come back to you in a big way. And I think we're starting to see a little bit of that. There are a couple plays that jump out to me other than the hand signal touchdown to DJ Moore. This is a small one, but there was a throw with like 14-ish minutes in the second quarter where he just rises up and throws like a now bubble to a dunzee. And it's a called run and he just throws it to a doonese. And when I say this, I want people to not take this out of context and just pump the brakes a little bit. That's Aaron Rogers stuff, right?

Where you're controlling the game. I know the count. I'm just making a play to my receiver. I have my finger on the clicker. And you saw that a couple different times in this game. The most famous one is going to be that play in the, I think it was sometime in the first half where the Mike caught it, where Coleman Shelton is saying back to him because he's checking into a run.

And Coleman Shelton goes, we got fucking fire, man. And the nickel was coming off the left side. And Caleb's like, all right, that's fine. I got it. So it's a called run, but he has the quick out to Odunzee to the right side. And he knows, even if we can't block this up because we're running into this pressure, I have an answer to my right. That's really advanced stuff.

That's the veteran stuff for a guy in his fifth start. And so even if there are some, and I still think even in this game, I still feel like he's in his head a little bit with some of these throws. No doubt. Like the first touchdown to DJ Moore, he short arms that a little bit. The one to Cole Cometta on the right sideline, he can probably lead him a little bit more on that one. Even the second touchdown to Moore, I feel like he's just, he's really, he's white knuckling. it on those plays where he knows he's got the throw.

And he's very young and it's his fifth game. But I think you combine that with the sense of what's supposed to be going on with the offense, where my answers are. And then the other thing that jumped out to me today is just the awareness in the pocket and the spatial awareness overall. Like the stop and start stuff with guys in space when he's either rolling out or he's trying to make one on block defender miss on a boot. it's all those little things that are just kind of preternatural about the way that he can play

that I think are starting to show up as we eject the very big downside moments that we saw over the first few weeks. That is a great point because there was a second and six at the end of the first where you just see the natural slipperiness he has in the pocket where he's making three or four different moves. But his eyes are up the entire time until he knows for a fact, okay, this is dead. I got to go. And I think he has such a good and natural trigger for like when that moment is. And I think just because things were so bad at USC, people kind of overrated how bad it could be at times. But I think we've even seen over the first month now, like he has already gotten a little bit better than that.

And then you mentioned the boot stuff. It is a small thing, but because he is such a flexible thrower and has such a strong arm and is such a good and quick athlete, sometimes those boots, especially to your left, you've got to get into weird arm angles to throw it. He always can do it. Like no matter where he's at, no matter where the defender's at, no matter where his receiver's at, he can find a way to get the ball there. That's a really nice trait to have when you know those plays are going to get fixed even if something goes wrong.

For the first few weeks, they were running a lot of those nakeds. Just again, try to give him some easier, like plays off. We talk about that mentally plays off where you're not having to read something out completely. You know, play action is a quarterback's friend in those situations. But when they were leaving unblocked guys, it was leading to panic moments. because he was having to make a split second decision. This was the first week where even in some of those moments,

I was like, oh, no, he's in control. Like, he's not worried about what's going to happen. He feels like he can manipulate that unblocked defender in some of these moments. And that's the type of stuff where it's like, okay, if they can turn that corner and those turn from negative plays to positive plays because of kind of the self-assuredness that he's playing with, that's a really good sign. And you know what, to that end, I actually, I will,

applaud their coaching staff for once this season. Towards the end of the game, they were up 20 points. And they had a drive where they ran like four or five empty pass plays in a row. You're already up. You don't need to do this. You could just start to kill the game. But I think they were like, hey, let's get Caleb in a game that is unloosable at this point. Let's get him some meaningful reps in a split that he doesn't get to do all that often. And I thought that was actually like a pretty sharp thing of them to do. And he made a handful of really good plays. And then he ended the drive with, like, he made a third and eight scramble to get them to convert. And then he had a touchdown on a scramble that would have scored if they didn't get called back. And so just stuff

like that, like, they actually let him go play the position. It was cool. I did like the plan offensively. I do think that they're like, there are adult game plans happening. Again, it helps against the Panthers when you're not worried about a single ounce of pressure, especially after clown he gets hurt. But two other things that I will mention. One, DeAndre Swift is a very good screen player. He's not a good route runner. Like, if you ask him to on choice routes. He's actually, he's objectively not good at that, but he is a good player if you can get the ball in his hands in space. And their willingness to kind of lean into some of those screens, I think that's an overall net positive for the offense. Caleb is very good at throwing

screens. Like his ability to get those balls off in traffic and the touch he puts on them, it's a small, like stupid skill. I talked about this earlier today, but he is actually very good at it. And I like some of the stuff they're doing in the run game. We saw it last week for the first time. some of the split zone stuff where they're having either the tight end or some gap scheme stuff where they're having somebody pull and kick out the edge defender usually to the left on most of these plays. I think that's keeping it a lot cleaner for the running backs than some of the zone specific stuff they were doing over the first three weeks.

And I think that has really, really helped out what the run game is looking like. I think it hasn't. I think it's helps lift because on outside zone versus like the split zone is typically more of like an inside zone. It's a little bit of a shorter path. on outside zone you kind of got to wait and wait and wait and like okay when do I hit it when do I hit it's about nuance yeah it's about he doesn't have nuance yes giving him too much time to think about where the ball needs to go it's not a good thing whereas on split zone it's usually like okay you take a couple of steps and you know pretty quickly if I need to cut this back towards the split and I think them simplifying that has been good for both the offensive line and for the running back I totally agree you're creating angles allowing guys to get up to the second level and you're simplifying things for a running back who just hit it man just just he knows where to hit it and he's hitting it quickly, that's a benefit to everybody. So all caveats necessary about the Carolina Panthers defense,

but a very fun game for anyone who is emotionally invested in where this bear's offense is going. We're going to take our first break and then we're going to get back with what the fuck. Every week, there's plenty of baffling stuff that goes down over the course of an NFL Sunday. And my goodness, today was no exception. We're going to start with an entire division because I think you could throw any of the games. and any of the situations in there. NFC West. The Niners blow that lead today.

The Seahawks could absolutely beat up by the Giants. I know that game was close at the end. That game was close at the end because the Seahawks had a 101-yard fumble return for a touchdown. They got vastly outplayed by what we think is not a very good Giants team. And the Rams just fell to one and four after losing to the Packers. So NFC West, all of the NFC West. What the fuck? they only get a win by default because two of them played each other.

And I don't even think it was a very convincing win for the team that won. It was more like, oh, the other team is supposed to be good. And they melted down. Like the Niners scored 23 points. For as weird as NWonkey as the Niners defense has been this year, we've generally thought the Niners' offense has been pretty good. The Niners scored 23 points in this game. Seven of them were because they blocked a field goal and ran it back for a touchdown.

So like the offense itself didn't really score. that many points. There were a ton of drives where they got into the red zone and just stalled out. Yeah, they just torpedoed themselves in the red zone. I mean, you have a couple of plays where you have to kick field goals. Two field goals in the red zone, including one where they kicked one on fourth and goal from the two, which ends up becoming a mistake and probably was a mistake in the moment. kicking 20-yard field goals in 2024, no dice. Like, we- With one of the best offenses in the league, what are you doing? We have to remove 20-yard field goals from our lives. And I know that Kyle Shanahan has gotten marginally better at this stuff, but that's one of those moments where, and again, it almost feels too poetic that they eventually lose this game because of decisions like that.

But then you also can't kick a field goal on one of those red zone drives because your kicker gets hurt at one point in the game. So your quarterback takes a bad sack. You're at fourth and 23 in kind of no man's land where your punter or Kyle Eusecheck or whoever the kicker was going to be. That's no longer in his range. so you have to go for it. And then at the end of the game, they're trying to ice it away and Jordan Mason fumbles inside the 15.

So essentially every single time the Niners got into the red zone today, they short-circuited. And I think the Mason fumble was the most frustrating and not even because of Mason. To me, it was, okay, you've built this entire run game

off of running at Trent Williams, George Kittle, and Kyle Euse Check. All three of those dudes lost their blocks on that. Like at the start of the play, Trent Williams and Kyle, and I think George Kittle try to get a double team combo on somebody.

They don't really get any movement. The guy slips by. Kittl tries to climb up to the next level. He gets blown up by the next guy. And Juice Check also gets blown up by the guy who would split the combo. Like all three of those guys did not do their job, which is crazy because you've built this team to run behind those guys. And they played well for a majority of this game. But for them to like in that moment fail their, you know, backup running back who's doing his best.

And then for him to have that moment, it was just like, man. everything went wrong for them, especially once they got in between the 20s, they were great. It was when they needed to put points on the board. Are you worried about the Niners at all? Or do you feel like this is just a run of bad luck? I mean, this is a very weird game where your kicker gets hurt. Again, you have these awful red zone moments. You fumble the game away inside the five.

You have a tipped ball interception at the end, even though there were tip ball interceptions both ways. I kind of, it's hard to know what to make of this game because there was bad luck on either side. right i mean the cardinals had get a blocked field goal touchdown kiler throws a pick to joe or to nick bosa on a screen pass there was just a there was a lot of nonsense in this game i guess i guess that's the best way to put it i so i want to just say on the kailer interception really quick where he throws it to bosa they're trying to run one of those like swing screens where you just have like one lead blocker out there i genuinely truly think that kiler could not see nick bosa between his

offensive lineman and where the screenplay, like, I genuinely, like, that is the one, like, one of the few times for him being 5'10 is actually a problem. And so that happened. I will say, I think offensively, the Niners are going to be fine. Like, it was kind of a weird game in terms of them not being able to punch it in, but for them to so consistently get down there. And then, like, George Kittle had two weird drops in this game, especially one at the end that, like, he usually doesn't have, like, that's probably not going to happen every week. And so I thought all that stuff. Offensively, they'll probably be okay. Defensively, what did we say coming into the week? It was like, all right, Cardinals'

offense or Niners' defense? One of you has to prove it. And I think, I don't know if I, it was super convincing either way, but I think the Cardinals' offense won that battle of the two. I think that's probably fair. It's just like, I still don't feel great about the Cardinals offense the way I wanted, but if I had to pick a winner in that battle that I came in with, it would probably be them. Yeah, I mean, there's some really nice moments from the Cardinals' offense in this game. I like some of the big play action shots to Michael Wilson.

They had a couple of those. That fourth and five, Kyle Murray completion to Marvin Harrison Jr. with the game on the line. It's just a ridiculous play by both of those guys. I will say, I think the place I land on the Cardinals' offense is, it's a good group. I don't think they're quite ready for prime time. I agree with.

I think there are enough talent concerns up front overall where this team is probably a year away with a couple more reinforcements. And I don't think they necessarily have to pour a bunch of resources into it because the defense is where those resources are eventually going to need to go. The high-end resources need to go to defense because of the state of his defense right now. They've got a lot of young players on the interior that they've drafted over the last couple years that I think have kind of been waiting in the wings because they can't quite unseat the veterans. Isaiah Adams is one of those guys who needs a third round pick this year.

John Gaines is a guy they drafted in the fourth round last year. He was hurt for all of 2023. I feel like they want to get to a place where those are the guys playing for them on the interior, some of these homegrown young players. And Kelvin Beecham has been starting for them at right tackle for a huge chunk of the season because Jonah Williams has been hurt. So I think that's probably the area I'm still most concerned about. And I just, I don't know how I feel about the Kyler experience.

I just, I don't know how I feel. feel about it. The volatility of it and the fact that you're getting some of the explosives and you're getting what he is as a creator, but it's a little bit more uneven down to down than you probably want it to be. I don't know what it eventually means for this team. I still can't put my finger on it. I think regardless of, hmm, how do I put this? I think the best way to get like good Kyler-Marie football is that you cannot rely on him to be how you're getting your yards in like the one to 10 yard area. Like him replacing blitzes and him throwing quick game, he can do it.

But on like a month to month basis, on a game to game basis, he can be a little uneven there. Like you even saw in this game for a lot of the first half, he just didn't want to throw quick and throw a lot of like the blitz replacement stuff that he had to. In the second half, I thought he actually did a much better job at that. But he just kind of has these phases where he doesn't want to do it. So what's the ceiling on an offense that looks that way, though? Well, you need to run the ball really well. And if you can run the ball and it like circumvents that,

and you can kind of work around that and that's how you get into good down in distances, then it can be okay, but they have to be able to do it. And the problem is that kind of like you mentioned, offensive line-wise, they just don't really have the horses right now. And I think that was a big issue. They did a little bit better of a job in the second half in this game. Like they started to change things up. Even Nick Bosa said this. And I actually went back and watched, Nick Bosa said something to the effect of, you know, in the second half, they just started changing up their run game. And so when I watched this back, I was like, all right, I'm going to keep that in mine. They went to a little bit more like one back power, a little bit more duo. I was like,

okay, they're going a little bit more downhill with their stuff, whereas a lot of what they've been doing is either outside, especially with that center, playside guard pull, stuff they've been doing. So I thought that was interesting, but you're not going to be able to win every week by like, oh, in the second half, we changed our run game. Like, that's not going to work every week over the course of the season. The Niners lost today and them going to two and three would be more concerning if the Seahawks didn't just blow a game to the Giants, but they also did that today. Again, I think they got pretty significantly outplayed for a good chunk of this game. The ease with which the Giants moved the ball in this game, they averaged almost six yards of play.

They finished with 420 yards of total offense. Last week, you're playing against the Lions, you're playing on the road, and you're totally banged up. You got so many guys out. So many guys in the front seven, multiple starters. They're still not fully healthy in that area, but your two starting linebackers are back for this game. Leonard Williams played in this game. I expected a little bit more resistance to a Giants' offense that we have seen struggle for a huge chunk of this year than what we got from Seattle's defense today. Without Malik Neighbors, that's the biggest thing.

You know what was funny? I didn't even think about that. You know what? Darius Slaten looks like Malik neighbors in this game. It's always Darius Slayton. No matter what the Giants do in the end, it's always Darius Slayton. He had eight catches for 122 yards today. Like, how does Darius Slayton come out of the woodwork to do this every single season?

I think it's like the weirdest storyline. And for some reason, no other team wants to trade for him. Maybe the Giants just think he's that valuable, even though he's like their third or fourth guy. But I think it was concerning that they just could not seem to cover anybody. I mean, last week against the Lions, they literally could not cover anybody. Jared Gough was perfect. And for Daniel Jones to look like his equivalent of perfect, like his best foot forward at being perfect, I think is really concerning for two weeks in a row.

on the other hand, I might have been more concerned about what the offense looked like than the defense. Like the defense, I can give them grace for young unit. You're banged up. You're still working on things. This offense, man, they were putrid for a lot of this game. Let's finish up with the defense before we get to the offense because I also have thoughts on that. The weak points on the defense are becoming apparent. And I think in this game, a few different things that I would point out.

One, I thought the interior of the offensive line just didn't really play very well. I actually thought the Giants did a really good job of getting more. movement on a lot of those interior runs. Like the double teams, whether it was Runyon and John Michael Schmitz or like Roten or Van Rotten in the right tackle, like I was actually very impressed with the movement they were getting up front consistently in this game and it was really muddying things up for the linebackers. The linebackers in general, they felt like their heads were spinning in this game.

Everything the Giants wanted underneath into the middle of the field was open. Daniel Jones in this game on play action was 9 of 12 for 101 yards and 2. touchdowns. On those play action throws, he averaged four air yards per attempt. It was all just ball control play action nonsense and the guys on the second level were consistently struggling with that

and the other guy who had a rough day speaking of Darius Slayton was Trey Brown. So essentially it was all of the non-devin Witherspoon to wreak woolen defenders for the Seahawks had a rough time and I think that

we had maybe some concerns coming into the season, talent-wise, where was this group, especially at positions like linebacker where you had some stopgap options? And I think that that showed up for me today. I can expect it to show up against the Lions. I didn't necessarily expect it to show up against the Giants. I think this was a game where you saw kind of some of the issues with the personnel they have with the type of defense they want to be where they're- Absolutely. Emptying out the box a little bit. They're being a little bit more of a too high team. You've got to communicate. It cannot defend the run on a too high. They can't do it.

they can't do it because like tyrell like dodson is a guy who like he'll run and hit people but you kind of need to like put him in the lane and just let him go and i think that's even kind of true of jerome baker like i think no matter who they put it linebacker all of their guys are kind of built that way um both in the starting lineup and in the backup lineup and then if you don't have defensive linemen in front of them who are really really really good space eaters it's just kind of hard to live this way yeah and hankins was getting pushed around a little bit today and That's the one thing that I think that even I wasn't really considering it in these terms when I was watching them against the lions last week. When you're trying to defend the run out of too high, you're going to be missing a gap, right?

That's the nature of it. Somebody's going to have to play two gaps. And the way that they're doing it, they're asking their linebackers to kind of read from one gap to the other. And if you don't have linebackers who are really, really good, there are guys who just can't handle that. Last week it was like Tyrese Knight. He's a rookie. It makes sense why he was struggling. But to see the starting linebackers, quote unquote,

fall into some of the sort of the same issues where you're putting a lot on them and they're just not equipped to deal with it. That's a concern that I think that you should be worried about moving forward with this team. And that's why Roquan Smith looked so good in this defense because Roquan Smith, his vision, his side-to-side agility, all that sort of stuff, it works really well for being able to kind of play both gaps like that and do that sort of stuff. Just not the type of talent that Seattle has in the building right now. Let's get to the other side because I'm with you in what we saw from the Seattle offense. today. How many play action? What percentage of Geno's dropbacks in this game do you think were play action? Just if you had to guess. Okay. So I'm going to preface this by saying I've seen the box score, which obviously doesn't tell you play action, but here's why I say that. They had seven

running back carries, which leads me to believe if you are not running the ball at all and not running the ball effectively, you're probably not running a lot of play action. So out of Gino's 40 attempts, I'm going to say, I don't know, five of them were play action, something like that. 9.8% play action rate of Regina in this game. 37 attempts on pure dropback plays combined with those seven running back attempts. Said this last week after watching what they did against the Lions. I think I said it on the midweek show and I was talking about this with Dane. You can't live this way. You can't live this way if you have a good offensive line. If you have a bad offensive line, If you have three positions on the offensive line, let's say three and a half, right?

If we give Connor Williams a half, three of those other positions, you are concerned about them in one-on-one passing situations, both guards and your third string right tackle. And you're going to drop back 40 times over the course of a game. That's how you end up getting sacked seven times. Against Dexter Lawrence. There's no other guy who can nuke your two guards the way that Dexter Lawrence kid. And so, yeah, to drop back as many times as they did is baffling. And look, we've probably said on a different show. Outside of Matthew Stafford and maybe like Dak Prescott,

Gino Smith is maybe the best pure dropback passer in the NFL. It's just that when that's your only pitch, you're going to be a bad offense. Like if you're an offense and you only have one pitch of any kind, you're probably not going to be a very good offense. And so for them to put so much on his plate, asking him to drop back so many times behind an offensive line that cannot protect. Like, we've been saying this Giants pass search like needs to show. up this year. And they gave them the game where it's like, oh, there it is. This is the Giants

pass rush that we've been looking for for a month. You don't want to be that team. What's so frustrating is, if you look back at Gino's history and what they were over the last couple years, he's a really good under center play action thrower. One of the biggest chunks they had in this game to start the second half, they had a play action chunk to Tyler Lockett. And so I just, I think one of the biggest concerns for the Seattle team overall coming into the season was, how are you going to tie everything together with the way that Ryan Grubb played at Washington where it's in the gun, it's all spread out,

how do you tie together an under center run game, some play action, tie together your run game and your passing game, they're still figuring that out. I don't think they've landed on it, but this is two weeks in a row where last week it was mostly the first half where they didn't run the ball at all.

They were using almost no play action. They're down to the bottom of the league on it. The second half, it was better. They were asserting themselves on the ground. today it was an entire game where they are playing this way. And I just don't think you can ask this of your quarterback and your offensive line when you have the pieces that you have on that side of the ball. I was going to say, do you even necessarily think this is something that Ryan Grubb is not doing well?

Or is that they just don't have the horses up front? Because that's kind of where I lean is. I just don't know if they have the offensive line talent, especially a guard. To do what? To piece this thing together and be the offense they want to be where you can run the ball and you can get under setting. Oh, I don't think, I don't think it matters. I think that at a certain point, you just have to do more of it.

Even if it's not a way you want to live, like, at a certain point, you have to take those plays off of your line and your quarterback, no matter what you're built like. Because if you're, if that's your approach, right, we're like, our offensive line sucks. We can't really run the ball anyway. Let's not run the ball, which I don't think is necessarily true. I think when they've tried to run the ball, they've actually done a decent job of it. Like, the Lions have a really good run defense. They ran the ball effectively on money.

day night. But if your answer is, we can't run the ball this well with our offensive line, so we're just not going to run the ball or use play action, then it's just a vicious cycle where you're making things 10 times harder on yourself. That cannot be the answer because I think that then you're just compounding your problems. Yeah, that's a good point. You at least have to give it a credible threat. I think they had two rushing attempts in the first half, which you've got to do more than that. You got to at least try. Even if they're all negative gains, you got to at least try more than two times. Let's go to the last game in the NFC West here. Is the Rams season just over? Probably, man, because I know we just did some of the stuff at the top of the show with the Bengals and their one and four.

But it's like, yeah, the Bengals. If you're playing like the best offense in the AFC, then I can make the path for you. And I also think that the middle tier of the AFC is worse than the middle tier of the NFC. Oh, absolutely. And like, that's the thing is like, okay, both of those defenses are probably going to be bad. But the Bengals offense, we know is very good. The Rams offense, it's like, okay, Stafford is still playing at a high level. I don't know how many pieces around him are still playing at a very high level. And obviously, their two best receivers are banged up and that's been an issue. And like, it's kind of been a shame because a guy like Jordan Whittington, he's not playing poorly and he's like kind of cool. But the fact that he's like this rookie who is like having to step into the lineup and be their best and be their best. receiver, that is not the place that they want to live. They need a little bit more firepower on this team.

And I just don't know if they're going to be able to, like, even when those guys come back, ramp into it the way that they want to. So I'm probably leaning towards their season being pretty toast. If you look at the NFC, right? So just the NFC North, period. Okay. We talk about how there are not that many teams with three wins in the AFC that you're worried about in the wild card race.

There are four teams in the NFC North that have at least three wins. and two of them have wins over the Rams already. So I just think that the path to them getting a wild card at one and four with the current state of where they are and where the rest of the conferences, it's just a really, really tough road. And I don't think we have to do a post-mortem on the Rams season on October 7th, but I do think that it's going to be really, really tough sledding for them to make anything of this. And considering what the expectations were and the vibes were based on where this offense was at the end of last season and just what we thought might be possible if things broke right for them.

It's a pretty shitty place to be like three weeks before Halloween. That's what's the most disappointing. If this team was just not supposed to be that good or interesting at all, and it's like, oh, your season's dead by October 5th or whatever it is. It's like, okay. I mean, that's going to happen for a handful of teams every year, right? But for a team that we thought could be a top five or six offense, for a team that had, we didn't think they'd be good on defense,

but they brought in some interesting young pieces and, you know, guys that we like the free agency. I actually do like watching the front play. Jared verse, you, you were right on that one. That guy plays a particular way and he's a very, very good player. But it's just the guys behind them have not been good enough. And I think that that's been the biggest issue. So yeah, it's sad that for a team that we thought could contend, even if like, if a couple of things broke right for them or wrong for other NFC West teams, the Rams could have won this division. Like, that's what we thought coming into the season. And that is the we are so far removed from that world at this point. Yeah, and they're in such an odd spot just because

of Stafford's age, how much longer is he going to play? You'd hope that because he's playing well, you could potentially coax him back next year in a lot of ways. And I think some other people have said this and I'm kind of copying it, but this is the season that we thought the Rams were going to have last year. And instead, they're having it in 2024. And that's cruel because we know it doesn't have to be this way after watching the way that they played last season. So you'd hope that, all right, we get to next year, Stafford's back, you have most of your pieces back offensively, right? We know Cooper Cup's under contract, Puka gets back healthy, you know, the offensive wine,

an offensive wine that we're very excited about coming into the year and has been just in tatters for most of this season. You get most of those guys back. So I don't think it's necessarily over for this era of the Rams because your young defense hopefully could take a step forward next year if you bring all those pieces back. But the fact that we might have to wait until next season to even start. talking ourselves into that. It's a pretty big bummer.

Let's get to our next one here. I want to, the moment I want to use to get into this conversation about the Las Vegas Raiders is there was a third and five with 449 left in the second quarter. And the Raiders ran the ball. And I saw it happen in real time. And I was like, oh, okay. You know, that's fine, right? I mean, it's run the ball on third and five from plus,

45, you have two downs. Like that's reasonable decision making. I could not comprehend what came next. Instead of going for it, or instead of trying to kick like a 60-yard field goal, which presumably Daniel Carlson could do, even though it would be a terrible choice, they punt the ball from the plus 42 on 4th and 2. We talk about how we have to remove 20-yard field goals from our lives in 2024. it's an indefensible choice.

You cannot, as the head coach of an NFL team, make the decision to punt on fourth and two from the plus 42 yard line in a game that is close. I mean, you just cannot do it. And I think this leads me to just a larger conversation about the state of the Las Vegas Raiders and kind of the complete lack of faith that I have in almost everything about their operation. So before I get to you, let's play into the bit here. Las Vegas Raiders, Antonio Pierce. What the fuck? I don't even know if I want to start with like this sequence or any other, like them benching gardener, Mitch. Here's, okay, I'll actually kind of start there because I think this moment leads into that.

If you're in this fourth, where you obviously run yourself on a third and five into a fourth and two, the two reasons you would maybe not want to go for it on fourth and two are out. We don't trust our run game. We don't trust our offensive line. Okay, you've been one of the worst in the league all year. Whatever, I get it. The other reason is you don't trust your quarterback. Okay, but you just paid this guy in free agency,

and you had a quarterback battle leading into the season, and you named this guy the starter, and you have some decent skill players to work with, right? Like, Jacobi, like, I know Devante Adams is not playing, but Jacobi Myers is a solid player. Brock Bowers is already one of the best tight ends in the league. He's amazing, like, do anything. And then they just don't, and they opt not to.

They clearly don't trust the quarterback, and then like a quarter's worth of football time later, they end up benching the quarterback. It's just like, what was the idea here? I want to play a clip from Max Crosby after this game. And this is Vic Tafer, who covers the readers for us and does a fantastic job, asking Max Crosby after the game about the Devante Adam's situation and what this week was like in that building. This is what it is. I'm doing with him my whole career.

So it's what it is. You know, Devonte is my boy. I love Devonte. And he's going to do what he's going to do. praying for him, wish him the best. He's not healthy right now. He's got to get healthy.

We're focused on the Raiders. We're focused on who's here now. We're focused on winning. So I've got to find ways to do that. What? That's just sad, man. We're five games in. We're five games into the season.

They just yanked their starting quarterback and the quarterback battle and all the bullshit that we had to deal with this entire offseason feels inconsequential now. And the best player on your team, when asked about the other best player in your team demanding a trade, his responses as just life around here. What?

Like, how can you live that way as an NFL franchise? And you know what the saddest part of this is? He's right. Like, why is there any hope and why is there any optimism for how this is going to get better based on the way that this organization makes decisions? And like, vibes wise, we were sold that it was going to be better with Antonio Pierce, right? like that was the sell is that, you know, vibes wise it was as bad as it could be with Josh McDaniel.

And I totally understand that. And like, if we got this quote while McDaniel was the head coach, it'd be like, yeah, I kind of understand how we would arrive there. But we were sold this thing where was supposed to be better with Pearson, it very obviously hasn't been. And then you add that on top of some of the questionable decision making you're talking about on the field. It's just, it's, it's kind of criminal that a player as good as Max Crosby is just like contained on this team that very obviously has no direction, like on or off the field. It's just, it's very frustrating. And I get why he had as emotional of an answer as he did. This week, there were some reports that the Raiders were open to the idea of potentially trading Devante Adams.

Yeah, you should be open to that idea. You should have been open to that idea this off season, when you were completely directionless and you could have gotten a haul for him before he was hurt a year older, and we were five games into the season. What do you think a team would have reasonably given up for Devante Adams that they had traded for him this spring? I think it would have been a lot. Julio went for a two and a four when Julio was traded a few off seasons ago. Julio was not playing at the level that Devante Adams is right now when he was traded. You're going absolutely nowhere.

And I guess I can sort of understand maybe we'll draft a quarterback. And if we draft a quarterback, you want a guy like Devante Adams in the building. But by the summer, you know that quarterback wasn't there. What are you working toward? And this goes beyond small decisions. The biggest decision that you could make this off season, the two biggest, where who you were hiring is your general manager and your head coach. You hired the head coach because the players in the building wanted you to hire him

after you went on some little run at the end of last season. That's fine. I don't think that's the best reason that you should. hire someone as a head coach. But if that's what you want to land on, that's fine. They hired the GM that they hired because they didn't want to pair a rookie GM with a rookie head coach, which I think is kind of nonsense. Like, who cares?

Like, why does that matter? Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes really struggling up there in Detroit, right? Like, Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch, it's been a fucking disaster in San Francisco, right? And the other part of this is, the only reason they hired Tom Tolesco is it went south when they were trying to hire Ed Dodds. There was like some weirdness in it where there was some backroom, like, palace intrigue nonsense where they're like, oh, no, we can't hire that guy anymore because the reasons that we were going to hire him, the owner got pissed about it.

So instead, you settle for Tom Telesco, who goes from being the Chargers GM, and the Chargers were essentially on the verge of a tear down at the end of last year, and immediately gets another GM job, which we never, ever see. Even good GMs don't get second chances the year after they get fired, let alone somebody who had the end of a tenure like he did with the Chargers. Like it just, there's no reasonable decision making that's going on at any level of the organization. They're just consistently sabotaging themselves at every single turn and I have no idea how it gets better. And even that's what even makes the Brock Bowers of it all complicated, right? Like, he's an incredible player.

But it's like, what did we draft this guy for if all we're going to do at quarterback is signed like Gardner Minchu? And then even to your point, if you thought after the draft, okay, we didn't get a guy in this draft class, we should just probably trade Devante Adams. Having drafted Brock Bowers is actually kind of the perfect off ramp for that because then it's like, okay, we can just be something completely different on offense and we can start to feed this thing through this guy. Well, so like, why did you keep both that?

Like, why did you draft Bowers and then also keep Adams? It's just, there really is no direction. And then the Telesco thing of him getting immediately rehired. Like, whatever you think of Tom Telesco, it is funny that he is like the only GM probably of my lifetime who has been immediately rehired. Like we see this with head coaches, right? It really does not happen with front office type. So that's-

The head coaches that we see this happen to? Like Doug Peterson, Andy Reid, they went to Super Bowls. They were like, they were some of the most successful head coaches in the NFL when they got those second chances. Frank Reich, I guess is an exception to this. but for the most part, the guys that immediately get hired are guys that have had real sustained success. And I do not think that you can categorize the Tom Telesco era in Los Angeles as that, especially at the end. I just, this has been bubbling up in me for a while, the fact that like an NFL, an NFL organization is making choices in the ways that the Raiders are making choices.

And I think it all came to ahead today when I had to watch that fourth and two decision. All right. We're going to take one last break and then we're going to get back, which is a couple nuggets from stuff that we saw. today. You see that? Did you see that? We like to wrap up these Sunday shows or kind of as we get to the back half of them, just talk about a couple moments that jumped out to us. And let's start with Jaden Daniels. Did you see what Jaden Daniels did again today against the defense that was very different stylistically than a lot of the defenses he had played against? So we talked about this on our preview show, just how this was going to be a different sort of challenge, just from a structural

perspective for Jaden Daniels and for this Washington offense. And it wasn't. the best performance, obviously, like, he's not completing 85% of his passes again. But I think there were a lot of moments today that really were nice to see and that this Washington team can win in more than one way. Yeah, this game was kind of like, it seemed like both parts of what I thought might happen did happen in this game. It's just that the good moments from Washington were way, way, way more valuable. Like, the Browns actually did do a good job of closing windows on Jane Daniels,

especially over the middle of the field. Like between the numbers and beyond 10 yards, Jaden Daniels didn't complete a pass. And like he hardly even attempted any because so many of those windows were closed. The Browns were obviously playing a lot of cover one where there's a whole defender there. And Daniels just didn't feel comfortable throwing a lot of those windows.

He was throwing a lot out to the perimeter, throwing a lot of hitch routes, some of those screens, obviously some downfield shots. But that's the thing is like I said coming into the week, I think the Browns were had the third lowest allowed in man coverage in terms of completion rate. and they did a good job of that today. It's just that when you beat them, you can beat them.

And they got beat really bad two times down the field today. One on, it actually wasn't man coverage. One was like a pressure looked at a guy just gets free. And then another one, Martin Emerson, was just kind of asleep at the wheel a little bit. He's been a little bit. Yes. I think he's been probably, I think we came into the season really excited about the secondary. And I think he's taken a little bit of a step back.

So this was kind of just, I don't think Jaden Daniels played his best game like start to finish. but him having some of the moments that he had as a runner and as a scrambler and then just hitting those two shot plays, that's enough when all you have to do is outscore Brown's offense. What I really like today is just how calm he is when he's having to find escape lanes against pressure. And it's often to his right, but just his ability to kind of calmly escape to his right and one scramble or two try to find a shot down in the field. It's just another example, another set of examples of it not being too big for him. And obviously the best moment is when he hits McCorn over the top after he escapes to his right.

But even in moments where he's just trying to pick up a few yards with his legs, he's never, ever, ever getting frantic in those moments. And I think that just overall calm that he continues to play with against a defense that's trying to deliberately send you away from that, that was really, really nice to see consistently. It's one of those things where him scrambling so much is kind of like you would like to not see him do it, but because he is just committing to a decision, even if it's not always the right decision,

you can make it the right decision when you're a really, really good athlete and you can make some throws outside of the pocket. So I do think he's been doing that. I do want to say, I think on two of those, well, on the McLauran touchdown and then on a big scramble,

I think the fourth and three that he had later in this game, J. O.K. just got a little bit, just out in front of his skis trying to get to Daniels. On one, on the McLaurin one, where he finds him outside the pocket. The Brown sends six and JOK is coming off the edge and he's going to go take on the back. He should take on the outside shoulder of the back and try to squeeze Daniels into the pocket. He gets like, I want to go get the quarterback and he tries to run through the running back and Daniels just scoots out to his right and then he makes the throw to

McLaurin. And then on the fourth and three, he's completely free off the right side and he just full head of steam tries to run at Daniels. And it's like, dude, this is the most elusive quarterback in the league. Let's not do that. Let's keep him in the pocket, make him make a throw. And then Daniels again, he scrambled for like 20 and it was a huge conversion. Elusive is a good way to put it. His ability to kind of make guys miss in those small areas is very impressive. And you combine that with he's already one of the best pure deep ball throwers in the league, it feels like. I mean, his confidence and his ability to place the ball down the field outside of the numbers, pretty much every single time he's been asked to do it when he's

given those one-on-one opportunities. It's really impressive. I continue to just really enjoy watching him check these boxes as we ask him to do something a little bit different each and every week. Let's get to our next one here. Did you see that the Colts and the Jags scored 41 points and five touchdowns combined in the fourth quarter of that game? I thought there was a world where they might have scored 41 points total, let alone 41 points in a single quarter, especially at the end when you're trying to go back and forth and win it. It was just, games between these two were always kind of stupid and in this division generally, especially with where they're both at now. unwatchable. They're often

uglier than you want them to be and then this was the exact opposite of that. It was unwashable defense. And like in the spot that they're in like, I know Joe Flacco has been very fun, but he's, it's still an old veteran quarterback coming off the bench for like a new team that he wasn't on last year.

And then Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars offense who have been as bad as they've ever looked since the Urban Meyer era. Like this was supposed to be an ugly and weird game. And then it just wasn't. Like it was skill players making incredible plays, quarterbacks making insane throws. It was crazy. We're going to have a conversation, hopefully, this week, about the Jags and dig a little bit deeper and just what happens now. Obviously, they're one and four now. They're not 0 and 5.

This is the best moment of their season so far. But I think there's still a lot of worthwhile conversations to be had about where they take this from here, where they have to move on from Doug Peterson, all of that. As part of that process, whatever the next year, two years looks like for the Jacksonville Jaguars. I am excited about what Tank Bigsby and Brian Thomas Jr. could potentially look like. in that equation. Tank Bigsby looks awesome. I mean, he looks really, really good.

I mean, explosive, but also just, you know, shaking guys off and yards after contact. And Brian Thomas Jr., this was coming. I mean, like, he's had moments pretty much every single week. Obviously, he has the huge touchdown today. But just watching him and going down to down what he's bringing as a receiver, that guy has a chance to be really, really good. He is already so much more refined than I expected him to be at this stage.

and I think that's really good stuff if you're a Jaguars fan. I am so glad you said that because with Brian Thomas, I liked him as a prospect. He wasn't in the same tier as, you know, Odun's A neighbor's all that stuff. But it was like, man, six four, you can run like this. He's really fluid. If we could clean up the route running a little bit. That's what was so encouraging to me is just like how flexible he was. Some of these guys that are these big, tall, fast guys are really rigid, they're straight line players.

He never came across as that to me. And that's why I was like, all right, if you just kind of on the, leash this physical skill set as a more nuanced route runner. I think physically you can do that and seeing him start to tap into that stuff a little bit. We're cooking with gas over there. And that's a great point because that's what made Marvin Harrison Jr. a special prospect is that he had all of that, but the route running was already really refined and the ball skills were already super refined. With Thomas, some of the ball skills and some of the route running was like, okay, this might take a year or two, but because he's so big, because he's so fluid, because

he's so explosive, let's take the chance and let's see where we can get, you know, in two years from now. I think a month or so in, we're already like, he's ahead of schedule. And for a guy like him who is so young and so athletic to be ahead of schedule, it's just incredibly encouraging. He could be a really, really fun player. I like him a lot. He reminded me of like when he came out of college, like, the best version of like Martavis Bryant. And I think he's like kind of already that. And if he can just continue to build on that. I think he's better today than Martavis Bryant ever it was in terms of like the details of playing the position. Right.

That was kind of, I was trying to find like my middle ground comp of like, what is a good player that is not the most insane thing I could say about a guy? I was like, Martavis Bryant would be a decent player to be. And he is already, I think, more put together than that. So the ceiling is just, he's an awesome player to watch. A couple more here. A couple more from the NFC North specifically. Did you see Andrew Van Ginkle had another Pix X today?

He's slowly becoming your favorite player, isn't he? I just, it's been really fun to watch like a perfectly deployed defensive player in that sort of system. And they needed it today. I mean, this was the first game where those, the whoopsies that we talk about with Sam Donald, it turned from one until like seven or eight. He just was not sharp in this game. And again, kind of adjacent to what we were saying with Washington, where it's really

nice to see a team win in a slightly different way. The fact that the offense for Minnesota struggled today in ways that it hadn't for the first month of the season, and they were still able to stave off the jets and win this game because of the way that the defense played, that's what you want to see. That's what happens with really, really good teams is that even if they don't have their A game on each side of the ball, even if everything isn't clicking on all cylinders, there's still a pathway to wins. And I think that the Vikings showed you that today. And of the two, this is the side I was really hoping could still, like, wouldn't have the first moment of like, oh, no, it's not as good as we think.

Like, with the offense, it's like, yeah, man, it's Sam Darnold. Like, this game was going to happen at a certain point. I think it's a little. I think it's, it's, it's not. looked a little bit different than I thought it was going to. I thought blow up Sam Darnold game was going to be three picks. In this game, it was just he couldn't hit anybody in either jersey, which was kind of baffling. Like for majority of this game, he was just completely awesome. He was forcing the issue a little bit. I mean, just the amount of times he was forcing the ball to Justin Jefferson in this game. It seems like when they go back and watch it. It's like, you play within yourself, play within the offense. We're giving you answers, take the answers.

Even though I do think that the Jets defense gave them a very hard time in this game. For pressure perspective, everything. And that's what Darnold did so well for a month. Was he just played within himself? He wasn't forcing the issue like he has in years past. He was just being normal for more snaps than not. And in this game, he just decided not to be, but for the defense to look as good as it did. And like this Jets offense, we've had our concerns. The offensive line is not very good. I think the skill players outside of Garrett Wilson, especially today, did not play very well. Like I think Aaron Rogers didn't play greater anything, but he made three or four really, really good throws that just did not get finished.

finished by his receivers. I mean, I think that probably could assuade the game a little bit. So the Vikings got lucky in that sense, but like, they generally did a really good job at throwing stuff at him. And I think the Jets didn't do a very good job of adjusting. Like, even those big throws were just like, all right, Aaron Rogers is going to throw a back shoulder ball. And he puts it on you, but that's not like some fancy thing that they're doing to

beat any of what Brian Flores is throwing at you. It feels like the Jets meltdown that you tried to warn us about on the preview show. It seems that we might be getting a little bit closer to that after today. And now we said it. There is no two-game stretch as an NFL offense that could fray your nerves more than playing against the Broncos and the Vikings and back-to-back weeks. And I do think that the Jets overall, based on how everything felt after that game or feeling the effects of that two-game stretch. And truthfully, what is probably the one, like, very specific player scared of that the Vikings are going to get on you? It's throwing an interception to Andrew Van Ginkle.

And it happened. And he ran it back for a touchdown. Like, it's everything you thought the nightmare would be. it was. Sticking in the NFC or in the NFC North, see Xavier McKinney had another interception today? He was picking five straight games. And he almost had a second one.

Yes. He was very close to getting a second one. I mean, the fact that this dude has five pitch, it's not tip balls. For the most part, he's earning almost every single one of these. He is playing at a ridiculous level right now. Right.

Like he's maybe gotten one where it's like, ah, quarterback just overthrew it and you're the free safety. That's going to happen. You're going to get a couple lucky ones. But for the most part, he is driving on overrout. The one he had last week where Aaron Jones is running the corner route and he just drives on it to the sideline. He is playing very decisive football.

His ball skills are really good. He's always been a guy who I just thought was so, so smart at the position and had not like exceptional athletic ability, but more than good enough to make some of these plays. The confidence that he's playing with to just be unlocked, be like, hey man, go be our ball hawk. Go find it. He is playing at a truly special level. He's obviously not going to have an interception every game. But even when he's not picking the ball off, he is getting his hands on the ball. And he is closing windows.

And he is making this really difficult for quarterback. So I think the way he's playing right now is it's incredibly fun to watch. It was nice to see the Packers defense play a little bit better today. And it was nice to see some moments from the young Packers defensive players. Evan Williams, who's a fourth round rookie. He had the key play at the end of the game. He had some nice splash moments. Edron Cooper had a big.

It was either pressure or a sack as a pass. It was a sack. And so just you have this young guys that you drafted this year that were going to be thrust into pretty big roles. Like you want Edron Cooper on the field. Williams and Bullard was going to see who was going to eventually win that job and it was going to be situationally dependent. But you were going to be relying on a lot of young players as the Packers defense. And to see a couple of those guys have some moments today, I think, is a good sign of what this group could be moving forward. All right.

I'm going to wrap this up the same way we do with every single Sunday show with a little bit of a lesson about what we learned. We're going to stick with just mine this week because I think we touched on a lot of the things that we wanted to take away from today. But I'm even going back to Thursday and starting with what that Thursday night game felt like and then all the way through today. And this is something that I think I've danced around a little bit in other conversations that we've had. And it's almost more of a reminder to myself than it is a lesson. It's a long, long year. And this is such a week to week week that I think we all just need to relax. everybody just needs to relax.

And the couple examples for me, I mean, starting on Thursday night, the Falcons offense looked the O.A for the first couple games of the season. We had no idea what this was going to look like with Kirk Cousins. You have a new play caller, you have a new quarterback, and a new system. And sometimes these things take a little while. And I don't think they're going to have every single game is going to look like it did against the bucks on Thursday. But I do think it's going to look a little bit better than it did against the Steelers in week one. And this extends to something like the Caleb Williams situation.

We don't have to have discussions about the bears fucking up the number one pick on like September 25th. We don't have to do this. And I understand that the world that we live in and just the media culture that we live in, you have to respond to this stuff. You can't just sit there. And I've said this before. You can't just sit there and say, I'm not going to discuss any of this until we get to October 15th. That's not an option. It's not practical.

And it's not the way that things should go. but I think that we should all open ourselves up to the idea that things are going to change very quickly. Things are going to change week to week. And we should accept the fact that we probably don't know that much over the first four weeks of a season. Think about the Broncos defense last year. That's the example that I would come back to. The Broncos defense last year wasn't a great unit by the end of the year, but they were average. They gave up 73 points to the dolphins.

They looked like one of the worst defenses we had ever seen. over the first month of the season. After giving up that 73 points against the dolphins, they got absolutely cooked by that Bears offense last year that was not necessarily a good unit. So just everybody remember, when we're sitting here and it's October 1st and we're not even five weeks into the year,

we don't have to make grand proclamations about where teams are going and the mistakes that they made, especially when it comes to young players and especially when it comes to quarterbacks. I think that is so spot on because I mean the Caleb Williams one is the biggest like do people not remember the RG3 Andrew Luckier?

And I'm not even taking a victory lap by the way. I'm the one that's sitting here being like it was the Panthers. I still want to see a lot more. But I just think again, everybody just take breath. Just have perspective. That's the thing is like we do have to talk about these things. It's obviously our job. And there's only so many things I can push off and say I'll figure it out by Halloween.

Like I can do that for some stuff. But you can't do it for the entire league. And I think that's a good point is that like, I mean, the Falcons offense is the biggest example. It's not even just that the Falcons look good. I thought their quarterback would not be able to move and like throw the football based on the way that he was playing in week one. And now he looks like mostly fine. And that's another one of those things where it's like, especially guys coming off of like injuries. It's like maybe we shouldn't immediately jump to what a guy is coming off of injuries.

Even Bryce Rossler who works for Sports Info Solutions, he wrote a great piece about this with quarterback injuries. actually, it's like usually quarterback injuries, guys who are coming off of one, takes about three, four weeks into the season for them to be like, all right, they're settled in now. And we're seeing it with a lot of these guys. Like, Joe Burrow was not fully healthy coming into this season. He looks great now. Like, Kurt Cousins looks a lot better now.

Like, just stuff like that where it's like, it just takes a smid of time and these guys will figure things out. So, yeah, let's, obviously, we have to talk about these games and we have to talk about some of the results and some of the processes, but this is a long league. And I think a lot of the teams that we even think are good now, maybe my November, they don't look so good. Maybe some of the teams that are two and three are one and four now by the time we get to the end of November, maybe the Bengals are, you know, nine and four, whatever it is.

It could happen. And I think that's a good thing to keep in mind. This isn't a soapbox thing because I'm as guilty of this as anybody. This is almost as much a reminder to me as it is a statement that I'm putting out into the world. Be open to the idea of what you might be wrong about in the first month of an NFL season, because I'm sure it's going to be a lot more than you're willing to admit. All right.

That is all we've got for today. We will be back with our midweek show. That thing gets released on Tuesday evening into Wednesday because we like to try to give you guys a little bit more of a window with the Monday night recap that we're doing. So we will be recapping Chiefs whoever. Who the Chiefs planning on? Saints. Saints on Monday nights. We'll be recapping that.

I don't know. I never know what the games are. I truly never know what the games are. We'll be recapping that on our midweek. show along with a conversation with our whole buddy Deonti Lee. We're going to talk about some defenses and which defenses we think are real, which defense we think art, which is a very funny conversation to have after what we just talked about at the end of that show. But again, the content beast must be fed. For now, that is all we got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you

soon.