The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 5 recap: The Buccaneers and Seahawks put on a show, the Broncos take down the Eagles, and the Ravens hunt for the panic button

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

Buccaneers-Seahawks was one of our Games of the Week in Week 5, and it absolutely delivered the goods. The Bucs may have come out of the game with a 38-35 win, but both teams further announced themselves as legitimate contenders in the NFC. That's where Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman start the Week 5 recap episode of The Athletic Football Show. The guys also dig into the Broncos win over the Eagles, the Patriots upset of the Bills, and the Ravens continued fall from grace. The Commanders, with Jayden Daniels back on the field, grabbed their attention. And what exactly was that Titans-Cardinals game? Our crew hits all that, and a whole lot more, as it puts a bow on Week 5.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)1:37 Patriots upset Bills6:51 Buccaneers and Seahawks give us the game of the day26:24 The Broncos take down the Eagles38:15 Commanders beat the Chargers in Los Angeles48:12 Is the Ravens season over after loss to Texans?55:44 The Raiders and Jets were supposed to be better than this1:08:50 What was that Titans-Cardinals game?1:17:17 Kevin O'Connell dialed it up in London1:21:37 Nice moments for Bryce Young and Cam Ward1:29:48 What Did We Learn in Week 5?Connect with The Athletic Football ShowX: https://x.com/TA_FootballShowIG: https://www.instagram.com/tafootballshowYT: https://www.youtube.com/@TAFootballShowTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tafootballshowDiscord: http://discord.gg/theathleticfootballshowCall us: 847-448-0701Email us: [e-mail]: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @davehelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. Week 5 is in the books. Man, it was a good one. Had a little bit of a sleepy start with the early slate. Had a couple games that were out of hand pretty quickly, but the afternoon and Sunday night games more than made up for it. We touched a little bit on the Sunday night game. Me, Dave Helmand, Derek Classen.

We're going to dig into the Sunday night game in earnest on the hangover show tomorrow, but we had to talk a little bit about that Drake May performance. Moved on to a wild Bucks Seahawks game that was everything. you could have hoped for for Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold. Talked about the commanders and the Broncos grabbing our attention, spent a little time on what is ailing the Philadelphia Eagles offense. Got to a bevy of WTF moments from week five. The Jets and Raiders being just worse than they're supposed to be under new regimes.

We thought it might be a little bit more of adults in the room. The Cardinals lose the most ridiculous game of the season and the most ridiculous possible way. spent a lot of time on that, had a good time. Then we spent a little bit of time talking about our romantic moments from week five. Really enjoyed this one. I hope you guys do as well. Let's get to it with me, Dave, and Derek right now.

Every NFL Sunday kind of takes on a life of its own. It has rhythms and ebbs and flows to it. We talked a little bit about this before we started recording, Dave, but it was a sleepy early slate. We're always figuring out what to put on the TVs, and we kicked off multiple games in, like, the third quarter. because we needed to give more air time to Saints giants. Like, that's the type of early morning slate that it was. But the late slate and the Sunday night game did everything in their power to redeem the day for week five.

And I would say they succeeded. We're going to find somewhere to get our wattage. And, yeah, it was everything from, I mean, we're in central time. So from about three o'clock onward, just nonstop entertainment. And that's not like the early window wasn't a complete bust, by the way. Like we'll get to... We'll get to Eagles, Broncos. But yeah, man, I mean, from the afternoon on,

just a nonstop thrill ride, which ended 15 minutes ago with some Drake May heroics. We're going to talk more at length about the Sunday night game on the hangover show tomorrow, but I absolutely did want to hit the game in some capacity at the top of the show. We talked a little bit about this

during the preview show this week, Derek. This was a showcase for Drake May to potentially show America, national football audience what he had been doing under the cloud of darkness that is the 1 p.m. Eastern kickoffs. And I would say he made good on that opportunity. That went about as well as it could. Like even for as much as I am the Drake May guy on this show, I don't know if I thought it would be quite like conducting a game winning drive against maybe the best team in football the way that he did. He just, this to me was, I think a very good display of what you get in terms of the

high floor stuff with him where he's. consistently making the right decisions. When he was under pressure, he was doing a good job of either minimizing sacks or getting the ball out either to a player or just throwing it away if he had to. He had two or three really good throwaways in this game that he made work for him. Obviously, he can scramble, which we saw a little bit in this game. And then all the throws that he's able to make down the field, like the one that he, he throws a little bit of like a late shot over the middle in the second half in between a couple of defenders. He obviously hits the whole shot to Diggs on the last drive. he had a deep overrout to the left side a little bit earlier in the game like just his

blend of I can make everyone else around me better because I'm not the one messing up on top of being able to make the oh my God Josh Allen type of throws is just it's a really special blend and he's still going to have to do a little bit more of maturing and making sure that he can do games like this consistently but I just it's a special combo and we saw it tonight the combo I think is a good way to frame it because there just aren't that many quarterbacks in the league who have this blend of just physical kind of like force of nature ability in these moments. You saw it on that final drive.

Him shaking off Dequan Jones to avoid that. That ends up becoming a huge play in the game. And there just aren't that many quarterbacks physically built in a way that they would be able to do something like that. And then you combine that with some of the off-scheduled playmaking that he can bring to the table. I mean, that scramble drill completion to Stefan Diggs is one of the plays of the day. And it feels like that is always on the table for him.

And when you combine that, like Derek just said, with the high floor stuff that we're starting to see, I do think that this game in this moment was kind of a proper reflection of what Drake Mae has been over the first month. How fun is it that he did it in Orchard Park against Josh Allen, which like he has that rare ability, but he played the buttoned up style that took Josh Allen a little while to learn. And I'm sure Drake May's growing pains aren't over. He's certainly not a finished product. but to play to display that ability and just the natural athleticism that a guy like him has and also play like a seasoned vet at times in this game and make smart plays.

Yeah, I thought it was really fitting that he did it against Josh Allen of all guys, which is a guy that he would aspire to try to be as he goes through his career. The other part of this where there's a similarity in kind of a parallel with Josh Allen is that when the bills had money to spend, they traded for Stefan Diggs. Just get you with Stefan Diggs. Just go get you as Stefan Diggs when you're an ascending young player who needs that type of weapon within the offense. And listen, Stefan Diggs in 2025 is not Stefan Diggs in 2020 or 2021. But Derek, I think he did a pretty damn good job at turning back the clock tonight.

I mean, this was as good of a revenge game as you could possibly ask for if you're Stefan Diggs. It really was. I think it was a combination of one. I think he, you know, some receivers are fueled by spite and that would not surprise me with Stefan Diggs. Yeah, you know, you think he seems like that kind of. of guy? He does, you know, getting traded a couple times. I think he seems a little bit like that kind of guy. And so to do it, especially in that stadium, I think was really, really cool. And then also,

I think if we've just watched the Patriots over the last couple of, or over the first month of the season, the chemistry between those two has really started to build. Like, they've gotten a little bit better about like finding where is that soft spot in the zone? Where do you like the ball? How do I get it to you? What's the timing of this? And so for it to all come together in a moment like this and a game like this in that stadium, it's just some really cool stuff. We'll talk. more about that game tomorrow on The Hangover, really dig into kind of the down-to-down, how it actually went and do some more examination of it, but definitely wanted to hit it in some way here at the top of the show. Let's get into before the Sunday night game, what was the most

entertaining game of the Sunday slate. The Bucks win an absolute thriller over the Seahawks, 3835. I think there are a couple different ways we could get into this game. Here's how I'm going to choose to do it. There were nine touchdowns in this game. 10 in completions. That's what this thing felt like, where we're just throwing haymakers back and forth. There was a moment, I'm trying to remember exactly when it happened. I think it was maybe like the big abuca catch that got inside the five,

or maybe one of the five or six big abuca catches, where you're just sitting there at the desk next to me, just laughing, just like chuckling at what this game was starting to look like. That's the type of performance we got from Bucksiehawks today. I was having the time of my life in the second window, man. It was honestly, it was like watching a game of horse. And that's like, that's obviously, it's reducing the efforts of a lot of football players. There's 22 guys on the field at any given time.

But it just felt like Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold were trading trick shots. There's like, all right, you hit it from behind the backboard? I can do that. Can you do the reverse running layup? Can you hit it from the logo like Steph Curry? And every time the other guy was like, yeah, hell yeah, I can. And I mean, look, we saw a crazy game last week

the tie between the Packers and the Cowboys. Like there will be some, there will be games like this where there's 70 something combined points and however many yards of offense. But the explosiveness in this game combined with the cleanness of it. Yeah. Incredible. Like 10 completions on the day in a game where both teams scored 35 plus points.

Like I don't think we'll see that combination again this season of how efficient these teams were. on top of how explosive they were. I don't know if I've ever seen anything like that. Like a game this high scoring where there were so few mistakes. And I know Sam Darnold threw the pick at the end that kind of decided it, but both of these guys were just dialed in from the opening kickoff until the final minute of regulation. I think all you really need to know is what it felt like when the Seahawks got that sack after

time in the game of 28. When they got that sack to torpedo at that Bucks Drive, it felt like that was all they needed to win the game based on how everything else had gone. And then obviously that unfortunate moment at the end where Sam Darnold deflex that ball off of the helmet and then it gets picked off and the game is over. But that's what it came down to. It was one or two mistakes.

If an offense made a mistake in the second half, it felt like that team was going to lose the game. And so that sack that the Seahawks or the Bucks took felt like a game swinging play until that interception at the end. Derek, when you're kind of taking a step back and thinking about what you saw from Bucks Seahawks today, what is your biggest takeaway about this game, whether it was what happened on Sunday

or what you think it means moving? forward. I mean, this to me, just watching, there can be a lot of games where at 38, 35, I just feel like I watched a lot of disgusting defense where like the, the week one Steelers Jets game, that was just a lot of bad defense. Like that, it just wasn't good fault. It was fun at the moment, though, man. It sure was. So good. But watching this, I was came a way more amazed at just like how well these offenses were put together and how well both of these quarterbacks played. Like, both of these guys were incredibly accurate today. And I think both teams did, had some really smart stuff and then you combine that with just the talent on some of these players. It's just incredible.

Like for the Seahawks, I came into this game wanting them to run the ball towards the outside. And they did a really good job of that, specifically running at Zion McCollum, like a number of Kenneth Walker's big runs, including the first one was just an outside zone run at Zion McCollum. He's a little bit late and soft to fit into into his run responsibility and the play is able to pop. And so they did a good job understanding how to attack them in that way. Donald makes a number of insane throws in this game. Like, what was funny is I think, I can't remember if it was two or three weeks ago, but Herbert had made that throw in the red zone to Keenan Allen where he slides up in the pocket, rolls a little bit to his left. And then guy in his face kind of crowding his, his throwing platform makes this throw moving to his left and pins it for a touchdown. The Sam Darnold touchdown in this game to Torrey Horton was kind of that. It wasn't exactly the same, but it was pretty close. And then on the flip side, I thought the Bucks just did a really good job of kind of manipulating some of the Seahawks safety specifically. They got into a lot. lot of three by one stuff and forced all the coverage over to one side and then they

hit they would hit the backside especially to a buck on a number of times so i just thought both teams came into this with a really good game plan and both quarterbacks were on an absolute heater i mean the first seahawks touchdown drive i mean donald just throwing darts like the third and six completion a cup on that drive is just a beautiful throw where he can only put it in one specific spot a royal bullies levante david and man coverage he rips one to a j barner and then the touchdown to JSN is just like a beautiful little design where he's in the backfield, they motion him out, they get a little zone tell, and the placement and the timing on that throw. I mean, when Donald right now, I mean, we talked about this a little bit in the preview

show, but the accuracy is just staggering. Like, he's just putting the ball wherever he wants to all the time, and that includes throws down the field. I mean, that huge chunk to JSN, these are like long handoffs at this point. And so I just have such a great time watching the offense, whether it's what he's doing as a thrower, the placement, the timing, the accuracy, the aggressiveness, some of the designs, the way they're building space into the offense. There are a bunch of examples of that in this game. And then they're receiving talent, like you're seeing Arroyo emerge a little bit. You understand what Barner's supposed to be within the offense.

And JSN is just an absolute maniac. And the fact that there was somebody on the other side that was willing to go shot for shot for him the entire game from the same school. It's just there's so many little tiny things. layers to this game. It just made it so enjoyable. This is a game where, like, you can come out of this game with five insane sounding takes that don't feel insane having watched it. Well, I mean, okay, let's start where you just said that.

I think it was you that said in the preview show, JSN's making a case as like a top 10 receiver in the NFL right now. I don't even think it's like, undeniable at this point. Where do you put a Mecca Abuka? I still need to probably see it a little bit more. I agree. But, I mean, how many guys do you see have starts like this? Even with all of the young, amazing receivers that have come into the league with their hair on fire,

Ibuka is right there with any of them over the last like five or six years of the, of the CD Lambs and the Justin Jeffersons and the Jamar Chase. Like, he's absolutely incredible. I mean, we could have a whole segment on a podcast about how well Donald is playing in what I still think is a, lesser environment than Minnesota last year and like when do you revisit the decision by the Vikings to let that play out the way that it did? I think I would call Baker Mayfield my frontrunner for MVP through five games, which it's only five games. We don't cast ballots for that, but I just don't think I ever thought I would be in a situation where I thought that was

true. But we just watched this game. I come out of this with so many crazy opinions because so many guys played out of their skulls in this in this one game it was incredible baker continues to just do ridiculous things when asked off schedule and in some of these playmaking moments i mean that the the drive to tie the game at 35 he the extension to find sterling shepherd in the left side in the left corner of the end zone i mean he's just doing that consistently and even the play he hits to otten on the right side like he has to extend and create and make that play out of thin air and when you combine that Derek, like his playmaking ability with the fact that this team still in structure is capable of, I thought they did such a good job today. And I don't think there was any like egregious mistakes by the Seahawks defense.

But when you have so many backups in there, when Darian Kendrick is in there, when Okada is in there, I just thought that the buck's had a phenomenal job of circling those guys in the biggest moments of the game. Like the big 50 plus yard completion to Ibuka, it's a little bit of a he sells the. outrout just with like a little shake and then bends it back inside and okada's the safety to that side he's cheating a little bit further toward the middle of the field than he probably should the completion right before that on that drive abuka is threatening vertically off of play action and okada probably gets a little bit too much depth again these aren't egregious mistakes but i just felt like the bucks did such a good job of picking on those guys when those opportunities were available so you combine all the instructure stuff that's really well thought out well timed with all of

these things that Baker is able to do off schedule. And I think that's how you get the feel of what this Bucks offense has been, even while banged up over the first five games of the year. Yeah. And Baker's like he's doing everything this offense needs of him. Like he is especially in a game like this where you have so many backups and you're calling so many really good plays to kind of target a lot of those guys and obviously have the receiver talent to do it.

The willingness for him to throw downfield the way that he does like anywhere past 15 yards, especially to me outside of the numbers is just like it's it's some of the best stuff in the NFL. Like when he's on time throwing outside of the numbers or down the field, it looks really, really good. And then we've talked about it before. The biggest change in his, like, he could do some of that stuff earlier in his career. The biggest change is what he can do off schedule.

And to me, it's that he has an internal clock now. Like, young Baker did not have an internal clock for like, when is the play over? When do I need to get out of the pocket? When is it time to scramble? It's so much better now. And he's like athletically not as scary as guys like Josh Allen or Jaden Daniels or or Drake Mayor, whoever, as a scrambler. But in terms of knowing when to pull the rip cord,

he's about as good as anybody in the league. And he's good enough athletically to make good on that. So, like, he's just, it's amazing that he has such a good plan B now in a way that, even when he first got to Tampa, he really did not have. To your first point, Derek, Baker was 9 of 11 for 227 and two touchdowns

when he threw 10 plus yards down the field today. Just unbelievable levels of efficiency. Really, from both of these. guys. And I do, I hate that it ended that way for Darnold and like, whatever, football's a weird sport where the ball bounces off of a helmet and 35 year old Levanti David makes one of the plays of the day after slip, missing a tackle. I think it was on Arroyo or Barner earlier in the game that led to a touchdown. So funny how, you know, the bounces of the ball come back at you and you get to be a hero. I don't really, I don't know, I don't blame Donald for that. I thought, we talked about it

in the preview show though. Donald hasn't always been great against pressure this season. He played well against pressure today and like Todd Bulls tried but then that's the funny thing about football. Against the blitz, he was 10 of 12 for 135

and then the final blitz led to the interception that won the bucks the game and that's all it takes sometimes. And what Derek was just saying about Baker Mayfield, Baker Mayfield early in his career really struggled when pressured. He just didn't have that internal clock and you really felt because he wasn't pulling the ripcord quick enough,

his physical limitations would start to show up. And I think now because he has a better field, there are a bunch of examples in this game, but the first time he was pressured in this game, I think it was a blitz coming off like his right side, and Inchena Nuuoso gets some penetration, and he feels it immediately and escapes to his right and has a successful scramble.

But even as a passer today, and this is what we talked about coming into the year, what elements of the 2024 bucks could carry over in some of those more volatile situations? Baker was one of the best quarterbacks in the league when pressured last season today, eight of nine, 130 yards in a touchdown,

14 and a half yards per attempt when pressured per next gen stats. And the other element, I think just a couple more specifics that stuck out in this game. One of the other things that carried over today specifically, the screen game for the Bucks

came up in some really big moments. The touchdown drive they had after the Milrow fumble, they had a 17-yard gain to Otten on a third and 14 screen. It was a fantastic effort by Haggard, who was like sticking with Leonard Williams for about 10 yards down the field,

and then they had another screen to Rashad White on second and four for about nine yards, touchdown on a little pinpole on the next play where they pick on Dary and Kendrick in space, and it's 13-0. And so that 13-0 start, that's ultimately what prevented the Seahawks from getting over the hump in this game. We think of this as some clean, machine-like effort from both of these offenses. The Seahawks didn't score until the end of the second quarter because of some of their miscues early. They had two penalties on their first two drives that crushed those drives.

Zabel had a hold on the first one. They ended up missing a field goal. And I think on the second one, they had a completion on third and 12 to Kenneth Walker that would have been a first down. It's an eligible receiver downfield. And then Milro fumbles on that pitch. And so they go into a 13-0 hole.

I forgot about the Milro snap. That was it. Like those three drives and fumbling literally and figuratively on those three drives ultimately puts them in a big enough hole where they can play a perfect game until that final interception and still not win. And so I walk away.

from this game thinking when the Seahawks get healthy on defense and if they can avoid a couple costly mistakes, I mean, this is a really scary team. And the Bucks continue to be a really scary team, even with everything that they've endured over the first month of the season. And not to let the Seahawks were beat up by the end of this game. I mean, they lose Rik Wollin. Emin Worry gets hurt again in the first game that he comes back. The replacement, Nehemiah Pritchett spent some time out. so like I hear you Seahawks fans if that's driving you crazy

but the Buccaneers didn't have Jamel Dean or Benjamin Morrison for this game and obviously we know what they're dealing with on the offensive side of the ball. No Mike Evans. I mean yeah, there's still plenty of guys out in this game. I do want to highlight too. Rashad White's two touchdowns in the red zone.

The Bucks got down there and they were like just follow Tristan Worf's to pay dirt and I, as somebody who deeply loves watching Tristan Wirfs, I was like this is this is why I was high on this offense if he's healthy, if he's here. The funniest part is it was Tristan Werf's on some of those perimeter runs for the bucks.

The most important blocker on the perimeter runs for the Seahawks was Cooper Cup. Cooper Cup was phenomenal on those two 20-yard Kenneth Walker runs in this game. And so we can spend an hour talking about this. There's so many little nuggets and little details from this one, but I think the big picture takeaway from this game is one.

That uniform combination is the best thing we can get in an NFL field. I think that added to the over all intrigue of this. And two, I think both of these teams, as we think about an NFC that feels a little bit muddled, right? Like, I still think Detroit's really good. Obviously, the Eagles lost today, but they're a very good team. But that second tier of the NFC coming into the year, I felt like it was going to be a little bit murky and a little bit up for grabs.

And I think both of these teams are very much in the conversation for who can kind of take hold of that. All right. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. Gentlemen, you had my curiosity. Now you have my attention. We talked about this on the preview show. Me and you, Dave, we're curious what we'd be saying about the Broncos and the Eagles coming out of week five, given the seasons that those teams had had up to this point.

What are you saying about the Eagles after that game against the Broncos, who I think after this week have our attention? I mean, I don't want to take any credit away from a phenomenal performance from Denver, but I said I wanted to know about the, what I wanted to know what they'd be saying about the Eagles. And I did the toxicity that's going to be radiating off of this offensive performance by Philadelphia. It's going to fuel the news cycle for, I mean, they fueled the news cycle for a full week with A.J.

Brown and Devante Smith being aggravated after a four game winning streak. How do you think it's going to be after this? And my biggest takeaway from the entire thing was, you've had a, You all have had like a Madden Dynasty at some point, right? Or like, yeah, at some point in my life, yes. You know how you call your games for your video game team where you're trying to like make sure everybody's getting their stats. Of course. The Eagles do that in real life.

The Eagles call that, call it that way in real life. It is wild watching the Philadelphia Eagles try to, you can see them trying to make everybody happy in the flow of a game. It's like, well, we got to like, let's let's get this AJ target in here. Let's call up this play that's going to open it up for Devante. And like, of course you want to get all these guys involved, but it feels so intentional, which is bad. Like there's no rhythm to it. There's no flow to it. And of course, they threw the ball 38 times and Sequin Barclay carried the ball six times.

And you can talk to me all day about how great the Broncos defense is and how. They shut things down and made things hard to where the Eagles needed to throw. How would you know? They had nine designed runs in this game, Robert. They are the only team of the week that did not call 10 run plays. Even the Bengals who were playing catch up on the Lions all day long had double-digit design runs. The Eagles had nine. Six for Sequin Barkley.

You know how many designed runs they had for Jalen Hertz in this game? Donuts? Big old zero. He had two attempts, a kneel down and a scramble in the third quarter. They completely, and look, I get it. You do need to focus on your star receivers and get them involved and open up the passing game. But at the expense of the identity that won you a Super Bowl, does that sound smart to you? The Eagles in this game in the second half had a 27.5% success rate per true media.

27 and a half percent. Derek, as you're looking at what ailed the offense again in the second half of this game and trying to combine that with where the Broncos deserve credit and what the Broncos might have been doing, what does that look like to you, that marriage? Yeah, so for me, it's only giving Sequin Barclay one carry is kind of crazy. That to me I don't love. I think another part of it to me is that so what we saw a lot in, actually what we've seen in a lot of Philadelphia Eagles this game is that defenses play

them very differently in the second half than they do the first half. And with the Bucks recently, it was we're going to run a lot of these zone blitzes and we're going to bring the bodies and we're going to see if you can replace it. Cool. They did. In the second half of that game, it was a lot of sim pressures where they're not actually bringing that many players and they're maybe bringing four, maybe one guys from a weird spot. And that really got to them. In this game, the DeBroncos kind of started with a similar approach, but it was a lot more man coverage because that's obviously what they do. And they were like, hey, you know what? We're going to make you win your one-on-ones and we're going to make you make these throws. And they weren't like killing them, but they were making

enough of those throws that it was like, okay, if we keep doing this, we're going to lose the game. And so in the second half, Denver did a really good job of showing a lot of pressure, putting like six, seven guys on the line and dropping all of them out for all of these sim pressures. And what a lot of the time they kept doing is they kept double mugging the A gap, so putting a player on either side of the center, dropping both of them out, and then bringing the nickel off the edge. And Philly just did not protect it well. Jalen Hertz did not see it and replace it well. And I think that that led to like a really big spiral where they really struggled to find plays in the second half because of that. I think the bringing Hufanga in these kind of isolated moments right off the edge and some of those simulated pressures were twice in torpedoing plays in the second half for Philadelphia.

And I think that's exactly what you're saying where it's not these big pressures, but you're still bringing guys from unconventional spots. And what they were doing in the first half is the linebackers were coming a decent amount. They were vacating that space. and for the second week in row, the Eagles were actually pretty good in those moments where they were having to replace blitzes. Like, it's funny because for years, Jalen Hertz's biggest issues were often against the Blitz,

and then over the last two weeks specifically, that hasn't been in the case whatsoever. He was good again today. It's been kind of crazy. So today, against the Blitz, Jalen Hirsch finished 13 of 14 for 137 yards per next gen stats. Over the past two weeks, these numbers are pretty crazy.

When Hertz has been blitzed over the last two weeks, he is 21 of 24 for 196 yards and four touchdowns. He's an 87.5% completion rate, 70.4% success rate. And the one that actually jumps out to me, 5.3 air yards per attempt on those plays. When he hasn't been blitzed, Derek, over the last two weeks, 17 of 38 for 214 yards,

44 and a half percent completions, 26 and a half percent success rate, 11.8 air yards per target. When they're not replacing blitzes on quick throws over the intermediate area of the field, the offense is essentially, let me see if I can just chuck the ball downfield and we can make a play. And when that's not happening, you just feel how inconsistent and stop and start this offense is right now. There's no engine of it. If you're not going to be able to run the ball and you're not committed to running the ball, and all you really have is these shot plays down the field every once in a while,

it's going to be stop and start. There's going to be no consistency to this thing. And that is what it feels like right now. And that's the thing. A lot of them aren't even like designed shot plays. It's like you're saying he's seeing these blitz look. It doesn't turn into a blitz look. So now he can't replace it the way he wants.

And you kind of see him freeze and go, okay, I'm going to bail outside of the pocket a little bit. You saw it in this game. He had a deep one to Dallas Gartre. He tried to do this with multiple times to Jahan Dotson, that he was like late in the play, just kind of chucked. it up there and see if he can get it. And every now and then, he's accurate enough to do that. But that is no way to live.

Like you said, they don't have a, what is our go to right now? And in this game, they did have a little bit in the first half, other than obviously some of their outside vertical shots through a lot of those slide routes that they really like, especially to Dallas Goddard. But again, in the second half, once Denver started playing a little bit more zone and they weren't just having to run with guys across the formation, some of that stuff just went away. And so they weren't able to tap into that and move the balls consistently. And then you end up in more of those third and eights where they can bring some of the,

you know, some of this funky stuff that they were doing. They were picking on the linebackers in a bunch of different ways. The Eagles were over the first, you know, two and a half quarters of this game. Obviously, the double move from Sequin Barclay is taking advantage of the linebackers in space, all the play action, all the slide routes, all the crossers against man. They were really picking on those guys. And eventually they both stopped blitzing and they stopped putting those guys in man coverage. Still want to give the Broncos a lot of credit for coming back and winning this game.

And I honestly think the player at the forefront of that, Corwin Sutton was insane in the second half of this game. And a week removed from Quinion Mitchell having maybe one of the best games we've seen from a cornerback the entire year, Coralyn Sutton gets the best of him for like a huge chunk of this game. Per next gen, and you watched it all day. When Quinnion Mitchell was the closest defender in coverage, Coral and Sutton had five catches for 77 yards on seven targets.

a week removed from Quinyan Mitchell just completely blanking the bucks. And that's with him beating him one time on a go ball on like the first drive and dropping it. And he, I mean, a lot of like contested plays, back shoulder, that sluggo that Nix just puts up to him. And so I think the Corwin Sutton in these contested catch situations

where you're just kind of throwing him 50-50 balls and really trusting him in those one-on-one moments. And then Evan Ingram in space combined with some of the defensive adjustments we saw in the second half, that was enough for the Broncos. this game like that was enough to get them over the top 18 points in the fourth quarter yeah that that three play stretch of nicks hit sutton on the dig that gets them down in the red zone and then

the ingram catch and run for the touchdown and then the two point conversion like bo knicks just like blacked out for a second just like boom boom boom on a day where he you know it was it was stop and start for the broncos for a lot of this game too but took advantage of it when they had the opportunity it was that was really fun to watch them execute. And Sean Payton saying, screw it, we're on the road. Let's get crazy with it. Let's try to steal this, which obviously,

I mean, they got the field goal to make it 2117, but ultimately didn't need it. Yeah, and there are a few like just really important missteps by the Eagles in the second half of this game. Brett Toth, who comes in for Lana Dickerson, has a hold early in the fourth quarter, puts them in first and 20. They had an illegal man downfield that erased a first down

with halfway through the fourth quarter. Barclay gets the illegal shift on what would have been a 30-yard gain to Defonte Smith on that same drive. And then the personal foul on Zach Bonn that gives the Broncos a first down on what would have been a fourth down, that's another one where I don't think that's the wrong call.

But again, just these little moments for the Eagles come up big in a very, very close game. I kind of thought it was the wrong call. Like RJ Harvey Harvey's like fighting for the sticks with all of his might. I hate those bang-bang-bang calls when the guys are kind of already trying to make a hit while the running back is still up,

but I can understand why that gets called. Yes, I understand it. I don't like it in that moment, but by the letter of the law, yeah, you're going to see that flag a lot. I think, Derek, our frustrations with the Eagles and where they're at right now, that really hasn't changed after today.

I think it's just reminded of how just dysfunctional and again, just like the lack of consistency we see from the offense. Any takeaways from the Broncos with this game? Anything that you saw today that makes you feel a little bit differently, maybe about this team moving forward over the next 10 weeks? I don't know about, you know, differently in terms of like, did they show me something new? But I think for them, proof of concept for how the offense is supposed to work is they're not going to be an elite run game, but they can at least be an average slightly above run game that they want to lean on.

Like they ran the ball 30 times in this game with a slightly above average success rate. That's nice. And then Bo Nix had a decent game, but had it in all of the ways that you would think Bo Nix would have a decent game. Like he didn't throw down the field very well, which he struggled with a lot of the season. Again, I know Sutton dropped that one very early in the game, but otherwise, I think he struggled to connect there. And then under pressure, he was still bad in this game. He was three of ten under pressure and took two sacks. But on all of the plays where he was clean, they did a really good job of scheming stuff up for him.

Again, he ripped some of those throws over the middle of the field, hitting Sutton a number of times. Obviously, whenever they can roll him out and boot him out, he's a very, very comfortable thrower on the move. So this to me was just like proof of concept that they can win in the, exact way that this team wants to win where it's like moderate scoring. We work around some of the issues that our quarterback has leaned into his strengths and we can run the ball and choke this game out. And then like they've said, you have a head coach who's willing to be a little bit aggressive when he needs to and go put up two extra points on the board in a game like this.

Get to our next one here. The Washington commanders and Jaden Daniels's first game back have a big win, 27 to 10 over the Los Angeles Chargers. The Washington commander's offense with Jaden Daniels back in the fold. you have my attention. Which is funny because it, how do I want to describe this? It felt paired down a little bit.

Like it was, I mean, it clearly wasn't the commanders functioning at full capacity. Jaden is one week off of this injury. Terry McLaurin didn't suit up in this game. You kind of built this thing out of Debo, Samuel and Bill Kroski Merritt. But it kicked ass.

They're rushing success rate in this game, 61% best in the league for the week top five rushing performance in the NFL so far this season yeah they just it wasn't I didn't find it super flashy but it just worked really well and Debo Samuel

another theme for this game that I think is gonna it's probably going to come to fruition and a lot of the commanders wins if I had to guess which is the veterans that they have spent resources to acquire showed up in this game Laramie Tunsell, Debo, Samuel, even Marshawn Lattimore. Marshawn Latimore had a nice day today. One catch for six yards allowed on 41 coverage snaps,

had the big recovery of the strip of Quentin Johnston as the chargers are driving toward the red zone, which totally changed that moment in the game. And yeah, Debo, eight for 96 and a touchdown on a day where you don't have Terry McLaurin. I didn't, I don't know if I expected Debo to be able to carry the commander's receiving Corps without scary Terry. So it was impressive to see. Derek alluded to this a little bit when it came to the run game

when we were previewing this game on Thursday. But I actually think it extends to other elements of Washington's offense against the Chargers defense, Derek, and I probably should have mentioned it in the moment. I think Washington's offense specifically is kind of a bad matchup for the Chargers on a bunch of different levels. The run game is dangerous,

and man, they did so much crazy shit again today. It was awesome. The Bill Merritt direct snap, and you got like the guard and the tackle pulling, and there was one play where Jaden like reverse pivoted out and with the running back offset to one side and he had multiple porers coming that way and Troy Dide's head is just exploding for a huge chunk of this game. Like the run game against the Chargers team that doesn't have a lot of heavy bodies and struggles because they play so many light boxes, this Washington run game was always going to be a bit bad matcher for them and it absolutely was.

But the other element, Derek, that I think probably should have been on my radar coming into the game. we've known this for two years. Washington struggles relatively against man coverage when Jaden Daniels cannot scramble. Against zone-based teams, they actually do a very good job of figuring out how to exploit space, and that's how the Chargers want to play.

And in this game specifically, I actually think they did a really good job of understanding the Chargers' strengths and how to use them against them. The Chargers do an excellent job of identifying patterns and matching to those patterns in zone coverage.

And what happens when you do that, it's such a high and kind of proficient clip, is you're going to attach to those routes immediately and then you're going to be able to bleed out certain areas of the field because guys are kind of essentially in man coverage in those moments. And that's exactly what happened today. You have all these plays where the commanders are bleeding out these areas and then sending guys back into them,

whether it's the backs or certain other concepts. And so the zone heavy approach that the Chargers used, I actually think is a bad matcher for this Washington team. And I actually think you saw that manifest a bunch of different times today. I couldn't agree more. Like that's one of those things where Washington wants to just get you running anyway. And like because, again, the charges play so much match stuff, you end up, again, running off certain sides of the field.

To me, the coolest thing that they did was what you said with the Kroski-Marit direct snap. And I think there was a two-play sequence that like really captures what you want the Washington offense to look like. the play before that, Jaden Daniels actually like scrambles a little bit out to his right and like throws in between the soft spot in the zone to Depot Samuel and finds him a little bit on the move. And you're like, okay,

Jaden Daniels was a little bit up and down. I thought for like the first quarter and a half. But that was when he was like, okay, he's starting to find himself. So he does that, able to make a play on the move. And then the next play is they come out in like a normal split back gun look. Jaden Daniels just walks out behind Kroski Merritt slides over and they do this like GT counter read with the running back going.

other way from the pullers. It was just doing cool stuff like that, I thought was really good. And then what I thought in terms of really manipulating a lot of the Chargers rules, they did a really good job of finding of getting pullers out on the perimeter and out leveraging all of their players in the box. Like there was, I think it might have even been the touchdown to end this drive that we're talking about. That's exactly what it was.

It was the 15 yard to merit to end that drive. It was almost directly after the direct snap. Yeah. So they have trips to the right side into the boundary. And the Chargers play, man. or they bring all their corners there. And so that means they're just kind of don't have as many bodies to the wide side of the field with the tight end.

They just pull everybody across. And it's like, well, we've cut off all your second level defenders and Cross Kimarii is just able to have a ton of space to go operate. That drive specifically, I think, was the most emblematic of what Washington's offense felt like in this game. They had a third and 16 completion, a deep one to Jalen Lane. And on that play, they did this twice on the same drive,

where they have like a little bit of a fast motion to the right side. And whoever's running that little rail route kind of, yanks the flat defender away and then they have like a deep curl coming back to that space and all that ocean of space left voided by the by the defense they hit it twice one to lane and then one for 21 to debo then it's the direct snap to merit and then it's the 15 yarder that you're talking about derrick and so again i think just really good examples of how you can manipulate the charger's defense and so to see this version of washington with jaden daniels back and like you mentioned without terry mccloren even playing in this game i think a good sign for

or what this offense can look like moving forward when they're at full strength. Their success rate as a whole on offense, 58% led the league for the week, at least with one game to play. It's also a 10% jump over any other of their performances this season. Obviously, some of those are with Marcus Mariotta and a quarterback, but still, like, this version of the offense

being that much better than any other game we've seen from them this year. Yeah, I'd say that's encouraging. On the other side of the ball, I don't want to spend a ton of time on this, but Derek, this is kind of just like the worst nightmare, right? Where you have Justin Herbert trying to do some superhero stuff. And I mean, obviously the most telling sequence of this entire game is the drive where he has multiple like 25-yard completions and back-to-back plays.

There are two penalties on each of those plays and everything gets torpedoed. And so Tripikins gets hurt in this game. You know, Beckton again, I think misses some time at some point in this game. Like it just feels like they're fighting such an uphill battle. on that side of the ball. I can't imagine them being able to come out on the other side of that, given the current state of the offensive line anytime soon. And he those two plays that you're making,

he makes them from his own red zone. Like those are supposed to be like, I'm bailing us out of this situation plays and they just don't end up mattering. He was, I know the numbers are what they are, but he was like if you watch him, phenomenal in this game. Like just some of the stuff that he's able to do outside of the pocket.

He had a number of ridiculous tight window throws over the middle of the field. one, he hits the Quentin Johnson on like a deep crosser to the left side. It would have put him, I think, inside the 30 or so. Quentin Johnson ends up fumbling. And it's just like it was constantly stuff like that today where the players around him just failing. And it felt like he was getting pressured immediately, like especially the left side. Dorrance Armstrong had what felt like an identical sack. Like I thought I was having like deja vu, but he got like the same sack twice.

It felt like it just, it was a really, really tough day for the charges. And again, this was the worst nightmare where I know, for most of the season they haven't, you know, they've been having like weird left tackle stuff because you move your right tackle the left. It's all been weird. But now that Alt is out, now that you saw Pipkins miss some time in this game, it's just like you're chipping away at it

so much that there's really no quarterback who would make this work, especially when they start to play, you know, fairly competent defense. I think the Washington has their issues. But the one thing I think they're good at is rushing the passer. And if you don't have any of your linemen, well, that's how you end up with a game like this. Nine of Washington's 13 pressures.

were quick pressures. So less than two and a half seconds. It's hard to function that way. And I think that was our thought coming into the game is like, would any of this matter on the back end if they were unable to stop the quarterback from getting pressure in the first half a second? And that's the answer is no. The answer is no, but it's also just like the theme for the first two or three weeks of

the Chargers season was like, these aren't your dad's chargers? Like they're not going to, we're not going to have to watch a chargering every week. This is, this is those chargers. Like you have a part return touch. down wiped out by roughing the kicker. You have the 50 whatever yards of receiving yards negated by offensive line penalties. You have the fumble outside the red zone. And then Herbert has the tipped interception that Mikey Samir still came up with on the goal

line, by the way. So like with a chance to score points. I try to be active in the in the discord on Sundays when I can find the time. I'm sorry I don't remember who said this. But if you're listening, a Chargers fan at that point in the game, was like, this is the team I recognized from all these years. And I was like, yeah. It's a tough place to wind up, considering how promising it looks.

Considering how great it looked for the first two or three weeks. Yeah, it's tough. Let's get to the other side of the coin here and talk about some of the low light moments from week five. It's time for what the p. What the fuck? The Houston Texans pound the Baltimore Ravens 44 to 10. The Ravens fall to one and four on the year.

I don't think I really. I'm interested in admonishing the Ravens for this performance, given the state of their defense. I mean, when you watch this game back and what the Texans were doing, they're just relentlessly picking on T.J. Tampa, Teddy Buchanan, Ruben Lowry, Keon Martin. If you don't know who a lot of those guys are, that's not your fault. These are like these second and third string players on the back end for the Ravens. And you felt that over the course of the entire game. The reason that I felt like this was worth talking about, Derek, is that the Ravens are now one. and four. Like, we're veering dangerously close to the season just being over for the team that I think came into the year, the presumptive Super Bowl favorite, whether it was by consensus of people

with opinions or Super Bowl odds, anything you wanted to look at. This was supposed to be a team that was right up there among the best in the NFL. And I think you could make a really serious case that five weeks into the year, this thing is probably done. I think it's probably toast. And it's like, again, you mentioned all the different players that they had to go out and play. I had a friend text me today. He was like, what's wrong with the Ravens?

I'm like, if I listed their 10 best players, eight of them weren't playing in this game. Like, that is ultimately what it comes down. And they had some other issues. Other hand, like defensive line already wasn't playing well. I think offensive line was maybe a little bit worse than we thought. But so long as Lamar and a majority of their other best players were healthy, they would have been fine. But now they're in a point where they're one and four, getting completely blasted by a Texan team that really hasn't been able to score on anybody. and then now they play the Rams next week

who again the Rams are a weird team and just lost a weird game to the 49ers but I think we all expect the Rams to be a pretty solid playoff team and so now we're ending up with a spot where the Ravens are probably staring down the barrel of one in five and at that point you have two losses left

for the rest 11 games that you're going to play I think even if Lamar comes back healthy and is like a superhero that is asking a lot of this team all right so I have a pretty important question. At one and four, are we ready to take the Ravens off the table?

Don't do this to me. I have not thought this far. We don't have to make a decision right now. This is what you miss by not being here, Derek. Because we are not hearing about it all night. He's not ready yet. It's five weeks in. I won't do it. He's not ready yet.

I can't do it. And I know how insane that sounds. But okay, just while you're thinking that over, Derek. Yeah, I mean, they do play the Rams next week. They play the Rams next week, potentially without Lamar again. It's hard not, it's hard to imagine. And the defense is still going to be decimated against a better offense. The Texans looks like the best offense in the lead yesterday. They had 20 pro bowls, 20 combined pro bowls and $97 million in salary cap inactive today. So how many of those guys are going to be back next week? I don't know. Probably not

enough to beat the Rams. Exactly. And so how many teams ever have one in five made the playoffs? And I know they have their buy week after this and maybe some of these guys can get healthy, but it just feels like even if they're a good team after the buy, they're so far behind the eight ball that I just, I don't know. Guys, don't make me do this where I'm like pitching this because I don't really believe it. But look, okay, they play the Rams. Then they have the buy.

After that, the schedule's not scary. Like there's not a ton until you get to like, you have a stretch of New England and Green Bay at, the very end of this season. But like after the bye week, it's Chicago, it's Miami, it's the Vikings, it's two games against Cincinnati, another game against Cleveland, like a lot of winnable games on the schedule, assuming, assuming Lamar Jackson is your quarterback and assuming some of these other guys come back.

This is all with the hope that like Roquan Smith and Marlon Humphrey and obviously Lamar Jackson will all be part of this. All right. If the Ravens, if they can just hold on to where that happens, like, you mean to tell me that they couldn't put together like a 10 and 7 and be a wild card team? I don't know if they can win the division. Here's the, I think their best path to the playoffs is probably winning the division

because the Steelers are 3 and 1, but I still don't think I believe in the Steelers. And so I think that there is a potential path to be like a 10 and 7 winner of the AFC North. And because that's the case, I think that's why I'm not like automatically ruling this out. But if they lose next week, if they're one and five, I think I'm ready

to take them off and put the Seahawks on. I think probably. Again, like they could still be a decent team after it, but if they are one in five, you have almost no margin for error to lose more than two games after that. And again, you play the Packers, you play the Patriots

look like a solid team. They will lose one of those Steelers games one way or another. They will find a Yeah, that's a point. Yeah, that's a point to remember. Yeah, guarantee. They still get the Vikings who, you know, the offense is kind of weird, but the defense is still pretty good. Like, the pass rush is pretty good.

Like, I just, there still feel like enough loseable games here that to only have a margin of error for two does not feel like enough. I hate, I would have no problem with any of this if we could, like, put them back. But we, we have this rule where once you take them off, there's no putting them back on. It's the only reason that I'm not, like, firing away. here is because I can still see a path where somehow they turn this around because I think the division is still kind of winnable despite what this has looked like so far. I don't want to be here in December and the Ravens have won six of their last seven and we took them off the table. I think

that's fair. But if they're at one and five and then we're in a place where they essentially have to go nine and two over the rest of the season in order to make the playoffs, and even that feels like a slim margin, I think I might be ready to have that conversation. I'll tell you this. It would have to be with Lamar. Like if Lamar doesn't play next week, then I'm just gonna, I'll fight you on this as long as I can. But that will be a conversation for another time.

Any takeaways from the Texans in this game, Derek? For me, it's like a good on you. Like took care of business in the way that they needed to. I felt like the offense, there's some signs of life. The thing that really jumped out to me and this is a very small thing, but I think that details like this, I always, when we talk about like Cooper Cup

being like the most important player on some of those big Seahawks games, I thought that Dalton Schulz had a really good game today as like a blocker. And the buy-in in those sorts of ways, that's what I didn't see over the first three games of the season. And so to see the entire offense top to bottom just have a little bit of life, even if you consider how bad the competition was on the other side, I think it's just what you want to see out of a Texan's offense that really, really was struggling over the first couple weeks.

That's kind of all I took from it. There's not a whole lot that like schematically or anything that I'm tapping into here. this is just like a, you abs, if you're going to pretend to be a serious team for the rest of the season, you need to at least be able to hammer a decimated Ravens team like this. And they at least did that and didn't shoot themselves in the foot at all, didn't make any mistakes. They were able to just look like a competent offense.

And C.J. Stroud looked like the quarterback that we want him to. So this to me was just like more than any other like playoff hopeful offense. I think they needed a feel good day and they got it. Speaking of unsurious teams, I want to bucket two teams together here. as we get to our next what the fuck entry. The Dallas Cowboys beat up on the Jets 37 to 22. That is a very misleading score.

It was 30 to 3 at one point. The Colts beat the Raiders 40 to 6. That puts the Jets at 0 and 5. It puts the Raiders at 1 and 4. And why I feel like we can kind of put these two teams together in this moment is that these teams with new leadership, with new head coaches, new people in charge, there was supposed to be like adults in the room.

There was supposed to be a certain level of competency that they were bringing into this season even with the amount of change that we were saying. And that's just not what this has looked like over the first five weeks. So the Jets are now the only winless team in the NFL. The Raiders are one and four, and it seems crazy now that they beat the Patriots in week one,

but that did happen. So both the Jets and the Raiders after today, what the fuck? You remember when we did the AFC's preview? We laid out the case for optimism with the Jets. And like, you know, you can do some fun stuff in the run game. You can make life easier on Justin Fields. And we talked about like Aaron Glenn can lend his expertise to this defense.

And maybe he can get him back to playing at like a 2022 level. There's obviously talent here. In your heart of hearts, did you ever think that we'd be kind of right about the offense and so, so wrong about the defense. I didn't really think that. And that's what's so disheartening about this is that, again, when you're trying to lay out the successful path, quote unquote, for the Jets this year, the hope was you come away from all these games being like, man, they're a little bit outgun, but they do the right

things, they play hard, they're in the right spots. Derek, I feel the exact opposite way about the defense right now. They're going against the Cowboys team today that doesn't have C.D. Lamb and is missing four starters along the offensive line, and they got bludgeoned for a huge portion of this game. Like, you look at what's happening on the second and third level of this defense against the run and tackling in space. And this is not an exaggeration. It's as bad as it could possibly look.

And so if the optimistic case was, even if they're not there talent-wise, they're doing the right things, they're always in the right spots, I feel about as far away from that right now on that side of the ball as I possibly can. And these are guys they've invested in. Like, you go back and watch the all 22 of the run game with Jamie and Sherwood in this game. And you tell me how you feel about the current state of the New York Jets. That is to me the most disheartening thing is I really thought they were at least going

to feel put together. Guys are trying. Guys are hitting all that sort of stuff. And I know they're a little, I'm missing a couple of guys. But this, like, I'm glad you said the second and third level tackling. It is about as bad as it for any team in this. And like, just think about all the big plays in this game. Ferguson scores on a screen touchdown where, like, does not feel like to me,

people are getting to like over the top of blocks the way that they could and really trying to attack him and obviously aren't able to make any tackle there. Ryan Flournoy broke a number of tackles on some of his big catches in this game. And then obviously the one that Giovante Williams breaks off for like the 66 yarder. First of all, I think a defensive end misses the first tackle. Andre Sisko is trying to fly down from the safety spot and takes like a weird angle, doesn't really get aggressive enough and he misses that tackle,

runs into his own teammate doing that and Williams is able to spring fee. It's just very sloppy football and this is just not at all what I thought it would look like with Aaron Glenn. This was already a secondary that I had some issues with that the last couple of years,

but I thought maybe you just re-energize some stuff. Maybe they feel a little bit better about the offense they're playing with and some of that will fix itself and it's just five weeks in. It's as bad as it was at the worst spots last year. The end zone copy of the, those plays, the 66-yarder

that Giovante Williams ripped off and the Jake Ferguson screen is so abysmal. Like the screen in particular, you just see three different players running themselves out of the play. And like it's a play action. It's a, you know, there's a play action on

the screen where you, DAC throws back to the tight end, but the degree to which like half the defense bites on it and runs themselves six yards out of position. I mean, we just ran the highlight. Like Jake Ferguson is lumbering. You know, he's not exactly moving quick,

and a Jets defender doesn't put hands on him until he's like five yards away from the end zone. It was startlingly bad defense. That was, when you list off the names of the Cowboy skill position players who are making plays in this game, the Flournoy part of this, first of all, like,

the huge catch he has down the right side line is just like the worst moment. Like, this is Brandon Stevens at his worst, right? Like he's in the right position, balls in the air, cannot find it. I think it is funny just because we've seen him do that so many times. But Derek, the entire argument for the Jets, I think is for why this could have worked out,

I think you can boil it down to the Brandon Stevens thing. We're going to go get Brandon Stevens because we think that he has a certain skill set and the limitations and kind of the warts that he has as a player, we can work on that. We can fix that. Like, we can get to him to be the best version of himself. That play is Brandon Stevens as the worst version of himself. And that's what we're seeing from every single member of this defense. And so the Flournoy part of it, the fact that he had a monster game, I think, says a lot.

The Jake Ferguson touchdown that you just laid out, they had a third and ten checkdown completion to Hunter Leapke. At some point in this game that went for a first down. Oh, they sure did. I forgot about that. And it was like the most obvious give up call ever. It was a checkdown. It was a third and ten checkdown that goes for a first down. I mean, there was just so many of those in this game.

And again, I think Sherwood was the guy that just consistently running himself, of plays. The final numbers for the Cowboys in this game, just to kind of put a pin in this, when you think about this performance overall. 20.26 EPA per play for Dallas, 7.1 yards per play. For some context, the Ravens last year,

were at 0.16 EPA per play and 6.7 yards per play. Both of those led the league. So the Cowboys, without C.D. Lamb and without four offensive line starters, were more efficient and explosive on a down-to-down level than the 2024 Ravens were over the course of the season. That's where this Jets team is right now. And that's why I'm not going to take too much away from this from a Cowboys perspective,

but I covered a lot of Cowboy teams who could not scheme around having like Tyron Smith out of the lineup. And like having your starting left tackle out would be the reason why you lost that week. Pretty damn impressive no matter how sorry the Jets are with the amount of firepower that the Cowboys just did not have on the field to, to not only win but score 40 points and just have it wrapped up at half time. That's pretty incredible, but also it's pretty damning of where the Jets are. For as bad as the Jets performance was today, the Raiders one aesthetically looks even worse. They get destroyed 40 to 6. The Raiders defense didn't have a lot of hope coming into this season, period, based on the personnel.

I mean, we talk about the names you're listing off for the Ravens defense right now. The Raiders defense kind of started that way, and it's not getting any better. but it's the little things that frustrate me, Derek. It's the fact that, again, we wanted this to be a team where can we take you seriously because you're doing the right things on the margins? This feels like a buttoned up operation. They get a punt blocked inside the 10-yard line today. And they had a punt-return touchdown that they allowed that ultimately didn't count because of a penalty.

It's just every single week this team is hurting itself and not doing the types of things we wanted to see out of a group that we thought might be well coached, even if they had some talent limitations. And so I think a lot of the same things where you're trying to understand that it's a multi-year timeline, this is year one of a new regime. As long as you're getting the most out of the players that you have, that's the box you want to be checking. And through the first five weeks, I think we can definitively say that has not been the case

for Pete Carroll's Raiders. It hasn't been like this was again. I think a lot of us thought that getting in Pete Carroll there would like, raise what the floor could be here. But again, my biggest issue with this team is, yeah, like you said, we knew they were going to have some talent issues along the secondary in particular and maybe the offensive line. But even both of those units, I think, have been worse than we might have thought. Because, again, they are not getting some of the help from the coaching that I think that we thought

they would get. The linebacker room, again, not super talented, but they have been all over the place in terms of like their heads are spinning, not fitting the run very well. The only fixer on this team really is Max Crosby. and against offenses that are still young, like the bears, he can make enough plays to keep you in games, against offenses that are as buttoned up as Indianapolis and have as many guys to go to,

that's just not going to be enough in games like this. And then really I've become more frustrated with the offense. Like the defense, you could have sold me that this just wasn't going to work out well because of the talent. The offense, the offensive line is the worst version of itself that it could possibly be. In this game, they didn't have Brock Bowers or Michael Mayer, and you just felt a complete inability to throw one,

over the middle of the field or get any of your gimmies, right? Like Brock Bowers is your, can we just get the ball to a guy and make a play player? And they did not have him in this game. And that really, I think hurt them. And then to me, Gino Smith right now is just as bad as decision makers I've seen him in the last three, four years. It's like I just don't understand what the issue is. He just does not feel nearly as buttoned up as he has been in years past.

It's going to be really unfortunate that people are going to retcon the last three years of that's what I'm looking right now. And listen, you can, you don't have to believe me. I understand that people are tired of this and if that's going to be the case, I get it, that's fine. Just some numbers I want to throw out

just for like a little bit of context. Gino Smith has been a better quarterback over the last two years than he is right now. I just think that that's, anybody who watched him over the last two years, I think that's self-evident. Here's some numbers to kind of put a little bit of specificity to it. Last season,

He had a turnover worthy play rate of 2.6%, which was tied for 16th in the NFL. He threw a ton of interceptions. A lot of those came off of tipped balls. He was now putting the ball in harm's way as often as the interception would lead you to believe. It was middle of the road in terms of how often he was making turnover worthy plays. This year, it's gone from 2.6% to 5.3%, which is a top 5 rate in the NFL. The ball is going into harm's way far more often than was even last year when he was throwing a lot of picks. in terms of his accuracy.

Over the last two seasons, he has been the most accurate quarterback in the NFL that has been a full-time starter. You look at some of the numbers, he had a 6.6% off-target percentage per PFF in 2024, which is the second best mark in the NFL. This year, it's 9.8%, which ranks 19th. Last year, he ranked 15th in pressure to sack rate.

This year, he is a bottom 10 rate in the league, 25% of his pressures are turning into sacks. On every single front, he is the worst version of Gino Smith that we have seen as a starter since he took over in Seattle. So I know how this is going to go. If he keeps playing this way, everyone's just going to say, this is who he's always been, he's never been good, and we're just being, it's just being confirmed right now. I think there are a lot of numbers and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that would say

that is not the case. And it's unfortunate that the narrative is going to go this way because I already see it happening. I am a fan of Gino's game. I'm right there with you. But like the brutal reality, right now, I'm not talking about anything that happened in Seattle. Right now he is playing exactly like the detractors would have you believe he always was. That's 100% right. Which sucks. And not like I watched all those games and I went back and rewatched all of them later on the internet. Like he wasn't that quarterback, but he is that quarterback right now. And you can point to a hundred different reasons why that might be the case.

But because of who he was in Seattle and how successful he was there despite suboptimal conditions a lot of the time, he was supposed to be able to raise the floor of this offense. And he's making it worse more often than not. It's brutal to watch. It sucks. It's incredibly well. I think that that's exactly the situation is we thought that the combination of Pete Carroll, Chip Kelly, Gino Smith at some point would raise the floor for what the

would look like and that just hasn't happened and the quarterback has been as much of a problem and a part of that as he has been a fixer of that. The last one here in our WTF moments of week four, the Cardinals Titans game is the dumbest NFL football game I can remember watching in a really, really long time. There are four plays in this game that in my opinion could be the single dumbest play of any NFL game in a given week. The intent is, intentional grounding that Kyler takes at some point early in this game is the funniest intentional grounding I've ever seen. The half-hearted attempts to even act like he's trying to throw this ball forward is incredible.

Somebody on Twitter said this, I can't remember who it is, but I'm stealing it because they're responding to me talking about it. It's like he was a teenager throwing a blunt out the window, just like out of desperation. Like that's what that felt like from Kyler. Just an incredible moment from Kyler here. and that was like the fourth craziest thing that happened. The fumble, their Cardinals are in field goal range with 4.57 left in the third quarter. I don't know what the pre-snap operation is, I don't know what's happening with the pre-snap operation.

But as the ball is getting snapped, the right guard stands up and taps his head. I'm assuming to check something. Both tackles don't move. Yelta Froholt snaps the ball. It hits Kyler in the face so hard that he recoils. and the Titans jump on it, okay? So that's the funniest play in any game and pretty much any week of the NFL.

Then we get the Amari DiMaricado fumble that would have put the Cardinals up 27 to 6 late in early in the fourth quarter. So it's been a 21-point game. Instead, the Titans get the ball back. And oh, yeah, there is a touchdown scored after the Cardinals pick off a pass. Taylor Demerson fumbles it

inside the 10. Max Melton kicks the ball toward the end zone and on a play where they throw an interception in the fourth quarter down nine points, the Titans score a touchdown and ultimately jumpstart their chance to win the game. Arizona Cardinals, what the fuck? This is the most any team has tried to lose a football game in, I don't even know how long. And I think what's even crazier to me is the Titans also tried to lose this game a little bit like when they so many times. When they score the touchdown that gets them to 12, you should go for two so you can get the game to 14 to 21 because kicking the extra point there doesn't really do enough for you. And then they miss the extra points.

Yes, and then they miss the extra point. And it's like how you make the wrong decision and then you miss the extra point. So and then obviously throwing the pick right there is obviously trying to lose the game. Like both teams trying really hard to lose the game. The Cardinals just tried that much more. It's just a ridiculous, ridiculous outcome. There was a shot after the Tyler Lockett recovery touchdown. They cut to Brian Callahan celebrating.

And it was like the most it's so over were so back moment. It was just it was incredible to see like how excited he was about how that just completely saved their asses randomly. Everybody in that locker room. I mean, this is like finding water in the desert. Like these were desperate, desperate men near the end of this game. They needed this so bad. And I don't think, I think this is an ugly game for Tennessee.

And congratulations to them for getting the win. I'm sure everyone there is feeling great. I still think there are some rough times ahead for the Titans this year. Oh, yeah. And we'll talk about the future of that franchise and maybe some of the bigger picture considerations with them. But at the end of the day, this is still a team with a rookie quarterback that didn't really have high expectations this year, right?

Like I think we thought they were going to be. better than they've been. Yeah. But Vegas didn't. I don't think that was like a general consensus opinion. Derek, this is the maker break year for the Cardinals, right? Like this is supposed to be the year where you have built up this infrastructure into your third season together.

You've spent all this money on defense. Like, this is the season where you are supposed to push to be a playoff team and they have regressed. This sort of loss and this sort of performance is not excusable when you were a team that comes into the year with playoff aspirations. And so for as ugly as it's been for the Titans, this type of game is way more disappointing for the Cardinals. Well, that's where this is frustrating for me.

I think to me I came into the season thinking, I know they made a lot of additions on defense, but I was unsure overall if they were a better tier of team based on all the things that they did in the offseason. And so if that tier of team got you to eight and nine, nine and eight last year, what if a couple of things bounced the wrong way for you this year? maybe a couple of guys get injured

or you have a game like this where you try to shoot yourself in the foot eight different times and if you do that enough times you end up again being that quality of team and you fall below the 500 line and you don't make the playoffs and that's especially troubling this year

where the Rams are still the Rams the Seahawks are way better than they were last year and the Niners I know they've got a lot of weird stuff injury but they look like a better team than they were last year or at least have enough banked up wins

in a way that I think is pretty nice for them compared to last year like they have gone from I think going into this season you could have made a problem pretty good case that they could be the second best team in the division. And now they're pretty firmly to me like the worst team and the most frustrating team in this division. I think that's a really good way to frame it. That's a really good perspective to have is that even in a year

where the Niners have been banged up and we didn't know what the Seahawks could be, the fact that through five weeks the Cardinals definitively feel like the worst team in the NFC West, that is just not how this year was supposed to go. No. It was, I mean, goodness gracious, we, or at least I did, like the comparison to the Dan Campbell Lions, like building up to that sort of performance. And there's a lot of season left. You know, the Lions went on that run in the second half of 2022. Or was it 20, yeah, 22.

But that was your two. Exactly. Like you're a year after that. You're supposed to be further along and it does not, that does not seem to be the case. And you make, you just, if one of those ridiculous things. doesn't happen. Then you win this game and it might be ugly, but it's a win. And now here you are. I think fortunately for them, they're not as popular as the Packers. So I don't know if people are going to harp on them the way that people harped on the Packers for the Brown's loss. But like,

this is the worst loss of the year. Yeah, absolutely. It's by far the worst loss any team has had when you consider the fact that they should have had a walk-in touchdown to go up 27 to 6 early in the fourth quarter. All right. Before we move on, let's take one more quick. break. I mean, this thing was a thing of beauty. Each week we like to pick out one thing that made us feel all warm and fuzzy, the type of stuff that we love about what an NFL Sunday is. I'm going to start this off. I love watching really good play callers when they're completely backed into a corner, right, where you know going in they're going to be short-handed. How do they handle this? The game that comes to mind for me from last year is what the Packers did when

Malique Willis had to start. I watch that game and I think about that game and I'm like, this is what coaching is, right? Coaching in football, it's a very simple thing. What are you doing with the players at your disposal? How are you going to get the best out of them? Week in and week out, that is your job. It's a pretty simple thing that we make very complex.

Coming into this game, the Vikings are missing three offensive line starters and do not have their starting quarterback. They're playing with a backup quarterback. They're playing in a backup quarterback. the defense that has ripped teams limb by limb for the most part for the first four weeks. You mentioned a Packers team that was rolling. The Browns go in and beat them up in their own building.

What Kevin O'Connell did in this game and just all the little tiny buttons he was trying to press in order to give his guys a shot, I thought was phenomenal. And it manifested in several different ways. The two that I'll throw out that I think are kind of encapsulated. In this game, the Vikings had a night. 19.5% design rollout percentage, which is the highest in any Vikings game over the last three seasons. There's a stat with NextGen where it's the time you spend in the box, right? So how long are you actually in the tackle box after the ball was snapped? In this game for the Vikings, it was 2.4 seconds on average, which was the fastest of any Vikings game over the past three years.

every single thing that they did was designed to get four hands on as many pass rushers as we could and make sure we weren't leaving our quarterback out to dry in the pocket and trying to use the aggressiveness of that Brown's defense against them. There were so many plays, you can't even pick out specific ones, where every single time they dropped back to pass, the edge rush was getting chipped, every single time, whether it was with backs, whether it was with tight ends,

whether it was with receivers. and they just did such a good job of making sure I know this team just tears after the ball. How can I make them pay for it? And the play that just really jumps out to me is on the touchdown drive that ends with the wildcat throw from Cam Acres. They had a 20-yard completion to Jalen Naylor

where they motion him in. It's a little insert play action where we get a little bit of a bite from Greg Newsom and then you have like a big corner route from Nailer for a 20-yard gain. It's a simple thing, but that's what this entire thing. game felt like for the Vikings, where it's these little tiny bits of misdirection, getting the quarterback just outside of the pocket so he's not a sitting duck.

And then when you combine that with Justin Jefferson being an actual superhero, you get a win like this for the Vikings in London. It was so apparent so quickly what they were doing. Like the one that stands out to me, and this is 14 hours ago, but motioning Jefferson into the backfield, like from out, why putting him at, you know, he's in the, he's at running back in like an eye in an eye one back formation. And it's just like a sprint out for an easy. I don't even remember how many yards he picked up. But it's just like, oh, it's a great way to get him away from his coverage and just

get him an easy look. And they were doing stuff like that throughout definitely in the early going in this game, but really throughout the entire afternoon. It was, yeah, it was really impressive on Kevin O'Connell's part. Yeah, it's too hard to pick out that many like single moments. But one of the first big general notes I had on this game was every good. Vikings play is nonsense or some bullshit or Justin Jefferson. That's the best compliment you can give him though. Exactly. And like you said, games like this where a play caller gets to do that, you bring up some of the

stuff that Matt Lafleur did last year with Malika Willis. But to me with Matt Lafleur, it's always the Aaron Jones game against Arizona like three or four years ago where he gave him like 11 targets because every receiver was down. Just when these guys, these like top five, six play callers get to just rub their hands together and do something insanely cool. it's just it's always a treat and especially in this case where it's an island game what do you guys got what made you feel

romantic about football today David I think Derek and I came down two similar situations that espoused the same idea and one thing I love about football in the NFL in particular because it's so even if you just hang around if you just make enough

plays to survive and like that's why the witching hour exists as a concept if you can just hang around not get knocked out and be within striking distance as you get toward the end of the game, the football gods are going to give you the opportunity to rewrite the script, no matter what happened in the early going.

And Bryce Young's day really illustrates that for me. Because remember, you talked about it at the top of the show, some of these games ballooned quickly and you're debating like, we keeping this on the TV? Are we sure? Do you just want to put something else in a solo screen, so we're not squinting at the screen.

Panthers go down, 17-0-0-0. Again, Miami went up 17-0, early second quarter. It felt over. It was like, this is it. It was beyond over. We're shutting the door. Bryce got stripped by Bradley Chubb. He threw high on like a dig, and Minka Fitzpatrick picked it off.

And, you know, like, I mean, for, like, you make jokes, right? Like, in the early going of this game, you're just like, well, thanks for playing, Bryce. This is the same shit as last week. like the Panthers are terrible, they're helpless. And again, you're debating, turning it off. And from there, they just sort of stayed alive, right? Remember the sequence, you know, three scoring drives after they go down 17-0,

two field goal drives. And at the end of the first half, they're doing everything in their power to screw it up. Like, they've got like no timeouts. There's less than 10 seconds. They're trying to throw into the end zone, even though it hasn't been working all day. And you're just like, Robert was screaming at the TV. Like, just kick. just kick the field goal and get to half down 1710.

I promise you it'll be okay. Get the ball at half. And it's not like this team is beyond taking a sack in that situation. And like so for the rest of the day, they're just surviving. Obviously, shout out to Rico Dowdell, game of his life. Monster game. 200 yards. He had a huge hand in this.

But they clawed back in. And there you are with five minutes to play on your own 17. And Bryce Young gets his chance. And they go 83 yards, 84 yard completion to Xavier Liget on the corner route, like a whole shot between the corner and the safety. Nice throw. Gets to fourth and five on the Miami 33 with three and a half to play. And I think it was like a smash concept with Jimmy Horn, who we highlighted in the

damn preview episode. I didn't actually believe that when I said it. And there's Jimmy Horn bringing in just a fantastic catch with Rassul Douglas draped all over him. Phenomenal catch. And then two snaps later, Bryce throws it in for the go-ahead. touchdown. And I never would have dreamed when it was 17-0, 15 minutes into the early window that we would have that moment. But they stayed alive long enough for it to happen.

That's what I love about football, man. It was so cool. Derek, we had another number one pick who had a similar sort of moment when his team got to stick around in this game. Cam Ward is what made you feel romantic about football today. I think I can guess that. Yeah, you definitely can. And this for me was, part of it is just, it's cool to see a guy get his chance to, like, like go and finally win a football game. And again, whether or not the Titans deserve to win this game is a whole other thing. But the fact that he finally gets that, especially with how frustrating things have been for them. And especially we go back all the way to really early in the season, he was giving his team chances to beat Denver with late game throws and like getting the, putting the ball on guys and like making sure that he was giving his guys chances.

They just kept dropping them. In this game, he's able to find, I think it was Chigaconko over the middle of the field kind of near the sticks. And that moves them into like, okay, that gets us to. about midfield, maybe we can go and kick a field go and start to win this game. Very shortly after that, he puts a beautiful go ball down the right hand sideline for Calvin Ridley

and that allows them to be like, okay, we're actually in scoring rage, we can go and win this game. We can go and win this game 22 to 21. Like this was just the fact that he made the throws again that he was making similarly in week one and now they finally, the guys on the other end caught them. He got the win. He can get what that feeling is like in the NFL. It's just the cool thing.

five of six for 67 on that final possession for cam ward yeah that was cathartic too for number one picks on bad teams that wear like electric blue that's that's that's that's that's that's romantic that was what was romantic about football in week five i have some thoughts about the brys young game i think i'm not going to rain on your guys's parade here i'm gonna let you i'm gonna let you here's the here's what's so cool about it you can you don't have to rain on my parade because like, yeah, like the Panthers are a flawed team. They did not exercise their demons fully here. But it's just cool to say like, and Derek just said it.

Like maybe the Titans didn't deserve to win that game, but you know what? They hung on long enough for the opportunity to present itself. And in that moment, Bryce Young and Cam Ward made the most of the opportunity. And that's, that I, that is as far as I will go. It might not have long ranging ramifications. It's just cool. Today to me was very indicative of like the Bryce Young push and pull

that we have felt from the second half of last season and then too often over the last two seasons. You saw it really in the game like his physical limitations are just so pronounced in some of those moments. That fumble, kind of the inability to get to escape pressure when he's flushed out. He's just not an explosive player

and he's a very small person. And so you just feel what those limitations look like on an NFL field and then you have some of those beautiful touch and timing throws on those corner routes and outside the numbers. And I come from away from this game, just kind of realizing that as promising as those moments are, they're probably not going to be enough

to outweigh the limitations in the long run. That's my unfortunate conclusion after watching the Panthers today is that like I love exactly what you said, that throw to Jimmy Horn and some of the ones that we saw down the stretch. I just don't think even as beautiful, as those moments are and aesthetically, that's what I like watching from quarterback play. I think the limitations are ultimately going to eat him

when it comes to the long-term outlook for this team and for him. I think that's probably fair. Yeah, I mean, the clips, Ward's missile to Ridley versus what Bryce Young is doing is like a- It's like watching Drake May tonight. Yeah, right? It's like a pretty stark contrast. And I think, you know, again, the best case scenario for Bryce Young

is he's like a viable NFL quarterback in the long term. I think today, even with some of the highlight moments, there are a lot of reminders about why that still might be in question. I think that's completely fair. I just, I love for the guy that he stayed off the mat long enough for this to happen for him. To me, the biggest takeaway from this game is that like, again, it was same as last year. Like, the mental toughness to come back from what he did last year is incredible. And the fact that they didn't fold in this game, I think they deserve a ton of credit for that.

It's just one of those things where I watch the game and I'm like, ah, this is, there's still so many moments where it just reminds me. me of why he's probably going to get held back at the end of the day. All right. So Robert is swaying over to the Derek side of things. Yeah, I was like, I'm not going to push it. I'm going to, I've, I've already said my piece with all of it. So I just, he is what he is. Let me have my moment.

It's just, this is a league of professionals. And you have to be a certain caliber of height, weight, size speed. And it's just, it's hard to overcome some of that stuff. Yeah. It's a tough needle to thread. And I just think that, again, some of the circumstantial things need to be so correct for him to be okay. I think it's going to be hard for teams to consistently put that around him.

Bryce and I will take this moment and we will just keep it pushing. I'm not saying either one of you are wrong, but we're just going to take the W right now and see what happens later. This next segment is going to be very ironic considering what I just said, giving up on a quarterback two and a half years into his career. But let's talk about what we learned today. You know, I think I've learned something today. I think this is something that we've touched on a lot over the last two years

because there have been so many examples of it. But watching Baker and Sam Darnold today, two guys who were cast off of the Carolina Panthers at some point and were in their own ways in moments over the last couple years in the football wilderness. I think people are in a joke that, like, you know, Baker's, what Baker came back from was being in Cleveland Brown. Baker was released.

Like, he was released by the Panthers at one point. Sam Darnold was available for free. And what I learned today is something that I think, I think, again, we've come to know over the last couple years, how many different things need to fall into place for quarterbacks to be successful in the NFL? They're innumerable. Like, it's hard to understand all the contextual reasons that guys succeed or fail. The Baker-Donald thing is the headline one because I think it's very easy to play up the narrative of both of them playing Carolina at the same time.

But what about Mac freaking Jones? Right? Like, Mac Jones is another guy who is available for free. he goes to San Francisco and he is capable putting on a performance like we saw from him on Thursday night. And so it's just a really stark reminder of how many things play into a quarterback success or failure and how winding and long of a road it can be

before we can ultimately make a decision finally on these guys. You can keep going, man. Daniel Jones. Daniel Jones. Yeah, exactly. I forgot Daniel Jones. A 40 point day for the Colts. They're four and one.

Take it way back. Like we can successfully rewrite history to the point where people don't even view him this way anymore. But the Lions rolled over the Bengals for their fourth straight win. Jared Goff was seen as a salary dump when he got to Detroit. And he's an MVP candidate. So, yeah, I mean, down the list. And every single year, it seems. And yeah, I think we talk about it a lot because it's so fascinating.

But on a day like today where Baker and Sam put on a show like that, it's worth remembering. Daniel Jones is the one I was missing. We're 14 hours into this. Daniel Jones is the other name that was absolutely worth bringing up because he's been the starkest and I think the most obvious example this year specifically before we got to Mack Jones. But week five, another reminder of what that dynamic has felt like

in the NFL over the last couple years. All right, that is all we've got for the week five recap. The Hangover Show tomorrow will be a deeper dive into the Sunday night game. we will hit the Giants Saints game probably could have been a WTF game for the Giants in any other week that didn't have some of what we got from this week like the Cardinals thrust their way into that conversation

based on the way that that game ended. So we'll dig into Saints Giants tomorrow and then we'll also like you just alluded to we will hit on the Bengals Lions game. So those will be the three games tomorrow. Please leave us a voicemail if you're struggling after today. Bell, what's the voicemail number? I always forget. It is 847-44-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4.

8-0701. If you're having a hard time after today, if you're working through some feelings, if you want to talk them out, please leave us a voicemail. We will hit a couple of those on tomorrow's show for our Monday morning. For now, that is all we've got today.

If you're watching on YouTube, highly encourage you guys to like and subscribe to the channel, doing a lot more stuff specifically for YouTube this year. Derek's latest scheme video is out, came out over the weekend. Encourage you guys to check that out. For now, that's all we got. sincerely appreciate you guys listening.

We'll talk to you very soon.