The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 7 recap: Lions win thriller over Vikings, Packers squeak past Texans, Saquon gets his revenge, and more

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

The Chiefs are the lone unbeaten team in the NFL as Week 7 comes to an end. They stayed that way by stifling the 49ers in a 28-18 win. The league's other undefeated team at the start of Week 7, the Vikings, suffered their first loss at the hands of the Lions, who also moved into first place in the NFC North. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen discuss those two games, plus Saquon's revenge, disappointment in the Bengals, and a whole lot more on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.RundownLions win thriller over VikingsChiefs take down 49ersPackers defense shuts down TexansSeahawks get back on track with win over FalconsAnother disaster for the PanthersBengals offense...WTF?!?Saquon's revengeAmari Cooper had some moments in his Bills debutGood Jaguars offense or bad Patriots defense?Drake Maye impresses againWhat We Learned TodayHost: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football brought to you by Thursday Night Football only on Prime Video. I'm Robert Mays, a fantastic week seven slate to dig into with you guys. We had a lot of games of the week coming into this week, and most of them did not disappoint. Vikings Lions was phenomenal.

We started the show off, really digging into that game. Chatted about a great performance from the Packers' defense, knocking off the Texans. A little bit about the Chiefs winning another ugly one in a fashion that they seem very comfortable with these days and a win over the Niners. Chatted about a Seahawks victory over Atlanta that feels like it might be pretty important for the complexion of the NFC playoff race, dug into a Panthers disaster and what has felt

like a couple straight years of those. And chat a little bit about the Bengals offense disappointing us today when we thought that they were on the verge of turning things around. Like we always do, hit a couple quicker things. And did you see that? And then talked about what we learned today. So let's dig into all of that in a great set of week seven games with my buddy Derek classic.

Join me tonight. That's my buddy Derek Koston, Derek. How are you doing, man? I'm doing really good. You know, this was an exciting week, I think, coming in. And I think for the most part, it kind of, I think it went up to the expectations for me. This ended up being like a really good, how do I really feel about you type of week? I was a little bit worried during the early slate of games just because there was a moment where I was like, how are we going to talk about all this time?

Like so many things. Well, that's what it was going into the preview. So many things are happening. And yeah, some of it was the. amount of good games that we had, but it still felt like, you know, even the London game, there was some stuff like, oh, well, we need to hit that. And the games that we thought were going to be good ended up coming down to the wire. So it's like, we have to hit every single one of these. It was overwhelming in the best way possible. The afternoon slate was a trade wreck.

I mean, that was a little bit helpful. Just putting it out there right now. We are not going to discuss Raiders, Rams in any way. Just by virtue of like protecting our mental health, we're not going to talk about Dolphins and Coltson anyway. So it was nice to be able to focus on Niners and the Chiefs in the afternoon slate, which I'm sure was the NFL's intention and the way they scheduled out this game. So things ended up getting a little calmer as the day went on, but there's still a lot to dig into today. And let's start with the game, one of the games that we thought was going to be one of the games of the week. I mean, one of the games of the year so far between an undefeated team in the NFC North and a very real Super Bowl contender in the Detroit Lions.

and that is the Lions win over Minnesota, 31 to 29. An absolute thriller. You go back and you watch this game and you forget some of the moments that happened. I was like, oh, yeah, that 50 yard throw to Jordan Addison happened. Oh, yeah. The Vikings were winning in the fourth quarter of this game because David Montgomery fumbled and they returned it for a touchdown. Everything happened in this game.

I had to go back and rewatch every single play to actually get a handle on it all. Dude, I thought the Montgomery punchout was like the end of the game. Yeah, I was putting in my notes, like as the game was happening. I was like, I think this might have just ended the game. And a guy like David Montgomery, like he doesn't typically make that kind of mistake. He's usually you're very steady, very reliable. He's going to get everything you need. He's not going to make mistakes. And so for him to have that moment. Off day for him today. Just because he got hurt early in the game. It just felt like everything was a tiny bit off for him today. And I felt like that played into a little bit of why,

you know, and we'll get into this a little bit deeper. But like the Lions by success rate were not that good of a rushing offense today. And I think part of that was because Montgomery kind of got out of his rhythm in that way. And I think they really struggled to get him going the way that they wanted to. They lost him for a couple series. I don't know exactly how long, but as a Montgomery fantasy investor, I was aware that he was not on the field. And then I saw it like an eternity. It felt like forever. I mean, I was just freaking out in the group chat. And when I saw him on the bike, I was like, okay, this is potentially salvageable, but still not the best day for him. It was a very good day for Jared Gough. My God. I mean, obviously it's impressive what he did against

the Seahawks, what he did the last. last time out. But the fact that he went 22 of 25 for 280 in this game against a past defense that had absolutely been dismantling most of the quarterbacks that they had faced this season, this is one of the most impressive performances, not only of the season for him, but this might be the best game or one of the best, maybe the best performance he's had in his entire career when you consider what's being asked of him in this moment and what was being asked of him in some of those LA games where he was absolutely on fire. even before we get into all of how he did it and how Ben Johnson schemes some stuff up in the offensive line and all that.

Do you remember how many passes he completed before he threw an incompletion? And do you remember what the first incompletion was? It was a tipped ball, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah, he was 15 of 15, and then there was a tipped ball at the line of scrimmage. He almost did the 18 for 18 that he did against, what was it, the Seahawks three weeks ago. The fact that he has been able to so consistently execute what they're giving him, I think, is so impressive. and especially in a game like this, you're going to get blitzed, you're going to get weird stuff thrown at you,

you're going to have all these weird funky coverage rotations, you have to be able to hang in there, understand you're going to get hit sometimes, understand you've got to just rip the ball to some of these checkdowns to some of these hot answers, throw over the middle of the field. And he did it. Like he's very, he's like so unbelievably invested in what the offense is doing. And it's put together and giving him answers in a way that very, very few offenses are right now. It's truly impressive to watch. I was at the game. I've told the story a bunch of different times, but if you remember that game at the Coliseum when the Rams played the Vikings, strangely enough, funny enough. I think it was in 2018. And he had that game where I think he threw four touchdowns. And there were some beautiful throws in that game. And I remember talking to him after that game and being like, man, that's one of the best games we've ever seen a quarterback play in person. And he's such a different quarterback now than he was back then. And that's what I mean by what's being asked of him within the offense. And I think that your point about, him understanding what he needs to accomplish in so many of these situations is such a good one. There was a play at some point in the game. I wish I could find it in my notes, which are an

absolute mess right now. There was a play at one point where he threw the ball back to, I think, Gibbs or Montgomery is one of the backs in the left flat, and he was spinning back to it because he knew that was his outlet on that play. And there are just so many of those moments for him right now, whether it's against pressure or just within the flow and rhythm of the offense where I know exactly where my outlet is, I just need to get to it. He has such a good sense of where everything is available to him within this offense. And because the players around him are so good, and because the plan is so good, if he's getting to those options, things are going to go well. And the fact that he knows that it has such a good sense of it, I thought that today was a really good kind of presentation

of that idea. I think that's the best way to describe, like, how Jared Gough is a different quarterback than before because in LA it was a lot of one, two, oh shit. And the play would kind of just start to derail from there. And that's just really not been the case. Like every now and then if you can pressure him, yeah, he's not still, he's still not the most creative player outside of the pocket. But kind of like you're mentioning, when he's in the pocket, he does so much better to get to his third option, to his fourth option, to understand when he's got to be hot immediately, to understand exactly where his checkdown is. And kind of like on that example, you just brought up, where he can just, he's not even thinking about where the throw is going to be. He's just instantly turning and

knowing where the ball needs to be. Like, that's such a impressive trust in the offense and trust in his players and his ability to execute. It has been, it's fun to watch. Again, like when you, when you have a quarterback who's executing the offense at such a high level, especially against a defense like Brian Flores, it's just really, it's very admirable. I like watching it. I enjoyed a couple different elements of their offense today. I think that when they had like five or six in protection. They just did such a good job of picking things up consistently throughout this game. But there were also some really nice moments where they were in empty against like cover zero looks. And he knew where his outwits were. He had that second 11 completion of Raymond when he was backing up in the pocket that was beautiful.

I loved the design on the Amon-Ross-St. Brown touchdown where they have the motion coming across with Tim Patrick. He seals that side off and golf knows he has time to hit St. Brown on the touchdown. And then there's another empty throw that he hit on a big like bender in breaker to Laporta for a chunk gain. And so just consistently understanding these are the moments when I'm going to have either time to take some shots down the field or I know that they don't have enough guys in coverage. As long as I can get this ball off, it's going to be a chunk gain. Again, just getting back to the idea of him having such a good handle on where he needs to go to the ball, go with the ball and when. That's such a good point that like he's not treating every. blitz like they're the same, right? Like it's every blitz, especially against Brian Flores,

it's its own unique different snowflick. And you have to understand like, what is it that it's going to take to beat this? And so like you said, there's sometimes where maybe you've got to hang in and throw a dig route over the middle or something and know you're going to get hit. Sometimes I just need to throw to the flight immediately and know that we can get five yards here and that's okay. And again, he's doing about as good a job at that as anybody in the league right now. He finishes 13 of 15 for 163 and a touchdown when blitzed. against Brian Flores. Like, that needs to be reiterated.

It is against the blitz guy right now. That's what he did when blitzed. We know he can do damage when blitzed. The golf kryptonite, the problem he always had was that when he was pressured, he used to fall apart. In this game, when pressured, which he was pressured on 52% of his dropbacks, he finished 10 of 11 for 164 yards and two touchdowns. That would not have happened in L.A. It just would not have happened. Or if it did, it would have just been a roundbacked.

real lucky day of contested catches. And that's really not what it was today. It's like we've been talking about. He understands where the ball needs to go. And I think because he has such a good trust and faith in the offense and like in all of the players that he has, because it's obviously a very talented group, he's okay, if I've got to take a hit or if I've got to make this little slide, I know everything's going to fall in place if I do my job. And he's doing his job. And then they had, you mentioned that the success rate running the ball wasn't as consistent as it typically is, because that's just how this Vikings team is, right? Like they're going to do a bunch of of funky stuff up front. There's going to be some run pressers. It's going to be some run stunts.

But they were explosive when running the ball today because of what Jemir Gibbs did. The sound I made on that 45-yard touchdown run and what he did to Cam Biden in space is one of the most disgusting plays I've seen a running back make this season and in a while. I made a gutterle noise when he did that in open space and took that thing to the house. That was a ridiculous play. He has that. That was the whole reason they drafted him, right? Was that joysting. ability in space to do stuff like that and to make those explosive plays. And I think that was truthfully, like for as much as I wanted to see the Detroit Lions just like mash them for five, six yards and like beat all these blitzes and stuff, what I came to realize and what kind of came to fruition in this game, if they're going to throw all these weird blitzes and all this stuff and all these

run stunts and all this crazy stuff, in reality, what is probably going to happen more often is that you're still going to get beat a lot as the offense, but you just got to hope that you can pop three, four explosives. And they did that. And Gibbs obviously had a huge. hand in that. There was one, I mean, they just did a really good job on the one where Gibbs obviously runs off to his right and he takes it for a touchdown. They start with like a tight trips bunch to the left side and they motion one of their receivers from that bunch to the right side and then they motion the tight end into like a fullback position. So now they're in eye form. The Vikings are blitzing from where the original trip side was with Harrison Smith. And then they have Dallas Turner now to

the other side who's like looping to the inside and then they run Gibbs all the way to the outside to the right. He just springs it for free. And it's just like when you catch him like that, you have to take advantage of it. And Detroit did about as good a job as they could have. I found that play. It was with 1038 left. I think it was in the third quarter where he spins around and hits Montgomery and like a little drive starter. And then there was a hit that that was the play where he hit Raymond out of the slot while drifting back in the pocket on third and nine. And then he hit Patrick on that huge dagger. And then it was Raymond underneath for the touchdown. That was the the most, to me, the most impressive drive he had in the entire game. And the Raymond one,

this is what I wanted to bring up. This is where you understand how like the lines are just such a team. And I know that's a like a stupid thing to say. So they have Raymond coming from the right side. He's running like a little shallow route across the middle, obviously. Gibbs is running like a wheel route up the left side. And the way that he, that Raymond catches the ball, Gibbs is in like a perfect position to come off his wheel route and throw a block and spring Raymond to go for a touchdown. And he does. And it's just like, oh, it's one of those things where it's like, oh, all these guys are so bought in. They know exactly like the timing of everything that could happen on any given play. And for him to throw that block in that moment, springing him for a touchdown.

It's just what makes this team fun to watch. Like, it just feels like everybody's bought into everybody else doing well. And that's just a cool feeling. You meant the whole idea of just like the team contributions. The last thing I'll mention on that front is that ripped Tom on Ross St. Brown with a 1-10 left in the fourth quarter that sets him out for the game-winning field goal. The protection on that play is unbelievable. But this is all coming together. And this is kind of like, to me, a really good expression of who they are.

The protection is unbelievable. But golf has to want to rip that ball. Like, that is an aggressive, fuck you decision in that moment. And that's what's so cool about this is that the offensive line is such a great unit. The protection's plans are so good. The backs contribute in past protection. So he has time in a lot of these moments. But then he's able to rip those throws.

And when you watch it all work in concert, it's really beautiful. And I think that this game and just this performance overall really speaks to what this team is capable of. But then you go to the flip side of this. I was actually pretty impressed by what the Vikings offense was doing in some of the throws that Sam Donald made in this game. I mean, I mentioned the Addison 50-yarder. The one he threw down the right sideline to nail her over a meek Robertson's hand. I mean, Sam Donald in this game had like four incompletions. The one he threw to Jefferson.

good. The one he threw to Jefferson down the left sideline where obviously Jefferson also has to make an insane catch because it's really tight coverage. But like because it's tight coverage, he puts the ball in a perfect spot and Jefferson goes making, makes an incredible play. That is, this was kind of like exactly what you want out of a Sam Darnold game where it's like, all right, we're going to get enough from the run game. We're going to scheme up enough of the easy stuff. Can you make four of those throws that made you a top five or six pick or whatever? And he did in this game. And I thought they just did a really good job at that. And again, what if we said about teams? when you have to play teams like Detroit or just other high man coverage teams. It's like they're going to dare you to make a lot of really tight window throws and you have to be bold enough to make them and your receivers have to be good enough to make those catches. And they did. And I think even with the loss, like this was kind of a testament that like they can go do that against these type of teams.

I thought that was really impressive. And I thought that speaking of the man coverage, there was after that deep shot on to Addison, the coverage on the next two plays on those second and third downs was absolutely. phenomenal. I thought that there was a lot of really nice man coverage moments from the Lions in this game in particular. And then the defensive player were shouting on this game for Detroit outside of the corners. So I actually think did a good job is what Brian Branch did. I mean, he made some absolutely ridiculous plays in this game. We wondered what the Detroit off defense would look like as a collective with Aidan Hutchinson out. And even if the Vikings actually moved the ball pretty efficiently in this game, there was some flashes and overall actually leave pretty encouraged about what this unit is capable of without a its best player moving forward. The one play branch made where he's got to cover that overrout that ends up like near

the left hash and he just like breaks it up over the players back. That's just there's not a lot of safeties who can run like that in like one-on-one coverage. I know he's like kind of a nickel player too, but like there's just not a lot of guys who can do that consistently. And he can. He's truly playing like all pro level safety right now. He's been awesome.

Yeah. So a really huge win for the Lions. But again, it feels like this Vikings team is going to be sticking around for most of this season. and we're going to hear from them again. A game was everything you could want it to be, and I'm very excited that we get to see those teams play again. All right, let's get to you have my attention. Gentlemen, you have my curiosity.

Now you have my attention. Let's get to the game of the week that we really dug into on the preview show, and that's the Super Bowl rematch that we got in the late slate today. The Kansas City Chiefs continue to just drown their opponents, just pull them into the deep end of the pool and make it really ugly, but in a way that really suits what sort of team this is right now. And I think that today this game against the Niners was another perfect example. It wasn't pretty.

We lose Brandon and I, Yuk, and Juju Smith-Schuster and Debo Samuel between the start of this game and the end of this game. It was a slog for both of these teams moving the ball through the air. But I think it speaks to what type of team the Chiefs are right now that they're just comfortable playing this way. They have no issues. And I know a lot of Chiefs fans got upset when we were talking about the lack of style point. for Kansas City on the preview show, even though we really didn't. It was mostly just a clip that went out. We dug into our appreciation for the style of this Chiefs team. But today I feel like it's hard not to appreciate their ability to play this way, be comfortable playing this way,

and just kind of live in these ugly moments and beat teams on their own terms. And today was a perfect example to me. It's kind of a testament that like no other team can really get away with what they're getting away with. Because if you just think about some of the biggest moments in this game, it's Patrick Mahomes missing Xavier Worthy deep down the field and he's open and then immediately throwing a pick after the fact. It's the pick that he threw earlier where the ball gets tipped up and they blow another red zone chance. It's all that type of stuff. And then you look up and they're one of the most efficient high success rate offenses of the day. They were like fourth and success rate or fit today. Like they had a really high rushing success rate. Like they just find these ways to

consistently get the yards that you need. And I was even, talking to somebody during the game, doesn't it always feel like the Chiefs, if it's second and six, they find a way to get seven yards. If it's third and four, they find a way to get five. It's always exactly as much as they need, never more, never less. It's like a truly unbelievable ability. And some of that is like Mahomes specifically as a scrambler has a gift for that. But the offense in general has like adopted that ability as well.

There was a drive with like twoish minutes left in the third quarter. That to me is like the perfect encapsulation of this. They had a third and six. Kelsey is the number one receiver on the right side. The Niners are in man coverage. He runs like a fake over a little return route. Mahomes hits him short of the sticks. He gains like three, four yards after the catch, gets a first down.

That is the same drive where Mahomes on that second and seven scrambles, pump fakes, has the scramble all the way down the left sideline. And then on fourth and one, Mahomes finishes it off with the scramble where he runs over Mustafa for the touchdown. It's like this is what it is. Like this is what they are right now. And because the quarterback is so good at kind of controlling those moments and he has the one guy he can hit in those high leverage situations, you're going to be sitting there and be like, they can't keep getting away with this. But to me, there's probably a reason they keep getting away with this. At a certain point, it's no longer accidental.

Yeah, that is exactly it. Like, we can look at all of the weird stuff, the fact that I think Mahomes still has more interceptions than touchdowns this year, like all of just this nonsense. But there's a reason that they're consistently able to move. the ball down the field and consistently get the ball near the end zone. Do they always finish? No, but like the fact that they are consistently able to move the ball, as well as any team in the league right now, even if they're not getting explosives, which kind of makes it more insane that they're so good at staying on schedule. It's just such a testament to the way that Patrick Mahomes is playing right now. And like, dude, that scramble where he gets all the way down the left sideline,

he out runs Fred Warner. He puts the ball out to look like he's like pump faking to get another guy to kind of bite. He juke from the sideline back to the middle of the field a little bit to make one guy miss and then accelerates for another like 15 yards. Like I, I truly don't know the last time I saw Patrick Mahomes make like that kind of scramble. Like obviously he's been effective for a very long time. But that like, oh my God, he just did eight different things type of scramble. I really don't remember the last time he did that. It was like so incredible to watch. And then to end it with the truck, I'm Nostapha. It just, what a drive. And then the other drive that I, again, I think is worth mentioning is what they did on that final drive to put the game away. And that to me is just

like the perfect encapsulation of how demoralizing they can feel. There was a third and eight where he hits Noah Gray for like nine yards, which is just like, all right, that that's what this looks like. And then that third and four little spin out boot where he hits P Ryan in the flat, and that's it. Like their ability to just bleed this stuff out right now and lean on what they can do in high leverage moments on third down because what the quarterback can do and what their defense is capable of.

This is who the chiefs are right now in a moment where he doesn't really trust his receivers. The offensive line is pretty shaky, and they have really no past catching options outside of Kelsey, especially today when they lose the only guy outside of Kelsey that he really trusts right now. That third and Ate Noah Gray is really the one because like he, what makes it so like this is why it's demoralizing, the only place that Patrick Mahomes can move in the pocket there is up into his right. And he does it. Of course, with like the perfect timing and gets to the right spot. The only place he can put that ball is like a little bit low in between two defenders. and he does it. And it's just like, man, like he just always finds a way to make the perfect play

at the perfect time. And it's like that indescribable feeling that we all had with Brady, right? Like for even as like kind of mid as a lot of those Patriots teams were, you just felt like at the end of the day there was going to be some throw that he was going to make that was going to put them over the line. And even for his mid as his chief team feels at times, he's going to make the throw that puts them over the line. The other guy that's worth mentioning on the offense before we get to the Brock Purdy of all of this, McCull Hartman had a huge day. McColl Hartman had a 20-yard gain on an end-around that set up their first touchdown drive.

He scores on the end-around later in the game, and his punt return sets up a short field for a touchdown. That's where we are right now. It's like the three mildly explosive plays by McColl Hardman, plus the bullshit that you're getting from Mahomes and the defense is enough for this team against some of the best teams in the NFL. I feel less bad now for doing the slip of saying McCall Hardman when I meant Hollywood Brown on the preview show. Now that McCull Hardman had this game, I'm like, oh, no, that's definitely what I meant to say. Let's get to the diners and just what this offense looked like without Brandon Ayuk, without Debo. I mean, this is the worst game that Brock Purdy has had in quite some time. There was three picks in this game.

The first one is indefensible. Like, I have absolutely no idea what he's doing on that throw. It's man coverage, and I think he gets an indicator before the snap that it's man coverage, and he just throws it to the post safety without really paying attention to where that guy is. You can explain away the one way. I think it's Ronnie Bell falls down. And then there's another play where the receiver probably should flatten it out a little bit. So again, some of this is a product of not having a lot of experience at receiver and not having a lot of chemistry with these guys.

But I think overall, this is one of the rougher games that I can remember seeing him play. The first one is almost like this was like an opening script play. And he was just so used to drilling this like throughout the week. And he's like, I'm just going to throw it like, it's been open all week in practice, yada, yada. and he just throws it anyway. And it's like, oh, wait, it's not open. Like Justin Reed is driving on it. And so that one to me was kind of baffling.

The one where he throws it to Ronnie Bell on the left side, I think Kyle Shanahan came out and said, because it kind of looks like it's a miscommunication pretty, obviously, like, over throws him by like five yards. Shanahan came out and said he just missed the throw, which is like, oh, okay. I mean, that usually doesn't happen. For Brock Purdy, like, for all the stuff that we've said about Brock

Prudy before, he's pretty accurate. Like, he doesn't just miss throws like that, especially to the sideline. Like, that's been the difference between him and Jay. Jimmy is that pretty will actually make a lot of those throws to the sideline. I think actually the most frustrating interception to me was the third one that he throws in the red zone at the very end of the game. And just rewatched it because I forgot what the third one was. That's the type of day that we're talking about here. The fact that you threw a double coverage in the end zone is probably

notable. Yes. Chris Conley is running like and look, that is part of the Niners problem here is that Chris Conley is running very important high leverage routes for you in the red zone. That is not where you want to be as an offense. But Chris Conley is running like a little whip route where he's going to the outside and then coming back in. Purdy is just really trying to wish this thing open where he can drive it in between those two defenders. And look, sometimes you can make that throw. I've seen Justin Herbert do it. It's just really hard and the margins are small and you have to have an arm like Justin Herbert's. And he doesn't. You combine the fact that Carl Loftus also kind of comes off the edge and hits him as he's throwing. Like he just absolutely beats the right tackle like does a really good job

spinning inside and hitting Purdy there. So it was kind of just a weird confluence of bad decision anyway. And then Karloftus, like, kind of makes sure that that's going to be intercepted with the way that he gets to the quarterback. I thought that we had some fun moments from Spags in this game that gave pretty a hard time. My favorite one was there was a play where he, they had a funky pressure where they had Tershon Wharton as the nose. And then they had, I think it was McDuffie and Reed both blitz from the left side. And they waste the left guard and the right guard.

And part of that is because one, Chanel bails out from the line of scrimmage. and I thought he might have been coming. But the other part is, Wharton, as the nose tackle, runs to the flat and covers use check. So they have everything blocked. They have everything covered, and they have two unblocked guys

because of the way that the pressure unfolded. And I'm like, Spaggs is a deeply, deeply sick man. Like that type of shit when you have the personnel that they have on defense right now. I know they were a little bit banged up,

but I think it speaks to what this defense is capable of in this current iteration. It's just the kind of annoying shit that he could do. And like, it's honestly, it's clearly insane to drop a nose tackle to go cover anybody. But the Niners there are have use check as they're like, quote, running back in the, formation. So like, that's easier than covering an actual running back. So like in that sense, it actually kind of made sense. And then even on that play too, the, the Chiefs did a really good job of sending all their pressure from the Niners like tight bunch formation. And when you do

that, it's really hard for the offense to pick it up because it's just a lot of traffic and it looks weird for the offensive line, all that stuff. So that was just a. bag specialty, no doubt. Really tough for the Niners losing Brandon Ayuk, not only for this game, but it does look like Yator is ACL. So now you're working with hopefully Debo comes back, but we know what IYook is within this defense just as a skill set. When teams are playing man and when teams are playing some single high, especially when McAfri ends up coming back and teams have to play them a certain way on early downs, having IYuk to win some of those one-on-one matchups on the outside, even if he wasn't playing his best this year. It's such an important ingredient for the

best version of this Niners team. And now you lose that. And I do think that it means probably leaning more on Joanne Jennings than you have in previous years. Based on the way that he'd played, you know, before missing this game, I think he's probably more up to the task than he's been in previous iterations of the Niners. But it's still a huge blow when you're thinking about the overall ceiling of this team in the NFC. Yeah, I mean, he's he's their coverage, Peter. And, like, Maybe there's a world where Ricky Pearsall, by the end of the season, you know, he starts to really come along. I think this was his first game back, which was obviously really cool to see with all that he had to go through. In fact, we had multiple wide receivers shot this off season.

Yes. Which is like, back and playing football is absurd. It's completely crazy. It is completely crazy. And then even I think why the Brandon Ayuk, like why him missing could be so huge. I mean, you just kind of have to look at this game. We said even before, and we said on the preview show, on third downs. teams are throwing a lot of man coverage at Brock Purdy in the 49ers.

And they probably should, especially with the way Ayuk had been playing, you know, not quite to his best. And then most of the other guys in this team aren't very good at beating a lot of man-to-man coverage. Purdy in this game, five of 14 for 80 yards and three picks versus man coverage, according to next gen sets. And obviously not all of that is third down, but like they were just, when those windows were tight and they were really making him make difficult throws, he was struggling to make them for the most part,

and the receivers were struggling to capitalize and give him some easier throws. Are we worried about the Niners even making the playoffs at this point? They're currently sitting at three and four. The Eagles are four and two. The lions and Vikings are five and one. The Packers are five and two. The Bears are four and two.

The Bucks are four and two. The Falcons are four and three. So they're like at least a game behind five or six different teams. Probably more than that in the NFL. right now. I still have faith that it's probably going to the bounce, though they'll probably get there by the end of the year. But the fact that we're in this spot seven weeks into the season feels pretty crazy to me. And I want to say that you have some easier division opponents that you could beat up on, but they've already lost the two of them. Like that is not a great place to be in.

And I think you mentioned too, like the NFC wildcard picture is so loaded. I mean, the NFC North alone might fill our wildcard slots, little low and obviously Tampa being a pretty good team. So And then the Eagles, like you mentioned, like this, I would still probably want to bet on Kyle Shanahan finding a way to get there by the end of the road. But it's going to be, it's going to have to be one of his toughest magic tricks. That's for sure. The fact that the only one gave back in the division is probably the saving grace, right? But, I mean, there's a chance they're like a 9, 10 win team of the NFC West. And that's how they get in. And I just don't think anybody envisioned that sort of timeline when we were thinking about what this team was capable of. It was like everything has gone wrong because I think coming into this season we said, you know,

maybe the defense would be 13th, instead of like the eighth best defense. And then there was a world where we were like, maybe a lot of injury stuff kind of catches up to the offense. And both of them have happened, which is, it's just kind of unlucky. Sometimes the things just don't go your way. Let's get to our next one here. The Green Bay Packers defense has a huge game and a big win over the Texans where they are three turnovers in the first half and still manage to pull this thing out.

the Packers and their pass rush, which has been dormant for most of the season. You guys have my attention after this one. That is a pretty mild way to say that they've been dormant for a lot of the season. They have not been great. But in this game, I was shocked at how well they played. And it's not just guys winning one-on-ones. And there were a handful of times where they did win some one-on-ones. Like Gary was really doing a good job getting to the quarterback.

It was the way that they were sending pressure and like manipulating all of Houston's pass-blocking rules. They just did an unbelievable job all game. Okay. So did you leave impressed with what the Packers were doing? Or did you leave disgusted with what the Texans were doing? Because part of me lands on the second one of those. I think it's probably more disgusted by what Houston has been doing. And this is a problem that we've had all season.

At the same time, you still have to throw out the right stuff to go beat to actually, you know, beat down on what has been a pretty shaky Houston offensive line and Houston pass blocking operation. So I would say maybe like 70-30, more disgusted with Houston and impressed with Green Bay. But for them to at least have a game like this, I think it was a good start. I want to run through some of the past protection moments in this game, just a couple of them. On the first third and four after the Jordan Love interception, Rishon Gary is kind of like roaming around on the second level. And no one blocks him. He just comes totally unblocked as he kind of is like stalking the line of scrimmage before the play happens.

So that happens. At one point, the next pressure that Gary had, I think it was a sack actually. Ted Tower just falls down. The right tackle just falls down and Roshan Gary gets a sack. One after that, McKinney comes totally unblocked for another sack. There's a third and nine later in the game where Tunsell just completely leaves Anagbari after a chip. And it looked like he thought the back was going to go that way because they were all sliding

to the right, but he just leaves Enigbore unblocked. there's a third and four at the start of the second half where the left guard in the center can't handle like a very simple stunt where it's the linebacker blitzing and Kenny Clark they can't pick that up there's a second and five with seven minutes left in the third quarter the right guard and right tackle can't pick up like a simple TE to that side and then there's another third and five where they're mugged up again they bring five and then Stroud lets it rip a little bit too quickly when he has John Metchie coming open down the left side that's I mean that's one of those plays where he's just feeling the pressure, even though he wasn't pressured on that play. But that's like six, seven moments where we're creating instant pressure or unblocked pressures in this game. And I think you give some of that credit to what the Packers were doing. But I left pretty horrified and pretty worried about this team's ability to hold up against stuff that is well done, but nothing that's overly exotic and unlike things that

we've, like, these are not things we haven't seen before. This isn't the craziest shit. It reminds me a little bit of that Texans Bears game from earlier in the year where, guys, like, this is stuff that we should be able to handle and consistently you're unable to do it. Yeah, and like, listen, that early in the season, okay, maybe we can have a little bit of your growing pains. But it's year two in the offense. And we're in week seven now. Like, we need to start figuring this out, especially against a pass rush that to this point

hasn't really been able to beat anybody. And like, of all of those examples you listed, I guess outside of Titus Howard just like falling, how many of those were just like a guy got beat? Almost none of them. Almost all of these are just mental errors. Like truly just do not know where to be in the past protection scheme. And that's so important to mention because that's where the Packers have been struggling this year. It's like if you look like pass rush win rate just one on ones and them winning one on ones,

they've been unable to do it. It's all like manufactured nonsense. And that's exactly what it was today. And that's why I think it speaks to just larger issues that we've been talking about all season with where this Houston offense is, is these are these. These are structural things. These are issues with how the offense is operating, how the offense is built. So in this game, Stroud was pressured on 48% of his dropbacks.

He finished three of nine for 40 yards when pressured. And I believe the Texans finished with a 38% rushing success rate in this game. So just all the things around the quarterback are somehow devolving more and more over the season as the season goes along. And I know that Nico Collins is hurt. But I don't think an injury to one wide receiver explains what's going on right now. Excuse me, it's a 36% rushing success rate for the Texans today. They were 10 of 28, 10 successful runs on 28 running back runs. They averaged 3.4 yards per play today.

That was the second worst mark of the weekend. The Saints average 4.1 yards per play on Thursday. That is actually shocking that the Saints were that high relatively. And what's funny about like the 10 for 28 where the Texans are, that's their rushing success rate, that's like a good day for them relative to what the rest of the season has been, which is like depressing. Like when you're still kind of at a below average clip, when you're having a relatively decent day rushing, it's just really hard to live that way.

And I thought kind of what stood out in this game. And the Texans hit a couple of like chunk runs and that was cool. But for the most part of the Packers, right, that was it. And for the most part of the Packers were able to, they were like, all right, on first downs. and on rundowns, we're going to play a lot of single high. We're going to load the box a little bit, and we're going to put you into these down and distances we want, and then we're going to go into our two high stuff. Then we're going to get into a little bit of our pressure stuff.

Like, it was really kind of a not even that insane of a game plan. I guess they just executed it very well on the Packers part. And I did think they played coverage very well. I thought the coverage players, the defensive blacks, played an incredible game back there. Like Evan Williams, both in coverage and defending the run, I thought had a really good day. So they just did a really, really good job in the defensive secondary. I was so impressed by some of the things that Matt LaFleu was doing in this game, too. You know, the offense, the turnover is what kills you in this game.

You know, you have multiple interceptions, you muff a punt. I mean, that's really what made this thing close. And I think that there were some things they kept hitting on over and over and over again, mostly because the Texans were playing with a lot of backups on defense and specifically backups in the middle of the defense. And if you look at one of the things they were going to over and over again is they would send quick motion, often to the left, and then they would have in-breaking routes coming behind it. So multiple different times in this game, they would send a fast motion to the left and hit Dobbs on a little like slant coming behind it.

But there was a drive in the third quarter where they were just doing it over and over and over again. They had Dobbs on a slant in a little fast motion. They had a 10-yard chunk to Jacobs after motioning from the backfield to a stack. That was like a beautiful play where they had a counter coming behind it. There was a 27-yarder to Jacobs. There was an orbit motion from Reed coming the other way. And then they had another like rip to Jacobs on a slant while motioning the other way. So clearly they saw something where they were like, if we send fast motion in one direction,

we can hit in-breakers back to it all day. And then that drive ends with that angle route to Jacobs. So their ability to consistently be like, okay, we know that we can pick away at the middle of the field over and over and over again, them realizing that in the second half, I think ultimately is what allowed their offense to do just enough to win this game. I think that's kind of how you have to beat a lot of these defenses like this, like Ryan's Robert Sala, like the 49ers type of defenses. You have to just manipulate their linebackers and get them to run as much side to side and get them to start thinking. And like you said, LeFleur, I think did about as good as job as he could. Romeo Dobbs in general, I was really impressed within this game.

Yeah, me too. Obviously a couple of the ones that you already mentioned, but like he just had some really. really high leverage catches in this game. Like he had a couple on the final drive, one where he beat Stingley on the right side, just on a slant, and that gets them to convert, I think, on like a third and seven. And then the last catch of the game, which it only gets them like five yards or whatever to get a little bit closer for field goal range, but like it's something. And he makes a high contested catch above the rim.

I mean, just for him, again, to have like some of the weird off the field stuff that it seemed like he was having a couple weeks ago, for him to have the game that he had last week and then to double down to it this week, it's like, it's part of why I want to buy in on this team. It's just like that type of that type of stuff. That skill set is helpful because even though he might not be as much of a separator as Wix is in like in a vacuum and he's not as explosive as Jaden Reed is, he might be their most reliable receiver in some of these areas and in some of these moments. And I do think that when this offense has felt a little bit more volatile earlier in the season, it's because they haven't had a guy like that. And for the last two weeks, it does feel like they've been able to lean on him.

You mentioned that five-yard completion that sets them up for the final field. That five-yard completion is possible in part because they have one final timeout. They have one last timeout they can use after they get those five yards. That brings me to the way that the Texans handled their last drive. And I think some people are probably going to,

so they, for those of you guys who didn't see it, they get their driving, there's like a minute, a little less than two minutes left in the game. They run the ball twice with a little, like after the two-minute warning. And the Texan, the Packers have, to burn two timeouts. And then it's third and 15, and on third and 15, they decide to throw the ball and allow the Packers to keep that final timeout. That to me isn't as much of a mistake as it is to

try to play for the field goal in that moment. The biggest mistake in that sequence of plays in my mind is running the ball on second and 12 and essentially forcing yourself into that third and long. You either have to try to score a touchdown there, or you have to say, I'm running the ball three times here, we're kicking a field goal, you're going into this with no timeouts. I don't really care about the second one. That's not that attractive to me because, again, the Packers really didn't need a timeout in that drive. They didn't use their final timeout until that five-yard completion.

I think some people would say, well, they're able to access the middle of the field if they have that time out. They were able to access the middle. There was two minutes left. They would have had a minute and 48 seconds either way. So I think the biggest mistake that D'Amico Ryan's and the Texans make in that moment is playing for the field goal when you're only going up by one and you're allowing the other team to go down and kick a field goal to win the game. Yeah, I thought the entire drive was baffling.

And then the third and 15 just doesn't make, like the throw that they choose to make doesn't make any sense to me. Where you're throwing on the sideline, like, if that's caught, what happens? You're five yards short and the clock still stops. Like, this doesn't help you. I just don't understand like what the point of that drive was. Yeah, it was rough. I mean, and again, to play that conservatively when all they need to do is drive down and kick a field goal with, even if you decided to run the ball on that drive with a minute and 45 seconds left.

A minute of 45 seconds is a long time to be able to drive down and kick a field goal. You can still throw the ball in the middle of the field in the same way that the Packers did. The last play that I want to talk about from this game is the touchdown to Tucker Kraft that Jordan loved through. I love, oh, dude, they're so good. I was frustrated because in real time, they did not show the end zone view. And I'm sitting there being like, I cannot wait to see what this looks like from his point of view. And then when they came back from break, they show it.

And the rope that he has to throw to get that ball over the hand of the safety that's coming over, Jordan Love would drive me insane if he was the quarterback of my team. Like he would just, my nerves would be so afraid. but as somebody who, one, doesn't really have to be emotionally invested in a positive way and probably should be rooting for his demise. I'm okay with him living on the edge like this because I have no investment in it either way. And that was the perfect example of it where I'm like, hey, if you want to just rip those things with reckless abandon all the time, I'm totally fine with that. That's the part of it that I love. The way that they are playing coverage, the Texans, they are daring him to make this throw.

because they, so the Packers come out in trips to the right side and then they have an isolated receiver to the left. They're just locking playing, I think, one-on-one coverage on the backside, whatever. To the trip side, they're playing more of like a cover two and they're sending like a five-man pressure. So they're not asking the middle of the field hook defender to run up with the three guy running up the seam, running up the post. They're going to ask the weak safety who's on the other side to come and overlap and cut it off. And he does that. And the safety doesn't really live. He like makes a good drive on the ball. And Jordan Love just puts enough on it that he gets there anyway. And it's like, what do you do when you dare the quarterback to make the throw? And then he's like, all right, bet. And then he makes the throw. Like, what do you do? Like it's just, that's what makes love compelling is he just he will make those throws. And then the touchdown to Wix, I thought was just a beautiful design. It's actually covered too. And the reason that the corner, the safety can't get over to it is they have a vertical route in the seam holding that safety. And he's just willing to rip that. It's not really a whole shot because the safety's not over there. But it's still a high degree of difficulty.

throw that not a lot of guys will consistently be willing to try to make. So his ability to kind of show off that arm talent in high leverage moments, it really does consistently give this offense a very high ceiling, even if it has led to some volatility. And they had to overcome it a little bit today with some of the choices that he made. All right, we're going to be back with one more quick thing that had our attention. But first, we're going to take a quick break. Last one here for you have my attention. The Seattle Seahawks get back on track with a monster win in Atlanta. This is important on a couple different levels.

This is a game that could end up becoming really important. We're talking about like NFC wild card tiebreakers when we get down to the end of the year. But seeing the Seahawks who have had some ups and downs over the last few weeks, and their offense was horrendous against the Giants. They've really struggled in past protection. Their run defense has been brutal in stretches. Going to Atlanta playing a pretty good Atlanta offense when it comes to success rate efficiency, what they've done over the last few weeks.

The Seahawks after a game like this, you guys comfortably have my attention. I want to start off by saying, sometimes it frustrates me that this offense feels like Gino Smith has to have a perfect day for them to really get rocking and rolling and really put up points at the same time. How fun is it to watch Gino Smith have a perfect day? He was unbelievable in this game, especially that two-minute drive that he had. He makes, obviously the touchdown throw he makes at the end to DK, we'll talk about it in a second, but he makes two throws before that that are, like, huge for getting them down the field. So they are, I think on the first play of the drive, Tyler Lockett is from the right side running like a little dig route, but he knows that he has to

stop his route because the safety is driving from the other side. Gino puts it on that opposite shoulder away from the safety. Perfect. Great ball. Great location knows exactly where it needs to be. A couple plays later, or maybe the next play, he throws a deep stop route again on the left hash to Tyler Lockett gets them there and they're moving the ball again. And then it's like four plays later. He throws that unbelievable scene ball to D.K. Metcalf for a touchdown. And it's like it's just the smarts, the bravery, the arm talent to make some of those throws. He's so sick, dude.

There was a minute and five seconds left when that drive started. They had the ball on their own 32 yard line with one timeout. And they go down and score a touchdown because he hits those first couple that you're talking about. And that throw that he hits to DK. it looks like there's a lot of space to make that throw when you look at it like on dots or the all 22 whatever the audacity to throw that ball 40 yards on a line in that moment where there's like five seconds left in the half is absolutely ridiculous and he's willing to do that and that that is truly it comes down to it one of my favorite parts of watching him is that he is always going to try to make those

throw, sometimes to his own detriment, but he is always going to try to make those throws. And when it works, it is some of the prettiest shit that you will see. And that, that is one of those throws when you go back and watch the whole season. That's one of them that will absolutely stick with you. Yes, that's going to be on our, if I make a montage, that's five minutes long of my favorite throws at the end of this season, that one has absolutely has to be in there. I mean, again, it's just the audacity to make those throws. I think especially in the league right now the way that it is played and the way the ball is played, you have to make those throws. And Gino, man, doesn't shy away from them.

I'm sure he'll be comfortable with me saying this, but David Hellman texted me after that throw. And he's like, those are the moments where I understand why you can't quit Gino. And I said, we live in a league full of cowards. We need heroes. Yes, yes. I don't want to see, like, I don't want to see any of these guys who are checking down and just trying to get into a field goal range.

I need Gino Smith throwing a seam into four different people and making that touchdown. One of my, the other elements of like his play today that I just thought was so impressive. And I'm sure some people are going to look at like, oh, he went 18 of 28 for 207 yards. Like, what are you guys talking about? It's, trust me. He was pressured on 50% of his dropbacks in this game. And some of the pocket movement and maneuvering against pressure was absolutely insane. He had one that he found Fan on like a chunk gain.

It was third and seven with 1127 left in the second quarter. He steps up in the pocket, kind of comes back across his body to Fan for like a 20-ish-yard. gain on the next play is the Kenneth Walker 20-yard touchdown. Like, that's only possible because he makes that play and it has the extension. And then there was a scramble with like third and eight with like five, 35-35 left in the third quarter, sets up a fourth and one. They get the fourth and one. And that drive is finished off with Kenneth Walker on the wheel route for a touchdown.

He was seven of 13 for 123 and two touchdowns when pressured in this game. He was unbelievable. He only got second. once and he was under pressure for like over 40% of his dropbacks like you're saying. Wow. That is like that is insane. And especially against, it's not like this falcons pass rush is good. Like this is not a good.

Yes. I mean, that's been true for like my entire time covering this sport, unfortunately. But it's no different this year. And yeah, like Seattle's offensive line was not doing him any favors and he was still making a ton of throws under pressure. And just it's his, it's his confidence in knowing like when he needs to. to move where he needs to move what his outlets are. It's kind of like we just talked about with Jared Goff a little bit earlier at the top of the show, except Gino Smith has a little bit more

like juice to him in the way that he moves and the way that he can throw outside the pocket. It's just he's incredible, man. I want to add to on the one where he finds Fant, Zach Sharbonne, makes a great block to free up Gino to let him go get that playoff. That was great team effort on that one. You mentioned that Kenneth Walker will rule without touchdown. Kenneth Walker is a player. Kenneth Walker is capable of some absolutely ridiculous stuff. The best play he made in this entire game didn't count. It was a hold on what should have been the first touchdown of the game where he cuts it all the way back across to the right side.

And I really wanted to tweet it out. For whatever reason, my stupid Twitter does not let me tweet out videos right now. You can hear Mike Hughes's ankles melting because of what Kenneth Walker did to him in the open field. And the fact that that play did not count is an absolute travesty. But we still got two Kenneth Walker touchdowns in this game because of what that guy is capable of right now. And so you look at this offense, and I know D.K. got hurt today, but, you know, D.K. is still capable of a lot of explosive plays. You know, you have Gino playing the way that he's playing, and you have Walker, who's a walking, talking explosive player running back right now.

They're going to have issues in pass protection. That is going to consistently be a problem. But this is why it's hard for me to quit the offense overall, because there are a lot. are still enough component parts that against even decent teams, they're capable of days like this because of what those guys can do from an explosive's perspective. Yeah. And again, it's frustrating that sometimes Gino Smith does have to be perfect for it to be this way, but he's closer to that level of play than most days than he isn't.

And so I think if they can have days like this, it's a very fun offense to watch. On defense in this game, down to down, the Falcons actually moved the ball pretty consistently. And even in the second half, the run game numbers don't look good, but they were often running with like, they needed two yards. So the yards per carry don't look good. The success rate was still great. The success rate is very good. They were consistently moving the ball in this game. And I think down to down, it's still going to be a little bit of a slog for the Seahawks, even when they're healthy. They have some issues in coverage. They have some issues on the second level of the defense. But this front, I do think is good enough to create three, four swing plays over the course of a game. and help them create some explosives defensively.

They obviously had the fumble return touchdown today. That's created because Derek Call just absolutely collapses the pocket. What a game from him, by the way. He did that multiple times today where he's just caving in the right side of the offensive wine. And you have that with the way that Maffa is playing and you sprinkle in like a little bit of Murphy, a little bit of Leonard Williams, a little bit of Draymond Jones. The front is enough to make this defense at least. somewhat dangerous in moments, even if they're not going to be great down to down.

And I thought today was another really good example of that. This was a game where it actually looked like the discount version of the Ravens, where it's like because of what we're doing structurally and playing a lot of too high, yes, we're going to give up success rate. We're going to give up a lot of runs. We're going to let them run on us, blah, blah, blah. But it won wasn't nearly as bad as it has been the past two or three weeks, which is important to note. And then, too, they were actually able to get some of the, like,

explosives that they are looking for and hunting for up front with some of their past game stuff. I mean, we mentioned Derek Hall. Dude, I swear every drive, he was just absolutely caving somebody and that guy plays with real power. Dude, he has been really impressive this year in general, but this was the first game where I was like, oh, you're like, you can be that kind of player. And if he can continue to do that, obviously, over the course of the season, and then you get obviously Murphy a little bit healthier. Like, there is something to this. front. It's just that we haven't seen them healthy together for most of the season. And so to actually see them get to play a pretty healthy game this week, it was really fun to watch. It was cool.

Yeah, I totally agree. And they got some lucky breaks in this game. Drake London drops a ball that ends up being intercepted. But if the offense is going to play the way that the offense play today or have the moments that the offense is capable of, and you're going to be able to have a pass rush that's going to give you three or four monster plays a game. That's what the formula, the right formula, the right, the right formula feels like for the Seahawks. All right, that's the stuff we like today. Let's get to the stuff we didn't. It's time for what the fuck. What the fuck? The Panthers lost 40 to 7 today to the Washington football team.

Jaden Daniels didn't play for most of this game. If I told you that the Panthers lost 40 to 7 to Washington, you would assume that Jaden Daniels went for like 3.30 and 5 total touchdowns. No. Marcus Marioita played in this entire game, and he was unstoppable. He averaged 0.53 EPA per dropback. He finished 18 of 23 for 205 and two touchdowns. The fact that they got absolutely run over without, to this point, one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL from a production standpoint, playing for 95% of the game, it's been a couple of years full of rock bottomish moments for the Panthers.

But this is probably in the conversation for as bad as it has felt on the defensive side of the ball. You know, we had some terrible, terrible offensive output performances with Bryce Young. but as a team overall team performance, this is in the pantheon of recent Panthers losses, and I think that sang a lot. It definitely is. And it's funny you mentioned the, you know, if you saw 40 to 7, you would just instantly assume that Jane Daniels had a great day, right? At the very beginning of this game, when it was 7 to 0, because I didn't have this one

on one of my screens, obviously, because I didn't expect it to be a very good game. But I see 7-0 on the scoreboard, I'm like, oh, Washington must have had the ball first, and Jane Daniels did something crazy. scored. That is not what happened. The Panthers had the ball first and they start driving, which is the unfortunate part. And then Andy Dalton throws a pick six on a screen pass to Dante Fowler picks it off. And it's just like, you can't start the game like that when you're already going to be out of this game probably. And then you might have had a chance like in theory, oh, the backup quarterback ends up playing. We can maybe stay in this game. And then just none of that

fell into place for them. And this game was over basically by halftime. It is terrible string of events for the Panthers. The state of the Panthers defense is horrendous. I mean, this was a defense that lacked talent coming into the season. Now you don't have Derek Brown. You don't have Gedevian Clowny. I want to list off some names that played a lot of snaps for the Panthers defense today. Mike Jackson is their other corner. He had a nightmare day. Like truly a nightmare day. It seemed like every single completion, he was just flailing in the background being very upset at himself. I can't imagine how he's feeling right now after the game he had today. Chandler Wooten played most of their snaps at linebacker. Charles Harris is getting huge snaps for

this game. Somebody named Nick Thurman, LeBriyan Ray, Chow Smith, Wade. That's what's going on with the Panthers right now. And I'm sure there's some people that are going to say, oh, do you really expect anything different from this version of the Panthers? This game today was a reminder to me of just how far this team still has to go. go. There are so many things that this group needs to figure out over the next couple years. And I don't know if Dave Canellison, that group is the right leadership team to make that happen. Again, I don't think that, like, I think they deserve to see this season out and probably even beyond that. We knew what the Panthers were coming into the year. But this is a pretty stark reminder of where this organization

sits right now. And I can't imagine it feels very good if you're a Panthers fan thinking about what the road ahead and the road forward looks like. That's kind of the depressing part is we came into the season with no blue chip players for them. Our closest was Derek Brown. Like you mentioned, he is not playing. Their second closest probably is Judevian Clowny. He is not playing. It's just kind of a, it's just a really difficult spot for them. And like you almost felt as soon as Andy Dalton through that pick six, even it just instantly felt like game over. And like it just, even for, even for, as bad as some teams are, a game should never instantly feel over like four minutes into the game.

But that is kind of the state of where this Carolina Panthers team is. Especially when the backup quarterback is in the game. And especially when like this Washington defense is beatable. They're very beatable. They've given a bad unit. Yes. This is a team where you should be able to play 38 to 35 games. Like any team in the league should be able to play a 38 to 35 game against this Washington team, just the way that both of their sides operate. And this is like the this is the one team. that was not really able to get that done. I felt horrible because my brother was asking me today, should I play the Washington defense against Carolinas' offense?

And I was like, no, don't play a bad defense, even if they're playing against the bad team. And then, of course, they absolutely destroy them. And they have a pick six within the first, like, two minutes of the game. And he's texting me and be like, you're an asshole. Thanks for the advice. So that's another reason why I'm just mad at the Panthers right now. All right, let's keep going with teams that are frustrating us.

Cincinnati Bengals, okay? The entire discourse around the Cincinnati Bengals, And I know they won today, but the entire discourse around the Cincinnati Bengals over the last couple weeks is. All right. Rough start to the season. But look at their schedule. As soon as they start playing some of these bad teams, they'll be able to stack up a bunch of wins. They'll get back on track.

Maybe they'll be in the wildcard picture in the AFC. And then I wake up halfway through the third quarter in this game. And they haven't scored a point on offense. They returned the kickoff for a touchdown. And that's all they did in terms of point production. in this game. Bengals, what the fuck? Like, I've spent the last two weeks talking about how you're going to get things back on track and we should believe in you because of the state of the offense. And then the offense doesn't score for the first two and a half quarters of this thing.

And the problem is just to me how it consistently looks. Like this is, again, supposed to be a year where I thought things were going to be different and I thought the operation of the offense was going to be different. I thought they were going to try new things. They're really not. They're still one of the most shotgun heavy teams in the lead. They're still just throwing a bunch of isolations. routes outside the numbers. The run game, I think, has even regressed. I think they're worse than they have been, like even when they were kind of starting to wade into the, you know, we're going to be more of an efficient offense type of thing. I think they're worse than that. This, its team is just frustrating. And like you said, they didn't score an offensive point until midway

through the third quarter. And then the way they did it is they just threw a back shoulder ball to Jamar Chase. And it's like, okay, that will work if you try it enough times. That's, that's for sure. That's going to happen. But that can't be your only pitch, especially, if somehow they do make it to December, like late December, and they're in the playoff hunt and they maybe get to the wild card, that's just not going to cut it against some of these other AFC teams. Like, it's not going to be enough. And that is the part of it that continues to frustrate me.

I think the biggest issue when I was going back and watching this today, because I didn't want to watch a ton of this game live because of the fact, we had the really, really good games in the early slate. And so that was part of the frustration. I can't believe I have to go back and actually pay attention to this. This is part of the reason I'm frustrated with the Bengals. it does seem like the Browns threw a pretty big curveball at them schematically in this game that they just were not ready for. If you look at the way the Cleveland played the Bengals last year, they played a ton of man coverage and just single high coverage in general.

It was 72.7% of Burroughs dropbacks in week one last year. They played single high coverage. They zeroed the shit out of Browning in week 18. Like I almost don't even consider that, like actually like a data point and what they would do against. Joe Burroughs because they wouldn't do that. So they essentially did what they did to everybody when they played against the Bengals in week one last year. So in this game, they really went against type, and I do not think the Bengals were ready

for it. The Browns played 18% man coverage today against Cincinnati, which is not what this Brown's team is. So I think a lot of the man beaters and a lot of the things they had coming into this game just weren't applicable. So there was that first third and four, right? They're mugged up, and they drop up. and they drop out of it and Burrow just eats it.

And that was happening consistently throughout the game. And you would hope that over the course of three, four quarters, you can adjust to what teams are doing against you. But it felt like they were chasing the entire day just because they didn't expect the Browns to play this way. No, you're right. And I think especially early in the game, they did a really good job of like on those clear passing downs,

doing some of that mugged up stuff popping out, playing a little bit more zone coverage than usual. That third and four you mentioned is a perfect one because like they're running like, a little slant route from one of the inside receivers and then like kind of a little spot route, snag route behind it. And it was a bunch to the right side. They clearly think they're getting man. Exactly. And like it just doesn't distribute that way. And they start to pop out into the that from those mug looks and Joe Burrow just doesn't feel comfortable throwing any of those routes. And they were both pretty contested. So it would have been hard. But he just didn't want to throw that. Because again,

like you said, that's probably not the look that he thought he was getting from this defense. Another thing that like frustrated me in an annoying sequence from this offense was there was like 11 minutes left in the second quarter. On a second and eight, they just throw an isolated core route to T. Higgins. It's incomplete. They go back to third and eight and they just throw a go ball to Andrei Yoshavos. And it's like, that's what I'm talking about. That was one of the plays where I was just like, this game. Yes. That was my exact feeling was like we can't just throw two outside the numbers like isolated routes. And again, I know like if you spam it enough, Higgins will win those at a certain point. But those just can't be your back-to-back plays as your answers.

I just, it's frustrating. Yeah. And the fact that he was, it was, Denzel Ward was in coverage on that play. So you're taking a one-on-one shot to Andre Yoshavos against Denzo Ward. And that's kind of what I mean. It just felt like they were chasing throughout the entire day. I will say the Browns were healthier in this game than they had been on defense for most of the year. And you could feel that, right?

So you have all three corners healthy. They get Grant Delpit back in this game. So you could feel the fact that that's secondary. which at its best was a really terrifying unit last year, was closer to full strength and I think able to give them a little bit more trouble. But I still felt like, and I still expected a better performance from the Bengals offense, based on what we had seen from them throughout the year.

They were just pushing the ball outside the numbers down the field so often in this game. And it's like, guys, can we just get some in-breakers? And I understand you don't have a ton of that stuff in the game plan potentially because you're not trying to high-low a Brown's defense that's playing single high-coverage against you 70% of the time. but the fact that they were unable to pivot for most of this game was a little bit frustrating. Eventually get the win. Eventually, that's hopefully all that matters as they tried to get back in this.

But it was a disappointing outing from a team that I was really expecting to turn it around in full force. The other side of this game that we obviously have to talk about is Deshaun Watson tears his Achilles. It's essentially been confirmed. I mean, every single bit of the reaction to this, I think, speaks to where we're. at with this entire thing. The fact that your fans cheering, the guys in the locker room talking about the reaction to it. And now, you know, you have DTR as the backup, even though they signed James in the offseason. Like, all of this is bizarre. And now, at least we'll get to see this Brown's offense with a different quarterback, which a lot of people have been clamoring for for most

of this season. But it's just the latest kind of chapter in this whole thing. I don't know when he's going to be back next year. There's going to be a ton of conversation about the insurance on his contract, but no matter what, like, this has just been an absolute nightmare on every single level. And this is just the latest turn in that. Yeah, this doesn't make me feel any different about the Browns as a team. Like, he was already one of the worst quarterbacks in league right now. And I think going to either James Winston or DTR, it's probably not going to change that like one way or the other. It's more, I'm just confused, kind of like you mentioned, which guys is it going to be? Because James was the quarterback, too, for the entire season. And then

for whatever reason this week, they decided to activate DTR and make Winston like the emergency quarterback. Just the very, like, I don't know what the thinking is there, what the, what their process is. Everything about it is bizarre. Everything about it has been bizarre the entire time. And now it's just, you know, one more layer that we're going to have to dig through in terms of figuring out what this team is and what they're going to do moving forward. But, well, I'm sure we'll talk about that plenty more over the next couple weeks as, you know, we get more news on that. And we have more analysis and people diving into what this is going to mean for the contract, etc. All right, we're going to be back with a few small moments that we wanted to talk about today,

and did you see that? But first, let's take a quick break. Did you see that? Did you see that? We'd do this each week, just a couple things that we wanted to hit very quickly before the end of the show, just little moments, little plays. You see Sequin Barclay at 176 rushing errants against his former team that just didn't appear to want him and went in different directions, different direction of running back

this offseason? I think the funniest part about this, I swear, every Eagles game for the first quarter, they don't do anything. All their passing plays are sacks or they're doing what the Bengals did where they throw outside the numbers. And then all of a sudden, Sequin Barkley pops one. And it's like, hey, we can play football now. We know how to call an offense.

This is crazy. All the plays work. And it's just the fact that like Sequin so consistently gives them life. And then for him to do it in this game where he pops three or four huge runs, again, against the team that didn't want to pay him. And then is also struggling really to run the ball for most of this year, except for that Seattle game where they, you know, we're playing against a bunch of backups.

Pretty cool moment for Sequin Barkley. Yeah, the Eagles in this game, he rushes for 176. The Eagles as a team rush for about 270, and they finished with 70 passing yards because of all the sacks. They played a military academy game. It says a lot about the current state of this Eagles offense. Yeah, they're kind of a military academy right now the way that they're playing. And hey, I think Army and Navy are two of the best teams in the country right now.

So maybe they're on to something. they know. Yeah, so Jayonne Hertz finished with 110 passing yards before the sacks, and 40 of them came on that go-ball touchdown to AJ Brown. That's what we're talking about with, like, the current state of the Eagles offense. It's probably a good thing that they went out inside to take one bark with this offseason. Yes, they needed it. He's their juice. This game today, both sides of the ball, just such a glaring reminder that we're missing very good left tackles. Like the past protection as a whole, it's like, man, not having Andrew Thomas and Jordan Milana in this game, you consistently saw it. Like the first, Dano

was six times or seven times, the first two, both over the left tackle. And so now you have a giant's offense that wasn't a disaster, but certainly wasn't thriving. You remove their best player or second best player, depending on how you currently feel about Malik neighbors. And this is the final product. And eventually Daniel Jones gets benched in this game. Drew Locke comes in. After the game, they say, oh, no, Daniel's our guy moving forward. But then when he was asked about it, Daniel Jones's response is, yeah, it's Brian Dable's team. He can do whatever he wants. So we're back in a place where the vibes and just the general outlook for the Giants offense feel a little bit concerning. Listen, that sounds like a guy who doesn't really care too much if he gets the starting job back.

And when you take a game like that where you're getting beat up behind the offensive line that way, I understand. I would like to take a couple of weeks off from getting beat up that way. That would be cool. Let's get to our next one here. You see Amari Cooper had some pretty nice moments in this game. considering he ran 12 routes and got five targets. Five targets on 12 routes is a pretty good percentage. I feel like he's probably going to get fed a decent amount when he's actually playing at a full

clip. That's a good way to make a new guy feel welcome, right? Like just spam it whenever he's on the field, hey buddy, we're throwing the ball to you. We're at least deciding a play that's going to put you into the progression pretty early. And so I thought they did a really good job with that. It was funny too because his first target is like a contested drop. And it's like, in a way, it's like, oh, that's the Amari Cooper experience sometimes. But then you get the other end of the Amar Cooper experience where he just like takes over the game for all the other times that he gets targeted.

They're making that trade. You saw it almost immediately why that was necessary. He creates separation on like three or four of his catches in this game. He has like a back shoulder ball down the left sideline. That's a contested catch. But there was one play. It was like a little underneath completion. That it was the moment.

I was like, yes. Like this is exactly what they need where he's just driving vertically, create separation on a little slant. and Josh Allen was able to hit him for just a moderate, modest game. And I'm like, all right, this is it. And obviously the touchdown is the biggest moment in the game. But that actually was the one. I was like, this is the skill set that was missing within their offense. This is what they did not have without him on the field.

So you hope that when he is at a full workload and you can actually drop him in, we will see the impact and we will see just the influence that they were truly missing without a guy like this in the equation. that's the thing. This was a great first start. I want to revisit by like Thanksgiving. That's when I really want to see what this starts to look like because that's when I think this is going to be really fun. It's the next one here. Did you see the Jags at a 53% offensive rate against the Patriots today? And you could see this two different ways. You could see this as, oh, the Jags are, you know, finding themselves a little bit offensively. They managed to save Doug Peterson's job, which I do think they did today. But you could also spin this as what is going on with the Patriots defense? They were 27th in defensive DVOA coming into this game, and then they got run over down in and down out by the Jags in what became a blowout. And we'll talk about Drake May in a second, but I think the hope for this team and this Patriots team in general was we would have, if not similar defensive results, then something in the same ballpark as what we had in the Belichick era because you were carrying over so much of the defensive staff. And the fact that the offense was unwatchable for the first five games of the year before Drake May got in there.

And now the defense is just absolutely getting destroyed by teams that were hapless for most of this year before they played the Patriots. It's a little bit worrying about what we're going to be able to rely on with this regime moving forward. It's a little bit concerning because there was probably some degree of like, even if they had all their guys back. And obviously a lot of the staff is retained on the coaching side. There were probably going to be some growing pains, right? Like obviously you lose a guy like Belichick, he's the best to ever do it. There was going to be probably some degree of growing pains. I think, however, you're feeling those growing pains on top of they're missing three of

what were their four best players last year. Christian Barmore, Matt Judon. Obviously Matt Judon, they like opt into not having him on the team. So that's a separate discussion. But then Joanne Bentley has like missed a lot of the season. Like they are missing a lot of their good players, pretty much their best guy is Christian Gonzalez. And he's like nice, but I don't think he's a true number one lockdown corner right now where you're like, oh my God, you know, this is like, you know, sauce gardener, Derek Stanley, Pat Sertan. He's not like in that territory yet. And so I think you're just feeling it. And like a lot of their other guys up front were role players. It was like Anthony Jennings and like Jalani Tavai. And like they were cool when they were your fourth best guy up front. When they're fighting for to be your best guy, the whole ecosystem of how the front works doesn't really fall into place anymore.

Yeah, I mean, that's, you're right. I mean, the fact that they're missing so many of those key pieces, there's reason to give them grace. But at the same time, I wanted them to field like a average or slightly above average NFL defense. Just be the type of team where it's just like, we're going to be able to rely on this moving forward. Like, this can be a defense first team. And as long as they figure out the offense with May, that can be the formula for what the Gerard Mayo era feels like. And right now, I think the thing that worries me is I'm just not sure what. what we're going to be able to hang our hats on with this regime.

If the defense is going to look like this and you have so many questions about the offensive personnel and what they're going to need to put around the quarterback, that would be my thing. We get to the end of the year and we're like, what does this team do well and what can we expect them to do well moving forward? Because the answer right now is nothing. And the injuries and their personnel decisions are some of that. But I think it goes beyond that at least a little bit.

I think it does. I think they're definitely playing with like, this is hard to fully like encapsulate or hard to fully describe, but it just felt like always with Belichick, and this is why he's the greatest, it just felt like they usually knew what type of call the offense wanted to be in and everybody knew their job. That just doesn't, like there's not quite as much of a connection in that sense. It feels like this year. And again, first year head coach, I know that that's really hard to do, but it definitely

feels like that's part of where the drop off is right now. I will say, Drake May looks like a real NFL quarterback. Even in this awful, awful situation, decent day today again against what is the worst defense in the NFL. But when you're surrounded by the help that he's surrounded by and you have even a decent day against any NFL defense, that's something that you can hang your hat on as a rookie quarterback. There was a three-play stretch for him in the fourth quarter where he had that rip to Hunter

Henry for like 32 yards. And then he had the shot to Keishan Boudet. And then my favorite play in this entire run of plays is he was pressured on one play. He was retreating in the pocket. And he just flipped it to Michael Hasty's feet instead of getting sacked. And I'm like, okay. So in a three play stretch, we have creation. We have a shot down the left sideline.

And we have situational awareness for you not making a bad play worse. I can work with this. Like I can very much work with all of the things that you're bringing to the table here. I'm so glad you mentioned that last play where he just like situational, let's kill it. Because one of my, for as much as I loved Drake May and thought he was an incredible player, I thought we were going to get something a little bit closer to the Jordan Love experience with him as a young player where it's like, all right, he's just doing some, making some wild decisions. And I don't know if you should be doing that. That's really not the player that we've gotten.

Like you mentioned that play in this game. Even the week before last week against Houston, he did have another screen where it's like he immediately recognized it's dead, throwed at the dude's feet. We're just going to move on. We're not going to do with this. there was another time where they had like a corner route and he knows that it's covered it's third and seven he doesn't want to get pressure doesn't want to get sacks just throws that out of bounds and like it looks like an incomplete like it looks like a bad pass but he's just throwing it out of bounds whatever i want to move on and then in this game i think you saw again his pocket movement and his confidence in understanding when and where he needs to move about the pocket, it actually is a lot like watching Gino Smith. And for him to have that already as a rookie, he's just, it just feels like he gets it.

And I didn't think that that's quite where we would be early on with Drake May. I thought it would be a little bit more flashy and the substance would come in like waves. It feels like he, for the most part, is pretty up to snuff for a rookie. And it's super impressive. Yeah, that's, again, I think part of my frustration of like where this organization sits right now is that you have this guy who is worth getting excited about. And I just hope that over the next year or so, they're able to use some of those resources to build a functional group of players around him. You know, I mean, obviously like you have some, and today was like the worst case scenario. Pop Douglas who had a great game last week is sick.

So he misses a chunk of this game. Jalen Polk has another nightmare outing where he has a drop. he falls the leads to an interception. And so the fact that you have no past catchers, your most explosive one arguably doesn't play. And the guy that you drafted in the second round has just really had a rough go of it so far. And your offensive line that was bad to begin with is now in tatters. Like every rough element of this offense coming into the season has gotten progressively

worse by the time that we've gotten here. And the fact that he still looks okay feels like a minor miracle, but also, feels like if you're a Patriots fan, something that you can just be like, all right, at least we have this. Like, at least we have Drake May moving forward and maybe that will be enough. And it also feels familiar. This is why I thought maybe he could be okay. This is what it was in North Carolina, baby. Offensive line and tatters don't know how to pick anybody up. Receivers not making contested catches. And he was still going out there and making a lot of these games close. So again, he's still losing a lot of games because the rest of the team around him is not great, which is again how it was

North Carolina, but he looks like they hit on this pick. All right. Let's round this out. The same way we do on all these Sunday recap shows. Let's talk about what we learned today. I think I've learned something today. We're going to let you kick this off. What was your lesson that you're taken away from week seven in the NFL?

You know, we talked about what Jared Goff and the lions were able to do against the blitz and all that stuff. And we talked about what the Houston Texans were not able to do in terms of picking up protection and stuff like that. I think right now with. just some of the blitzes that teams are throwing in and how funky they're getting with some of their looks up front, all this double mug stuff, all this weird, like who's dropping where, who's coming. It's never really been more important to have very good and very sound, either

offensive line coaching and pass protection stuff, or just really good and sound blitz answers for your quarterback that they believe in and they trust and they can go make those throws. Obviously, with the lions and stuff, it's kind of both. And then with the Texans, it's like, kind of neither. Like, they were not picking stuff up very well. And also they were asking C.J. Stroud to make throws down the field. So it's like, I think those two games, if you go, if you guys go back and watch those, it's like the perfect example of what I'm talking about, the dichotomy of who's good in that spot and who's bad in that spot and why their offenses look like that. I think that's exactly right. I mean, the fact that the Texans were doing all that damage today when they weren't blitzing. I think speak, excuse me, the Packers were doing all that damage today when they weren't blitzing. I think speaks to how bad that plan looks for the Texans right now. It doesn't matter if you have a quarterback who looks like a phenom. If you can disrupt the game, and absolutely ruin an offense when you're only bringing four with some fairly simple and

familiar, like, stunts and pressure looks, then it's a non-starter for your offense. And you combine that with their inability to run the ball. And I'm sure we'll talk about this a lot more as the season goes on because they're going to make the playoffs. They're good enough to get there. Their defense is really good. But the Texans offense has been in the conversation as like the most frustrating unit in the NFL so far.

Oh, I think there's no doubt about it. We thought they could be a top five unit. And I don't feel bad about thinking that coming into the year. But then, yeah, this is kind of where we've arrived seven weeks in. I'll stick with some contenders and where they sit with mine. You watch what the Niners are right now. And the fact that we're talking about them squeaking by in the NFC West. And then you look at other teams in the NFC that really do feel like they're more formidable at this point,

like what the Lions look like, what the Vikings have played like this year, you know, what the Packers offense feels like right now. even if it's a little bit uneven and even there's some volatility to what George Love is bringing to the table. But we just assume that the Niners would be the best team in the NFC for however many years, right? And I'm not saying their window was closed by any stretch, but I think the lesson that I learned today is cherish those stretches where you know that you are the best team in the division, one of the best teams in the conference, because it can go away at any point, right? And I think during the broadcast today of the Niners Chiefs game, I can't remember who it was.

think it was Kevin Burkhar talking about talking to Kyle Shanahan this week. And they're like, do you want some payback? You know, for what it was in the Super Bowl. He's like, payback. They won the Super Bowl. Like it's week seven. What are you talking about payback? And so the fact that the Niners have let those moments slip away and you just assume that with Kyle Shanahan, with Brock Purdy making a million dollars, with Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, all of those superstars that they have, they'll just be a fixture in these conversations for however many years. Well, now Ayyuk is gone. your defense, we've seen the erosion of talent and we felt the erosion of talent on that side of the ball, especially up front. I'm sure they'll still be a contending-like team in the NFC, but this is not the same 49ers that we've known over the last few years.

And this game today and just what their season has felt like overall as you feel the rise of some of these other teams in the NFC, it's just a reminder that these windows are way more fragile than you want them to be, and they are going to disappear quicker than you want them to. The Bengals are another one of those teams. I mean, just think about where we were with Cincinnati when they kind of backdoored their way into that Super Bowl. And we're like, man, like this, your quarterback in year two, these young pass catchers, these young receivers, like this team is going to be around forever. And then the defense starts to fall apart a little bit. You're putting even more on the quarterback in those receivers.

T. Higgins is on the franchise tag. We'll see if he's even back next year. What these teams are and what we know them to be. changes so much quicker than I think we like to admit, and it changes for reasons that you can never foresee. And so the complexion of what the NFL feels like in any given moment is not reliable. And what the Niners have been like the season and what they felt like the season and what they felt like today, I think is a pretty stark reminder of that. Absolutely. I mean, the Niners are definitely the biggest example of it, but you can kind of take it to the entire

NFC as a whole. I mean, look at the top of the conference two years ago. It was obviously the 49ers. And it was the Eagles and the Cowboys. Neither of those teams are really what feel like in a contending window right now either. Right now it's like the entire NFC North is the best team. And at that point, the Lions were on the up and up, but they weren't actually like in the window yet. They didn't feel like they were that team. And so it just feels like things kind of like you said have just flipped so quickly and it can happen so quickly. Even if, you know, we always say the quarterback is the answer.

Those teams all have the same quarterbacks that they had. And a lot of the other same star players, just that a couple other things can fall away. And very quickly, if you don't piece it back together correctly, things can just kind of slip out of your hands pretty quickly. And kind of tying our points together. It's like, we just assumed, oh, man, the Texans have C.J. Stroud's making absolutely nothing. This is their chance. And they still have many more years to do this with C.J. Stroud while he's cheap. But we thought this would be the first year where that title window was just wide open. And that Texans offense does not feel like the unit that we thought we were going to see this season. So how fragile these things are and how quickly they can change. it's something to keep in mind as we think about the shelf life for these sorts of teams and what they're going to look like. That is all we've got for today. I was going to say we will be back with our midweek show later in the week. I will not be back.

I have a doctor's thing later this week. I am fine. The only reason I'm even saying that is because it hurts me to miss a show. And it's a very real reason for why I am missing it. But Mike Sando and you, Derek, will be holding it down on our midweek show. I sincerely appreciate that. I will be back for our week eight preview later on Friday. Until then, sincerely appreciate you guys listening.

We'll talk to you very soon.