The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 7: Steelers-Titans AFC showdown, Bears’ run defense and questions surrounding Zimmer and McCarthy

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

There is plenty to unpack with Week 7’s slate, The Athletic’s Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones look ahead to an exciting weekend of action.They break down Ryan Tannehill’s success this season as they preview the AFC battle between the undefeated Titans and undefeated Steelers.Plus, how will the Bears defend against the Rams’ run game? Where do the Vikings and Cowboys go from here? They discuss the matchups they’re watching as well as the concerns surrounding Mike Zimmer and Mike McCarthy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Join to me today. The Athletics Zone, Lindsay, how are you? I'm good, Robert. I am excited for this week. It's like a big, really good football week.

I have no sense of the NFL schedule. I know that probably sounds strange. But if you ask me, what are the good games in week eight? I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea what next week's good games are. So I rolled out of bed on Monday morning And somebody I had tweeted about the Titans playing the Steelers I had no idea they were playing this week

So I looked at the schedule and I was like, ooh, all right I'm very excited about this So it's a nice way to go about my life I'm constantly surprised in a good way About what the next week's games look like Because I never look in advance Yeah, it's the difference between being like covering the league as a whole Or being a beat writer

Yeah Because when you're a beat writer on a specific team You like live and die by that schedule and you have Marriott's booked out months in advance. But when you're covering kind of on a national level, you get so focused on each week. And it is really fun because, you know, I think last week ended up being fun.

Like Sunday had some really entertaining games. But you flip that page and all of a sudden this week is just full of compelling matchups, really interesting games. And we're at that point in the year right now where it really feels like we're starting to know who these teams are and really figuring out who is good. the games feel like that the stakes are bigger and that when teams win now or they lose now, that there's just a lot more at stake. So I'm really excited to get into a couple of the big games and a couple of the big matchups.

So let's just get right into it this week. Not a ton of news. We had some COVID-related stuff that will hit just kind of in the fabric of the show. But I want to talk, you know, get to the games and get to some of those matchups because there are a lot of good ones. And let's start with what I see is the game of the week. And that's the Steelers and the Titans. So the NFL networks, Adi Kinkabwala, tweeted this earlier today, that this is the fifth time in NFL history,

the two undefeated teams were meeting in week seven or later. Obviously, part of that is because these teams were supposed to play earlier in the year and did not end up playing. But we have two 5-0 teams playing against each other. And beyond that, what these teams are good at and what their strengths are line up in super interesting ways. But before we get into the nitty-gritty of the matchup, I want to talk about Ryan's Handhill for a little bit. So obviously the 10-game stretch that Ryan Tanhill had at the end of last season for the Titans, leading them to the playoffs, having outrageous numbers, like historically good in some areas over that 10-game stretch. He parlayed that into a huge contract. And I think a lot of people were skeptical of whether he earned that deal and what that deal might look like for the Titans.

Because when you're a 31-year-old quarterback, which he was when he got that contract, and you've been in the NFL. for about a decade, the decade of film that you have probably should hold more weight than a single 10-game stretch. The Titans decided the 10-game stretch is more important. They gave him a top-of-market deal, and let's go about the season. And now, we're starting to get to a place where maybe this is just what Ryan Tannahill is with the Titans. If you look at the stat line, he's played 16 games as the Titans starter in the regular season,

15 starts. his line during that stretch, 70% completions, 8.96 yards per attempt, 35 touchdowns, 8 interceptions, 4, 112 yards, and number one in passing EPA. That's the MVP of the NFL over 16 game stretch. So my question to you, and this may seem like a broad way to do it, what has Ryan Tannenhill's success in Tennessee told you about why quarterback succeed and fail in the NFL? Well, coaching matters. I think that's the biggest, the biggest thing. And this is not another attempt to just take shots at Adam Gase because that's too easy at this point. But coaching matters, health matters. I mean, the situation that you're brought into matters. The players around you matter. And just the belief from an organization is so important. And I don't know if Tannahill, you know, he went through multiple coaching changes in scheme changes when he was in, Miami. He went through ACL injuries when he was in Miami. I think you could talk, you know,

question a lot about the plan that the Dolphins ever had in place around him. And all of a sudden, you, you come to Tennessee where nobody expected any of this out of him. I mean, it was one of the most underrated signings when he signed to be Marcus Mario da's backup before the 2019 season. And it ended up being this like crazy redemption story. And I know you just recited all of those stats and said, you know, for a 16 game season, that's that's MVP caliber. And our Kyle Tucker is, he's ready. He's ready to have that conversation. And is Ryan Tannhill?

Like should be, should he be an MVP conversation? I know the guys in Tennessee are talking about that right now. I'm not sure if I'm ready to go all the way there. But this has been a tremendous story. And we cannot discount at all the way that he's been playing. And yes, their offense runs through Derek Henry. There's no doubt that it runs through Derek Henry. And he enables them to do so many different things.

but Ryan Tannahill has been really good and 16 games is more than enough sample size to say that the Titans were right. And I don't think I was super skeptical about the contract that they gave him back in March. But there was a little bit of risk involved because they were banking on a smaller sample size and that what they did late in the year that that could continue. But they've put the right system around him. Obviously, he's in sync with the coaching staff. Arthur Smith is doing a ridiculous. job and he should be a head coaching candidate pretty soon. And, you know, I'm in. I'm all in on Ryan Tanyhill. He's not getting my non-existent MVP vote because Russell Wilson is still a person who plays in the

NFL. But I have no reason to doubt that Ryan Tanna Hill is going to continue on this sort of trajectory. It just makes me rethink a lot of stuff. And in some ways, it reminds me to a certain degree of the Matt Ryan season in 2016. And let me explain why. Matt Ryan was, I believe, 30 years old or so by the time that 2016 season rolled around. We thought we knew what Matt Ryan was. Then you drop him into a slightly different,

you drop him into slightly different circumstances with Kyle Shanahan, and he changes. What we view Matt Ryan as drastically alters because of the offense that he was in. Matt Ryan was a much better quarterback than Ryan Tannahill. but this is similar. You have a guy that is in his early 30s, we know exactly what he is, and you drastically change his circumstances,

and he drastically changes as a quarterback. And, you know, we talk, this is not new, the idea that a quarterback's situation, the coaching, everything else matters. I think we just underrate how much it matters. Like, how many guys in the NFL could be dropped into Ryan Tannahill situation right now,

and even if they didn't have the same amount of success Ryan Tannahill has, still be really good quarterbacks. I don't know the answer to that. How many guys that we've written off that have been in the league for six, seven, eight years, we say, oh, well, we know what that guy is. If we change the coaches he was playing for, maybe he's not that guy anymore. It just makes you really step back and reconsider a lot of the conclusions and the judgments that we have,

probably to the detriment of certain teams. I'm sure teams are going to look at what Ryan Tannenhill is doing and say, well, maybe this can work for us, and maybe he's the outlier. but I know for me it's just really made me kind of rethink the ways I think about why quarterbacks succeed, why they fail, and how many quarterbacks would be able to thrive in the right situation. How many Ryan Tannahills are out there? I guess we don't even know the answer to that.

Yeah. And he may be as a unique case in that he was really green when he came into the NFL in terms of his quarterback experience. I mean, he was a wide receiver in college at Texas A&M. And, you know, so he had a. played a ton of quarterbacks. So it felt like his ceiling was maybe always a little bit higher. And we saw little glimpses of it. I mean, there was a stretch before he suffered that ACL injury in Miami, that year that they made the playoffs before Matt Moore, excuse me, had to

replace him and actually play the playoff games, where he actually looked really good. And you started to think, like, okay, they have something going here. You know, when we look at, you know, who else, like what other Ryan Tannahills are out there? You know, I'm just, I'm not really sure, but it just as a reminder too that how you're viewed when you come in, what your draft status is, that also carries a lot of weight throughout your career. And a guy who's a first round pick who obviously has a lot of physical talent like Ryan Tana Hill does, that tends to give you a little bit of benefit of the doubt when you have to get that second contractor when somebody is going to trade for you or whatever the case might be.

And I was curious with like the, you know, Marcus Mariotta going somewhere else to get a fresh start. Could that sort of thing happen? Obviously it hasn't. He was hurt. been hurt a lot. I think he just got activated off of IR right now this week in Vegas. But yeah, I mean, a lot of guys just don't ever get that second chance like Ryan Tannihill does. And it's just, it's really nice to see him making the most of it and turning it into, what, like, $30 million a year. Well, let's, let's continue this shit on Adam Gaseauer. Let's throw out Sam Darnold here.

So it's the same thing with Donald, right? So Darnold has been in the league for what? This is third season? How 2018 draft, yeah. Yeah. How could you possibly? right off Sam Donald and say that guy is unsalvageable when you look at what Ryan Tannahill is doing right now. You can't. I think it just has to recalibrate your expectations

for what quarterbacks can do if you drastically change the spots that they're playing it. And I don't know. It just really does make me rethink some of that stuff. And I don't think Ryan Tannahill is the best quarterback in the NFL. I don't know if he's one of the top five quarterbacks of the NFL. If you look at the numbers, I mean, he, it's so.

so drastically different with play action and without. He's averaging four yards more per attempt with play action than without. It's nuts. I mean, it's the second biggest gap in the entire NFL after Drew Brees, who doesn't use that much play action. So obviously the system works for him and he's in part a product of the system, but I think you can say that about all NFL quarterbacks. And if the system is working, then it doesn't really matter if he's a product of the system.

Yeah, absolutely. And none of this exists in a vacuum. And there's only a couple of guys ever, or really, you know, that you could say I'll put them in any team, any system, any coaching staff, and they're still going to be awesome. I'd say Aaron Rogers fits that bill now after we're seeing what Mike McCarthy is currently doing. That's all I'll say. Yeah, I mean, there are a few of them and there's a handful of them and that's, you know, and that's great, you know, and those are the guys that are consistently in the MVP conversations. I think Russell Wilson would be awesome anywhere. Patrick Holmes, I think would be awesome anywhere, you know, outside of, you know, letting Adam, let him gaze get his hands on any of these guys. But, you know, it's just, it's just such a reminder that system matters, coaching staff matters, belief matters.

You're running backs. Your running backs matter. Your wide receivers matter. And we're going to find out right now how much your left tackle matters because that's, that's my big question now about this Titans offense as we head into this huge, huge game that should ultimately end up having some really big playoff ramifications down the road with the Titans is that they no longer have Taylor LeWan who tore his ACL last week. And so they're going to have to replace, you know, probably their best offensive linemen heading into this really important stretch of their season. And not only their best offensive linemen, but their best offensive linemen against what might be the best pass rush in the entire NFL. You have a front five for the Steelers that I wrote about last week and spent a lot of time watching over the past two weeks. And they're a dominant group.

Bud Dupree is going to be the one on that side pretty exclusively because they don't really switch sides on the Steelers. So can Bud Dupree have a big game? Can that pass rush have a big game? And that's kind of where those mirrored strengths line up here. You have a great running game and a physical running game for the Titans matched up against a dominant run defense for the Steelers. And similar to last week when they played the Browns, something's going to have to give here.

So last week, the Steelers emphatically answered that question, right? I mean, there was no doubt. You can say that. That was as dominant kind of statement win as we've seen in a really long time where maybe to the detriment of the Browns. I mean, that just had to have been such a deflating loss for the Browns to just know that you're not competitive within your own division. But it was such an impressive statement.

And I'm just not sure. I'm just a lot more optimistic that Tennessee's offense is going to be a better challenge than the Browns were, that they're going to be able to answer that call a little bit better than the Browns were where they really just crumbled and their running game disappeared. And they didn't really have, you know, any answers for that path. that pressure that the Steelers were able to bring, you know? Absolutely. And I'm curious how the Titans plan to answer that some of that stuff.

Because if you look at the Titans' offense and the way it aligns with the Browns offense, you see a lot of similarities. It's play action heavy, a lot of heavy personnel packages. I believe the Titans were in 11 personnel and only 45% of their snaps this season, which is down near the bottom of the league. I think the league average is 61%. So you're going to see the Steelers in their base defense a lot, similar to the way they were with the Browns.

you're going to see a lot of blitzes off the edge with guys like Mike Hilton, with the linebackers, in order to blitz right into those boot actions, run blitz a lot to try to disrupt a lot of the things that the Titans want to do out front. So I assume the game plan is going to be pretty similar to the one that they tried to roll out against Cleveland. The answer now is if you get into some disadvantageous situations if you're the Titans, if you get into third and eight, if you're behind the sticks a little bit, can your downfield dropback passing game work without the use of that play action? I have more faith in Ryan Tannanhill doing that than I do in Baker-Mayfield at this point,

but I still think it's a pretty legitimate question. It's a huge question because we have seen Ryan Tannale make mistakes and throw interceptions in some of these critical situations, and it almost cost them last week against the Texans where he threw a pretty bad interception in the fourth quarter. And, you know, I want to say as much as we were just gushing about how great he was, you know, part of his greatness has been the support around him and the way that they're able to run their offense the way that they do. And what the Steelers have done and that they've been so good at

for a long time, but especially this year, is really taking teams out of that. And I just think this is going to be such a fun matchup. And I'm excited. It's weird that it's an early game. I wish it was like a prime time game or at least in that like afternoon slot where we didn't have quite as many games going on at the same time. But I think it's also going to be one that's going to be really fun to watch on the All-22 once we're able to really kind of dive into some of the, these, you know, the front seven matchups and some of the offensive line play because I think on both sides of the ball, it's going to be fun. The Steelers offensive line has been ridiculously good. So I think that's going to be fun to watch some of those matchups against, you know,

DeVian Clowny and Jeffrey Simmons now that he's back. You know, I just think this is as good of a game as we're going to have basically all year, especially ones that's not involving, you know, some of the marquee teams necessarily that doesn't have Patrick Mahomes necessarily involved in it. It's interesting. You look at some of the numbers. Ryan Tannenhill is number one in the NFL by far in drop back EPA on first and second down. Ryan Fitzpatrick is actually a second, which is pretty silly. Ryan Fitzpatrick.

The guys you'd expect, I mean, Mahomes is fifth, Sean Watson's fourth, Russell Wilson's third. But then you go to third down, and he's 17th in the league, which I think speaks to how this team thrives. They don't want to be in third down. They want to destroy you on first and second down. Again, stay ahead of the chains. be the ones dictating the action and be the ones that can open up their entire playbook because they don't have to throw the ball out of desperation in non-advertage spots. So that's the question.

Can the Titans do that? And I don't know the answer. The one thing that I'm watching for is personnel-wise, no Devin Bush for the Steelers, which I think is going to be a big deal. Because like we talked about, if they're going to have to be in their base personnel for most of this game because the Titans are playing out of heavy personnel packages, that puts Vince Williams and Robert Spillane, who is a Chicago guy, and I did not know that before today, on the field at the same time. And the coverage there, I think, is a question. If they're going

to try to play man, whatever they're going to try to do in those situations, can the Titans take advantage of that over the middle of the field? I think it's going to be one of the big questions that you have to answer in this game. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a huge injury. I mean, they do not have much depth behind him. They don't have many experience there behind Devin Bush. So that's going to be a really big loss. And you're 100% right that that's the match. that they have to exploit if Tennessee is going to get their offense going. Even on third downs, the Steelers like to take Vince Williams off the field on a lot of third downs. They put an extra corner in and keep Bush on the field. Now you're taking Bush out

of there and putting Vince Williams in who's significantly less mobile side to side than a guy like Devin Bush is. So just those little tiny tradeoffs that you start having to worry about when guys get hurt and that's where the Steelers are at. So I'm really interested in watching that. I mean, the Steelers' offense has been more fun than I expected them to be. I'm just not thinking as much about that matchup when it comes to this game just because the Titans' offense against the Steelers' defense right now is pretty much the best of the best going at each other. All right. Let's get to some of our favorite matchups of the week.

Lindsay, why don't you start us off? What are you going to be looking for on Sunday? All right. So I'm really excited about this Raiders Bucks game. Assuming that it goes off as scheduled on Sunday in Las Vegas, there are now some new COVID questions where we're, recording this on Wednesday afternoon. Of course there are. Very shortly after the Raiders announced that they sent home all five of their starting

offensive linemen. Trent Brown, their ridiculously highly paid right tackle has gone onto the COVID-19 reserve list. And the rest of the offensive linemen, in addition to some other players, including Jonathan Abrams, were all sent home precautionary because of contact tracing. This doesn't mean that they're going to postpone the game. This doesn't mean they're going to move the game, but it is something that we have to at least kind of have in our realm of possibility now, given what we've seen happen around the league right now. So all of that said, we've talked about the COVID part. If there's a change with that at some point, if they have to move a game, we'll do an emergency pod. We'll cover it here on the athletic. But so let's just get

into some of the matchups because I think there's a lot of really intriguing, kind of exciting matchups. And I know I surprised you about this when I told you this, but I wanted to focus on the Raiders defense against the Bucks offense and very specifically with those lines because I came away from the Raiders last game, which was two weeks ago against the Kansas City Chiefs, where they put together, which I believe it was their best defensive game of the John Gruden era, maybe even longer than that. They played their perfect game against the Raiders in terms of against the Chiefs in terms of a game plan, execution.

They knew exactly what they needed to do to beat the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes. And while Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady could not be more different, his quarter box, the one thing that you have to do to beat them is bring consistent pressure. And what the Raiders were able to do a couple weeks ago that I was not expecting them to be able to do consistently was that they were able to get pressure with just four rushers, very consistently. They were able to bring pressure, I believe, on 57% of Patrick Mahomes's dropbacks without blitzing, the only bliss 6% of the time.

That's really, really hard to do because we know you can't blitz Patrick Mahomes. and I think doing a lot of blitzing on Tom Brady, given how quickly he gets rid of the ball, the skill position players that they have there. That's probably also a really bad idea. So I'm very intrigued to see if this is something that the Raiders defense can keep up, especially that they don't have a ton of really talented pass rushers. It's not like this is, you know, Khalil Mack and Joey Bosa and like some of these really elite pass rushers.

I mean, it's Max Crosby, who is four sacks. They don't have anybody else in their team who has even has more than one sack. But if they can get good. consistent pressure on Brady, that's the way to disrupt a Brady team. I think that that happens now. We saw the Bears do it a couple weeks ago. And that's been the book on Tom Brady forever. So that's the matchup that I'm really looking forward to watch.

And I think the Bucks offensive line is better right now than the Chiefs offensive line was a couple weeks ago. That's probably the big, the liability right now when we're talking about the Chiefs is what their offensive line looks like. I think the Bucks are really well built there. Tristan Worf's, the rookie first-round pick, has been playing phenomenally. I mean, he's not just like at an all-ro rookie level. Like, he's getting into that Pro Bowl, potentially all-pro kind of conversation very, very quickly.

So I think it's going to be a much bigger challenge for the Raiders' Raiders defensive front than it was against the Chiefs a couple weeks ago, which sounds kind of crazy to say. But it's making it a really fun matchup to watch on Sunday night. Yeah, I think the big thing would be getting Maurice Hurst back for the Raiders. Because when you think about the. history of Tom Brady, it's interior pressure that's always been more important. And I think Hirst is probably the best pass rusher on the Raiders when you think about

just pure talent. And he missed a couple of games, I believe being up because he was on the COVID reserve list. Yeah. And he's back. Yeah, he's been returned to the active roster. So you get him back. And if there's one spot on that Bucks offensive line, that's probably a weak link at this point, it's at right guard. Alex Kappa is, he's been a solid player, but he's not nearly as good as a lot of the other guys you're thinking about a front for Tampa Bay. So is that a matchup that the Raiders can exploit? I'm really interested in what's going to happen on the other side of the ball because

the Raiders offense looks great right now. And the Buc's offense, or excuse me, the Bucs defense might be the best defense in the NFL. So, I mean, you've got a really interesting kind of collection of talent. You have Darren Waller against the safeties and the linebackers for the Buccaneers, all of whom are playing fantastic. Antoine Winfield Jr., what Devin White and Levante David are bringing. You have Henry Ruggs going up against some of those younger corners for the Bucks, the offensive line for the Raiders being the biggest question.

Because now you already have Trent Brown out. The entire offensive line was sent home because they were in close contact with Trent Brown. If some of those guys can't play, what does that look like against a team that is just blitzing the shit out of people and terrifying you? So I think that's going to be the biggest question. Can the Raiders hold up with the Bucks bringing this much heat if guys like Trent Brown aren't going, I know Trump Brown is going to play, but if the offensive wine is a concern for that. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be a huge question.

I mean, we just, I know this is not a COVID podcast. We were trying so hard this week to not make this a COVID podcast. But the new rules that they have added since the Titans outbreak is, and what happened with the Patriots is that anybody who's high risk, close contact has a mandatory five days. And it is Wednesday afternoon. And if any of these guys are determined to be high risk, and that, means did you have dinner together? Did you ride in a car together? Their facility had been closed. They were on their byweek. So the fact that they sent so many guys home makes me wonder if they were hanging out outside the facility, having dinner, doing stuff together during the by week.

Big questions. We don't know the answers to those right now. But, you know, they could still have this game and they could still have this game without most of their starting offensive linemen. And that is, that's something we haven't seen happen. We've seen a lot of weird shit happened because of COVID this year in the NFL, Wednesday or Tuesday games, Tuesday or Monday afternoon games. It was a three o'clock game here in Denver on Monday. It was fantastic. I would love more of, more of those 3 p.m. kickoffs, please. We have not seen yet a team have to play without a lot of players. You know, the Patriots had to play one game without Cam Newton, but we haven't seen like an entire position group go down. And so they're going to get tested, these protocols.

And if you can pull, you know, activate three or four offensive linemen off your practice, squad and roll out and play, I think we're about to see how that is going to work this week. And even if the offensive line does play, I think that the way Derek Carr responds to pressure from that Tampa Bay defense is going to be the biggest issue. No, Carr, he has elements of his game that are pretty good. I mean, he processes well. He's an accurate passer. A lot of what he does, it's like, all right, if you just kind of keep him in bubble wrap,

he can be somebody that does some nice things for you. Pressure has never been his friend. He's very aware of it. He likes to get rid of the ball quickly. He's been significantly worse in terms of efficiency while being blitz this year. Tampa Bay has the second or I believe the third highest blitz rate in the league. So those things are aligning in ways that aren't good for the Raiders. So that's going to be the number one thing I'm watching is what does that front

and what does that blitzing approach from Tampa Bay due to Derek Carr in this game and can they get him out of his comfort zone in a way that we didn't see against the Chiefs a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And their secondary in Tampa is so good. Their linebackers are so good. they're going to stress the Raiders in ways that we haven't seen anybody been able to stress them so far in terms of, you know, downfield. And he's been trying to go downfield a lot more than I think any of us expected that he would ever do. And I'm just not sure if those shots are going to be open, if he's going to have time to let those plays develop.

And if he's actually going to have open guys deep just because of how good the Buc's back end has been playing. The only time we've really seen them get burned this year consistently was against Justin Herbert. when they hit some of those downfield shots. But the Bucks, or excuse me, the Packers were trying to attack teams like that. You know, play action, big shots downfield, all that kind of stuff. It did not work last week. So it seems like the Bucks defense is really locked in right now. And I would not be surprised if this was another convincing win for them.

So my matchup seems like we're going to have to talk about the Bears on this podcast at some point this year because they keep winning football games. If they were one in five, we wouldn't be talking about them. But go ahead, five and one. Let's go. The Rams offense against the Bears defense is a fun one. I went back and I watched that game that they played last year in week 11 and tried to pick stuff up. And I totally forgot that Woods and Cooks were both hurt in that game.

So the Rams came out in that game around 12 personnel on 67% of their snaps. And they're using 11 on 73% of their snaps this season, which is significantly above league average. So there wasn't a ton that you could glean from the Bears approach last season. It was a lot of base defense, a lot of single high with guys walked down. But again, that was because the Rams were in heavier personnel packages than they typically are. So what I'm curious about is really going to be how the Bears run defense aligns with the Rams run offense. The Rams are number one in the league and rushing DVOA.

The Bears are 11th in run defense DVOA, which is significantly worse than their past defense has been. And that is the one area, or if I'm just looking at the cracks and what the Bears have been on defense this year, that's what I'm concerned about, is how they've been. against the run because there are guys up front and, you know, at the linebacker level that just have not been playing very well. So I'm a little bit concerned that this could be the type of game where we to see Daryl Henderson ripping off 11-yard gains consistently. The Rams running game has been really interesting this year. And I spent a lot of time this summer trying to figure out what it was going to look like and trying to dissect, you know,

the little clips on hard knocks about who's going to get more carries and following everything that Jordan Rodriguez has been writing. And she's written a lot about this running back by committee. She was grilling McVeigh about it this week. She wanted the answers, man. Well, I think we all kind of want answers. Yeah, I do too. I'm really curious about it.

I appreciate that she is really sticking with it and being vigilant about it. Well, and it's not just like a fantasy thing, too. It's not just that. Oh, for me, it is. That's why I want to know. Okay. I mean, I think I dropped Cam Acres. As someone betting hard on Darrell Henderson,

I'm very curious as to what the usage looks like and why. But I mean, it's like a legit question about like who they are because we knew what their identity was as a running game when they had Todd Gurley, when he was kind of at peak Todd Gurley. And I think it was a fine decision to move away from that contract. Moving away from the contract, I think was a really good decision. But I also think, you know, diversifying your offense a little bit more going to that committee. I think those were all really good decisions.

We just have yet to see exactly like who they are. Who is this running game? What's the distribution like? You know, who's going to get the bulk of the carries, all of that sort of stuff. So I'm very curious to see how that's going to work. And I just also want to see how they respond this week after just a really rough offensive outing last week against the Niners. I don't think it was who they were. It was very uncharacteristic.

I want to see if Goff and Kup get their stuff back together because those were, it was, you know, Goff was overthrowing him. Cup was dropping passes. Like there was just something like fundamentally off that week or last week against the Niners who haven't been that great of a defense and especially not that great of a secondary, there was just something really off about the Rams. And I think that those guys are good enough. I think they're well enough coach that they can figure it out. But it was just, it was really disconcerting to watch them be that off after playing so well through the first month of the season. Yeah. I mean,

I think that the running back of my committee thing is interesting because they keep drafting guys or trying to get, drafting Cammakers in the second round and then not having to use him because Henderson is really your best back. If you look at the production he's been getting on a touch-by-touch basis, it seems like he should be the guy touching the ball a lot. So I just don't understand

the kind of distribution of resources there if you believe in your scheme to be able to scheme up runs for you, which it seems like is happening right now. But yeah, if you look at what the Bears have been doing defensively, I trust the back end to hold up against the pass. They've been good.

Jaylon Johnson, we talked a lot about on Sunday show. Kyle Fuller's looked really good this year, much better than he looked last season. And I think overall the back end, has. But it's the run defense that I'm concerned about. They were a middle of the pack run defense before last week. And you look at what they did last week against Carolina and it was better. They were significantly better, but there were a lot of shoestring tackles by guys in the front four. Kalil Mack, Bilal Nichols, and Akeem Hicks, Allmade plays in the backfield that might

have gone for bigger gains if we had to deal with the linebackers. The way that Roquan Smith and Danny Jervathen especially are playing right now, they're just not playing with a lot of of authority against the run. And that's why I'm a little bit concerned. Roquan was much better in past defense last week. He was playing sideline to sideline in the way that I hadn't seen him play in recent weeks. But in terms of playing downhill, the linebackers and the safeties have been caused for concern this year.

So I would assume that the Rams understand that. And they understand the best way for them to move the ball is just to stick with the run until it doesn't work. Well, and I know we're talking about, you know, Rams' offense versus Bears defense. I will say the one thing that I remember from the game last year when these two teams played was I remember what the Rams defense did to Mitchell Trabisky and Mitchell Trabisky, I don't know if he was crying on the sidelines. And I'm all for crying. Get your emotions out. This is not a, this is a pro crying podcast. I'm a big crier, so we're good. But I, all I remember

is Nagy consoling Mitchell Trabisky on the sidelines and then saying that he had a neck injury, but he wasn't consoling him like it was a neck injury and Chase Daniel came in. That was literally the only thing I remember about this game and it kind of being this like turning point and how we view Mitchell Trubisky and kind of that what was next for him and this really messy off season. And now he's going to be watching. And if he cries, it won't be because he was playing. Trust me, I'm going to be the only one crying on Sunday probably as I watch Aaron Donald play against Rashad Coward. I didn't mention this to Aaron Donald when we had him on the podcast yesterday, but knowing that he's about to play my team like six days from now,

it just, I should have made me uncomfortable. It's like talking to the angel of death here a few days before he's going to ruin my life. And he's coming off not a fantastic game last week against the Niners. And I don't think that entire defensive line had a very, very good game. I don't think anybody outside of Aaron Donald even had a pressure in that game. So you might be getting angry Aaron Donald this week, which sounds terrifying.

One rather just quick note, just schematically. The Bears, I think part of the issue they've had defensively this year is they're playing a lot of too high safety looks and really daring teams to run the ball against them, which I don't mind as a general practice. I just think that they're not playing with the urgency I'd like to see in the run game even out of those looks. And one little thing they did against Carolina last week, I was talking to Matt Bowen from ESP, you know about this. They were using Eddie Robert, Eddie Jackson and kind of a robber. a robber look where he was, they were playing his two safeties, but he would roll up at the snap to play those crossing routes that Carolina likes. The Rams like to do the same thing. So I assume that we're going to see Eddie Jackson kind of floating in the middle of the field

to try to take away some of those deep crosses that the Rams like to use. So just something to look out for. All right. Let's move on. Let's talk about who has the most at stake in the NFL this week. Lindsay, who are you going with? All right. Well, I feel like every week here I'm like harping on some some head coach. And I'm going to continue that right now. And it's real bad for Mike Zimmer and the Vikings right now. I mean, I don't know exactly where they go from here. And I think our Chad graph, our Minnesota Vikings beat writer, wrote on Sunday night after they lost to the Falcons that probably every option has to be on the table now for the Wolf family to consider. When it comes to the Vikings leadership when it comes to Rick Spielman and certainly when it comes to Meg Zimmer because

this was not a team that we thought would be bad. I don't know if any of us thought they were going to be a Super Bowl team, but I think most of us thought they would at least be a playoff contender, a team that could win the NFC North. And not only are... I didn't pick them to win the NFC North. Don't go back and listen to that podcast because I definitely didn't pick the Vikings to win the division. We'll see if our producer has a drop of that because I'm sure we could probably find it. And I probably picked them too. to be out. You know what?

I did. I picked the Packers, but I do believe I picked them to be a playoff team, a wildcard team. But, you know, this was a team that they made some pretty drastic decisions this offseason in terms of retooling their roster.

And they thought that they had enough, um, fundamental infrastructure in place when it came to the quarterback. Um, some of their veteran players like in place that they could sustain this kind of winning culture. despite overhauling your secondary and getting all new cornerbacks and retooling your pass rush and doing all of these things kind of on the fly and it's not working.

And they've been competitive in some of their games. You know, they're kind of hanging on to this like, well, we played really well against the Seahawks thing. Well, you know what? You lost against the Seahawks. And just because you thought you played better against the Seahawks in week five than you did in week four, you still got blown out week one by the Packers. you got blown out week six by the Falcons. So I don't necessarily see what is that progress that you're seeing?

Is it progress in practice? It's not practice. It's not progress in actual wins. And, you know, Mike Zimmer has been a really good coach for a really, really long time. But the problem is now is I don't think he has any other answers. You know, their roster is what it is. They've made a lot of changes. Their quarterback is who he is.

And they've devoted a lot of money to him for a couple more years. I mean, they re-signed him. And they signed him, Kurt Cousins, to an extension earlier this offseason. So they are now tied to him even longer. And in my Monday morning subscriber chat with the athletic subscribers, every week I'm getting multiple questions about the Vikings and they're getting increasingly panicked. And this week it was a lot of questions about when can we get rid of Kirk Cousins. And the truth is, is not anytime soon.

Because of the way his contract is structured, they don't have an out for him until at least after next season. So while they're going to have a very high pick in next season. year's draft barring some sort of remarkable turnaround over the second half of the season. You know, I think they may have to consider, you know, their long-term quarterback future there, if they have a top five pick. Kirk Cousins is going to be on this team next year. They can't take a $40 million in dead money in 2021, especially when the cap is going to be

lower, most likely because of all the COVID-related salary losses or revenue losses. So this team is who it is. And I'm not really sure where they go from here. But Mike Zimmer is under a ton of pressure now. I don't necessarily think this is like a Dan Quinn. If you lose this game, you're going to get fired. Like the situation was a couple weeks ago with the Falcons, which they ended up did, you know, Dan Quinn did get fired after losing to the Panthers.

I don't think we're quite there yet. But we're at a point right now that if Zimmer and the Vikings don't get things at least tangibly moving in the right direction and not just saying that you see some progress, but actually progress in winning games, things could get real bad for him in a hurry. It's tough for me just because they committed to this version of themselves by giving out those extensions, not only to Kirk Cousins, but to Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman.

It's like, this is what we want to be moving forward. And I think we probably should have been able to see more of this coming than we did, especially on the defensive side of the ball. And some of the injuries are tough to deal with. I mean, losing to Neil Hunter and Anthony, Anthony Barr, that changes the calculus, especially when you have such a young secondary. And the secondary has been kind of a disaster for most of the season. So, I mean, the defense has been lagging behind what they've been in years past.

The offense, for the most part, this is what they are. You know, you're going to have Kirk Cousins look fantastic in certain moments. Justin Jefferson has been good for them. So the offensive formula in this sense of a lot of play action, a lot of shots down the field, Kirk Cousins being aggressive. It's working out in some areas, but the turnovers are a problem. The other thing, I mean, what's really holding them back at this point is the offensive line. Their interior of their offensive line is playing in an unsustainable level.

They need to do something different there. Asra Cleveland started his first game at Wright Guard last week because Drus Simea couldn't play, but they're still figuring that out. So part of me wants to say give this group a little bit more time. Because even if we already know what Kirk Cousins is and he's not going to get much better than this, I do think the circumstances can get better. If their offensive line improves a little bit, you go out and get somebody in the offseason, if you get a little bit healthier on defense next year and those guys in the secondary that are rookies now can take a step forward. I think what we've seen is kind of the worst possible outcome for the composition of this Vikings team and this Vikings franchise. and I just think that they're going to get better breaks than they've gotten so far, if that makes sense.

I'm not willing to kind of throw all this out quite yet, even if it's been a disaster so far this year. It's just frustrating that the offensive line is still a problem. Yeah. Because they've known it's been a problem for a couple years. They've drafted heavily to try to address it, and it just hasn't really gotten any better. And Garry Kubiak, hallmarks of Gary Kubiak teams are offensive. lines that play really well and sometimes overperforming the type of talent they have on an offensive line and that hasn't happened yet they haven't been able to find solutions to make maybe

these offensive linemen who aren't that talented be able to succeed and and that's and that's frustrating I just think there's so much that's frustrating about what's going on with that organization right now and they're not fun to watch they're not fun to talk about it's it's just been really it's been really hard and I feel bad for a lot of people there because they've made a lot of you know they drafted with like 18 guys. I mean, they had so many draft picks last year. So you know that they were trying to kind of win now

where you had this really expensive quarterback and some really nice defensive pieces, but then also try to build for the future. And here you are now where you're not really in, you're such in limbo. They were trying to retool on the fly. And I think that we probably should have been able to see that a little bit clear. I know, I'm speaking for myself,

the expectations probably should have been tempered a little bit Because even if there's a certain core of players with Theo and cousins, some of the guys on defense, there was going to be so much youth in other areas that I think it probably would have been smarter to think about this team more for 2021 than 2020. Because of the youth in the secondary, because of how many questions there were on the offensive line. I mean, it's really hard to do the sort of makeover they did this offseason and be good again right away. So that's kind of what I'm saying is, all right, if we give them one more off season, you can have just a couple more tweaks with some of these problem areas and a little bit more experience and some of the others, are they really that much different than the team we've

seen over the last couple years? Are they just getting a little bit unlucky? Yeah. I mean, I guess it all does it all just come down to Kurt Cousins and how Kurt Cousins is going to play? But he's not any different to me. That's kind of what I'm saying. He's just Kirk Cousins. This is the same guy he always is. You're going to have the mind-boggling choices one or two or three times, sometimes three times a game. If we're talking about the Atlanta game. But for the most part, this is the guy he's been. And you just need to improve the circumstances around him and you can be a pretty functional team. So I don't know. I just feel like we're a couple little dials on the notch away from them being the team we've seen over the last

couple of years. I don't think anything is that drastically different right now. Marissa pointed out that you said that you think any team in the division could win, but that the Vikings have the best chance and it's going to take 10 games to win it. She pulled your receipts. I mean, I was blatantly wrong about the Packers. I guess that's the biggest thing. I thought the Packers were going to come out and run the ball like 72% of the time with A.J. Dillon. So that's where I was misguided in this conversation. All right.

Let's get to mine. And this is, I'm not sure he has the most at stake this week, but he has the most at stake in my heart. And that's Mike McCarthy. I want to apologize to myself and to everyone else. for the love I had for the Cowboys coming into the year. I should know better. I really should know better at this point. I went to Green Bay last year.

I want to say it was in like October. And I did a story about the Packers and about the changes in their culture and what that locker room was like compared to past years. Because I remember going there under the McCarthy era, especially at the end. And it was like a graveyard in there. Guys were not having a good time. And I think some of it was Adairius and Preston Smith. getting there and kind of bringing a different vibe to the locker room last year.

But everyone there was having fun. I remember I was talking to a defensive player there, and I won't say who it was, but I was just talking about how different it was under the floor. And he just kind of gave me this wide-eyed, like, knowing, like, yeah, man. And then the Cowboys hire Mike McCarthy at the end of the season. And I think I laughed. I was on the road somewhere. I want to say I was in, like, New Orleans or something when they made the hire.

and I just started laughing. I was like, you're the Dallas Cowboys. You can hire any coach you want. You have an unlimited amount of resources and it's an unbelievably attractive job. And you hired Mike McCarthy. And somehow, from that moment in January through like August 30th, I forgot everything that I had ever thought about Mike McCarthy and everything that he had done over the past like three years. And I'll admit, I was probably duped by this PR redemption tour that Mike McCarthy went on with all of his binders and analytics and all of this. It was really impressive. I mean, I was completely just Jedi mind tricked by Mike McCarthy. But part of it was I went too far into the analytical bag.

I was like, all right, this team was number, I think number two in offensive DVOA last season. They have so much talent. If they run the ball a little bit less on early downs, if they go forward a little bit more on four down, if there was a tiny bit more aggressive, which were things that Mike McCarthy did do in Green Bay. The run-pass distribution was pretty good. He was decently aggressive on Fort Down. To me, it was just little tiny alterations in their approach.

This team had a chance to be really good. I did not take into account that Mike McCarthy just might be not good as a head coach and that he might not be able to motivate a staff or a team to do anything. Jane Slater from the NFL Network came out this week and tweeted that, while Cowboys players were initially buying into keeping things internal. As they sit two and forward, the discontent is leaking out. The coaching staff is totally unprepared. They don't teach.

They don't have any sense of adjusting on the fly. And another player said they just aren't good at their jobs. This isn't surprising to me necessarily, but I still should have thought more about this possibility before I picked the Cowboys to win like 13 games coming into the year. So I don't think Mike McCarthy has more at stake than anyone in the NFL this season. I just felt like it was time to address my completely wrong opinions about the Dallas Cowboys coming into the year. Yeah, I mean, I don't think he's on the hot seat by any means. You know, that's not going to happen.

I mean, it's so exceedingly rare that a coach would get fired after one year. But I think this is just. Stephen Wilkes. If he goes like, if he goes like six and ten and they don't win this division, you don't think he could get fired? I doubt it. But you've lost your starting quarterback. I think that they probably wouldn't. Jerry Jones is loyal to a felt. I know, I know.

It took him like eight years too long to fire Jason Garrett. But, you know, I just think this is like not just a Mike McCarthy thing. I do think there's the issues that are going on in Dallas right now are an indictment on the Jones family. It's an indictment on the hiring process, who they decided to hire for this head coach. Did not seem that inspired. of a choice. And I do want to know who Mike McCarthy's like PR representative was because it was really, really impressive. And I think there's a lot of coaches who probably could benefit from

something similar by going out and doing all of those radio shows and television appearances and sitting down with Peter King and all of those sorts of things because that really got him a job, right? I mean, and in the fact that there was some discontent going on in Green Bay after he left and not going extremely smoothly. Well, now we see that it's, it was fine. And Aaron Rogers, I think largely is going to be fine last week's speed bump, notwithstanding. But the reasons that they're losing right now are not just because of Mike McCarthy. It's because of the entire staff that McCarthy put together. And it's because of this roster that Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones have built. And the lack of answers that they had on defense, the way that they have not addressed the safety position, the way that

they're putting together their pass rush by signing guys. who hadn't played in five years and had significant character concerns or, you know, not, just not drafting well there, not spending their free agency money there, you know, well, Everson Griffin has been a non-factor. Obviously, Gerald McCoy got hurt. He was one of kind of their prize defensive signings, but this is not a good roster. And when it's not a good roster and you're not well coached, it's no wonder that they're getting blown out by the Arizona Cardinals on Monday night football.

I think on offense, they would have been okay without injuries. obviously losing Tyron Smith, losing Lyle Collins for the season. When you lose your two starting tackles, it's a big deal. Zek Martin went out during the game against Arizona. The defense is an entirely different story. I mean, it's a mess. And I just assume that not Jason Garrett would be enough for this team to be a contender and to be really, really good.

And I was wrong about that. I was very wrong about that. Because the problem is, is Mike McCarthy isn't that different from Jason Garrett. That's kind of where I'm at. Yeah. If you were going to be not Jason Garrett, you need to be. to go and hire somebody who is so vastly different who has better ideas and is not going to just be a Jason Garrett clone.

Uninspired is the perfect word. And that is what the Mike McCarthy hire was. It was totally uninspired. And I was always interested in the push and the poll of trying to be the best football team possible, trying to get the guy that is really going to elevate you and lift you to the heights I think this roster can reach. And a guy that Jerry Jones can. have his thumb on because he likes to maintain control.

Was he going to go after an Urban Meyer type of person who he would probably have to seed roster control to, the spotlight to, all of those things? Or did he want somebody like Mike McCarthy where he maintained complete autonomy over the rest of the organization? He went with the ladder and this is the results that they're getting. And I'm just slightly embarrassed that Mike McCarthy somehow pulled this stick over on me in the same way that he pulled it over on Jerry Jones. My memory is apparently very bad.

Although I will say in your defense, I think a lot of the reasons that you were really excited about the Cowboys were because of Dak Prescott and the talent that they had there and maybe a little bit more about Kellyn Moore and less about Mike McCarthy's offensive teams. That was my thing. It was like, all right, if he cedes the offense to Kellyn Moore, I think Kellyn Moore is a good offensive coach. We've seen the results from Kellyn Moore. I just need a little less Jason Garrett and a little bit more Kellyn Moore. and the Cowboys offense is going to be a rocket ship. I unfortunately did not take into account that all of those guys on the Cowboys Offense have to go to work every day for a guy that doesn't seem to be very good at his job.

And I think we're seeing the results that come along with that. And now they get to play Washington this weekend. They absolutely could lose. They absolutely could lose. I still think Andy Dalton's okay. I don't think one game is an indictment on Andy Dalton as a professional quarterback. I just think that the circumstances there are not very very. very good right now.

No, he's the least of their problems. Yes, exactly. He's a problem, but he's not their biggest problem. So, yeah, that is going to be an interesting. Can we just completely forget about the NFC East this entire weekend? I mean, four teams are playing each other. This weekend, why not for the season? Is there any reason that the NFC West has, or the NFC East has to have a

playoff team? Think about, we've done this for years. There's six playoff teams in the NFC. There's no reason against the rules say that we can't. But why can't we just do six playoff teams in the NFC again? Two teams get a buy, and the NFC East just doesn't matter. I think that that's a totally reasonable way to go about this. Yeah, well, I was going to say the NFL bylaws are the reason.

But that's the only reason. But I will say if there's ever a year that it should change, it should be this year. Because we're not done with like schedule manipulations. We're not done with, you know, by the time we get to January, there might be teams that have only played 14 games. or 15 games. So just completely scrap the way that this playoff structure is built for 2020 only. Put in eight teams in each conference. I'm not saying that that means any extra.

That would be one more team that should have been in, two more teams from last year, or go back to just six teams. Don't let anybody bonus in. And just rank them one through six. Do an NBA style, you know, the team with the best winning percentage. So let's say it's the Seahawks and the NFC or the Packers, whoever gets there.

And then if there's, not an NFC team that's in the top six or the top eight, whatever number it is, or the top seven even, screw it, just leave it at seven. But let's just rank it by winning percentage. And if you're not in there, you're not in there and we're going to give up this whole like you earned a home game because who gives a shit about home games in 2020 when there's only a couple hundred or a couple thousand fans in the stadium as it is. If you polled every player in the NFC East right now, every single guy, he said, all right, you will get paid. We will pay you through the end of the season, but you don't have to play anymore.

You can just pull the plug right now and the season ends. You'd have to think a lot of them would probably consider it, right? And they, like, don't have to get swabs up their nose every day. Don't have to go to practice? Just take the year off. I think everybody associated with this, both in the NFC East and outside of it, would be better off if we just pulled the plug on the entire division for the rest of the year. I'd be cool with that, too.

It just seems reasonable. I say this, and the 5 and 11 Eagles are absolutely. Absolutely beating the Bears on Wild Card weekend. It's almost guaranteed to happen now. I'm not going to make a doink sound. I swear. I'm not going to do it. I already know it's going to happen.

It's inevitable at this point. It's almost a guarantee that Carson Wentz and like some garbage man that they signed off the street like three days ago is going to catch 16 passes for 200 yards as Kyle Fuller trips all over himself. I just know it's already happening. Well, I would just like us to bookmark my playoff suggestion. And we'll just save this. File it away for later when they need to do something different.

And we need to kick the NFC East out of the playoffs. All right. Lindsay, each week we ask the one big question we have heading into the week. What is your one big question heading into week seven? Well, I have a lot of questions. But I'm going to leave my question to a team that we haven't talked about yet. And I've got a lot of questions about who the Patriots are right now.

And I just, I want to know a lot more about kind of where they're at. And I just feel like the fact that they're playing the Niners this week, the Niners are coming off a huge win last week against the Rams. The Patriots are coming off a really disappointing home loss to the Broncos where they just really looked out of sorts. I just think we're kind of at the point now where each week is kind of going to be a referendum on this plan and the plan to, you know, divorce from Tom Brady and sign Cam Newton, but not really address a lot of the other deficiencies on the roster. And, you know, nobody could get open. Their skill position players still aren't very good. And you know, you and Nate talked about this a lot on the Sunday night for Monday morning podcast where the plan kind of has been Cam go do something. And I think we're seeing right now is that's not the best plan. And I still have a lot of faith in this coaching staff. I have a lot of faith in Cam Newton. If they can get the time together, I'm not sure if I have a ton of faith in the rest of the roster, especially offensively. The COVID-related issues that they've had, the lack of practice time and the lack of just quality skill position players, you know, I'm just not sure kind of where they're.

where they're at right now. And the fact now that they're facing Jimmy Garoppolo, that's a fun little side plot right now. And the fact that Tom Brady looks like he made the right decision to not stay and to go where maybe he was going to get a different coaching staff and better players around him. Seems to clearly be the right call for Tom Brady. And I just want to know now if it's going to be the right call for the Patriots as well. And look, the AFC East is winnable.

They should be in this. I mean, the bills are not running away with this division. The bills have not looked great over the last two weeks. And yes, they've lost to two really good teams and losing to the chiefs and to the Titans. But if the Patriots want to kind of prove that they made the right call and moving on from Brady, I think this is really the time that they need to do it. I think so when we talked about that, we had not watched the All-22. And some people have gone back and done a pretty good job of pointing out that some guys were open against the Broncos last week.

And, you know, Cam just didn't play very well. And that happens. So I have the same question that you have. What is this team? Can they compete? can they get it together on offense with a lack of skill position talent and some injuries along the offensive line? Part of that question though, are the Broncos like sneaky okay? I think the answer to that is yes. Well, I think their defense is pretty good and they're getting healthier.

AJ Bouye should be back fairly soon. He's been activated off of IR. You know, their defensive line is good even without, you know, some of their really most important players. But the back end of the Broncos defense is really good. Their safety duo is one of the best safety duos in the league. I think you could put them up there, Kareem Jackson and Justin Simmons. You could put them up there with anybody. So they played great.

And obviously, they're really well coached with Vic Fangio. Very interested to see how they play against Patrick Mahomes. I'm actually going to go to that game Sunday in Denver. It's going to be snowing. It's going to be in the mid-20s with potential, like several inches of snow. So I think it's actually going to be the second consecutive

of snow game between the Broncos and the Chiefs. The last one was in Kansas City. But so I'm very excited to see how they play. You know, Broncos' defense historically have played pretty well against Mahomes. Generally, they have good game plans. So yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to watch a live football game in an actual stadium in a press box this week. It's going to be weird and fun, I think.

When they had all those injuries on offense, I think I mentally just kind of wrote them off. And you forget, it's like, oh, man, this team has Cream Jackson, Justin Simmons, Bryce Calhann is on this team. Because he got hurt last year, it's just one of those things that kind of slips your mind. Their linebackers are pretty decent. I think Alexander Johnson is a nice physical underrated player. He had a really good year last year. And up front, like Shelby Harris is having a career year.

Casey has given them some juice. Bradley Shub is playing really well. And the coaching staff is really good. So I just feel like they're going to give a lot more teams problems over the rest of the season than we probably thought a couple weeks ago, if we should have been seeing this coming because of the talent that they have defensively. Yeah, I mean, I still don't think they're going to, I still think the Chiefs will win this game. But I think the Broncos are going to make it interesting.

And they're suddenly going to be, I think, a difficult team to play. You know, Drew Locke's statline did not tell the whole story. A lot of drops. A lot of early drops. He didn't play well in the fourth quarter. You know, his interceptions, those were some really bad picks. But yeah, I mean, I think they're going to be interesting. I'm not ready to get out, get back on the hype wagon.

and I was never all the way on it. I'm not sure if you should hop back into the driver's seat quite yet. I'm not ready to hype them up. I think they're going to be like a six and ten, seven and nine team that no one likes playing. I could see that. Yeah. Like that's just kind of what I,

I think that's what they're going to be for the rest of the year. They finish like eighth in defensive DVOA. Bradley Chub has a couple big games. A couple quarterbacks look worse against them than they probably should. And I'm just curious if that's what happened with Cam Newton last week. and when we see KM play against some teams that aren't the Broncos, does he end up looking a little bit better? So my big question is, are the Cardinals for real,

or are they just a mirage? So the Cardinals are four and two, and I pick them to get one of the wild card spots in the NFC, but I almost feel like this is cheating because they look nothing like the team I expected them to look like. Their offense has been really shaky and inconsistent, almost similar to last year, and the defense has played really well.

They've been a top 10 defense, according to most metrics, without Chandler Jones for the last couple games. So they just don't look like the team I thought they were going to, so I'm not sure I deserve credit for picking them to win a bunch of games. And I'm just wondering, is this version of their offense sustainable? Because if you look at some of the numbers, Kyler Murray right now is 25th in the NFL in passing EPA,

which is cumulative, and he's sandwiched between Jimmy Garapolo and Nick Mullen's, both of whom have not been the full-time quarterback for the 49ers. But then if you look at the scrambling EPA, he is number one in the NFL by a lot. I think it's by an entire six points, which is like 50% higher than anyone else in the league. So their offense, even last on Monday night against Dallas,

relied a ton on him picking up yards on the ground. And that's not something I typically like to rely on just because I think it's really volatile. But if he's going to continue to do this and to be just tearing teams up on design runs and scrambles. And that's what their offense looks like, mixed in with the occasional deep shot here and there, some reliable throws to DeAndre Hopkins,

and a running game that may be finding its footing a little bit after being slow a little bit early in the season, then I see no reason why they can't keep doing this. It doesn't look like how I thought it was going to look, but it still is a pretty good end result. So if they can score with the Seahawks, if their defense can hold up in the way that it's held up for most of the year, it seems like they may be a pesky team that sticks around here for a while.

They've been a bad matchup or a good matchup for the Seahawks. I guess depending on which way you want to look at it. If you are looking at it through a Cardinals lens, they've played really well against the Seahawks recently. I believe they won in Seattle late last year, actually, in a game that really affected Seattle's playoff seedings. And that was a game that if they had won that game, it would have potentially changed a lot in the NFC.

But yeah, they've been a bad matchup for some reason for Seattle And, you know, today we didn't talk a lot about Seattle's defensive weaknesses. And, you know, I'm not sure if the way that they're built, if they're really built to stop a quarterback like Kyler Murray and built to stop a wide receiver like DeAndre Hopkins, who leads the NFL in receiving right now. So I don't know if it's sustainable. That is a really interesting question. But kind of like we said about the Broncos, I think they're going to be a really hard team to play week to week

because they're just, their best players are just so dynamic and really challenging ways. And there's no just simple kind of textbook way to stop these guys, to stop the D'Andre Hopkins, to stop Kyler Murray when he gets going. He's just, he just runs at a different speed and a different cadence than everybody else. And then some of their best defensive players, yes, they've lost Chandler Jones, which is huge. My defensive player, the year pick, Chandler Jones is on IR out for the rest of the year. but they're just playing with like a ton of effort, a lot of energy.

Buddha Baker is fun as hell right now. I was just so fun. And my daughter, who's four, has really gotten into watching the primetime football games with me, mostly because she knows it's a way to extend bedtime. And she was so excited. So we were in her bed, the lights off watching on my phone the other night. And I said, we can watch one more play. And then you really have to go to sleep.

And it was Buda Baker's interception. And so she got to go to sleep right after his first career interception. He got that massive contract after no career interceptions, which was incredible, by the way. But so she got to watch that celebration, the bowling celebration. And five days later, three days later, she's still talking about it. She said it was her favorite thing she saw all weekend. So she liked it when all the players in red fell down. So this is a pro Buda Baker show.

I very much enjoyed that. And I think it's going to be a really fun kind of sneaky, good game. and honestly, I wouldn't be shocked. Well, the Seahawks only play weird, really close games. So it's probably going to be like a, you know, 28 to 27, something weird happened. You know, D.K. Metcalfe play at the end, something weird will have to happen. It's just, there's such a weird team. Kaan Murray has run the ball 51 times this season.

That's all? 51. 51. He ran the ball 93 times in 16 games last year. He has the same number of carries the season as where he moster and. Mark Ingram. It's just a very weird way to play offensive football. Because even when you think about like the Ravens last year,

Lamar was doing a lot of designed runs. He was not scrambling as often as Kyle Murray is right now. So if you kind of lump his runs into their passing game, the production is a little bit better. The numbers look a little bit better. He's actually averaging the same amount of yards per carry almost to the decimal point as he is yards per attempt right now. So it's this weird amalgam of him running and throwing that's comprising their passing game,

and it's working well enough. It's just when guys aren't good and when offenses aren't good in traditional ways, it's hard for me to gauge whether or not they're actually good. And that's exactly where I am with the Cardinals right now. I have no idea how good or bad their offense is because even though the results are happening, you know, at a decent clip, it's just happening in a way that's really hard for me to comprehend. So I want to see them a little bit more, and I think that the Seahawks this week will be, be a pretty good test.

So, all right. Lindsay, I think that's all we got. That's it. Fun week. Super excited. Looking forward to the games, we'll be back on Sunday night. Me and Nate, we're breaking down all the week seven action. Until then, please subscribe and rate the podcast on your favorite podcast platform.

Really appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you later. This was the Athletic Football Show.