The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 9 Recap: Bills knock off Chiefs, big wins for the Steelers and Vikings, and the Packers lost to who?!?

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Now that's more like it. After a blowout-filled Week 8, the NFL got back to its down-to-the-wire ways in Week 9. Of course, Bills over Chiefs goes down as the big story of the day, and that's where Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman begin the Week 9 recap episode of The Athletic Football Show. The guys also discuss eye-opening wins for the Steelers and Vikings, a fireworks show between the Bears and Bengals, a puzzling loss for the Packers to the Panthers, a rock fight between the Broncos and Texans, and plenty more.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)3:14 The Bills beat the Chiefs, and might have found something on defense22:47 The Steelers have our attention after taking down the Colts34:45 The Vikings have our attention after upsetting the Lions53:49 WTF?!? Packers lose to the Panthers1:06:29 Bears/Bengals craziness1:17:09 Broncos/Texans rock fight1:22:23 John Parker Romo deprives us of a dramatic finish in Falcons-Patriots1:26:25 How Can You Not be Romantic About Football?1:31:50 What did we learn in Week 9?Connect with The Athletic Football ShowX: https://x.com/TA_FootballShowIG: https://www.instagram.com/tafootballshowYT: https://www.youtube.com/@TAFootballShowTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tafootballshowDiscord: http://discord.gg/theathleticfootballshowCall us: 847-448-0701Email us: [e-mail]: Robert MaysCo-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerVideo Producer: Katy DuffyAudio Producer: Michael BellerSocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @davehelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. Week 9 is in the books. It was a good one today. We had a great Chiefs' Bills game, a phenomenal performance by the Buffalo Bills in this game. One of the worst games of Patrick Mahomes' career in the regular season. An excellent performance by Josh Allen and the bill's offense. We dug into all of that.

Talked about some attention-grabbing performances from the Minnesota Vikings and J.J. McCarthy's return. And a great game from the Pittsburgh Steelers front, shutting down a Colts offense. that had been absolutely rolling so far this year. No shortage of WTF moments from week nine. Talked about a bewildering Packers loss to the Carolina Panthers today. A wild finish and an embarrassing performance from both defenses in Bears and Bengals.

Chatted about a rock fight between the Texans and the Broncos. And also just a little bit of a disappointing finish in Falcons Patriots that probably should have been a little bit more exciting than it was. dug into plenty more from an excellent week nine slate with Dave Helman and Derek Classen. Let's get to that conversation right now. I feel like the football guys knew that Derek was back this week. We had a couple of sleepy weeks, a couple weeks where the witching hour was, there was no witching. There was nothing enjoyable about it.

There was nothing mystical about it. And then we come in today, there was a point in the early slate, late in the early slate, where every single game was within 10 points. There was tons of fun stuff going on. And then obviously we get a banger of a Bill's win in the late window. And so I think people knew that you were back in town. They were ready to bring it for you. I feel like the football got smited me.

Did you see what the Packers did? Well, yeah. In your own personal world, things didn't go great. But overall, I think we got blessed with a pretty damn good day in weeknight. I almost had to reteach myself how to deal with the chaos because it has been kind of sleepy. Like, we haven't had a crazy finish to the early window in a few weeks. the Europe games have kind of taken one of the big matchups out of the equation. And there we were at whatever time it was like 258.

And I'm like, holy shit, I don't know where to look. And it's been, it feels like it's been a month since that was the case. It was great. Let's start with a massive win for the Buffalo Bills. We're going to talk about the Sunday night game on the hangover tomorrow, just a heads up. So it's worth mentioning after a performance like that. I think on two fronts. One, the performance that the Seahawks had and just the domination on that front,

we're going to dig into that on the hangover tomorrow. and obviously looks like Jaden Daniels is going to be out for an extended period of time. That is a season-altering injury for Washington. And so we're going to dig into that in earnest tomorrow. Just throwing that out there. And then we'll talk about the other couple games that we're going to hit on the hangover a little bit later on this show. But other than the Sunday night performance,

the only place you can really start today is with what the Buffalo Bills did to the Kansas City Chiefs. This is about as good of a performance as you could possibly hope for if you are the bills. The offense did really whatever they wanted per next-shend, 55 and a half percent offensive success rate for the bills. They ran the ball well. They were explosive throwing the ball down the field, which is something we talked about on the preview show,

where are they going to find some of these explosives in the passing game? They did it consistently. But Derek, the most notable thing about this game for Buffalo is what they were able to do to the Kansas City Chiefs offense, and namely to Patrick Mahomes. I mean, Mahomes was absolutely rolling coming into this game. We talked about it on the preview show. Per next gen stats, 32 and a half percent. dropback success rate for Mahomes in this game,

his worst regular season mark as a starter in the NFL. When you take what the Bill's defense was doing and what the Chief's offense was doing, it is hard to square how bad of a day the Chiefs passing game had today. It was startling and at one point it didn't feel like

it was that bad because they had hit a bunch of explosives, right? Like they were able to kind of move the ball down the field that way and get a couple of those. Then I looked up, I remember, obviously this was before the game ended, but at one point, Patrick Mahomes was like 10 for 22. And I was like, really, but it was because they were just getting a couple of those chunk plays. And so I thought what was interesting about this game is like,

it seems like the only times you can really get Patrick Mahomes like this or when you index all of your resources into doing so, like the Bengals game, the playoff game that they played a bunch or like five years ago at this point, which that seems crazy. But when they played that game, Lou was going to a lot of like the drop eight stuff. And it was like, we're just going to have bodies and coverage. And Robert, you can bring up the numbers in a second. I would love to hear them.

They played a ton of dime in this game, which like that's like, that's like, okay, if they're just going to pass and have all these light bodies on the field, then we're just going to overindex into stopping the pass. Yeah, they had a pretty extreme game plan on a few different fronts, and it worked about as well as the bills possibly could have hoped. So you're looking at it, and it just seemed like they had 6 dBs on the field for a huge chunk of this game, Buffalo did, and the numbers bear that out. 45 and a half percent dime for the bills in this game.

That is the highest single game rate of the Sean McDermott era, and the chiefs had a 34 and a half percent success rate on. those plays per next-gen stats. And so I think it was a combination of a lot of different things. They had a lot of past defense bodies on the field consistently, and so that was clearly part of the game plan. I think that is where things started. I thought the bills did a fantastic job of mixing up coverages because they played a decent

amount of man in this game, but I think the final numbers on it in terms of percentages, it's 34 and a half percent for the bills playing man coverage in this game. That's not a ton, but Mahomes was six of 12 on those plays. But I think the most important thing is how well they were mixing up coverages throughout the game. They did a fantastic job of disguising. I mean, the grounding is a really good example of this. The grounding that probably shouldn't have grounded because it was tipped. On that play, the bills are lined up in single high.

They bail out into cover two. It's actually a play action pass. So Mahom snaps his head around after thinking it probably is going to be manned coverage, and it's some funky version of cover two. The bills are doing that consistently throughout the entire game. What we talked about coming into this thing is that Mahomes had done such an incredible job this season when he knew what it was going to look like pre-snap

he was finding answers so quickly every single team they were playing against when they were playing zone coverage. And I think the bills did such a great job of giving him like just a little split second of indecision in that first two and a half seconds in the play the entire game and consistently taking away those instant options that had really been there

for the past month for the Chiefs. And I think it's worth pointing out I love all of that, but the tried and true way to get to Patrick Mahomes is to pressure. And the bills beat the crap out of the Chiefs offensive tackles

in this game. It kind of, this game was such a, it was like a fever dream of the things the bills have day dreamed of going well. You know, like Joey Bosa,

bring in Joey Bosa to have a game like this. And Joey Bosa sort of leads the charge on the edge. Greg Rousseau was incredible too. You get that going. Your first round pick, Maxwell,

Hirsten, like, just got back and play, like, you know, he had a big play in this game. Dalton Kincaid looked like the guy that you got excited about making the first tight end drafted in his draft class. Like, all that stuff, all the decisions that the bills have made over the last few years, it all kind of felt like it came to fruition. And yeah, I mean, clearly Mahomes was was flummoxed by a lot of what the bills were doing, but also just hassled all day long. And I was joking with Bill's fans during the game.

I was like, what would you do to ensure that Joey Bosa did this again in January? Because like that's why he's here. It's fun to see this, but it would be so fun if this stuff came to fruition on that stage instead of just in November too. I think that's exactly right when you think about what they wanted to be coming through this offseason into this season and what the bills wanted to be on defense, the things they needed to come through for them. Most of those things came through today.

Another one, Cole Bishop. Paul Bishop has started that as well. The gold game of his life. I joked you in like the third quarter son. I think he had made another player or two after this. Then I was like, I'm pretty sure Cole Bishop has made more plays in this game than he has made like his entire NFL career up to this point. Like he was awesome in this game.

And speaking of, yeah, like trying, getting all the stuff that you really wish would come to fruition this season. And also on top of like mixing up their coverage as well, I just thought all the Bills ds. It felt like there were just moments where they were on top of Kansas City shit in a really impressive way. No one was covering grass ever in this game. Ever. They did a phenomenal job of attachment.

themselves to routes even when they're playing zone coverage the whole game the the the fourth and three the that's why i wanted to ring it up the it's uh second quarter about just over four minutes left it's fourth and three kansas city has trips to the right they like do a little bit of motion i think with the with the number three bring him back and then they fast motion the back out to the right to create a four by one they do this stuff all the time they try to overload you and get one of your zone defenders out of the way colbishop starts to slide and then goes no no they're trying to pull me drives back on the number three and it's just like that's that's an incredible point and also i think think if you watch how that play unfolds,

Kelsey is standing right next to. Rice is the intended receiver on that play, right? I think Kelsey is the intended receiver and Rice is the number two next to him. I think it's the opposite. I think they try to run Bishop off with Kelsey. And he just doesn't move with Kelsey. He's sitting right on that because that's exactly

what they want you to do. They're trying to clear him out and then throw the ball underneath. He does not clear out. And so I think it was just a really good job of, again, they knew exactly what the intent of so many of these plays were and they weren't playing into the chief's hands. And so I think the bishop is a part of this. You mentioned Joey Bosa.

There was a two-play sequence from Bosa early in the second quarter that's like, this is a guy they just haven't had before. And even when Greg Rousseau is playing well, this is a guy that it just has a gear when he is healthy that they have not had before. He works around Jawan Taylor, Joey Bosa does, to get like a two-yard TFL to make it second and 12. And then on that same drive, he gets a pressure on the next play on third down. And so he just, that guy playing well and being healthy,

that's why they went out and tried to get that gear within their defense they just haven't had. So you have Bosa, you have Maxwell Harrison coming in. The two plays that stick out to me. The interception obviously, you know, that's a big play in the game. But there's a play on the Chief's second drive where they tried to take a deep shot to Xavier Worthy. And Harrison is running with him step for step down the sideline. That is a skill set on the other side of Christian.

in Benford that this team did not have last year and you felt that when these two teams played in the playoffs. So there's another one of them. Michael Hoyt was really big in this game and the fact that he tore his Achilles is a huge bummer because you saw the ways they were trying to use him and I actually think one of the other

kind of layers to the Bill's defensive game plan that's worth pointing out. It was a lot of 6 dbs in this game but on a huge chunk of these plays they were actually using three defensive linemen and two linebackers and so it was like like Hoyt and then Dorian Williams at times,

and they were doing something we've seen, a lot of teams trot out against some of these scrambling quarterbacks this year, where you have this three-man rush, and then you kind of have like a mush rush with the linebacker. And so they were doing everything they could to have somebody accounting for Mahomes in some of those scrambling opportunity moments, and Hoyt was a part of that.

They were lining him up as a spinner. So he was kind of, him and Williams had like interchangeable roles in some of those looks. And so this is a guy, that has a unique skill set. He dropped the tongue when he was playing for the Rams, even though he has a defensive end body. And so, again, all of these different things

that the bills probably wanted to be on defense coming into the year that we have not necessarily seen from them fell into place against the Chiefs offense that had been playing lights out over the past four weeks. Which I don't want to make light of Hoyt's injury, but we joked about it going into this game. When two things go right for the bills, now another guy's jogging off because something

happen. It sucks. It was such a bummer to see that. And that brief glimpse that we got of Hoyt in this defense was really, really fun. Carolina and most of this game as well. Let's talk about those offense in this game because, again, several like really nice moments that the group, them playing exactly how you want to see them play when they're playing at their best. And so the three touchdown drives, I mean, you can just go through like what you want to see from this team on those plays. But the touchdown to Kincaid, the 23-yarder, the chiefs are in man, he knows it. And so

he's attacking Drew Tranquil on that corner route to Kincaid out of the number three spots. It's an easy decision. It's a great throw. That's the first touchdown. On the second touchdown drive, they hit Kincaid for a 47-yarder to simulated pressure. They're playing cover two behind it.

And this is again, you talked about the lack of speed kind of showing up and having not that much space within the offense for the bills to work. Curtis Samuel is running straight down the middle of the field against cover two. He yanks out the pole runner and both safeties. Kincaid's coming across. Josh has all day, and he fights Kincaid for 47 yards.

And then my favorite sequence from them all day offensively, the third touchdown drive that they had. They come out in 22 personnel. They get a 16-yard chunk to James Cook to kick off that drive. It's beautiful. Jackson Hawes is slicing across the formation. He picks off Tranquil, and then Reggie Gilliam leads up on Nick Bolton for 16 yards.

And then on that same drive, they're in 22 personnel. It's play action. They sneak Dawson knocks up the right side line for 30 yards. Josh finishes it off with a tush push. It's 2110. It's like, there it is. Like this is Buffalo Bill's football at its best. And we got to see every aspect of it today.

I would have fallen for that shit, hook line and sinker. Like that was so beautifully set up. And like we talked about what they were doing with 22 personnel. And if you go back and watch that, you can see the whole second and third level of the Chiefs defense collectively realize, oh shit. because you watch the bills and you're like, okay, this is what they're going to do. They're going to try to big boy us out. It was Chef's Kiss.

The fact that I think Josh had six explosive passes in this game and four of them went to their tight ends. Amazing. Which is what we were joking about kind of coming into the week. It's like, I don't know if you can really have the explosive parts of your offense be your tight ends. And in this game, it absolutely was true. And they scheme it up really well. You know, the first deep over that you mentioned to Kincaid, that was a really good shot. And Josh had all day again in the pocket.

I thought they did a really good job picking that up. the 22 personnel shot down the sideline to Haas is just like them setting up both tight ends into the boundary and then doing like a zone fake fake into that side it's so easy as a defender to get influenced into biting onto that and so them doing that like you have the fullback like fake leading for him too it's just it's an easy way to get I think it was Jalen Watson maybe it was the corner he gets pulled down and he's like oh no I've got to run up the sideline and he's just a little bit too late so I thought that that was really impressive um there was another throw the Elijah Moore, the throw that he makes to Elijah Moore, they're in like tight trips left and so Kansas City, they love to do this, Steve Smaagnolo. If he knows you're in a tight formation, he's going to blitz it. That's what he loves to do. And so they fire the nickel.

The problem is if you fire the nickel, some safety probably has to replace that. And so they bring the safety down, Josh knows where the void is, makes the throw to Elijah Moore. And just like them being able to pick on them schematically down the field in this game when they're trying to bring some of that pressure, I thought was you have to do that against Spags

and they did it really well. the only thing I wonder and the only thing I worry about if I'm a Bill's fan or if I'm just watching the Bill's performance in this game is they kind of threw everything they had at them defensively in this game specifically I totally get it after what they had done to them in the playoffs last year and after all the issues that they've had with them in these big moments over the last few years I can understand being like

we are going to unleash the game plan we think is going to work I just hope if I'm a Bill's fan if these two teams play again they have another set of answers for the Chiefs offense because I think they found the perfect answer today and they deserve a lot of credit for that. Part of me doesn't want to be the smart ass that dismisses this. And like it's such an impressive performance. He's the reigning MVP so obviously we know he's capable of it.

But like Josh was so masterful just across everything in this game. It's an incredibly impressive win. It matters to be able to beat the Chiefs. But like there is the part of you that's like, okay, well, we know how this goes. this is five straight years. This is five straight years that they've done this in the regular season. And they've gotten the better of Mahomes.

Like, I mean, not career worst success rate. Or I think this is the first time since 2020 that Mahomes has been, like, pressured on the majority of his dropbacks in a regular season game. So this stuff matters, but it's okay to have that in the back of your mind because we got a lot of data about it.

I think what's most important is realizing that the defense is this sort of gear. even if it took a lot, pulling a lot of very specific levers and really playing in some of the extremes and the way that they approach the Chief's offense today, it is really nice to see the Bill's defense put together a performance like this, especially again when you're folding in some of the new elements of what this group is compared to what they were last year.

I'm really not trying to be glib. And look, football is a violent game with a 100% injury rate. And the bills don't even control the division right now. Obviously, they lost the Patriots, but you got to find a way to have Bosa available when you get to January. Like, I don't know. Like, good luck to Sean McDermott and those guys for juggling that. But you got to be able to lean on that when you get to the playoffs.

I think you saw the type of difference it can make in a game like this. We talked about it on the previous show. The Chiefs are now 5 and 4. They're two games back in the division. You know, I still think I'd pick them to win the AFC West based on how well they're playing. And, you know, some of the offensive struggles the Broncos continue to have. And the Broncos are 7 and 2.

Their defense is great. But in the long run, I still think I feel best about. this chief's team. I don't think I'm saying anything crazy by throwing that out there. But the fact that the chiefs are now two games back in the division, nine games into the season, just not a place we're used to seeing this team. Even when they've been frustrating and a little bit boring on offense, they won like 15 games that year. Yeah, we still just wanted the, we just wanted the 15 wins to look good.

Yes. And the offense looks better. They're just further back in the standings than we're used to. We're not here to preview week 10, but you know who's up next, right? After they're by. Denver. And week 11? Yeah, week 11.

And so they have not played yet, right? So they have two more games against the Broncos. They have not played the Broncos yet. Yeah, they do have their buy. So it's not even week 10. Week 11, they go to Denver. So that's, uh, yeah, understatement, but that's a big one. We will have that on the radar.

All right, before we get to a couple games that grabbed our attention this week, let's take a quick break. Gentlemen, you have my curiosity. Now you have my attention. The Pittsburgh Steelers knock off the, Indianapolis Colts 27 to 20. Colts finished this game with six turnovers. They had four turnovers up to this point in the season before this game kicked off. Daniel Jones had as many interceptions today as he had in his first eight weeks combined. The Steelers had five sacks in this game.

The Colts had been sacked nine times in the eight weeks prior to this game. And so a very out of character performance for the Indianapolis Colts offense and the Steelers deserve of a lot of credit for pushing them to that place. The Steelers' defense and the Steelers' front in particular. You guys have our attention. This was a game when those guys make their plays, that defense can look fine. And what's funny is like the Colts' success rate was really not that bad.

They didn't get the run game going in the same way that they typically would. But like by the end of the game, the passing success rate was fine. And like Daniel Jones actually did battle for a lot of the game. It was just a lot of these turnovers. They did a really good job of forcing. And some of them were like a little bit fluky and weird. like one, they're trying to throw an RPO to the left side. I think it was Jones's, it was in the late third quarter.

I don't remember which interception this was. He threw a number of them. But they were trying to RPO throw a hitch to the left side. Peyton Wilson jumps like eight feet in the air, gets a hand on it, and I think Jack Sawyer comes down. That one's a little bit unlucky. The interception he throws to Wilson earlier, I wouldn't call it unlucky, but I thought it was interesting.

So very early on in the play, they motion a player to the left, and Jalen Ramsey runs with him. So Daniel Jones is like, I'm getting man coverage. I think it was man coverage. It was man coverage. And so he's trying to throw a little like whip route to,

I forget, I think it was Josh. Josh down on the right hand side. And Peyton Wilson is the linebacker to that side. He should be flying down to Jonathan Taylor coming out of the backfield. But Jonathan Taylor is a little late coming out of the back field. He's shipping T.J. Watt. Yes, exactly. He's shipping T.J. Watt.

He's late coming out. So Wilson isn't sprinting out to the flat the way that Daniel Jones might think he would be. And so he's a little bit late. He's sitting there. Wilson has eyes on the quarterback. realizes he's about a trigger, just tries to find where the ball is going to go and sits in front of it. And so that was just like not unlucky, but just such like a funny circumstance of Jones thought he was getting something. And Wilson just made a really, really good play on it.

Yeah, he never picks him up. He never sees Peyton Wilson on that way. He just in his mind, he's gone on it. He's coming left to right. He assumes that Peyton Wilson is in the flat with Jonathan Taylor. He never accounts for him. He throws it right to him. And then, I mean, the play of the game, though, is not, none of the interceptions.

The strip sack that T. Watt has with about 11 minutes left in the second quarter, the Colts are up 7 to nothing at that point early in the second quarter. They're on the plus 38. It's first and 10 when T.J. Watt makes that play. So, I mean, he just beats the right tackle around the corner and goes for the ball and that is a game swinging play because instead of the Colts potentially punching that thing in for 14-0, it is 7-0 with the Steelers having the ball. The next play, this is just kind of like the way the game goes. The next play, Aaron Rogers throws the ball the Kenny Gainwell. It gets blown

up in the backfield for what should be a one-yard loss. Neville Gallimore gets dinged for a 15-yard face mask penalty and then the Steelers go down and score. So in a lot of different ways, things, it was coming up Steelers a lot today over the course of this game. I'm glad you pointed that out because again, what, there's

eight games on in the early window. You're doing your best to prioritize based on what are the best matchups. And the Colts first drive. Steelers go three and out. Colts go 13 plays convert two fourth downs. It looked like a soul-stealing sort of situation where you're like, yep,

here go the Colts. They're for real. They're going to march all day on this Pittsburgh defense. Second drive is 14 plays. They ran 27 plays on their first two possessions. Watt strips Daniel Jones. I think the Colts next four possessions went for less

snaps than their first two. Like, that changed everything. And from there, you're going three and out. Daniel Jones is throwing uncharacteristic interceptions, but the way this thing started, I was sort of like, okay, is it time to move Steelers Colts to the back burner because the Steelers can't do anything with these guys? And then all of a sudden, the whole game changed. When even the first try was funny too, because again, they're just moving the ball and they're just mowing them down on this first drive. And the only reason it kind of stalls out at the end

is Cam Hayward gets his hand on the ball twice inside the Red Sood, which like, he's going to do that. But in my mind, I was like, eh, the Colts moved the ball pretty well. Like, they'll, this, that was a little weird like stalling out they'll be fine. And I just thought that they were going to be able to continue to get down into that level of the field for most of the game. And they just, because of all the turnovers, all the sacks, they've really, really struggled to do that. Yeah, the turnovers were one thing, right?

I mean, turn the ball over six times can be hard to win any game. But I think that the consistent pressure was also worth mentioning. The Colts offensive line had been playing at a top five rate, like one of the best offensive lines in football for a good majority of this season. And they got pushed around today in a way that they have not for a good chunk of the year. I mean, the sack that Alex Highsmith gets early in the third quarter, it's on a

first and ten, he beats Bernard Raymond around the corner. Jones is at like 10 and a half yards on that play, and so like you could put a little bit of that on the quarterback as Ryman's trying to run him by, but Highsmith gets the corner, that's a sack. Kiano Benton, Keanu Benton, cooks Gonzalves early in the

fourth quarter. I'm just like, he's lined up as a three technique over the right guard. He wins, immediately gets the sack. Cam Hayward beats Consolves on a sack. later on a third and nine later in the drive to disrupt a throw. Highsmith turns a corner again on Reimann in the fourth quarter. And so everybody was getting in on this.

Everybody, every single member of the Steelers front had their moment as a pass rusher today. And for the most part, that just hasn't happened against this Colts offensive line all year. And incredibly efficient, too. So five sacks and two picks on 18 pressures today. So like every other time you get pressure on Daniel Jones, like, a havoc play is happening. Like that that looked like the Steelers front that can take over games and be the reason why the Steelers are a meaningful playoff team.

Like T.J. Watt, maybe that's the game that changed the flow or the play that changed the flow of the game. But High Smith looked incredible, dude. Like Bernard Raymond had a rough day at the office. I think Highsmith had two sacks and a forced fumble on four pressures, just like making the most of your opportunities. And that was kind of the case for everybody. This to me was like, obviously the pass rush and the front plays really well.

This was also the first time I watched the Steelers defense and felt like they were closing windows and like actually driving on stuff and kind of knew what they were getting from the offense. And that applies to everybody. Like I think Joey Porter had played a pretty decent game. But a lot of the DBs I think were closing a lot of windows. One of the most impressive points to me was in the second quarter there was about three and a half minutes left. It's a third and three. They drop Alex Highsmith. Yeah, that was to me, that was the best play at the day from the defense.

It was incredible. I thought it was one of the like, I don't know, I thought it was maybe one of the safeties or something, but they drop Alex Highsmith from his edge spot. They drop him into the boundary as the hook player. And he just makes an awesome play on like a little sit spot route that Josh Downs is running from his slot. And yes, he almost picks it off. Like I think if he was more accustomed to being a position, maybe he does pick it off.

But just like that I thought to me was like a microcosm of like, okay, if the Steelers defense can actually like they feel like they know what they're getting from the offense, they can close on stuff. They have some talented guys. It's just I've rarely felt that from them. And on that play, on that 3 and 3 that you're describing where Alex Hasman nearly picks that ball off, they bring a simulated pressure the Steelers do

with Brandon Eccles, the nickel, coming through, I think, like the left B gap, but they're only rushing four. The Steelers last season, this is a stat we brought up a bunch of different times. They were dead last in the NFL and unblock pressures last year. Like, the Steelers are not sending a lot of funky pressures

where you don't know where guys are coming from and getting unblocked guys getting to the quarterback. And so them doing it in that situation, like, it's just not the sort of a wrinkle you often see from this team. And so you combine that with the front just consistently winning in the way that you can

and you get sort of out of character performance from the Steelers defense given how much they've been struggling over the last few games. And out of character for 2025, Daniel Jones. He looked so uncomfortable. Like from that first strip sack onward, just like it looked like when he was dropping back,

it's like, okay, where's the breakdown coming from, where's the pressure coming from? And it just felt like it affected the whole thing. On offense, not a ton, I think, to report about what the Steelers did in this game. I think on the third down, on the drive after the watt fumble, a couple really nice conversions for Calvin Austin on third down. He's been a nice little weapon for them in some of those like space oriented deployments on third down. I think he's like one of the more explosive players. And so seeing him get involved is nice.

And then my favorite stretch of the entire game for the Steelers offense, they're in jumbo. late in the third quarter and they run Darno Washington on like a rail route down the right side line and hit him for 11 yards. And on the same drive, they're in 13 personnel. They line up Darno Washington

as the isolated X receiver on the left side and he runs a slant to get them inside the five yard line. So them highlighting and really focusing their game plan on Darno Washington in some of these stretches,

it might be my favorite version of the Steelers offense. I don't, well, you could argue with the veracity of it. but I'm enjoying it from an entertainment perspective. I just love what a week-to-week league the NFL is because I feel like it's been two or three weeks now where the insider reports coming out

are about the Steelers hunting for another receiver at the trade deadline. And for like three weeks, I see that and I'm like, who gives a shit about that? Like, fix the defense. Who cares who you're throwing the ball to? And now if the defense can do this against the most efficient offense in the NFL,

I'm like, all right, yeah, maybe we should go get another wide receiver in Pittsburgh. Are you worried at all about the Colts after the game like this? Or just one of those like sometimes you just have a tough day? The only thing that I would say that not worries me, but their worst games

to me, or at least some of their worst moments have been against the Broncos, have been against the Rams, and against the Steelers' front playing like this. When fronts can really get after them, you start to see some of it fall apart for them, but like... That's true for anybody, right? That's true for just about anybody. So I'm like, I don't know how much that

actually makes me feel a whole lot differently. My counter to that would be, and I know the end of the Denver game was goofy, they could have lost it just as easily as they won it. But they scored 29 points against Denver and Jones did not look bothered. They should have beaten the Rams. Like some goofy swings go against them in that game. They still scored. They scored 20, but it should have been 27 because the A.D. Mitchell thing.

This is just, this is a burn the tape game for me where I'm just like, we have a lot of evidence that you can do this and that this stuff doesn't bother Daniel Jones. I mean, I looked this up too. On third and fourth down, combined, they were 11 of 19 on the day, and they were two of two in the red zone. I think they're fine, and I think this is just a case of a bunch of the wrong shit

going against you and snowballing. What I'll say about just like the big picture implications of this game, it's a huge game for the Steelers, because if you're looking at the schedule, this seems like it might be a loss for Pittsburgh given how the Colts were playing and given how the Steelers were playing. And so for the Steelers to steal one here, and now be sitting there at 5 and 3.

I mean, when we're looking at like wild card implications deeper into the year, this is a potentially huge win that looked like a loss when we were going into week 9 considering what the teams had been up to this point. I will say too, I don't remember if we brought this up in the preview, but I'm not going to go as far as to say it's a game the Colts couldn't afford to lose. They were 7 and 1 going in, but the Chiefs are on the horizon. The only division games they've played are against the Titans. So two against the Texans, two against the Jags.

The AFC South is a wacky division anyway. This, you know, I think you still would like to be stacking wins even if you are seven and one. Because I just, I think it's going to look messier for the Colts in the back half of the season than it has so far. Let's get to our next one here. The Minnesota Vikings knock off the Detroit Lions 27 to 24 in J.J. McCarthy's return. Spent a lot of time this week talking about what we could expect from J.J. McCarthy. what the JJ McCarthy experience had meant up to this point, but we took a lot of time on the preview show

pointing out that the Vikings roster outside of the quarterback had not played the way this team was supposed to play heading into this season. This was supposed to be a complete team from top to bottom. And based on some of the pregame reports, I guess that they had a meeting, a team meeting last night, and some of the leaders on that Vikings roster essentially got up in front of everybody and said the same thing.

Like, it's time for us to play like the team we know we can be independent of what we get from the quarterback. And we can talk about the JJ McCarthy aspect of all of this, but the way the defense played, the way the entire roster played, now the offensive line is back healthy. That to me is what stuck out, is that the Vikings felt like the team we thought they could be

heading into the year. And that leads to a very big win over the Lions. And so not just JJ McCarthy, every aspect top to bottom of this Vikings team after that win today. You guys have my attention. This to me was like, the run game actually working,

was a huge part of it for me. They want, this is the big thing to me. They won on both sides of the trenches. Absolutely. Which was, how often does that happen against the Lions? One,

how often does that happen against the Lions? And like, how often has that happened for this version of the Vikings? Like, maybe one or two weeks early in the season, they got some of that with their offensive line. But for the most part, this has been like,

their fronts, both of the fronts that they paid for have not been as good as I think that they wanted them to be. And so I thought the run game today, one, it wasn't just that it was effective, is that it was varied.

Like, they did a lot of interesting pulling stuff. They hit some basic zone stuff. They had an awesome duo run for Jordan Mason towards the end of the game with about four minutes left in the fourth quarter, which was the ultimate like duo is about like, can we get this to bounce and make the corner tackle? And he just stiff arms Terry and Arnold into the ground.

And so they just, the fact that they brought, kind of like you're saying, can we just play like the team we're supposed to be where they, they thought they bought attitude this offseason with trying to invest in the trenches. And I think in this game you finally saw some of that. And so for the run game to come along, for both of their star receivers to play the way that they played. And then for the defensive front to like,

the Lions offensive line really struggled with a lot of the like stunts and just like even against the run, primarily against the run, I thought a lot of the stunts against the run. And then in the passing game, all of the twisting games they ran specifically over the center. I mean, almost all of those sacks were on stuff like that. What was your stat about the Lions rushing success rate around?

25% designed rush success rate for the Lions today. That is the worst performance of any Lions. game in the past three seasons. And it felt like that when you went back and watched it. That kind of says it for me. Yeah. We'll talk about JJ McCarthy. I thought it was a really impressive no, incredibly impressive considering it's on the road

it's in Detroit. He made some fantastic plays but whipping the lion's ass up front was the story of the game. You told me that at some point on Sunday evening and I went back and looked just because I was curious heading into this game

the lions were averaging 4.8 yards per carry and a 39% success rate just on first down. And against the Vikings, it was 3.2 yards per carry and a 22% success rate on first down. So like, your go-to fastball at the start of any drive or at the start of any new series just wasn't there in this game. And it looked like it. Like the lion's offense just looked completely handicapped. And then you combine that with Jared Goff, either A, being a guy you can pressure and sack

because he's not overly mobile or he just looked inaccurate after a certain point. 18% of his throws were off target in this game per PFF, which is double his number from seven of their eight games. So he looked uncomfortable and they couldn't run the ball.

That was the big story of this game for me. The run defense, it was a little bit of everything. You mentioned some of the stunts and that absolutely played a part in this, but a lot of the one-on-one matchups in this game were being won by the Vikings front players consistently. I mean, on the second drive for the Lions,

Jalen Redmond stands up Leporta in the hole. He trips up Gibbs for a negative loss of two. Four and a half minutes left in the second quarter. Hargrave hops from the A gap into the B gap. He drops Gibbs for a two-yard loss. 12.30 left in the third quarter. Grenard stands up Leporta at the line of scrimmage to kind of cave in that side. Hargrave tracks it down from the backside for a two-yard gain.

9.50 left in the fourth quarter. They send a puller at Van Ginkle. He just caves in that side of it, no gain for Montgomery. So it's a combination of some stunts, some guys hopping out of gaps, but also just winning one-on-one at the point of attack consistently. And I think you felt Van Ginkle back in the lineup in this game on plays like that, but then the pass-rush plan to me is really where you felt all the layers of what this team can be. So you mentioned 47 and a half percent pressure rate for the,

the Vikings in this game today per next gen, it's just not something you typically see against the Lions. And what you mentioned about them attacking, the center specifically, that thought they did a great job in this game, not necessarily blitzing a lot, but they kept dropping both edges. And then when they would drop both edges, what would happen is the defensive tackles

of the five techniques on either side would get picked up by both the guard and the tackle. And so you had essentially two-on-ones where you're wasting a player consistently, And then they kept doing all these cross dogs with the linebackers where they'd have one linebacker on one side of the center, cross the center's face, and then they had the,

essentially they were picking on the back and the center in those moments because the guards and the tackles were consistently locked up on those defensive tackles. And so it wasn't necessarily a lot of blitzing. I think it was just a really good plan of how to isolate and attack, like, the weakest part of what that lion's pass protection group looks like with Graham Glasgow in the middle. And consistently they're getting out. after people, whether it was Blake Cashman, Eric Wilson, Wilson had a fantastic game.

He was awesome. I'm like five or six different levels in this game. And so I just loved the individual performances and winning in these one-on-ones, especially in the run game, combined with a very well-divized plan of attack to get after the quarterback that wasn't necessarily about sending a bunch of extra bodies at the problem. And they did all the cross-dog stuff in so many different ways. It was really cool to see, like on one of the first ones with about four minutes left in the first quarter, they have a guy straight over the center

and then cross dog the blindbackers back over that later on that drive they don't have anyone over the center or over any of the guards or anything but again they have guys who are a little bit further out fan out like five techniques that can occupy the guards occupy the tackles that way and then they fire the cross dog both the linebackers just over the center those guys can't figure it out again and so

they just found so many different ways to attack the center and really make Gibbs one get to the right spot in pass protection which a couple of times he didn't or just like pick up those guys and like handle them. There were a number of times where Gibbs got to the right spot and like got two hands on Eric Wilson or Blake Hatcher and whoever it was and he just wasn't able to hold up and got caved into golf.

And as you said, Dave, he's not the most mobile guy. And so if you can cave the pocket in a little bit, you're probably going to be able to make those plays. Wilson was great as a pass rusher in this game. He dropped Gibbs for a loss on a screen on third and 10. He did a fantastic job of sticking with Montgomery and a wheel ride out of the backfield in the third quarter. He comes up with his own sack at the end of the third quarter.

third quarter where Gibbs does actually get hands on him, runs right through him and finishes off the play. And so Wilson really stood out along with all the other guys up front. And then I think we can also just take this to the Vikings offense in this game as well. Because along with what we saw from the defense, there were a lot of great individual performances on the offense, even before we take into account what the quarterback did in this game. Yeah, I thought, I mean, literally on, is it the first touchdown they scored where Justin Jefferson just like, yeah, plucks the one hand. I just like, I just. I just. And that's a really good throw too.

But like that's the only spot that ball can be. And JJ just reaching that out for that. Like he's, he just has such a special. It just seems like it's too easy for him sometimes. It's like, let's talk about it. It's so funny how,

okay, it's week nine, it's November 2nd. We're past Halloween. We've seen the Vikings get beat to shit and play some unfortunate football at times this season. And here we are entering the back half of the year. And this game,

and I want to overreact to a small sample size but this game against a team that we view as a Super Bowl contender was the Vikings like the idealized version of the Vikings that we pitched in the preseason like if everything else is that good all JJ McCarthy

had to do was make like four or five nice plays and that's exactly what he did this was the exact formula the Vikings were supposed to be able to follow to be a good team this year if we were arguing about the Vikings as a contender before the season started this is this is what it

would have looked like. And I can't help. Like during the game, I was sitting there thinking like, man, amazing that four out of the five offensive linemen on the Vikings O line are healthy. And the quarterback is a very good athlete. And it looks like it makes a hell of a lot of difference. And not to not to talk too much trash on Carson Wentz, but after so many weeks of him gutting through that injury and everything just looking slow, difficult and painful, it was really cool to see just a young athletic guy. Like the touchdown of T.J. Hawkinson where he just ran out, avoided pressure,

and just slaying it back across his body. And Hawkinson was just sort of, you know, sitting in the hole in the zone. Like it's a fairly straightforward play, but just an exciting play for a guy with athleticism to make. And I was like, ah, that has definitely been missing from this offense. And that's a play where the athleticism comes into play. He has the scramble touchdown later in the game.

And so you see multiple different moments. The angle Alex Anselaoni takes on that play, by the way, it's like kind of criminal. But it's still pretty impressive that JJ does have that gear to his game. So you saw a little bit of athleticism in a couple of those plays. And then he makes a handful of throws. And the 31-yarder he hits to Addison in the first quarter on that corner route against Arthur Millett. That's a really nice throw.

And then my favorite throw of his in the entire game, about seven and a half minutes left in the third quarter, he rips a deep out to Jordan Addison. He can throw that ball. And then there was another deep out to Justin. at some point in the game, the route Justin Jefferson runs on that deep out that he throws on to the right side. Slowing it down, it's just a reminder that no one in the world moves like Justin Jefferson. Like he's selling the post and the way that the corner has to react.

And when you slow down watching Justin Jefferson move, the length of his legs as he's eating up all that space, but the ability to still change direction. Like the route he runs on that play, if you guys have access to the All-22, I encourage you to go watch it. It's just like a deep out route to the right side, I think, in the second half of the game. No one, very few players in the league would be asked to run that route because it doesn't really make sense, like what he's being asked to do on that play, but he's Justin Jefferson and so they can do that. So like we said, it's four or five like big time throws from J.J. McCarthy in this game, and that's not to diminish his role in all of this. That's exactly what this was supposed to be.

J.J. McCarthy was supposed to have to make four or five throws a game because the rest of this roster was good enough to do a lot of the heavy lifting, and that's exactly what happened today. Which, and again, I don't want to overreact to one game. It's a small sample size, but I found myself thinking about the same conversation we had about the Chargers where you sort of get a snapshot of them at their worst in that Giants game, and it's hard to shake. And the, like, the crappy versions of the Vikings that we've seen have been beat to shit for the most part. Like, JJ played his early games without Derisaw. You lose all of the off, you know,

you lose everybody on the offensive line at one point. Carson Wince is gutting through an injury that ended his season prematurely. And I'm not saying that the Vikings are just going to roll from this point on. But it is interesting to me that with everybody relatively healthy and operating on a higher level, this looked exactly like the team that we thought it might be in the best version of itself. Are we worried it all about how? bad the bad plays were for J.J. McCarthy?

A little bit. Outside of the three or four throws. He tried to throw two interceptions on the same drive. Yeah. Like, he tried to throw two interceptions on the same drive. It is successful in doing so by the end, obviously. He had a 30% drop rack success rate in this game, which was, I think, the worst on the day outside of Bo Nix against the Texans,

which we will talk about in a little bit. Average for context is about 44%. Against the Blitz, he was three for seven, got sacked one time, only had one successful dropback. Like, he, there were a couple times, which I'm not sure these were all his fault, but him and the running backs were like going the wrong way on fakes and handoffs,

which I thought was weird a number of times. So I don't know if that's just a miscommunication thing. I don't know if it was the back that was messing those up, but I thought that was really weird. And so that on top of like, remember earlier in the season, they were having like communication problems, getting stuff in,

just a lot of like, I know they win this game, but sometimes the win feels like the men in black, just like mind eraser, and I'm just a little bit worried. Yeah, I mean the result may be clouds, some of the bad parts. I completely agree with that.

but that's who JJ McCarthy was supposed to be. The guy's like 23 years old. He barely faced adversity in college. They barely asked him to do anything in college. And so, like, yeah, all that stuff is bound to happen. But the whole point was that the rest of the Vikings roster could lift him up. And against, in one game against a very good opponent, that's exactly what happened. Yeah, this is kind of just what I expect from J.J. McCarthy at this point.

Like, him not playing well against a defense that Walt banged up in the secondary has still been very, very, very important. good this year. That's not surprising. Like my frustration with the Vikings up to this point and the conversation we had in the previous show is that every other aspect of what we had been promised with the Vikings had not come through fruition. And so to see that happen today, even if the quarterback didn't play well, I don't really expect him to play well at this point. And they should be able to win even when he's not playing that well. And that's exactly what happened today. That's a good point. The gambit was that they could win even if he did just this. And they did. If you promise me that Jonathan Allen,

and Jvon Hargrave are going to play like this the rest of the time, I'll take whatever. And Justin Jefferson's going to do his thing and Jordan Addison's going to be there. And the offensive lines, getting Aaron Jones back in this game. You felt Aaron Jones in this game. If you promise me those performances from the rest of the roster on a regular basis,

I'll live with whatever growing pains J.J. McCarthy is going to go through. My two favorite plays, two of my favorite plays in this game were from guys that have been banged up for a good chunk of the season for the Vikings and you felt the difference with them in the game today. there was a 31-yard run. It was a run to Aaron Jones at some point in this game. It was in the second quarter. The Vikings were in like a split-back look,

and I want to say it was probably technically an RPO, where they fake the run to Mason out of that split-back look, and then they have Aaron Jones come on a little swing behind it, and in rhythm, JJ finds him for what turns into a running play because it's backwards, but it's a 31-yard gain around the left sideline. So even that element of being able to throw the ball to Aaron Jones, which they did plenty of times today for nice chunk games. You felt that.

And then the play before the blocked field goal in this game, I'd be really curious to ask somebody on the Vikings defensive staff. It was actually designed this way. Van Ginkle is on the left side, and he does an inside spin move coming back inside and picks the guard is part of the spin move. And Redmond loops around, and Redmond actually finishes off the sack before the block field goal.

if it's designed that way where it's supposed to be a stunt, it was as beautiful as it possibly could have been. Part of me thinks it just happened to work out that way. That's the beauty of football. But that's the thing about having Van Ginkle back in the lineup. He's just a shitster. Like that's having like a chaos creator like that.

You do feel the difference. I love the idea of you asking somebody on the Viking staff and they're just like, yes, it all went according to our plan. Most of the time, if you're asking guys, like, privately, they will tell you if it was or was not part of the plan. But I'm actually curious about that play because the timing of it married up beautifully. And so a lot of stuff married up beautifully for the Vikings today.

It was nice to see them reach that gear, even with a quarterback looking uneven, which I think he's going to look for a good majority of this season, even when things are clicking for this team overall. All right, before we get to some of the lowlights from week nine, we're going to take one more quick break. What the fuck? What?

Let's start. the only place this can start, and that is with the Green Bay Packers somehow losing to the Carolina Panthers 16 to 13. What do you have to say for yourself? I hate this team, man. I joke. Here's the problem I have with this team.

I think I said this year at some point in the third quarter. Every time you look up at the screen, the Packers are on the opposing 35-guard line. They are also never winning the game convincingly. I don't understand. They didn't win the game at all. No, I know. They did not.

But they're always in position. to allow games to go like that at the very end because I don't know they just can never get it over the line once they get into it's a very they're a very frustrating offense for a number of reasons understatement of the freaking year I

I don't know I don't I don't know where to start with Green Bay and that's like watching I think we did this last time the Packers pissed us off where I watch the game back and I'm just like what what exactly is the culprit other than

freaking red zone turnoff versus. I think that's the culprit. I think we can, if you want to, we can go through the sequences that the Packers offense had wall in plus territory in this game. Because there are like seven of them

that are just mind-nubbingly stupid. Do we want to start with the Savion Williams fumble? That one was a great tone setter for a frustrating day. Like that one to me and too, I think this actually in a lot of ways, the whole thing paints the picture of what the Packers' offensive be and what their issues are.

They're marching on this drive. by the way. They're getting into plus territory. It's a pretty solid drive for them. Doing nothing crazy, but they're moving the ball. They get under center. I think it's a first and 10. They've got two receivers out to the left-hand side. Jordan Love, he throws the alert screen. They have a called run play and he throws the little bubble out to Savion Williams. Savion Williams takes it, I think is Romeo Dobbs in front of him as a blocker. It gets blown up. And so Savian-Williams kind of gets stuck and gets held up.

Panthers defender comes and punches the ball out. That to me is like so descriptive of the Packers because, one, they're starting to move the ball. It's looking like, like a good drive. And then they get into this play where the quarterback has an option. We can be in a run call or we can be in a pass call. He makes his decision because the whole offense is built on like efficiency with allowing

Jordan Love to have a lot of that pre-snap control. And then he gives it to a skill player who is not all that great and then makes a mistake. And then there goes that drive. And that was one of like five botched red zone drives for them in this game. In the second quarter, they have a second and six in the 14 yard line.

Elton Jenkins has like a botched snap that turns into a false start to make it second and 10. On the next play, Tershan Wharton goes speed to power on Jordan Morgan, gets into the backfield. Tough game for him, by the way. Love, not a great game for Jordan Morgan. Love has the checkdown if he wants it on that play.

Chooses not to throw it, takes a sack, drive destroyed. 21 seconds in the second quarter. Love has a fairly clean pocket on this play. I think it was a third down. Oh, no, excuse me, it was a second down. He has a clean pocket on second down. If you watch the All-22 from the end zone, you see Romeo Dobbs coming open on the second endbreaker after Watson clears it out.

For some reason, Jordan Love decides this clean pocket is not good enough for me, bails out, that play is destroyed. I'm going to go lower mode on that drive, by the way. And then on third and six, he tries to find Dobbs in the back of the end zone, J.C. Horn, great coverage, incompletion, another field goal. We can keep going. But, like, that's exactly what this game felt like. And just it was a little bit of everything.

It's like, all right, it's terrible protection from the right. guard on this play, but also, like, he refuses to throw the check down. It's, he has an open receiver on second down, bails from a clean pocket, and now it's third down, it's an incompletion, it's another field goal. There's just so many, like, layers to the frustrating aspects of the offense in this game that there's not just really one thing you can point to. Okay, so what I said when I was going to go lawyer mode on the guard, by the way. Please.

That specific play, I'm not going to defend him, where he bail, where it's 21 seconds left, he bails out of the pocket. That's not a good play by him. That's in the two minute though. Earlier in that drive, he pops an insane route to Romeo Dobbs over the middle, like right over Trevin Merrick,

who had rolled down. That's a really, really good play. Right after that, he gets pressured a little bit, flips out a checkdown to, I think it was Brooks down the left-hand side. Then he hits another short throw

to move them inside of the 10. And then he has that, I think right after that is the play where he does not hang in the pocket way the way he probably should, this is that throw. And then on the throw to Dobbs at the back of the end zone to J.C. Horn,

that's a great play by Jay C. That's a great play by Jayce. He gives him that chance. I'm not saying you're, no, that one I'm not saying you're like punishing him for that. I'm not criticizing him for that. The third and sixth play never should have happened because he should have thrown the ball to Romeo Dobbs on second down for a touchdown. I agree with that. I think my defensive love is like, I think he just has to be more perfect than we are leading on.

I think we're more used to this offense having more juice to it. You really does have to be. Do you want to go into lawyer mode on the interception he threw in the middle of the third quarter? I would love to hear your defense. The interception, no, but the one he almost throws to when he's trying to throw it to Dobbs in the red on that one I would defend. I don't really care about that one. That's a fort down.

Who gives a shit on four down? Dobbs like slips in the back of the end zone. That one I couldn't give a shit about. That, the fort down. So that happens. If anything, the crime on the interception, by the way, is that he just didn't throw it far enough. On the,

the one to Merrick? Yeah, throw it farther. Throw it farther past the three DBSs that are all. Yeah. It's an indefensible choice on every single one of all. It's a bad choice. The crazy thing about that play is it was a play action and like eight members of the Panthers defense

just didn't give a shit about that. Like they all dropped. Like Love fakes the handoff and they all dropped deeper. Like nobody bought it at all and everyone was like, oh yeah, this is going deep. And by the way, also, he had Romeo Dobbs wide ass open

on like a deep dig on that play and he absolutely could have fitted him over the linebackers and instead he's like no, fuck it, we're going. So I think he doesn't throw that. because he doesn't know if the corner's going to fall off the post that he's trying to throw. And he's getting pressure.

The corner did not fall off. And the corner does not fall off. I'll just like you know right now. Anything. Like, it looked like they were playing, like they were taking pop fly practice in baseball, the way they all just dropped back. Unbelievable. The fourth and eight that he throws the not interception on that is kind of like a whatever play.

The most frustrating part of that sequence is on third and three, they throw a swing to Emmanuel Wilson that gets blown up for a five-yard loss. There were two of those moments in this game. He had a third and 10 screen to Matthew Golden. This is the most explosive offense in the league. Why are we throwing screen passes on third down? Why? I took more issue with Matt Lafleur in this game.

Like, genuinely. I think there are a lot of culprits there. There's a lot of blame. It was not the best game, but like he was not that bad. His just couple of errors were very, very loud, which is kind of always the thing with him. Loud errors matter when you lose as a two touchdown. favored it. They are only as good as they are in a down-to-down basis, I think, because of the way he's

playing right now. He's the fucking quarterback. Of course they're only as good as they are if he's playing well. They are very, very good on a down-to-down basis because he's playing well. To go back to what you just brought up, the third and ten screen to Golden made me want to pull my hair out. Jordan Love threw seven passes behind the line of scrimmage in this game, which is fourth-most in the league for the week. You know how many yards they got off of those, 18. Were any of those success? Like how many of those were successful plays?

I don't have it in front of me, but it was like two or less. Just wasted plays from one of the most cannon armed, like impressive athletically quarterbacks in the league. And we're just throwing plays away with this behind the line of scrimmage crap. It drives me nuts. I thought the play calling in this game was very suspect. But I also, I don't think love was as good as you do. It wasn't his best game.

saying like I don't think he was like criminal in this game by any means he was fine he wasn't even if he wasn't criminal he played a large role in them losing the football game along with the play caller and the offensive line everybody pitched into this packer's offensive performance in the red zone in this game this is this is kind of takey and I apologize it's 1130 on Sunday night but this felt like a game where like they're 13 and a half point favorites and the whole at least offensively they felt antsy like they felt like they were trying to play like a two-touchdown favorite. Jordan Love was 15 of 17 throwing zero to 10 yards.

Like just the Panthers were not interested in contesting that part of the field whatsoever. And yet we're doing crazy shit like throwing into triple coverage to Christian Watson for no real reason. Like I just didn't feel this. I just, I didn't get a sense of patience or confidence from the Packers. And maybe part of that we should mention maybe part of that is they lose their best player to a torn. ACL, unfortunately. That's the long-term outlook of this. We talked about how he is the most...

Tucker Kraft is out with the torn ACL, but based on all the reports, goes down with a non-contact sort of injury today. We talked about how he's the most important skill position player on this team. I think that has more to do with the Packers' long-term outlook than it does to why they looked like shit in this game against the Panthers.

Can I pause at one theory about why they've been a little bit uneasy, I think this year in general? You cope as hard as you want to, buddy. I'm going to cope really hard. Their under center run game sucks. Like it's not very good. Like they, 3.5 yards of carry right now, which is 21st in the league and the 37.6 success rate, which is 23rd in the league.

And to me, when I think of like what Lafleur's offense should be, it's that we should be able to get under center, bully teams a little bit, get into our play action stuff. And every now and then, they'll force these shots down the field, but it does not feel to me like their intermediate play action game is always there the way that they want it to be. And I think now, especially if Tucker Kraft's not going to be in the lineup, I think that's going to be even harder for them to find. So maybe getting Watson back into the fold A little bit more comfortable can help But I think that's why they feel uneasy Like they can't tie that together the way that they want And so they've leaned to being a little bit more of this gun team

We're going to RPO We're going to do a lot of pre-snap package plays And stuff like that I'm going to give the Panthers some credit here Because I do think that they made enough plays On offense to win the game And that should be pointed out There are three like big scoring drives in this game

They were obviously they didn't light the world on fire offensively But Bryce Young had some nice moments On those three scoring drives and then both of the two touchdown drives they had beautiful reps of pinpole on the right side where they're getting the ball out in the space with Rico Dado there's a 29-yarder on their first touchdown drive

on that drive Bryce does a really good job of beating on the throat of Legette which the Packers bail into cover two from what would have been like a it was a man look pre-snap they bail into cover two Bryce throws a really nice ball to Xavier again he beats the blitz to Bryce and Tremaine on third nine on that same drive

and then Dowdle scores a touchdown in a little slice design cutback. The second touchdown drive that they had, another beautiful pin pull rep with Yash Nyman dropping Nate Hobbs in space. I don't think we accounted for the Yash Nyman revenge game here. He came up big as a backup right tackle

in this game on multiple of those perimeter runs. And on the game-winning field goal drive, Bryce does a fantastic job making Devante Wyatt missing the pocket before coming back to Koker. T-Mack cooks Carrington Valentine on the comeback on the left side that Bryce throws on time. and then Dowdle 19 yards to salt it away on another one of those slice plays where they have Andrew Williams completely spinning because the tight end that he's covering, I assume in man

covered, slices the cross formation. He empties out that side. Dowdle goes for 19 yards. They kick the game winning field goal. And so, again, not the best game, if you look at the final numbers for the Panthers offense, but they came through in a couple really big high leverage moments. Rico did have the 19-yarder that put them in position to win. but one thing I love about the Panthers is not quite as crazy as the game he had against the Cowboys,

but Rico carried the ball 25 times today, three explosive runs. Like, when you play the Panthers, you better pack a lunch because they're just going to run the ball. It's probably not going to pop very often. They're just going to smash you for five to seven yards at a time, and they're content doing it all the way down the field. And I love that about him. He's been really good for them this year. He did a lot of stuff today where it's bottled up in the back.

backfield and he's making something miss because he sees a little bit of a crease or he's really patient. So it's been really impressive to watch him with an offensive wine that's been banged up and has played a ton of different combinations this year. And they seemingly still get it done on the ground no matter who's out there. And it's been very impressive. All right. Let's stick in the NFC North and talk about the wildest game of today.

The Bears beat the Bengals 47 to 42. Both defenses in this game should be ashamed of themselves. That is why they are a member of this game. this segment today. There are so many stats that we can throw out. The first one I'll start with, 43 plays of 10 plus yards combined in this game. 43.

23 for the Bears, 20 for the Bengals. The Bengals in this game finished with 10 completions of 20 plus yards. 10. That has happened four times in the past five seasons combined. They averaged like eight yards of play and lost the game.

Joe Flacko threw for four. 150 yards and somehow lost the game because Jordan Battle decided that he did not want to tackle Colson Loveland on what should have been at best a play to set up an effort at a game-winning field goal. So both the Bears and Bengals defenses in this game, what the fuck? I'm disgusted by everything that I watched this game. Like I pulled up like almost a very similar set out about the 10 plus yards plays. Both teams allowed 10 plus yard plays on 30% or more of their.

plays. A one in three chance when the team snaps the ball, they're going to get a first down is basically what happened in that game. Because I'm seen. I get why you say you're disgusted. And I wouldn't want to watch this on a regular basis. But like getting, getting it once every other week, getting it when the bingles play is fun. And I think my favorite part about it was that it was just the reverse bingles game from last week, except the Bengals managed to find a way to lose this one too. Like last week they let the Jets do the late two point conversion turned into that win, then they try to turn it on the bears, and it looks like they're going to pull it off. A second successful onside kick recovery of this season, by the way.

Like, the play is essentially dead unless you're the Chicago Bears, I guess. Like, it's just not supposed to work. And they do all that only to give the lead right back. Like, what are the odds that you play essentially the same game twice in a week and come out on the wrong side of both comeback attempts? Like, it's ridiculous. the Bengals defense in this game was horrendous again. And I mean, just the Jordan Battle had one really big play in space where he's coming downhill.

I think it was a Monongai early in the game. And you noticed it because it was so out of character for what most of his in-space work has been this season. Don't worry, things found their level over the course of the game. He's the one that misses the tackle on the Colson level and touchdown. But, I mean, he took a handful of just awful, awful, disgusting angles again in this game. And the bear's defense was like, was no bad. better. You go back and you watch some of those late drives by the Bengals offense in this game. And I just, it's embarrassing. Like the touchdown to Noah Fan with 144 left in the game is embarrassing.

Like it's a rep of cover two. Tremade Edmonds gets zero depth of whatsoever. Noah Fancher just runs through the down the middle of the defense wide open for a touchdown. The chunk completion to Higgins with 120 left in the fourth quarter, Tyreeks Stevenson and Tremaine Edmonds run into each other on that. play and Higgins gets open for a corner route for a chunk game. With 1 15 left, Chase Brown catches a 15-yard pass where he cooks. T.J. Edwards in space. Absolutely cooks him. And then Yoshibos runs wide open pass Makut for a touchdown with 55 seconds left in the game. There's that sequence on one of the other touchdown drives where Tanner Hudson

dusts Tremaine Edmonds on a double move, which is like you're making $20 million a year to play off ball linebacker. Tramade or Tanner Hutchin shall be dusting you on double moves. And your thing is that you're an athlete. Yes, that's the whole point. The thing is not that he's an athlete. If we want to talk about Jemar Chase and T. Higgins and T. Higgins was phenomenal in this game. Fine.

That's great. Those guys are really good players. Tanner Hudson dust and you on double moves for 33 yards. And then that same drive, Mitch Tinsley cooking Tyreeke Stevenson for a huge chunk gain that sets up another touchdown. That's the stuff that drives me insane. Like this was not just about Jamar Chase and T. Higgins. this was about the Bears defense looking absolutely haphazard and incompetent for huge chunks of this entire game. Watching you go through this was a treat.

I hope you take that the right way. I don't wish ill on you. But the other, like the fun thing too, again, like what? The Bears were up 4127 and Tremaine Edmonds almost takes a pick back to the house and he's ruled down by contact. And I was thrilled because I was like, I won't have to care about this game. Robert was fantastic. I was getting ready to throw the Bears TV on something, quote, unquote, more entertaining or like with a closer finish. The head stakes.

The game was over. All freaking hell breaks loose in the whatever minutes of game time after that was ruled down by contact. Incredible. I really enjoyed the Bears run game today. I don't think that's, yeah. That's another, just trying to take people behind the curtain. So again, you're watching eight games at once, your attention's everywhere. and like every three and a half minutes this afternoon,

you just hear Robert go, Manunga. And like you're like, all right, I need to pivot. I need to pivot to the Bears game because Menunga, I just did something. The run game was incredible with this game. They rushed for 283 yards. They averaged 7.7 yards per carry. They had a 62 and a half percent rushing success rate. It was beautiful to watch.

And then they still almost lost the game. And I don't need, this doesn't need to be like a refrat in mind Caleb Williams again. This was a weird game. Like, just a profoundly weird game. He had a 3.77 second time to throw in this game, and it felt like that. There were just very few plays being made in the passing game specifically in rhythm for the bear's offense today. It was a lot of work done on the ground. It was a lot of stuff done kind of in a scattered, frantic way deeper into the down.

There were a couple moments where it was like, okay, this is what you want to see. There was the throw to level and up the seam at one point, and then the third, throw to level and off play action on the in-breaker late in the third quarter for 31 yards. Those are, excuse me, the throw-to-level-up seemed to win the game, and then the one to level and off-play action late in the third quarter. Those are his two best throws of the game. But there just weren't that many plays being made in rhythm on time within the offense over the course of the day. The best sequence the offense had the entire game was in the third quarter. They had a chucked down to Monongai for 11 yards.

Caleb does a great job of making an off-schedule play on that drive where he makes 96 missing. space, but gets out to his right, finds, I believe DJ more for a chunk game. They have those screened him a nun guy on that drive. And then he rips the touchdown on the endbreaker to Colson Loveland. That is like the version of this offense that you want to see. But other than the run game, there was not a lot about this offense where it's like, I feel really good about this moving forward. The passing game was much more inconsistent and out of rhythm today than you want to see

against a bad defense. Well, it was also weird in that three players who weren't Kayla Williams threw passes in this game. Cole Comet threw one, DJ Moore through one, and Tyson Bejant threw on. Like, it was just a very weird game from that front. Ben Johnson was feeling himself. This really felt like a game where Ben Johnson was like, I know I can get this defense.

And let me see you. Let's get some reps on our funny stuff. And I genuinely think that like that's what he went into it thinking. The passing offense generally, I thought it got better timing wise as the game went on. Yeah. But the first half was very outside of like a couple of screen. some rollouts, you're right. Like Caleb just was not settled for whatever reason.

And it started to come together in the second half. Like I thought to me like the most rhythm I saw was, uh, one of the touchdowns he throws to Colson Loveland where he's isoed on the right hand side. Just the rhythm of, it's three step drop, but just like how smoothly he's like reading the left side as soon as he takes the snap knows that he's going to come back and rip it to Loveland.

Just seeing a little bit of rhythm there, it's like, okay, he doesn't always do that. So getting a little bit of that on top of the digger out, he makes to Loveland, obviously the one to win the game. At least in the second half you got some of it, but it was frustrating that for the first half against Bengals defense that is like the most getable I've ever seen, it should look a little bit smoother.

It just fell out of source for a good chunk of the first half. I will say the throw he makes to Lovelland. I mean, that's a terrible play by Jordan Battle. That's a ridiculously good throw. It's a month. It's a beautiful throw in a huge moment because even if he makes the tackle, that throw is likely setting you up to potentially kick the game-winning field goal. And he deserves a lot of credit for what that throw looks like.

in that moment with the game on the line. Our wonderful producer Scott got us on video reacting to that. And I freaked out just at the throw. I like, because I have watched a lot of NFL football, I was like, oh, that will be the end of the play. But what a sick throw by Caleb Williams. And then before I knew it, he was in the end. That's the state of the Cincinnati Bengals defense for everybody.

The Bengals offensive players are starting to lose their minds. Like Chase Brown coming out after the game and saying, The quote we have in here is, finish the fucking game, just end it, just end the fucking game. At this point, like I can understand them slowly

just descending into madness, all of them. You usually don't get that in the middle of the season. Like, that's crazy. I also appreciated Jamar Chase saying, I'm just going to stay in my lane.

I don't want some defensive player coming to chew me out about what the F I'm doing. It's great. And also, I'm not sure he has to worry about that. Before he, like, as he was coming off the field,

before he talked to the reporters, Jamar also said, one f*** up. That's kind of what it felt like in this game. I just assume whoever had the ball last was going to win. And that's exactly, I mean, that's not what happened,

but it's kind of what happened. It's easy to laugh about the craziness of it all. And obviously, I mean, you realize the Bengals have allowed 43 more points than the next worst team. And that would be the Tennessee Titans who lost again today to fall to,

what, one in eight? Jesus Christ. That's tough, man. And now, so not to keep harping on the trade deadline, but if you were ever going to convince this organization to do something like Trade Trey Hendrickson, I mean, I don't I mean, he didn't play in this game anyway, but like I don't want to imagine what the back half of the year looks like without him, but for who, for what, dude? Like, you might as well try to salvage something about the way this is going.

And yeah, it makes me wonder what, what's in the way? store over the next 48 hours. Speaking of things, it felt unsalvageable. Let's get to our next game here. The Broncos win an absolute rock fight against the Houston Texans. We're not picking on any one group here. This entire game is kind of a what the fuck sort of performance from both of these offenses. We have a 33% success rate for the Texans, a 37.5% success rate for the Broncos.

Texans average 3.7 yards per play in this game. The Broncos average 4.4 yards per play in this game. It was just a gross football game. Like there's just really nothing else to say. Like the fact that the Texans, my favorite part of this, the Texans get the ball back with like a minute and 15 seconds left in the game, deep in their own territory. And there are people on Texans Twitter that thought them trying to score in that situation

with a minute and 15 seconds in two timeouts was the incorrect decision. Because they had too far to go to potentially set themselves, up to score. And if they had just gone to overtime, it would have been a better chance for them to win the game, which is the most play not to lose, like, loser mentality approach of all time. And in this specific situation, I can't really blame them for feeling that way because that's how it felt for the Texans offense in this game. I mean, Dave, who do you think is going to win the game for you? Will Anderson or Davis Mills? Will Anderson? The Seahawks are, well, the Texans played that to perfection against the Seahawks

a couple weeks ago, right? Where it's like, oh, are you really, you're playing for the cowardly pinum deep punt and then Will Anderson stripped Sam Darnold for a touchdown? So yeah, in this case, I'll lean on those guys because I agree with any Texans fan that felt hopeless in that situation. CJ's job going down in this game.

I mean, he looked solid before he went out. He did look solid. And it just evolved into being completely unwatchable for the Texans offense. And it was frustrating even before he went out. He throws that beautiful ball to Dalton Shultz on that wrap route to get them inside the 15-yard land

and get down to the 12. And then that drive ends with two full-back dives in a row on second and third down. They get to fourth and one. They get a false start that makes them kick the field goal. It was actually probably a good thing

that they had to kick the field goal because otherwise they probably wouldn't have left that situation with any points. This team's inability to get one yard when they need to is insane. Just sneak the quarterback. You're on the one-yard line. Just sneak the quarterback.

The inability to get one yard. It sucks, but it happens when you don't have an offensive line. The inability to accept that you can't get one yard that way. Just accept that you cannot get it that way. Accept it. Move on. Do something else. Sneak the quarterback. Leak somebody into this flat. I don't care what you do, but we have a lot of evidence that suggests you can't line up and bully somebody in short yardage. And yet, every time I check in on this team, they're trying to do it. And the Texan defense tried their best to keep this thing within reach and from what they did to the Broncos offense,

the Broncos offense makes like four or five plays over the course of this game and it ends up being enough because the Texans' offense was not functional by the end of things. I mean, other than Sutton beating Stingley like on one of the go balls down the left sideline, like the Broncos offense did not move the ball whatsoever.

Like this was very much a game where the Texans defense was their ability to just fly down and swarm on everything is insane. Like all the DBs do. it. Al-Shayr, I thought, had an insane game in terms of flying down to the line of scrimmage. Obviously, the front played incredibly well. Like, this was, that defense absolutely deserved to win the game, and they did not get to win it. And, like, Bo Nix, I've talked before about him wasting throws down the field. This was the most wasting throws down the field I've ever seen from him.

There were so many, like, the Nays used to say, performative deep balls and talking about Aaron Rogers. There were a lot of performative Bo Nix deep balls in this game. I mean, you can count on one hand, like the players that won the Broncos this game. their touchdown, the first touchdown drive, there's a really nice design on third down that gets Camarri Laster caught in the wash trying to stick with Bandy, going back to the left flat in about halfway

through the third quarter. Bownix puts it on him, completion. On that same drive, Bo Nix misses Evan Ingram miserably on a double move up the left sideline. But Cortland Sutton hooks Derek Stingley so bad on the release later in that drive. Nix hits him, touchdown.

All sins are forgiven. Their touchdown drive late in the third quarter. Bo next hits it deep out to Troy Franklin off play action. That's a really nice play in rhythm. He beats the Blitz to Pat Bryan on third and seven. And then they have RJ Harvey in another design play against man coverage on Toa Toe on the wheel route. Touchdown. That's it.

Those are like the positive plays for the Broncos offense in this game. And that was enough to win the football game. Bo was two of ten on attempts of 20 plus air yards. The two completions were the two touchdowns that were scored in this game. Ten throws of 20 plus area. It's absurd, by the way. I'll do you one better. I was curious about this.

18 of Bo's 37 attempts were either behind the line of scrimmage or 20 plus yards downfield. It's the Russell Wilson offense. It's the Russell Wilson offense. Which, what was Sean Faiton trying to avoid? Bose success rate on those 18 throws was 16%. Just a gross, gross football game. Congratulations to the Broncos for winning it. Last one here.

We don't have to spend a ton of time on this. I want to talk about this game in some way. and to me this was the right way to do it. John Parker Romo missing that PAT late in the Falcons game. Here's why this is a what the f moment for me. How are we going to make that Drake London game not matter? How are we going to make that Drake London sequence at the end of that game not matter? On the drive to tie it up,

Drake London has a 40-yarder down the left sideline where he posterizes Christian Gonzalez. He is a fourth and four curl route that he sits down. in space, Michael Panics finds it for a huge conversion. And then on the touchdown, it's fourth and eight. The play that Drake London makes on that touchdown throw, we talked about the Jefferson play where he stabs that ball with one hand.

Again, go watch the all 22 of that play where Drake won and scores a touchdown inside of the game up. His left hand, he stabs that throw with one hand and pulls it in and then they miss the extra point for it not to matter whatsoever. I cannot

believe that the game that Drake London had today ended up not being important because they missed a field they missed an extra point at the end of this thing it's deeply deeply depressing which the falcons did still have a chance to win the game i mean they did they got the ball back with with three and a half minutes to play with a chance to go win but it it lacked the umph that you would prefer like because what the the patriots were in total control of this game and then the strips act changes the game gradually the falcons worked their way back and when that touchdown gets scored you kind of kind of sit up in your seat and you're like, all right, here we go to 2024 quarterbacks.

Let's see what you got. And I get that the Falcons still had their chance, but it just, it changed the complexion of everything. And who knows, who knows what we're talking about if it's a tie game in the final, you know, inside the final five minutes. That was the most like, I feel like Drake London has a lot of these, like, if he scores a hat trick or has 100 yards, but they lose, does anybody hear it? Like, he's just, he has so many of these moments where he's just, I mean, I think it was

the first touchdown he makes where we were joking about this in the office when he makes it. His ability, and T. Higgins is the only other player like this and it's funny that he also had a monster game today. When they go up for the ball and like catch it outside of their chest and keep it all the way out of their frame, they're the only guys who can protect the ball that way and hold on to it. And he does it when he goes up for it on that first touchdown, I think over Marcus Jones, who again, a little bit of a shorter player, but London, you think he's right. That's what you do when you're the big guy.

Let him posterize people in the red zone. Exactly. That's what you do with a player like that. I just thought it was cool that he had a game like this and it sucks that yeah it comes down to a kicker missing listen you miss like a 50 yard field well I can live with that the PAT is like that's just brutal for it to be like that

this a weird weird game Patriots were 8 of 12 on third down but because of a couple of the turnovers Drake May was sacked six times that's why the Falcons were able to stay in it and then Drake Man or Drake One has that monster game and again it ends up not mattering because the Falcons can't make an extra point and so just a weird one but the Patriots go to seven and two.

They continue to roll. And again, this is probably the worst game that Drake May has had since week one. But still enough for them to win. And the thing I'll quickly say about him, I obviously love Drake May. This game is kind of more what I thought it would look like for him generally, where you still get a lot of...

Yeah, where you still get a lot of the good, but you get him getting sacked six times. And like, I think he's a very good player and he can obviously make a lot of scrambles. But I think generally the bargain that you have to buy with him is that he is going to take sacks. He has the second highest pressure to sacrate in the NFL. And I think the worst is Cam Ward, who like, God bless what he's got to deal with the Tennessee.

That's a little bit of a different situation. And then obviously, like, during an interception where he's trying to hit Hunter Henry, and it looks like there's a little bit of a miscommunication. Like, that stuff is more what I thought his game overall was going to look like. So if anything, I guess it's nice that he could have that game and they still come out and win. Let's talk about some of our other favorite moments from week nine and discuss some of the things that made us feel romantic about football today. I mean, this thing was a thing of beauty.

Why don't you kick us off here, buddy? You're our guest here again. What made you feel romantic about football in Week 9? So mine is really stupid, but I'm going to go back to the Bears' Bengals game, which was really stupid. So Britton Brown, who is the backup running back in this game for the Bears. So obviously, if they had all their guys, would be like third or fourth. It's a third and one in the late third quarter. And the Bears' offensive line clears everybody out.

He's going to get to the line of scrimmage and to the first down marker very comfortably. just as he's approaching the line of scrimmage, he tries to leap over the pile, leaps into the pile, because there's no pile to leap over initially and just jumps into like everybody and gets, it's like a four-yard game. He converts.

I'm not like, he gets his moment. And then on the next play, they keep him in there, congratulations, you did your job, and they do a zone toss to him to the left side, and he scores like a touchdown from like a 35 yards out. Yes, another terrible Jordan battle angle. But I just thought it was so funny that Britain Brown,

like, Manunga had played like almost all of the snap. in this game up to that point. Britt and Brown finally gets his moment to shine. He's like, I'm jumping over this pile. Like one way or another for any reason, I'm getting over that pile. The only thing better, and like Bears games take on heightened significance

on this show and in this office. But normally, like, that's the type of play that maybe you miss on a Sunday. And then on Thursday, you're not going to allow that to happen. Fair. But tip it, like, you're watching a game back on, like Thursday and all of a sudden something like that happens, were like, what the hell is he doing?

Why did he just do that? Listen, you're a fourth string running back. It's third down. You got to make a play. I respect it. Exactly. He had gained the yards necessary when he jumped. It was fantastic.

Mine is just two Justin Herbert throws from that game today. The touchdown, he throws to Quinn Johnson in the back right corner of the end zone. Like the layering and just how feathered that throw is, just absolutely beautiful ball. And then the back shoulder throw, he has to Quinn Johnson down the right side line. like this is why you get up in the morning is to like watch this guy make throws like that in huge moments and also like there's a Quentin Johnson part of this. The fact it's, you know, he hasn't been gangbusters all year for Quentin

Johnston. He had a monster start to the season. It's kind of falling off a little bit since. But the fact that Quentin Johnson is like a useful NFL player who is still contributing in positive ways to what this Chargers offense can be based on how the early career run was for Quentin Johnson, it feels good, right? Like it's just nice to see a guy

who had a lot of struggles and who took a lot of shit early in his career still be able to come through in some of these moments. And so that part of it combined with the fact that every single week we're going to get a couple of these just javeling throws from Justin Herbert

who is truly, I mean like, this isn't overstating it, like one of the most purely talented throws of the football that we have ever seen. When he has a couple of those, more than enough to make me feel romantic about football. Mine is twofold. A, because it's just the type of stuff I love to see,

but it also represents the way the game is changing and has changed. Because when I started covering the NFL in 2013, this is the type of shit that would define a news cycle, and now it's just operating procedure for smartly coached NFL teams. And it happened, it did happen twice. We talked about both of these games. Kevin O'Connell and Mike Vrable both with second, quarterbacks with a chance to put the game away, put it in the quarterback's hands and let him

throw to keep the offense on the field and win the game. And maybe it doesn't look revolutionary now, but it feels revolutionary to 25-year-old me who got very used to watching coaches punt and play defense and defend why that was the right way to do things. So Vikings, third and five from their own 28, up 27 to 24 with 141 to play. Lions have a timeout. You could absolutely, JJ McCarthy's first game in six weeks, whatever, he's a young player.

You could absolutely run, force him to burn a timeout, punt Jared Goff's got like a minute and a half to try to tie the game. Like, you could do that if you wanted to. What do they do instead? They run a slot fade to Jalen Naylor in one on one cover.

He's like, go make a play, young fella, and he absolutely does. 16-yard gain, victory formation. Patriots Falcons, Pats up 2423, 142 to play. Falcons don't even have their timeout, and it's third and five. So, like, you run the ball, you're getting it down to a minute, and then after the punt, like, you're giving the Falcons less than a minute to move and try to win the game.

Again, maybe that sounds silly in 2025, but, like, coaches are doing this the other way, not that long ago. And what do you do? You clear out the left side. You run Hunter Henry on, like, a shallow out. Matt Collins throws a fantastic pick that, I mean, like, I say that in a case. complimentary fashion. Great pick on the play to free him up. First down, victory formation. If you have a chance to end the game with the ball in your hand, you should do that. That's what

you should do because getting a first down and kneeling it out is a hell of a lot easier than all the other shit that has to go your way. And to see two coaches do it, again, with young quarterbacks who haven't played that much football, it gave me a lot of warm fuzzies. It was nice to see the Vikings have that sort of moment because the Patriots have had plenty of them so far this year. All right, let's talk about what we learned from week nine in the NFL. You know, I think I've learned something today. My big picture lesson from week nine in the NFL season, and especially from today, no matter how well your season is going, you're going to run into one of these. You are going to run into a roadblock, a buzzsaw, you were going to have a down day where you just

get the shit kicked out of you more likely than not over the course of an NFL season. Just think about how unstoppable the Colts looked for such a huge swath of this year. Just think about what Patrick Mahomes had looked like over the last four or five weeks. And that doesn't always matter. Like you were going to run into some of these moments. And today I think was a pretty brutal, rude reminder of that for a couple of teams that had been absolutely rolling recently. It's really wild to think, like, unless you're just, unless you're truly, truly special, like maybe once every few years we'll get a team where they, really are just they never get their asses kicked.

But more off, like more often than not, every team in the league is going to have a week or two every year where the game ends and you look at what happened and you're like, do they, do we suck? Like, did the league just figure us out?

Like every single team, it doesn't matter if you win 12 games or what. Like more often than not, you're going to have a performance that makes you do some soul searching. That's so great too because I was thinking to like every now and then. We just forget that even teams that go on to in the Super Bowl. You'll look back at their schedule the year later and be like,

holy shit, they lost to them in week 13 or whatever it was. And it's like, there's no way. We probably thought at the time, when they lose that game, we were like, man, what are that team's Super Bowl chances now? Like, how are they really? It's burned in my brain. And like, they're not the only ones. Like I said, it happens most years.

But the 2020 bucks, the Brady bucks, they lost to the Saints 38 to 3. Like late in the season. Like the weather was cold when they got, they lost 38 to 3. And you hear people say all the time, like, you know, like fans after their team gets their asses kick, they're like Super Bowl teams don't lose like that. And I'm like, I promise you they do. They do all the time.

Yeah, the Chiefs had that game today. The Colts had a bad day today. And the Packers, a week after putting it on the Steelers, blues to the Panthers. And so these are going to happen. They are part of the NFL season. And week nine was a very good reminder of that. That is all we've got for today.

Tomorrow on the Hangover show, like we mentioned. We're going to have the Sunday night game we're going to dig into between the commanders and the Seahawks. We're going to chat a little bit of Niners, Giants. And then what was the third one? Raiders Jax. Yes, that is correct. That is the third game.

Nary a mention of the overtime history-making field goal game. We'll get to it. We'll talk about that game tomorrow. Part of the reason we did not dig into it today is because we were watching Chiefs bills pretty intensely as that game was going on. And so I did not want to give it a half-hearted wave. I actually want to go back and re-watch it tomorrow. So those are the three games that we will be digging

into on the hangover for week nine. Just a reminder, Tuesday, 3.30 p.m. Eastern on our YouTube channel, live trade deadline recap show. We'll be sitting right here doing it. Very much looking forward to that. Please be on the lookout for it. Come hang out with us on Tuesday while we're recapping all of the moves that did or did not happen.

A couple other fun things on the horizon for us on the athletic football show. We'll keep reminding you of those. We've got a live show coming in. January. We'll keep telling you guys those details. Tickets go on sale, I believe, later this week. So please be on the lookout for that. For now, that is all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.