The Ringer NFL Show - Are the Steelers the Best in the AFC, the Chargers Blow Another Lead, and Tua Tagovailoa’s Debut

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

Chris and Warren kick off the show discussing the 7-0 Pittsburgh Steelers (01:00). Later, they talk about who is at fault for the Chargers’ back-to-back blown leads (06:00), Tua Tagovailoa’s NFL debut for the Dolphins (16:00), and more. Hosts: Chris Vernon and Warren Sharp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's ringer NFL show, we discussed the Steelers and should they be the number one overall seed in the AFC. We talk about the chargers blowing yet another massive lead. We talk about the debut of Tua Tua, and the brilliant job Brian Flores did. Coming up next. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Chris Vernon. And joining me as he does every Wednesday is Warren Sharp. Hey, Warren.

Hey, what is up, Chris? All right, so we got a ton of stuff to get to today. Let's start with the Steelers. A very impressive win over the Ravens over the weekend. And now back-to-back, really good wins. Ravens had their chances there at the end, but the Steelers do, again, come away with the win. Do we now consider the Steelers as the favorite or a favorite in the AFC and overall? Well, let me put it this way.

They're one of the favorites. They're one of the better teams in the NFL. but just because they are the only undefeated team left in the NFL does not make them, in my opinion, the favorite to win everything or the best team in the NFL. And the reason why I say that is, if we look at what they've done so far in their offensive philosophy, there is a limitation in that they do not have this style of offense, in my opinion, that is going to make it supremely easy for them to come back in games should they be trailing. They obviously have a very good defense as well.

That being said, they have not faced very many strong passing offenses. And I think it's very dangerous to crown them as one of the better, well, the best team in the NFL. When the last two offenses that you played were the Tennessee Titans and the Baltimore Ravens. And if we know anything about the NFL, we know that both of these teams are very run heavy teams. So they were in close games against both of these teams, and those two teams are very run-heavy teams. We have yet to see the Steelers face, and we won't, quite frankly. The closest thing we'll get to it is probably the Cincinnati Bengals, a team that wants to pass and is okay at passing the football, right? Because every other team that they've played so far this year, with the lone exception of Deshaun Watson and the Houston Texans, which they were trailing that game,

at halftime. They've played mostly teams that have had severe weaknesses in the past and game the ability to pass the football down the field. Are you as high on Lamar Jackson as you were last year? You were the first, I recall. You know, you were saying there's a lot of signs that this guy is much better than people are giving him credit for. Clearly, he made a genius out of you and end up winning the MVP. But I've seen a lot and read a lot over the last couple of days about his numbers versus the better teams. And I mean, they're not good.

They're not good for they have not been good against the best teams. And so the question is, has the league caught up a little bit? Has he regressed a little bit? You look at a lot of the numbers and the numbers are still great for the season. But when we just isolate him versus the best of the best teams, including this game against the Steelers this past weekend, it's not nearly as impressive. What do we think? I still like Lamar and I'm still high on Lamar. If you look at what he's done on the season and compare him to like the Pittsburgh Steelers, let's just juxtapose these two.

Lamar Jackson has played the fifth toughest schedule of opposing past defenses this year. Ben Rothesberger has faced the 25th toughest schedule of opposing past defenses this year. So it's been much more difficult for Lamar Jackson in this schedule that he's played. And certainly the passing numbers have fallen off tremendously, precipitously compared to what he was doing last season. I don't necessarily believe that that's like, oh, well, last year was just a one hit wonder and he's never going to be able to be a good passer in the NFL. I don't see that whatsoever. I see that the league is caught up to them. I think that is the case with a lot of what they've been doing as a whole.

I mean, they've slowed down this rushing attack as well. And the run game and Lamar being able to work off of the run game is a big part of this offense. And so they've slowed down that run game. He's gone up against very difficult past defenses. And they really haven't gotten everything together. the one thing that I wanted them to do is to utilize audibles at the line, to adjust their play calling based on box counts. Because no other team in the NFL is going to be more sensitive to defenders in the box than the Baltimore Ravens who want to run the ball a lot. And if other teams have a lot of guys in the box, you have to get into pass plays.

And if they're light in the box, you have to get to run plays. And I still feel like the Baltimore Ravens are not excelling at that this year. I was of the opinion that this offseason would be a great opportunity to install those things, but that has not occurred yet. I also thought that coming out of the buy would have been a great opportunity to make those adjustments, but that has not occurred yet. So we'll see if that's the next step in the evolution of this team. But they're going up against another very good defense in the Indianapolis Colts this upcoming week.

All right. We had some history being made over the weekend to Boren, and that was, well, the Chargers, unbelievably, blew a 17-point lead again. This is historic. Is this the coach's fault? I think, you know, immediately everybody turns to it and they say, my God, Anthony Lynn, how do you blow three, 17-point leads? This is the coach's fault.

What do you think? Is it the coach's fault? In a word, yes. All right. But it's also in part the coach's fault for them getting a lead and entrusting Justin Herbert. So let me walk through this. We talked about this. We ranted on this show about the Chargers last week.

And I think the prior week. So we're getting to know the listeners of this show are getting to know the Chargers a lot here. And what we wanted the Chargers to do because they were good at it and they were bad at running the football is pass more on early downs in the first three quarters. And they did that in their win over the Jacksonville Jaguars a couple weeks ago coming out of their buy. This was great. We're making the right progress. Would they do it again this week against the Denver Broncos? Obviously a team that's much better against the past, but also very good against the run.

And the answer was, yes, they stuck with that game play. And it's what built them the lead. They passed the ball on 65% of those early downs in the first three quarters that was even higher than what they were doing against the Jacksonville Jaguars. those plays were very productive for them. They were the fourth most past heavy team of the week. They gained a 24 to 10 lead entering the fourth quarter. And then what happened? Well, let me just run through the scenarios of their 24 to 10 lead

and how that slowly dwindled away. And everybody can make up their own mind as to whether or not it was the coach's fault or the player's fault. But you're up 24 to 10. You drive the ball down to the Denver 24 yard line. You're within field goal range. You have a 14 point lead. You want to try to get first downs.

You want to try to score a touchdown. You don't just want to settle for field goals. So first and 10 on the Denver 24, run on first down, run on second down. You're in third and long as a result, and you throw an interception. Denver gets the ball, goes down and scores a touchdown. Now it's 24 to 17. You drive the ball down. You get to the Denver.

32 yard line and you have a first and 10. Same exact scenario as before. You're within field goal range, but you need to clock to tick and you want to score a touchdown not just settle for a field goal. First and 10 at Denver 32. Run on first down.

Run on second down. Now you're in third and long as a result. You throw an incompletion. Clock stops. You end up settling for a field goal. Denver gets the ball. They go down and score a touchdown. Now you're only up,

now you're only up 27 to 20. What happens? You drive the ball? Oh, no. Oh, no. Let me guess. They get in the field goal range, run, run, third and long. So, deja vu, all over again, all over again.

You get down to the Denver 17-yard line. You're within field goal range. You just need to get another first down. You could basically end the game. You're up by 3, 24 to 27. Sorry, 27 to 24. That's your lead. First and 10 on the Denver.

17. You run on first down. What happens? You get a penalty. Oh, my God, you get a penalty. Now you're first and 24 on the Denver 31. What do you call on first down? We run on first down. Then on second down, our quarterback scrambles for a zero yard gain, and we're on third and long. We throw an incompletion on third and long. We settle for a field goal. Obviously, the clock stops on that incompletion. now you're only up 30 to 24. What happens? Denver gets the ball. They go down, score a touchdown with no time left on the clock.

We saw the exact same thing happened to cause this team to blow a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter. It was not the fact that they weren't aggressive enough on early downs in the first three quarters. It was the fact they got complacent and cautious on first and second downs in scoring territory in the four. quarter. And the moral of the story is this. Your defense is not good enough to hold these leads. Your offense is not good enough to run the ball on first and second down when the defense is playing run. And what they simply have to realize is this, even with a lead late, you, because this has happened multiple times, as you just mentioned, is it the coach's fault? This has happened multiple times. You have to trust and dance with the one who brought you. You have to go with.

Justin Herbert and let him throw the football on these plays. Short completions are better than handoffs. Short completions keep the clock moving, but they gain more yards and they're going to be more likely to get you first downs. You cannot just run the ball when the defense is playing run, pass the ball at a high percentage pass play on short yardage. Guess what else happens, Chris? When you drop back and you're trying to pass the ball on a short yardage and the defense is playing run, If you can't complete that pass, guess who's got the ball in his hands with open run lines? Justin Herbert, your quarterback, who is very good at scrambling and running the football. So I think they made a colossal mistake.

That's the only way that Denver came back and win this game. I mean, you have to give a lot a ton of credit for coming back and making plays and throws when the game mattered because he looked terrible, especially in the first half of this game. But the coaching staff has done great. Like they totally listen to the advice of pass the ball early. They did it last week. They did it two weeks ago. But they need to still continue to do that even in crunch time.

Okay. But the fact that, and I get this is how a lot of sharp guys will look at it, no pun intended, that they're good enough, obviously, to be beaten their ass. And so, yes, they went into a shell and they blew this game. but they're clearly good enough to be up on all these teams. And I've got to believe that's why when I look and I say, whoa, hold on now. Like they blow the lead every week. Why are they favored this week?

Because the charges are favored in their game this week, I believe still, right? They're still favored in that game. Well, that game, yes, they are. So I'll let you continue with your point. But it's taken heavy Raiders money. They were favored by three points at one moment in time. That has been bet down all the way to a pick-em at some spots. or only the Chargers favored by one.

At most spots right now, the Chargers are still favored by one. Okay, but so that line was off in the minds of a lot of big money. That line was off. Because when I saw it, I thought, why are they favored? But there is some sentiment that, okay, yes, they are blowing these things, but we've got to take into consideration. They're good enough to have those leads in these games, right? And so that's why I've got to believe they even popped as a favorite.

against the Raiders because that one, I mean, that was the immediate line that I think a lot of people probably looked at and went, hold the phone. They are, their favorite. I mean, not like the Raiders were any great shakes against Cleveland, but they did win the game. Right. And the Chargers are one of those teams, like some others in the league, that are a little bit better as underdogs than they are as favorites because they don't really know what to do with a lead, right? And that's some teams are like that where they're good at playing from behind. They don't have to worry, about play calling when they have a lead. They don't understand the best way to call plays with the lead.

But I think they can improve. It's not very hard. They flip the switch on their play calling when they were in the first three quarters of games during the by week. Completely flip the switch. And guess what? It's not hard. You don't have to dial up new plays.

You don't have to trade for a lot of new players. Just fucking call a few more pass plays here. We're not talking about moving the world here. We're just calling a couple of passes instead of runs. All they need to do in the late part, portion of the game is the same thing. It's just flipping a switch. Let Justin Herbert throw a few more short passes than calling so many run plays on these early downs, even with the lead late, and you'll be fine. So it's not that big of a deal. They can easily do that. They are there.

We'll get to talking about them a little bit more later on in this show. Well, and that's what's also a little bit crazy about that is it ain't like they've got Derek Henry or Dalvin Cookback. Exactly. You know what I mean? Like I at least, when you're like saying, like, I know, you've bitched about the Titans before too, especially in their game against the Steelers. But I will at least give them a pass that like, okay, maybe it wasn't the smartest thing to have these runs. But like Derek Henry or Dalvin Cook,

these guys break off like 80, 90-yard touchdowns or 60-yard gains or something. Like, that's not the Chargers. They got running backs that, you know, to walk down busy streets in America and nobody even knows who they are. No, that's true. But I will say, you know, you have to coach and call plays and game plan to your opponent's weakness. I always am in favor of coaching and game planning.

The easiest path to victory. Look, we don't want to make this thing complicated. We want to win this game in the first half. And I know that there's a mantra, can you win this game in the first quarter? No, can you win this game in the second quarter? No, but guess what? When you have a lead at halftime, you're very likely to win a game, especially if it's a nice lead. And so you're able to call plays to get that lead,

and then you have to figure out how to manage that lead. But that is a lot easier than trying to pull off comebacks from behind like the Denver Broncos did. Well, look, it was it was Vic Fangio and it was Anthony Lynn. You knew some crazy shit was going to happen, right? Somebody was blowing that game one way or the other because those two guys have been, they've been on like the Mount Rushmore of how the hell did they, lose that game guys in the last couple of years. So we talked about that game, and obviously their quarterback is Justin Herbert,

who has been a real revelation as a rookie. We got to see one of the very few guys that was drafted ahead of him. Tua got the start in Miami. What did you think about to his debut? And also, that was a really good win for the dolphins coming out of the by against the Rams. How good are they? Well, the credit, in my opinion, for this game has to go directly to head coach Brian Flores. And he absolutely should be in the running for coach of the year, in my opinion.

The way that he has turned this defense around has been incredible. And I know I and many others don't love to give a lot of credit to defense, especially with the way that offenses play in the modern NFL. But the way that he got a second team to completely and utterly shut down a Sean McVe slash L.A. Rams offense, because I say second, because he did that in New England in the 2018 Super Bowl. We talked about it on the Friday show with House about Ryan Flores meeting up with Sean McVeigh with two weeks to prepare and what he was going to do. he had to get a lot of new players ready to play a system that he knew was going to be capable of shutting them down. And he had those players coached up to a T. And they did a beautiful, outstanding job. And so, like, I can't say enough good things. I can't use enough great words

to commend Brian Flores for the job that he did. Now, let's talk about Tua, though. My big concern with this game, and it didn't end up needing to do anything, because, their defense was so great. They got to touch on a special team. We didn't need Tua to be outstanding to win this game. However, here's the thing. Moving forward, you are not playing Jared Goff, Sean McVeigh with two weeks to prepare every single week. There is no chance that as good as this Dolphins defense looked in that game, it's going to be able to replicate those same types of performances unless maybe you're playing Adam Gase's Jets, right? So you're, which you do week 12, but you're going to be having to deal with a lot of

of other teams that have reasonable offenses. Your own offense has to be better. And my big concern with Tua was, are they going to take the ball out of this kid's hand? Are they going to rely on the run game? Because the run game is trash. So let's walk through this. Weeks 1 to 7 with Fitzpatrick, Miami was the fourth most pass heavy team in the NFL on early downs to the first three quarters. And that was very important that they were because the runs on those downs average only 3.9 yards per carry with a 46% success rate, both well below the NFL average. Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick, when he was passing on those downs, 10.2 yards per attempt, 67% success. Outstanding results. What did they do in this game with Tua? And mind you, we're not going to include the fourth quarter

when they were had a big lead and you maybe will run the ball because you're playing the clock as much as you are the other team at that point. We're talking about the first three quarters of the game. So the majority of this is the first half of this game. And Miami moved from being pass on 59% of these early downs to pass on only 44% of those early downs. The only teams that were more conservative in terms of passing the ball less often than Miami, there was only a couple. They were all in games with terrible weather. We know how much wind was a factor in the NFL this weekend and bad weather was a factor. Those are the only teams that threw the ball less often than Miami did. So they completely tried to take the ball out of two his hands.

They relied on the run. Instead of 41% run, they ran on 56% of these plays. And what were the results of these run plays? 2.2 yards per carry, a 36% success rate. The Rams did exactly what I thought they would. They played the run. This is exactly what you would be doing if you're a defensive quarter going up against a rookie quarterback starting his first game. Take away the run. Force this guy to beat us through the air. They played the run. The Dolphins. played right into their hands of running the ball a ton a lot more than they normally do. And it put Tua in these terrible situations where he was in third down almost all day, wasn't able to convert on these third down passes because it was obvious passing situations.

Luckily for them, they had a big lead so it didn't end up being a factor. Yeah, it's out why. I mean, I've got to interject to you. Okay, yeah. Of course, they were up pretty big. They were up significantly double digits early. And so that dictated that maybe if this was a back and forth game that would not have been the play calling. But instead, they just decided, hey, our defense obviously has a game plan for this.

What we can't do is be out here throwing pick sixes, making mistakes, whatever. Obviously, you wish they would have more trust. But when you've got a kid back there that's his first start, let's just play it close to the best. Let's just run the ball, let our defense get some rest, get them back out there. We feel good about our defense today. We've got this lead. You know, if we get caught, we get caught, but we're not going to let, we're not, it's not going to be because of our offensive foolishness.

There is probably a little bit of an element of that in the third quarter of the game, I will admit, but in the first half of this game, the first quarter was seven to seven, right? Like this was, the dolphins were behind seven to nothing here. This was not like a blowout from the jump. There was a couple of key. plays in that second quarter that made this game more of a blow. Nobody scored a single point in the third quarter. So there's a touch of that to what you're saying. But the reason that I took out the

fourth quarter and I could have done this analysis taking out the third quarter as well is just that, yes, maybe there was a chance that Brian Flores said, I got these guys defensively. You don't need to do a lot offensively. Let's be more conservative. But I fail to see the rationale of just simply saying, let's do things that are terrible on early downs to start the game, the first half of the game, so that we put our rookie quarterback in third and obvious passing situations. And I don't care that he throws up on himself in those situations because I got a good defense. That to me is just not a good game plan, a recipe for success. I think that Brian Flores wanted to come out and have an outstanding result in his first game here.

It was important. You've alluded to this many times about how good Justin Herbert and some of these other guys have looked. So it was important for them to get Tua the win. But you need to also get Tua feeling comfortable. And I'm just thinking moving forward like next week's game out in Arizona, they're four and a half point underdogs. You cannot approach this thing with a white gloves only treatment of Tua in the first half of this game. You cannot say we're going to run the ball on early downs, even though our rushing off and sucks.

They lost Miles Gaskin. he's now injured. So we've got a backup running back in there now. And we're going to run the ball and keep Tua hands off until we need them on third downs or maybe in the second half. It's not going to work for the Miami Dolphins at all, in my opinion. They cannot enter this game and expect to win with that philosophy. Today's Ringer NFL show is brought you by FanDuel. I've got to tell you about my new favorite bet concept this season. I've been playing the same game parlays on FanDual Sportsbook. They're pretty simple. All you have to do is combine multisole.

bets from one game into a single parlay. This way, the payouts are even bigger when you win. And Van Duel will refund the first same game parlay you lose on any NFL game each week up to $10. That means you can bet a different parlay risk-free. Same game parlay for this weekend. I've been perusing all of the games. I think four and a half is too many for the Dolphins.

I think we're going to rock with two at time again. So dolphins plus four and a half and then we're taking the over. That's going to be the same game parlay. I think there's going to be a bunch of points in that game. So we'll take the dolphins and the over in the same game parlay. Remember, risk-free bets apply to the NFL. Your first NFL single game parlay of the week, you'll get $10 back if you don't win. Now there's one catch.

FanDuel is the only sportsbook app that has the same game parlays. So you don't already have a FanDuel account. out, just use the promo code, Ringer, NFL. That's Van Dual Sportsbook, promo code Ringer NFL. Disclaimer, 21 plus, and present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, West Virginia,

Indiana, Colorado, Iowa, Tennessee. Refund issued as non-witrable site credit that expires in seven days. Max refund $10. Terms apply. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-5-22-4-700 in Colorado.

1-800-bets all. in Iowa. 1-800-9 with it in Indiana, 1-800 gambler in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, or the Tennessee Red Line in Tennessee, 1-8009-9-9789. Or you can visit 1-800-gambler.net in West Virginia. Let's get to somebody that you have been very disenchanted with this entire season,

and that is your beloved Adam Gase. well the GM of the Jets came out and he stumped for both Adam Gays and Sam Darnel. Now, the reason this is fascinating is because the Jets still have no wins. And yet you have a general manager coming out, Douglas, and defending Adam Gase, defending Sam Darnold. The reason that is also, I guess, twofold fascinating, number one, because they're winless. number two, it appears they have a real inside track to the number one pick overall, who most people expect to be Trevor Lawrence.

And so if you're in there and saying, I believe in my coach and I believe in this quarterback, it's probably about if I'm a Jets fan, I mean, that's utter despair, right? Like, I don't know if I expect the guy to come out and rip both of them publicly. But the vote of confidence is not something that I feel like most Jets. fans probably are in line with. What do you make of it? Yeah, I'm not quite sure what the philosophy is there because my opinion, what we are trying to do is establish a culture for rebuilding.

Like we have to have the right culture here. And the culture cannot be, let's just accept these losses, place to blame elsewhere, not on ourselves. So you can't, like, if you can't point the finger at the head coach, and the quarterback who are the two. I mean, I get, you don't want to publicly, a GM shouldn't be publicly criticizing his quarterback to a massive extent. I'm not sure the exact words that he used,

but you got to say like, well, we need our quarterback to play better, right? That's a criticism, but it's not a harsh finger-pointing criticism. So I'm not quite sure what he didn't say there. But the fact of the matter is, if you look at what Adam Gase has done, even just look at the last, every single game that he's played where he has had wide receivers healthy enough, this is all he does. I mean, early down is the first three quarters. You ready for this? Week one when he had everybody, 88% 11 personnel. He started losing a couple of guys the next few weeks. The last few weeks, 87%, 82%, 83%, 83%. That's what all he does is trot out 11 personnel,

pass out of 11. It's clearly not working. he could be trying to change things up. He's not trying to change anything up. He is just comfortable with the fact that they're losing games and that this is happening. And part of me thinks that actually for Joe Douglas, if he wants to rebuild this team, you might as well just keep Adam Gase around

because I don't know if another coach comes in and tries to change up some things, that might actually help you win. And if you don't really want to win, then just sticking with Adam Gase and let him continue to use 11 personnel so the defense knows exactly what's coming every single week. It may not be that bad of a strategy.

So I don't know. I agree. I'm totally disenfranchised with Adam Gase as a coach. It makes no sense what this man is doing out there. And I'm kind of befuddled. Let me say this. And just to be fair, so I'll read this so people can know what I'm talking about. Joe Douglas did put the brunt of the blame on himself.

But obviously his coach and his quarterback are going to come up. He says, I'm going through and thinking of everything I can do to try to help Adam, and the goal is to get this fixed together. My focus is helping Adam solve the problem and work together to do it. And so obviously, I think we're all confident in our abilities, and I'm focused to solve these problems with Adam. Regarding Darnold, he said, my thoughts on Sam are the same now as they were. He's an ultra-talented quarterback, and I can't say enough about his grit and toughness.

Ultimately, I have to do a better job of putting talent around Sam, and we have to develop some kind of continuity within the offense moving forward. I have no problem saying he is our best quarterback and our quarterback for the future. Look, I mean, he's falling into this trap before. I mean, this is the guy that famously said the plan is to have Jamal be a jet for life. And then, you know, in July, he ends up trading into the Seattle Seahawks. So I don't know if him coming out and backing these guys matters. You know, I don't think that you're going to get.

Once upon a time, you know, the Arizona Cardinals came out and said, Josh Rosen's our quarterback. And then they drafted Kyler Murray, right? So, I mean, it's not like it really matters. We still have to get through the last, you know, eight weeks of the season, as it were. But I don't know. That whole thing is a mess. And it just feels like, oh, yeah, we're going to be.

going to figure this out. And if I'm a Jets fan, I have literally no faith in Joe Douglas, Adam Gase, and Sam Darnold figuring this out. Well, I definitely don't have faith in Adam Gase figuring this out. I think Joe Douglas, those quotes are him just trying to be the bigger man, taking the responsibility, saying he needs to do better. And there's really nothing to read there. Like you said, what is he going to say? He's going to say that he wants Donald to be his quarterback. Does that mean he's not going to go out and draft another quarterback if they absolutely not like i i think he's absolutely going to do that i think they could try to trade darnald in the offseason if he's able to get a quarterback like their their leverage is very low at that point in time but um i don't really believe

what he's saying right now he's just saying that the the standard things just to kind of deflect blame and and he's taking the high road here that's a whole lot much ado about nothing in my opinion i don't believe what he's saying uh but i don't fault him too much for saying those types of things. If he doesn't want to come out and completely harshly blame those guys, I think it's the owner's responsibility at some point, not the GM's responsibility to come out and say some harsher things about that. Warren, the Jets are a team with a miserable record,

a losing record, and I feel like they are properly rated. Everybody, you know, the record sucked and they suck. that being said, according to your numbers of the teams that do have a losing record, who are the best ones? Who's the best team in the league that has a losing record? Well, there's actually a couple in the AFC that are capable of giving people battles, and those are the AFC West. You know, the West, I don't know what's going on with the water out there, Chris,

but the NFC West is really good. The AFC West, I mean, the Chargers, we just talked about. them. How good the chargers are. Their top 15 offense and defense, despite playing a much more difficult schedule than average. And they've had some play calling issues that they could easily clean up and be better. And so this is a team that I think is sitting at two and five, but is much better than that record. And I also think that Denver, they've lost some guys to injury. But they're a team that once they get a little bit healthier, look, they've played the third. toughest schedule of opposing defenses and their offense has been terrible.

But their defense has played the seventh toughest schedule of opposing offenses and they rank seventh best inefficiency. So their defense is still fine. Their defense is fine. Their offense just needs to improve and hopefully play a few better easier defenses. And you're going to see this Denver team look a little bit better too. So those are the two that jump out to me in the AFC. In the NFC, unfortunately for you, I've got to say the Philadelphia Eagles are one game.

is over 500. Stop, stop. And there's no other. They're terrible. They're terrible. There's no other team in the NFC that I would say, except for with the slight potential of mentioning the fact that I love what they're doing down in Carolina.

This team has some flaws. I hated the fact that you're playing a quarterback in Matt Ryan on Thursday, who is terrible against man, but really good against the zone. And they're refusing to come out of their. standard shell, play a little bit more zone. They went like way too much man. But at any rate, I think that if you're talking to the NFC, that's the team because they're going to get a little bit healthier. And when this team gets healthier, they have a very talented roster overall. So that's one of the things that you can't say, for example, about the Minnesota Vikings, right? The Minnesota

Vikings don't have, they've got a lot of young guys. And I think that this is a good team, but I don't see them getting a lot better by the by the by uh getting a lot of new players back whereas i could see that happening a little bit for the eagles all right i can buy that but i what are you talking about with the eagle i mean it's friggin denucci if they had anybody that had an arm the cowboys would have won that game like anybody they tried to run let me just say this because i i have not heard anybody talk about this when when they were using all these trick plays and all this bullshit Okay, so Cedric Wilson, that's a Memphis kid, all right? And he can chuck it.

They ran that play, no lie. They ran that play twice because he's probably the only guy they had available that could throw the ball 30 yards in the air. Like this Ben Danucci had absolutely no business being in the NFL. He's throwing it sidearm and shit. I mean, I saw him when they drafted him. I got so excited. I was like, oh, maybe he's like a big sleep.

And I was with my son and I pulled up his YouTube and I'm like, oh my God. I said, William, this guy's arm is a friggin' rank. I mean, you can just tell. You look at his highlights. And I mean, now you got to come on here talking to me about how good the Eagles are. They suck. I guess I'm going to give a little bit of compliment to Mike McCarthy here. The fact that Mike McCarthy looked at Ben Danucci and decided to come with a game plan just full of high school trick plays the entire game.

basically tells me that he accurately was able to determine that there's no way I can craft a drop-back game with Ben Danucci as my quarterback here. So I'm going to just have to go crazy. And the whole week we're just going to prepare and practice all types of trickery. And it almost, you know, it got him close. Like there were some moments of that game where they were super close with just using nothing but trickery. So that actually, like, I don't view that as a bad thing about McCarthy.

I view it as an accurate way that he scouted this kid and said, this is not going to work if we do it the regular way. Yeah, but they scouted him originally too. Well, I don't know that Mike McCarthy, was Mike McCarthy the one that was. Did you not see that during the broadcast? I was like, what is it with this guy? Like, everybody's ever come in contact with. He wants to give him a job because, you know, that's the story of Mike Nolan,

that Mike Nolan hired him in San Francisco 100 years ago. And so it's almost like a solid. He's doing the guy a solid. This guy had been coordinating defenses in the last couple of years. And, of course, the Cowboys have a historically terrible defense now. But they ran this thing. You must say on the broadcast, you must have missed it. They're doing like the Ben Danucci life story or whatever.

And they show. I definitely tuned that out. Okay. Hey, they show this picture of like his junior high basketball team. All right? Ben Danucci. And you're expecting like, oh, then they put the spotlight on him to show you, here's young Ben Danucci.

And then you're figuring, you know, that the spotlight's going to come on and you're going to find out, oh, wow, him and frigging Joe Burrow, we're on the same middle school basketball team or something like that, right? Oh, no, no, no, no. They're showing you one picture of the kid. And then the other spotlight in the picture, the circle they put up, it goes around the coach of his middle school team. And who is the coach?

Oh, no. Mike McCarthy's brother. I'm like, oh, come on. And then they're like, and then he met him in an elevator at the, you know, whatever, like at a James Madison game or something. And I was like, wait, what? Like, what? They really draft this dude because his brother coached him, you know, in middle school

basketball or something. Okay, that's bad. I'll admit that's terrible. I'm like, this is ridiculous. What is happening? Like, how was that? Like, it was the weirdest correlation. Like, you sit there, it was almost like it was a great explainer of how the hell is this guy in the NFL?

And then you, and then you see, oh, Mike McCarthy's brother coached him when you play basketball, middle school. Yeah, I'll buy that. I'll buy that. All right. Okay, we have breaking news, actually, as we are recording this this morning. This is the week from hell for the 49ers, Warren, because now they've closed their facility for COVID, as if it weren't already a horrible week with them losing Jimmy G, with them losing George Kittle. And one of the things we're going to discuss is, are they done? And they have a lot bigger worries right now than just having a destroyed roster by injury

where they've closed the whole facility. And they've obviously had some positive tests there. And here's hoping that everybody's safe and okay there. And it's not some kind of massive outbreak. But let's just talk about what they did lose last week pre this COVID problem. And that is Jimmy G. and Kiddle going out. And I think most people's immediate reaction when they saw both of those injuries, both serious injuries, that, okay, we're going to be able to cross them off. They're done without those two guys.

Are they done without those two guys? Yeah, I think it's going to be very difficult. So let me explain it's not that difficult for most people to get it. But with Jimmy G, this team was since training for them in 2017, they're 24 and 7. they score 28, almost 29 points per game, and they win by almost nine points per game. Without Jimmy G, they're 5 and 22. They score less than 20 points a game,

and they lose by almost seven points a game. So, I mean, we don't give, we don't really like the crown like QB wins and all, well, what's this QB's record? And that's what, but what we're talking about from a betting perspective, from just an overall perspective, clearly this team is significantly worse without Jimmy G in there.

Now, there's still a good team around him and they're still well coach, but losing George Kittle is one of the pieces that is very difficult for any team to replace because he does so much for this Kyle Shanahan offense. He is absolutely not. People look at him, oh, well, this guy's a great tight end. And fantasy guys look at him for what he does from a statistical perspective on the field. Those are just the plays when he's targeted, right? Well, how many targets does this guy get?

and then how many catches does you get, how many yards, how many touchdowns. That's fantasy perspective. But what this guy does on the other 90% of plays in a game where he's not targeted in the receiving game, but he's utilized to help either control defensive coverage or he's utilized in past protection or extremely importantly, he's used in the run blocking game. those are massive factors in how this team is performing. And we saw how this team struggled at times last year when Jimmy G. went down or when Kyle Eusecheck goes down.

These are not your standard fullback on team A or tight end on team B. These are key talented, uber talented guys in a Kyle Shanahan offense that play massive, massive roles. It's very difficult to replace that. you lose both of those guys, it's going to have a massive impact on your ability to win games. And then you look at this team's schedule the rest of the way. I mean, we're talking about, we know Green Bay, maybe not quite as good as they got off to their start, right? But there is no team, I think. I'm not 100% sure.

Don't quote me on this. But I don't think that there are many teams that play a more difficult schedule. They're at least got a top three most difficult schedule of opponents moving forward throughout the rest of the season. Upcoming, you've got tilts against the Packers, the Saints, the Rams, the Bills, the Seahawks, and the Cardinals. You play two more teams from the NFC East. Those are the Cowboys and the Washington football team. And that's it. Every single other team that you're playing has a winning record is going to be a playoff contending team this year. And it does not get very easy for the San Francisco 49ers. So tough losses from a personnel percentage.

perspective in terms of like what most people know about them. Very difficult to replace the production of a guy, not even when he's targeted like George Kittle. And then your schedule is absolutely brutal. So it will take a, I mean, I've seen Kyle Shanahan do some incredible things, but it would take an other worldly type performance here. And I don't know what's going to happen with this Thursday game.

The sports betting markets have pulled it completely off the board at this moment. because I don't know how you prepare. What are we at? We're at Wednesday. The facility is completely shut down now. How is everybody going to pass the testing to allow a game to be played tomorrow? You know, luckily it's at home, but this is just a massive wrench in your plans on a short week with backups filling in two key roles for your offense. Well, and then you've got the whole schedule shuffle that'll have to take place if they do have to, if they have to move,

that game, but it's clearly going to affect a lot of teams. Yeah, and that part obviously sucks. We've seen that happen before. And we're getting to a point in the season, not yet, not yet, but in a couple weeks, as the weather gets colder, as I guess this thing becomes more difficult because you can't do as many things outdoors in most of the country. So maybe more people end up getting this or whatnot that you don't have the buy weeks that you could just slot things in and shift things around.

We're talking about adding extra weeks to the season. I don't think we're there yet, but that will happen. And I'll just go on record right now as saying, I'm totally fine with that. If we can play all 16 games for every single team in the NFL and the season takes one to two weeks longer, I do not give a shit. Let's do it. So we'll see what happens. Okay, we'll see what happens this weekend with the Packers,

if they can get bounced back after they got beat up pretty good by the Minnesota Vikings. also the Saints, big game for them. They look pretty unimpressive again over the weekend. Warren, let me ask you a last question today. In the NFC, if I gave you the Bucks and the Seahawks, and I said those are the only two teams you get, I'll give you those, but one of those two teams has to make the Super Bowl. Would you feel good about that?

I get the rest. You get the Bucks and the Seahawks, I get the rest. Well, obviously only one of those teams is making it. Are we talking just the NFC? Yeah. If I just said, look, all right, let's make a deal. I'll give you Buc, Seahawks. I get the rest of the team.

Would you make that bet? Yes. So you would certainly think they are, there's a gap between those two and everybody on. Yes, 100%. The odds reflect that right now. Let me pull up some odds here. Because I know you're taking the Chiefs of them.

Yeah, we already took the Chiefs. The Chiefs now, they have worse odds than we took them at. In other words, we made a good bet when we did. But if you look at the futures for the conference winner in the NFC, right now the Bucks and the Seahawks are the only two teams that are plus 350 or shorter odds, meaning you don't get as much payback. And you've got the Packers and the Saints, both around plus 600. So you get 600 for every 100 that you bet. And then you got the Cardinals and the Rams, which are like plus 1,300. So you have a couple of tiers. So you have a couple of tiers. where it's like the elite are the Seahawks and the Bucks.

Then you get this mid-range tier, which is the Saints and the Packers. And then you get like everybody else. But everybody else is much further back than the Bucks and the Seahawks are. So you're really only competing with a couple other teams. There are obviously one of these teams is going to win the first round by. And the good news for the Seahawks is they do have a much easier schedule the rest of the way. So the Seahawks schedule actually gets easier the rest of the way than it is right now based on total efficiency of opponents. What they've played so far for the first eight weeks of the season, from weeks 9 to 17, it's slightly easier for the Seahawks,

where the Bucs schedule gets tremendously more difficult than what it is right now. But the good news for the Bucks is that they've been winning some of these games without a full complement of wide receivers. And now they're starting to get guys in that are going to be healthy. You would assume Antonio Brown is going to help improve their odds. You're going to get Chris Godwin back from a broken finger, whatever was going on with his finger. Mike Evans, hamstrings, et cetera, should be healing up here. You lost, I think, your slot guy for a week due to a concussion maybe. So you've got some guys that are now going to be helping Tom Brady.

And the other thing, too, is like, yes, Seattle is throwing the ball more. yes, they are making more efficient decisions from a play calling perspective. But this is still the same team that's been there all off season and to finish last year. Like they didn't add all these massive weapons offensively, whereas the Bucks did. And those components are going to gel a little bit more and get better with one another. Their team is going to call more things that Tom Brady wants them to call it. He's comfortable with calling. That's going to help raise the ceiling.

So I think the team that you've seen so far from Tampa Bay, yes, they're going to play a better. a more difficult schedule moving forward, but that team is also going to get better. So I think both those teams are phenomenal right now. Man, I'll tell you this. Antonio Brown is Antonio Brown? I mean, come on. Mike Evans, Chris Godwood, and Antonio Brown,

good luck. I liked their defensive coordinator a lot, but their defense obviously didn't look great in last week's game against the Giants this past Monday. And so you need their defense to improve a little bit, too, to come around a little bit. And I think this is a war of attrition this year more than anything. Like, it is hard with a few exceptions to really crown people too early because injuries and all these other distractions and other things that are happening this year.

But I would definitely take that bet. I think those two teams are far and away the most likely in the NFC. Can't wait for another NFL week ahead. Warren, I will catch up with you next week. Thanks, brother. Sounds good, Chris. Thanks for listening to another edition of The Ringer NFL show. Remember, Kevin Clark and the gang.

We'll be back with you tomorrow.