The Ringer NFL Show - Are We Worried About The Rams or Impressed By The Saints? | The Ringer NFL Show (Ep. 337)

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

The Rams and Saints gave us what we expected, but which team told us more? (3:30) Plus the Patriots and Belichick have mastered position switching, the Steelers are who we thought they were with or without Le’Veon Bell (36:00), and Nathan Peterman continues to do Nathan Peterman things (49:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Call 1-88-842-6328 or download the Navy Federal Credit Union app. Message and data rates may apply. Welcome to the Ring Your NFL show. I'm Robert Mays, joined as always by Kevin Clark. How you doing, buddy? I'm okay. I have some important questions for you. I'm all ears. So we're going to get to all the news of the day.

There was a very, very exciting Ram Saints game. There was a less exciting with still intriguing Tom Brady, Aaron Rogers matchup. But I need one question, maybe one and a half questions answered about Nathan Peterman. Craig and I, producer Craig and I, were on the line before this started. And we started to have a discussion. And now I am so down the rabbit hole that I can't. it out of it. If the Bills with Nathan Peterman

played the Rams, how many people would you have to add to the Bills' offense to consider the Bills' favorite? Like, would you, if they were playing 12 on 11, oh no, it would be like at least three or four. I would

say 13, you're getting, yeah. I would say 15 to 16 guys on that time. No, no. If you do 13, 12, I don't know if it's going to make that big a difference. 13, you can then just sort of run read option schemes and have an extra guy every, two extra guys every time. So you're really asking this question.

Yes. You're taking it seriously. That's the difference between. Yeah. Okay. That's fine. Yeah. Does 12 do it for you?

12 probably does. I mean, they're NFL players, but 13 would definitely help. 13, they would win. Yeah, most likely. 12, I'm not sure. It was brutal. I mean, I don't even fault Nathan Peter. that much today.

It's more about just like the talent on that side of the ball for them is unbelievably bad. He found, he threw a perfectly fine Terrell prior pass and prior just bobbled it until it got intercepted. Yeah. I mean, like that's, it was tipped because it was in, yeah,

it was within one yard of the line of scriments, which is a weird play. No, no, we're talking about two different players. Oh, oh, oh,

you're talking about the first interception. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but then there was the tip that was not pass interference because of the, because it was,

Within one yard of the line of scrimpents, right? So there were two that were just kind of bizarre. I mean, it wasn't either of the best passes in the world and it got let down, but they weren't horrendous. They, I mean, their NFL throws. I think that your point was correct. It was all about the, like, becoming self-aware. They were trying to go to the other team.

The footballers are aware of what's supposed to happen when they leave Nathan Peterman's hands, and they were just playing into it. When my team is winning by 30 plus, that's totally fine with me. So I'm good. What's the score of a bills with 12 people offense versus the Rams? I don't know.

Kind of like that Saints game. That's probably what I say. Oh, a lot of points. The shootout. Yeah, I mean, with 12 guys, I think it's, I think it's whoever has the ball last in that spot. Which is never something we'd ever say about the bills. All right.

So we're going to kick this off by talking about that Saints Rams game, which was everything you could have wanted it to. be? Like, it was amazing. Yeah, I mean, it was exactly, it's funny because, you know, people said this at the time, but it was one of those games where so many of these games either don't fit the billing or completely different than what we thought they were going to be. This is exactly the way we imagine this game happening. I guess there was no other way for it to happen, but it was beautiful. So the Rams obviously go on the road and lose. Do you feel drastically different about that,

team than you did when you woke up this morning. Do I feel drastically different? I feel drastically different because I don't know what the future of Marcus Peters looks like in that defense. Does he get significantly better? Because he went up against Michael Thomas today and he got a pass interference in a holding called against him and both resulted in completions. He got burned a number of times.

It was not good. He fell down on some plays. my question is he had the lower body injury a couple of weeks ago. How much is that affecting him? If they don't have a secondary, they can keep up with somebody like New Orleans, they're done. And that's sort of my worry. When does it keep to lead coming back? I don't know.

So I have full faith that the Rams are still an elite team. We're not going to do that they've lost one game. The sky's falling thing. What I'm saying is that for a Super Bowl contention standpoint, the secondary has to get better for them, for them to win the Super Bowl. That, like, long Michael Thomas touchdown felt like it was just a way to pick on Marcus Peters. That's what it felt like.

It was like, we're going to do this because we can't. Here's the deal. The way you win a Super Bowl is you get superstar production from non-superstars, and then your superstars play like superstars. That's how this works. If you're superstars, the guys you traded for and depended on in the off-season,

who were Marcus Peters is a very, very good NFL player. if those guys are going to be the people that get picked on with much success on opposing offenses, that becomes a problem. Here's the thing, though, about the Rams. We've talked about it the last three or four games when discussing the fact that they won those games, even when they didn't play well. And today felt like that to a degree. They almost had that game.

They were right there after playing like garbage for stretches of it. And that's, if I had to take anything away from it, that's what I would take away from it. It's that even when they don't play well, they almost pulled it out on the road against what is clearly the second best team in the NFC. So all I want is to see that game again. That's it. Yep. Yep.

And the Saints defense did a nice job. Obviously, they weren't world beaters. But Todd Gurley had his worst yards per reception of the season. They had 2.2 yards for contact was the best this season. they were getting, or the best, excuse me, the worst of the season for the Rams. And so they were getting to Gurley, they were containing him. I mean, we sort of knew that, you know, at one point in the first half, I was going to be absolute blowout.

For the Rams to come in and at least make it competitive to the point where at one point I thought the Rams were going to win, that was an accomplishment for the Rams, especially considering what happened in the first half. I think the Saints defense impressed me to a degree. Yeah, I mean, they got enough stops. It reminded me of last week's game in a way. Yeah. Obviously, like, the score was much different.

It was a shootout, but they did enough. And with that offense, that's all they need to do. They need to do enough. Yeah. I mean, exactly. And that's what we talked about with the Saints the week before, where PJ Williams gets picked on and then he gets, you know, he gets the two turnovers later in the game.

That actually happened today where PJ Williams got basically the game-sealing pass breakup. So it's the guys who are, not the superstars who are going to make these plays because, I mean, that's just how the Saints defense is built. They're not, again, they're not going to be 10th in points like they were last year. They made such a dramatic improvement as 2017 went along. 2018, they're going to get better, but it's not going to be like that. You know, I thought from the Saints offensive perspective, I thought Breeze did a great job of getting the ball out really quickly, even for Drew Breeze. I mean, this is a guy who knows how to climb the pocket, knows how to evade pressure and just get rid of the ball. But even

even by those standards, he was very, very impressive, neutralizing the Rams pass rush. So I just thought that Sean Payton had just a hell of a game plan. Truly a hell of a game plan. Michael Thomas, 211 yards. By the way, by the way, by the way, Drew Breeze going 80% of his passes today to Michael Thomas, that brings down his season completion percentage to Michael Thomas.

This game was always like lurking. because he hadn't had it yet. Like, there had been, he hadn't found the end zone in weeks, and they'd gone away from him a little bit. About three weeks into the year, I thought that he was going to break the receptions record. And then, Thomas. Yes.

Yeah. But then it went away, like, it slowed down a bit. And this is the type of game. It's like, oh, yeah, this is when they choose for him to be the dude. This is what he does. They don't need him to be. and that's a sign of a good offense and a good passing game

is when you don't need to force feed a guy like that. But if they need to lean on him like they did tonight, it's ridiculous. It's unstoppable. I mean, he's one of the best five or six receivers

in the NFL, undeniably. Two players in history, 23 or younger, with three games of three touchdowns in a single season. Alvin Kamara is one of them. Who is the other? I have no idea.

It's Jim Brown. Not bad. The fact that we're talking about Michael Thomas first, Drew Brees and all these guys, we're not even mentioning Alvin Kamara, who I don't know, I'm not going to say he worked his way into the MVP discussion because I don't think he's actually going to win the MVP.

But if there is some sort of elongated list of MVP candidates, I would put Alvin Kamar on the fringe of that. I just thought that he was very impressed. The Saints, like we talked about, the Rams, I did not change my mind on almost anything on the Rams except maybe worrying a little bit more about Marcus Peters. The Saints, I just came away hugely impressed by. They have so many places to go.

And that's always why I thought they were so dangerous because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's kind of like the Rams. The Rams do the same thing. They can do so many things. They can hurt you in so many ways. That's why they're frightening.

And today, the Saints did it. they can either hit you with Kamara or they can just throw the ball to their dude 15 times and he will destroy you. It's a really nice place to be when Drew Breeze is also your quarterback. I'm going to throw something out there. I talked last week about how it's kind of funny that Cam Newton's coming around and looks like he's going to be on the fringes of an all pro season and kind of back to the Cam Newton that we know him to be. And the reason it's funny is because you know, he's sort of the originator of a lot of these spread schemes because he and Mike Shula started in 2011 when he came in the NFL, putting up huge numbers with some basically Auburn concepts,

just straight up Auburn concepts. And I kind of feel with Sean Payton, a sort of similar thing in a different way. But as we talk about all of these offensive revolutionaries and innovators and these young guys who are coming in and have all these great ideas, dude, what do you think Sean Payton was 12 years ago. Like, Sean Payton came in and was McVeigh. And so it's kind of funny to me, I mean, he just turned that franchise around.

Think what the Saints had going on? Twelve years ago? Good Lord. And so it's amazing to me that Sean Payton is not only, you know, was the McVeigh of this era, but he is as

cutting edge as he was then now in this era of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, youth. The, like the Peyton breeze thing is tough because it's very, very hard to separate them. It's very hard to understand, like, who deserves real credit? Like, how much, like, how do you delineate that? Where do you kind of, like, if you had to put it in two buckets, how do you separate the buckets? I don't know the answer to that.

And that's, I mean, I kind of see it as a golf McVeigh. type thing, but it lasted... But Drew Breeze is much better than Jared Goff. No, no, no, no. I understand that. But I mean, I just... I mean, it's the perfect marriage of scheme and player. Of course, but if we're, like...

All right, so this Drew Bree's season, period. Like, let's say he wins the MVP. That is a super important moment in the Drew Bree's legacy. But in that legacy, it's very hard to separate him from having Sean Peyton the entire time. They've never had to be a part in their most important stretch. I mean, it's been 13 years. It just becomes difficult.

Like, the lines become blurred. That's all I'm saying. Sure. So since 2011, his worst season by quarterback rating was the year that Sean Peyton was suspended. not surprising but he still had a 96 rating it's not like he was you know

it's not like he threw 30 interceptions or something yeah but I mean look it's hard to say you look at his you know he got here he got to New Orleans when he was 27 years old he had his year 25 26 seasons with San Diego and in kind of a weird environment they had drafted Philip Rivers already

you know he had 104 rating in 04 than 89 and 05 I mean I I don't know I mean, I would have to, quite frankly, what I'd have to do is go back and look at those charger games and look at the tape and figure out what throws he was making back then that he's improved upon now and, you know, that sort of thing. He had a lot of weapons back then, too. So I don't know.

I haven't given that much thought to the Peyton Bree's thing because I just feel like they're so joint of the hip that there's not really, and they haven't gotten so good that it's become a Belichick Brady thing. Is that strange? It's a diet version of it though. Sure, of course. Because the offense has been top, not even 10, like higher than that every single season.

Their problem is the defense. Like that's what has held them back every single year. Yeah, I mean, but it's not like, the reason we ask about credit all the time with the Patriots because they win the Super Bowl all the time, but they get to the Super Bowl all the time, we should talk about them more. And I think you also add in Robert Kraft,

who had a much bigger macro vision as well. So you just start asking questions about who's responsible for what or any of the sort of other people like Scott Pioli, who built what gets talked about more. We just don't do that with the Saints. And I'm not sure why we don't do it, but we don't. Yeah, I mean, the one Super Bowl, that's the reason. But this may be the exception.

Like if they do it this year, if they get there, if they are the number one seed, else, maybe we'll have those conversations a little bit more. Okay, let's get to stock up, stock down. Speaking of the Patriots, stock up. Cordero Patterson. New England, just stockpiling guys that affect the game in very weird but pronounced ways. I guess that's what I'd say.

So just to recap, two of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of football played each other for only the second time. and I came away with it thinking about how much of a genius Bill Belichick is for figuring out the Cordero Paterson should play running back. It was ridiculous. Like, that is one of my favorite kind of Belichick wrinkles of all time. The dude was a first round pick. 61 yards. He's insanely talented.

And they found pretty much the right way to use him. You don't have Sony Michelle, but you know that you need the running game to be the off. that you want. And they were saying, ah, fuck it. What does put Cordero back there? Whatever.

It's insane. Like, they do this stuff way too often. I mean, he had a higher yards per carry than Aaron Jones, who's good, who's a good running back.

We just shouldn't allow him to make personnel decisions. Like, if he signs a free agent, like, eh, we should, like, let's review this, like, as a league. So let's back up.

We have Troy Brown playing cornerback. Julian Adam and playing cornerback. Mike Frabel playing, tight end. What are the other, I mean, he's just screwed around with the offensive line for years as far as flexibility goes there. That's completely out. But what are the other sort of Belichick position switches that worked like a charm? I mean, McCordy went from corner to safety. Yep. Yep. I mean, he does a lot. He does a lot in the secondary as well. Yeah, it's a flexible spot. Like in, yeah. And listen, he

scouts for positional flexibility. That's why he scouts some of his offensive line athletes. That's why scouts him in the secondary guys. He loves the idea of one guy being able to back up at three positions. He absolutely loves it. And so I'm not surprised on that, but I am surprised. He took Carderald Patterson and made him a running back. It makes sense, though, right? Like, his, the most, the most success that Patterson has ever had in a league by far is that kind of movement. It's understanding gaps, it's understanding creases, it's understanding how to hit them. You, more than anyone, know the frustrations of trying to put Devin Hester in an offense. Yeah.

It doesn't always work. Every single year that Devin Hester was at Miami, Larry Koker would be like, going to put him in the offense, and then they just couldn't find a role form. So movement and all that stuff, being able to return kicks really well, being an open field guy, it doesn't always translate. So the fact that Belichick was able to figure this out is hugely impressive. But we put those guys at receiver. That's always what happens. That's what I'm talking about. If you're a great returner, a coach is going to put you on the outside for the most part.

Or give you end-arounds. Yes. It's gimmick shit or you're a receiver, period. And the fact that they would put him at running back just because that is a more similar movement to returning kicks. It's a north-south assignment. and you're trying to hit a seam that develops. It makes sense. It makes sense to me.

I just don't think many people would try it. Is Tavon Austin just going to play running back tomorrow? I mean, I hope not, because they have a very good running back. One of the reasons this happened is because Sony Michelle was not playing. That'd be great if they were just like, we found a way to use Tavon Austin, and then they just benched Zeke Elliott.

Yeah, like you trade a first run. round pick for Murray Cooper and you have a guy you drafted in the top five. It's like, ah, fuck it. We'll just give it to Tavon 25 times. Tavon's lined up in the backfield. Yeah, but not in like a running back role. It's very, very different.

It's in the gimmick roll. We talked about this. Yeah. No, it's the gadget crap. It's not anything like what happened tonight. Exactly. So Josh Gordon, fifth round pick, probably worth it.

Yeah, I mean, I think some Patriots fans at the Ringer are still slightly down on them. I mean, that play tonight, he was just making a pretty basic plays. And the Packer's secondary, they played that very, very oddly, that touchdown. They missed a tackle pretty badly.

Yeah, it made no sense. I mean, that secondary in general, post-haha, is what I'm worried about with that team. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. I mean, Jackson was okay. J. Alexander didn't have the dominant game he had last week. I mean, he didn't show up like every single play.

Mike McCarthy named it an alpha performance. I didn't see that this week. Yeah, there was no alpha. He didn't. He didn't. I mean, sometimes cornerbacks just, you know, you don't notice and that's a good thing. Yeah, but, I mean, the way the pets moved the ball in the second half, I can't, like, tip my hat to Jair Alexander. If you wasn't getting thrown at, like, that's not how that's going.

Right, exactly. So, yeah, I mean, I just think that I came away with an unchanged mind about most the things I thought coming into this game. I'm a little higher on Cordell Patterson's NFL future and maybe a little higher on Josh Gordon as a Patriot, especially when you hear these ideas that they were trying to get into the Demeris Thomas sweepstakes or maybe even aiming a little higher with the big name sort of wide receiver.

So I'm sure the Patriots feel better as well. Yeah. I guess my biggest takeaway from that game is that this Pat's team, even if they're not the group that we're used to, like the Brady to Gronk dominance, all of that stuff, they have enough. They have enough options on that side of the ball

in an interesting way that they'll be able to find the points when it comes down to it. Because that is, in my opinion, what the AFC playoffs are going to be. Can you outscore the teams around you? We saw that with Pittsburgh today. we saw that with the chiefs every single week.

Can the Pats find 35 when they need it? And I think they can't. Because they have so many guys that can just do it. Whatever way they get there, they have enough bodies at this point. And coming into the season, I didn't know if that was true. So I think that the thing that changed my mind about Patriots in general

was just that they beat the damn chiefs just three weeks ago. And so, again, this game wasn't going to go a long way in determining how I felt about the Patriots. This is going to be a shootout in the AFC playoffs. It's going to be completely ridiculous. I think the most important thing at this point is when was the last time a road team? It's been six years since the AFC championship game was won by the road team. And I think it's been five years since the NFC champion. And you can't separate the fact that.

that the team playing at home in the championship game is just a better seed. So it might just be that. But home field advantage is extremely important in the place. We know that. And it's actually for oddly getting more important. I don't know why that is. Maybe the good teams are getting better. I don't know.

But what I do know is that it's going to be a very different game when this New England Patriots team has to go to Kansas City. Because I think that's going to have to happen. And that's what I'm most intrigued by, especially to see if this offense can put up 43 in the same way was able to put up 43 in Foxborough. I mean, you've seen how many conference championship games in your life? A few, I would assume.

I have five or six. In person? Five or six. Yes. There is no atmosphere like that. Well, there's no atmosphere like Kansas City for a regular season game. So I couldn't even imagine what it would be like for them to host an AFC championship game. It would be nuts.

but those moments, like right before the kickoff of an AFC or NFC championship game is one of my favorite moments in professional football. There's nothing like it. The Super Bowl is fun, but it's not a real environment.

Those games are crazy. And if New England has to go to Arrowhead, I I'm picking the Chiefs. I just am because of that. And that's why games like this, like what the Chief said today, where you beat the hell out of a team that's

worse than you are important. They can't drop games because they don't have the tiebreaker and the Pats are going to win a lot of games. So the Chiefs just need to keep rolling and I think they're going to. All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break. Unleash the most powerful pixel ever on the network chosen by Google Verizon. Pixel 3 has more than just any camera. It takes group selfies, snaps in portrait mode, and helps you always pick the perfect moment with Top Shot, which automatically recommends the best picks, where no one is blinking and everything looks just right.

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Make it with G-sweet by Google Cloud. Now back to the show. Second stock up. The Panthers are, I think, the most fun offense in the NFL outside of the Chiefs. Like, Norv Turner stock all the way up. Like, this is ridiculous. So first of all, before we get into the nitty gritty here, did you see Cam Newton's North Turner impression?

Is it better than yours? I would call it a draw. Okay. I have not seen it, but now I'm very excited. It's the same general impression. Just lay it on us very quickly. Very quickly. Mine?

Yeah. Like, hey, Kevin. Well, Kevin. And Cam Newton's is very similar. To the point that I don't, it was almost like he was doing an impression of my impression of North Turner instead of an impression of North Turner. The fact that we're doing like ridiculous impressions of like a,

66-year-old coordinator is very telling. This was supposed to be terrible. I mean, I absolutely shit on it when they hired it. I did. I have no problem admitting that. I have no problem admitting that I thought it was a terrible idea. And it's been the exact opposite of that. That offense has looked like they hired a 29-year-old dude

who had only watched college football. for the last 10 years. It's crazy. So since the second quarter against Washington, it's from Jordan and Rodriguez, Cam Newton is not thrown in an interception. He has a completion percentage of 71%, 735 yards, six touchdowns.

Again, no interceptions. Rushed for 134 yards in a touchdown since week six. Second quarter of week six. Today, McCaffrey has two touchdowns, over 150 total yards. Curtis Samuel, two touchdowns. Greg Olson, 76 yards of touchdown. He has unlocked this offense.

And we talked so much about all of the pieces that Cam Newton had. And by the way, Cam Newton himself is an incredible chess piece because there are so many things he can do. He is an unbelievably good athlete. We don't think about it enough. We don't talk about it enough. But so is Christian McAfee. So, I mean, quite frankly, Greg Olson at tight end is. is among the best that's ever played at that position.

They had all of these pieces and the fact that they weren't sort of among these elite offenses before this year was embarrassing. And now they are. It's just such a different approach. And I think that's the most important thing. I mean, we know what Cam was for years.

It was a lot of tight window throws down the field. Like 15, 20 yards down the field, about 10 or so area yards per target on the season. This is not that. It's a lot of easy throws. It's a lot of using your playmakers. And they never did that.

And now they have so many of those playmakers. Like, it's such a, it's almost surreal to watch this team versus what they were like two years ago when it was Benjamin and Funcius on the outside and Cam was forcing throws. and there were no space players whatsoever. Now they have three, at least three. It's a... Honestly, it is a dizzying effect. I would never have imagined this team looking like this.

Okay. And I think they're really dangerous. I really do. Agree. We talk about rookie contract windows and all this stuff. I will throw the caveat in that there's a two-year window left for this team before Marty Herney gives all of the salary cap space to Christian McCaffrey because he's a running back.

20 plus million? I mean, whatever. That's my guess. It rises at $10 million a year. So by the time he's due for an extension, the cap will be like $200 million. I just give it all to him. So they're fun, like undeniably fun. How real is this?

Do you think that they can knock off either the Saints or the Rams when it matters? Hmm. Hmm. I think that Cam Newton is an amazing, amazing quarterback at his best. I mean, we've seen, I mean, he's won an MVP. He's really freaking good. He destroyed, absolutely destroyed a really good Arizona Cardinals team in the NFC championship game.

He beat a really good Seahawks team. I think didn't he go up 31 points in that game before things got weird, but he still put up, you know, that many points. We've seen him at his best. It was over early. Nah, the Seahawks came back. That's what I mean. Back in that game.

Yeah, they came back, but it was a blowout early. Oh, yeah, I know, of course. But it definitely wasn't over because I remember I had a story in the can that needed to run and the Panthers needed to win. That's why we always remember. Oh, boy.

But crisis averted there. But so, yeah, we've seen this. So I'm not, I'm not ruling it out. But when I look at the Saints, I'm just going to say this. I almost tweeted it a couple times and I could figure out the phrasing so I'll just say it out loud.

When I watch the Saints or the Rams or the Chiefs, it looks like they're playing a different sport, dude. And I kind of feel like the only people who can beat them are each other. It almost looks like heavyweight boxers where there's just, or whatever weight division you want to go at, where there's just an elite

and the only people who can sort of beat each other is this round robin of the top guys, right? That's sort of how I view the absolute top teams. And the reason we throw in the Patriots is because we've seen them do it so many times. But when I watch a Patriots, they're not playing the same sport as the Saints, Rams, and Chiefs.

And so I'm not picking the Panthers to beat any of those teams because I just haven't, I just don't know if it's possible. I just think that they're on a different plane of existence. they're making the quarterback position look easy. I mean, the stats on their open throws, especially with Kansas City,

it's just unbelievable. It feels like they've solved football in some ways, especially the chiefs. And so I guess if you're saying, can they beat the Rams? Listen, the Rams didn't win a playoff game last year. Anything's possible with them. But when I watch them every Sunday,

I'm hugely impressed. I love what the Panthers are doing. They may be basically alone in the NFC on that second tier. I think in the AFC, You have the chargers there. So it's those two teams. They are the chargers of the NFC. I wish them well.

I love what they're doing. I don't see them as contenders. It's funny that you say that, though, because when I watch the Panthers right now, I think that they're maybe not like talent-wise or efficiency-wise or production-wise. But when I watch that team, it reminds me of the really good teams. Like the way they're constructed, the way that offense works, the play calling, the design, everything else. Like, oh, yeah, like, they're in that realm with, like, the McVeys and the reeds and everything else.

And again, maybe they're not as efficient at it. I have to tell you. I got to tell. Let me back up here. So they almost, and probably should have lost to the Eagles. They did lose to the Redskins in a very, very weird game where they looked like crap. Yeah, that game was first time. Okay.

The week before, they came within a miracle field goal of losing to the Giants who are not a football team. So I'm just saying they may pass the eye test right now, but I'm not completely sold on them as an elite team when he's look at the track record. They've had two very nice weeks. I understand what you're saying. I just think that when I watch them play offense especially, it reminds me of the really good teams.

It's just so creative. They're doing stuff. They put the ball in their best player's hands in advantageous situations. I don't want to go full college football on us, but just the resumes do not match up. I'll give that to you. I think the Giants game and the fact that they lost the Washington

and they probably should have lost the Eagles, I understand all of that. I just watching them today, and I know it was against Tampa, who is objectively the worst defense in the NFL, but just one of those things. It's like, God, they're doing such cool shit. I really like it.

I believe in them more than I did a week ago. Sure. like five times more than I did coming into this season. What Norv Turner has done is mind-blowing. I just can't. You got to work on your Norv Turner. It's so weird, man. Like, I panned that higher.

And watching this happen is baffling. I still, like, don't understand or comprehend it. All right. Let's get to more, a couple more stockups. The Pittsburgh Steelers, we did this. We did it. few weeks ago, we seem to do it all the time.

We hem and haman Haw and we try to crown another team in that division especially. Nope. The Steelers are like an 11-win team and they're going to be a problem in the aFC playoffs. Like point, that's it. Like period. End of discussion. So I'm all four players getting paid worth their worth.

I'm all for NFL labor progress, et cetera, et cetera. Levy on Bell really screwed up, huh? There is no upside to what he did. Zero. What is the advantage for him right now? When he goes and tries to negotiate a deal in March, what are the pillars of that argument? I don't know.

I think he probably should have taken the $15 million. Yes. So James Connor is really good. he's really good. He's the first player in NFL history with four games within a single season of 100 rushing yards, 50 receiving yards and a touchdown.

And it's week nine. His performance has really thrown a wrench into the running back kind of dialogue. Because what Gurley did, has done is a point for the idea that they matter, they should be paid, everything else. What Connor has done, what David Johnson has not done,

what Leonard Fernette has not done, there are way more kind of strikes against the idea that running backs matter than kind of points forward the fact that they do. I think running backs can help you win games. I just think that spending a lot on either financially or draft capital just has not proven to be wise.

That's my general thought. If you have a good running back, that's not going to hurt your team. But investing a lot in that position is likely a bad idea. In my opinion, I still think that Gurley is an exception because their scheme is built

so strongly on play action, on what he gives them everything else. What happened with Bell and his argument about the money he deserved was about the fact that I'm a running back and I catch a lot of passes. It was about volume. It was about production. The girly thing is different than that in my mind because that is the pillar,

that is the basis, that is the foundation of what the Rams do offensively. It's a different conversation than I touched the ball of this many times. So that's my only thing. I think that Gurley is a somewhat, like a slight exception to all of this because it's not just I caught four passes and I ran the ball 25 times. Let me ask you a question. If Malcolm Brown, if Gurley, God forbid, tore his knee or something like that in training camp,

and Malcolm Brown was the starter for the entire season, the Rams win how many games? Probably 12. How many are they going to win with them? 14. 14 or 15. Yeah. Okay. Just saying. It's so hard.

There's no way to know. If golf goes down, do they win nine? I know. This is the argument. Barnwell did this to me too. I hate it. Yes. This is the Trump card argument and I hate it.

What if Sean McVeigh gets lost at sea for a five-month period and then comes back in February? How many of games do they win there? If you had to pick McVeigh-Gurley-Garly-Garly. off, which order would you do it? Probably McVeigh-Goff, Gurley. I think Gurley is the best running back, but I also think there's a ceiling on the value of the best running back. Yeah, I agree.

And I hate that. I'm so tired of like it's only quarterbacks and that's all that matters. It's, I'm getting bored. That's why I'm trying to do the girly thing. But every single time. Wait, wait. I'm sorry. We were talking about the Steelers.

We did the thing again. It's fine. I mean, the SEAWs are the AFC team. Like, what else do you want to say? Oh, is that it? We're done. I just, I just noticed that we were just going down a hole that people are going to get that out of us again.

Every time we have a, like, a value conversation, we're going to get a little bit carried away with it. Okay. All right. All right. So the Stewart is are the AFC North team. We thought, we thought they were. There's just too much. Yeah.

They just have too much. Like, like point blank, they just have too much. That Antonio Brown, like, one or two big plays. plays that happen today, that's always going to happen. Juju is there. Rathusberger is good enough. Connor has been fantastic. Their line is arguably the best

in the entire NFL. They are going to find a way every single time. And that's why I didn't panic about the first month of their season. They are going to find a way. Undeniably, in my opinion, they are the best team in that division, first of all,

and they are a contender in the A-A- That's it. Okay. Internal pressure mounting, according to the NFL network on John Harbaugh, where are we on that? It seems silly, but also, how, like, what's the shelf life for coaches? It depends who the coach is. For Bill Belichick, it's 20 years. And that's exactly, of course.

But it just seems like that team could probably use a shot in the arm when Lamar Jackson takes over next year. Is that dumb? Maybe. Let's trade them. I don't know. I think that after a certain amount of time, you could probably use a new voice and a new approach.

And that team is going to have a drastic change next year. Ozzy's gone and Joe Flacco is probably gone. It is the biggest, like, seed change in that organization in a decade. And bringing in a new coach to oversee that isn't crazy to me, even if John Harbaugh is really, really good at what he does. All right, where are we sending John Harbaugh, who I think is a very good coach? San Diego or whatever, whatever we're calling the Chargers these days. What if you, like, hired a very good offensive coordinator and John Harbaugh took over the Browns?

Took over the Browns. Yeah. I like that. I like that. An adult. An adult in charge. Tampa Bay? I like that, too.

Again, just bring. Miami. me. That's fine too. He's a very good head coach. He'll get a job in 10 seconds. The Dolphins I'll make the playoffs, by the way. One of the dolphins or Bengals will make the playoffs. And the team that doesn't hires John Harbaugh. It's a tournament at the end of the year. Yeah. You get either the six seed or you get to lose. I guess who would they would put the damn, uh, Texans, right? Yeah. That's a game I do not want to watch. All right. Very, very, quickly stocked down.

What's happening with the Jets? Todd Bowles, it just seems like that's a perfect candidate to do exactly what we just talked about. They just need a new start and they have a top five quarterback that probably needs the right coaching staff.

So the only reason I'm hesitant to say John Harbaugh of the Jets is because they need to surround him with some darnal developers and John Harbaugh might not be that. I want to direct your attention to a Chris Mortensen report. The Jets, this is from Sunday morning.

The Jets resisted trade proposals, including from the Eagles, before deadline for speedy vertical threat Robbie Anderson, because Sam Darnold's development remains the priority according to sources. Now, let's back up. Todd Bulls got outcoached by Hugh Jackson this season. Just straight up outcoached. Sam Darnold leads the NFL on interceptions. He looks really bad.

If he had not had week one against Detroit, where he just absolutely pasted a team that didn't know what it was doing, we'd be having a much different national conversation about Sam Donald. And it's probably the conversation we're going to have now. I don't know what's going on in New York, but the number one thing I know is that they are not, let me say something. Either they're not placing a priority on his development or God help us if they're actually placing a priority on his development, and this is what it looks like. they had a center.

Did you see the Spencer along guy? He could, like, got the yips or something. He's got a hurt hand, and he could, he was just making bad snaps. And they just kept him in the game. It's fine. They are in line to do in this off season what the Browns just did. You just need somebody to get the most out of him. That's it.

Wait, what are they going to do? Fire Todd Bowles. bring in an offensive minded head coach? Why wouldn't you? But what I'm saying, I mean, the Browns haven't done that yet, have they? Oh, they're on their way. Right, right, right.

They did the first part of it. Yeah, who are they going to bring in? We've done this before. I have no idea. I just know that they're a prime candidate to do the exact same thing. All that matters for the Jets franchise is making Sam Donald the best player he can be.

That's it. Yep. And that is off. and difficult with a defensive-minded head coach and a retread offensive coordinator that's been in the league for a long time without any sort of success or track record. I don't like what's going on with New York Jets. There will be significant changes this off season. That's it.

I mean, without any question. Do we bring McCagnan back? What do you think? I don't know. It's tough. It's not as if there have been a lot of moves. where it's like, oh, yeah, I like that a lot. I don't even know what they would be.

I mean, this free agent hall was fine. I mean, Tremaine Johnson's been hurt, whatever. The Teddy thing was objectively really impressive. But that's pretty much the only move they've ever made outside of going on for Donald. It's the only impressive move they've made since they won Super Bowl 3. Hey, I just saw this quote pop into my feet. I need to share it because I don't know what's going on. Alvin Kamara, colon, Drew Breeze is might.

Mike Tyson. I would love to hear the reasoning behind that. I love it. What is the possible explanation behind that? What? If you rank all of the American athletes so you could compare to Mike Tyson who just knocked people out

and was an absolute maniac, Drew Brees would not be in the top 1,000. He'd probably be the last. You'd be the last person you'd ever bring up. Nathan Peterman. All right. Let's move on. The Redskins suck. All right.

All right. One more stock down. We talked about this last week on the Sunday show. The idea that the Redskins had this kind of formula that was winning them games. Hey, guess who the Redskins, gets to the Redskins leading Russia was today. I honestly don't know. It was Alex Smith. Alex Smith with 22 yards.

Yeah. Especially against Atlanta who can't stop anybody. That's not a good thing. They scored 14 points against. that a team doesn't have a defense. It turns out that holding teams to like 17 points and scoring 21 is not a good way to win games,

especially against a team that is really good on offense, even if they're a little bit muted on the road usually. Yeah, I just, I never believe in their, their talent a whole lot. And I, um, and this is, the only reason we can't completely write them off is there's nothing

that there's no law that says the Eagles have to get better. There may not be a law, but I believe it. Oh, no, I believe it. I think the Golden Tate trade is going to get them nudge in the right direction. They obviously already have the talent. But I just, you know,

I don't know. Even though I just don't believe in their talent at all, I can't rule out them accidentally winning nine games. God, I would hate if they won that division. I really don't want to watch them in the playoffs, like at all. I mean, I was not in theories by this particular game. All right. Let's throw some challenge flags before we get out of here.

I'm going to start with just the idea of Nathan Peterman in general. Just unbelievable. What are we doing here? What are we doing here? What are we doing here that a guy throws three interceptions and his career interception rate goes down? As a Bears fan, it was a really fun day. I mean, I don't, when teams are worse than you, you're supposed to destroy them.

And that's what happened. And it was really enjoyable. I just can't imagine that, I don't know, is there not a better option anywhere? All right. Let me ask you a question. I don't want to make this show Nathan Peterman hypotheticals. Who is the worst roster that could win a game with Nathan Peterman starting

against an average NFL team? Could the Saints... That's the exact team I was going to say. So you would say the four teams, would you say the Patriots could do it? Yes. I think the Patriots. Okay. So what about the Carolina Panthers?

No. Chargers? No. Okay. So we're just going to go with the four top teams. Yeah. That's where I would drive the line, yes. Okay.

All right. I'm there with you. Okay. Rant about Peterman. I mean, I just, I don't understand it. There has to be something better somewhere. The Bears didn't even play well today, and they won by 32 points. That offense in general is just unwatchable.

I think it's the worst, I mean, by numbers it is, the worst offense of all time. And you watch your team play against it, and you really get a kind of defined understanding of it. Without Khalil Mack, I've never, ever seen anything. like that. It's Peterman and it is the worst group of receivers I've ever seen. It's baffling. It is a surreal experience. I did not understand like what was happening or how to kind of synthesize the information that was coming into my brain. I kind of feel bad for Nathan Peteran. He didn't ask for this. No. They did this. Like if this is the bill's fault, they built this offense.

And it's just such. I'm serious. Just start Matt Barclay. It's such a strange team, man. Like that defense is just starting. What's the problem with starting Matt Barkley? I know he doesn't know the playbook. Who cares?

Nathan Peterman knows the playbooks and playbook and we see what happens. That defense is actual talent on it. I mean, they have a lot of players. They play hard, everything else. I cannot remember a team that is this kind of far apart on both sides of the ball. a defense that's real, that plays, that can do stuff, and an offense that cannot move the ball against any real NFL team. We throw a challenge flag at Bill O'Brien denying he called Vance Joseph a dumb F word.

So let's get to Vance Joseph then. Let's throw a challenge flag on Vance Joseph just as an idea. So he seems like somebody's going to get fired. How could he not? Should we throw John Harbaugh on to indebt? Denver? The Vance Joseph thing, we've kind of seen

a common thread of all of these disaster hires. One year or two years as a moderately good defensive coordinator. Don't hire these people. Don't. Why?

What gives you the idea that they are a good choice to be your head coach? There's no reason to believe that after you had a decent season as a defensive coordinator, that you can be a head coach and that you're the right choice at all.

Every single time, it's bad. Steve Wilkes is a perfect example. Vance Joseph, perfect. I just will never get it. I don't understand why teams do this. Why, they hire defensive head coaches? After one year of moderate success. Yeah, I know.

But, I mean, I just think you get, you start looking at the coach. churn and teams that and and you know Arizona's not one of his place they had Bruce Ariens for a long time but you look at a place like Cleveland you look at a place you know the many teams like Tampa Bay who go through coaches every two or three years and they just start scraping quite frankly the bottom of the barrel and because you know people maybe not I mean remember the the Browns hired Mike Petton like five years ago. And I didn't even mind that in the moment. Well, no, I sort of mind. I sort of mind. I'm just saying... I understand.

What I'm saying is that coaches get hired early because there's just not a lot of options when you're turning through coaches when, by the way, NFL coaching is basically a closed loop. They're just hiring their friends as assistants and people they've worked with before. We haven't gotten to a place. where there's a lot of new ideas.

So it's like, oh, okay, we'll just hire this defensive coordinator. I'd rather roll the dice on a college guy. But we've talked about that enough. I think we'll get to that over the next like two months especially because there are going to be a lot of open jobs in my opinion. And I just don't understand after we've seen kind of, again, the pairing of young guys offensive minded with like quarterbacks, how we're going to do more of like the Vance Joseph, Steve Wilkes, mold of things.

Sure. Okay. We'll talk about that a lot. All right. So one more. Wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry. I just got to clarify this Bill O'Brien thing.

So he was, he, the whip breeder said, nice job, Vance, you dumb F word, okay? And then he was asked about it by Mike Florio via the team's PR staff.

And he said, I know, I was yelling at someone in our field goal unit. I wouldn't say that about another head coach. So is he confirming that he called somebody on the field goal unit to dumb fuck? Yeah,

that's problematic. There's no way to get out of this in a good way. What I want to know is, did he say he didn't say that word? Or is he saying he said it, but it wasn't about Bance Joseph? I don't believe any. I have more questions and answers right now. Yeah, exactly. And I'm sure we'll find them as people see the video and things happen like posts whatever this was. The weirdest thing that's happened in the past month is that the lip readers were 100% right about something Connor McGregor said during his fight. It seemed too wild to believe. And then microphones

confirmed he actually said it. And now I completely buy into the lip reader lobby. I'm in the same spot. All right. One more challenge flag. Everyone who did not enjoy the Michael Thomas Joe Horn homage, I don't know what to tell you.

What was that? Why were we upset about that? Everybody's like, 15 yards could mean something. You know what else could mean something? That long-ass touchdown. he scored. Yeah. Everything about it was incredible. That's a callback to a Joe Horn touchdown who is not, I don't know, when's the

last time he thought about Joe Horn? It's been a while. Yes. I mean, it's a very random thing to do and I really appreciate it. I loved it. That's it. I'm in on Mike Thomas. Yes.

I'm very in on Michael Thomas, period. But that was wonderful. All right. A lot of personalities down there. It's a fun team, man. Got Mike Tyson down there. And we're going to get a lot of them over the next couple of months because they're probably going to be, if not the best team of the NFC, than the second best. All right.

Super quick before we get out of here. Tomorrow's headlines. Dirk cutter and Todd Bowles. It's probably dirt cutter. Yeah. It's probably dirt cutter like guillotine time. Like I just, I can't imagine how he's not gone very soon. Okay.

Here's my question. Do you promote Todd Munkin? and just see what happens, or can they not do that because that's what they do with Dirk Cutter? Just randomly promoted the offensive coordinator. I'm okay with it, but we've discussed this before.

I just don't think that Tom Manken is an NFL head coach. Seeing what happens is fine. I think that's probably the move. But I don't understand what you mean by. I mean, I don't know what that means. Personality-wise. I don't know if he has the Constitution to be an NFL head coach. I don't know, man.

I just think that some people, like, Jack DeRio seems like an NFL head coach, and he keeps getting fired. I hear you. I understand it. Andy Reid is on my television right now. Like when I look at Andy Reid as and scream, best coach in the NFL.

I think that ownership, it would be a hard sell. That's all I'm saying. Todd Mocken is a very interesting person. He's brilliant, but he's an interesting guy. All I'm saying is that, you know, ownership should value some things that work instead of hiring Dirk Cutter and Levy Smith all the time, and Greg Shiano.

That's fine. Trust me. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that it's hard for me to imagine that being like the end-all be-all of what happens here. Correct me about missing something. We have Rahim Morris, Greg Chiano, Lovie Smith, and Dirk Cutter.

Those are the guys in Scroodin, right? Good Lord. So maybe the glazers should just do the opposite of whatever they want to do. Not the wrong move. I hear you. God, that's a depressing list. They also got rid of a staff that I believe included Sean McVeigh and Kyle Shanahan in 08. That was the Gruden staff.

Yeah, of course. All right. One more Saints Super Bowl favorites. You think that's going to gain some momentum? I think so. But I honestly, it's like what we're. discussed, I don't know how you separate the Rams from the Saints from the Chiefs right now. It's kind of a, I think that we'll, I think we'll have a lot more Super Bowl talk after the November

19th Rams Chiefs game. I agree. All right. That's all we got. What a day of football. It was a very fun day. As always, guys, thank you so much for listening. We'll be back on Thursday. I'll be in Los Angeles. We'll record together. It'll be fun. Perfect. Thanks guys. All right. Later, guys. Today's show is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal has a mission to put members first by making their financial goals the priority. Receive a lifetime of membership benefits to help you and your family accomplish your life missions, like a full suite of financial products designed to fit your needs, 24-7 live support, and access to over 300 branches on or near military bases.

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