The Ringer NFL Show - Brian Flores Deserves a Head-Coaching Job, Something Weird Is Afoot in Cleveland, and More Big Takeaways From Week 7 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Sheil and Ben get together to share their reactions to the Vikings' upset win over the 49ers on ‘MNF.’ Next, Sheil explains why the Ravens are emerging as the primary threat to the Chiefs' crown while Ben tries to figure out the Deshaun Watson quarterback situation with the Browns (15:15). They then examine the Buffalo Bills’ recent struggles and debate the playoff potency of both the Falcons and the Rams (34:46). Ben ends the pod by letting us know that the Detroit Lions still have a bright future after their blowout loss over the weekend (1:00:05). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Social: Kiera Givens and Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The ringer gambling feat is your one-stop shop for all things betting throughout the NFL season. From week one all the way through Super Bowl 58 in Las Vegas, we have you covered every which way. We've got our favorite futures. We've got props. We'll discuss the lines. And, of course, we'll throw in a few parlets. That's a given. So whether you're a sharp or square better, we'll be breaking it down in terms.

Hopefully everybody can understand. We'll try to win some money along the way. and be sure to subscribe to the ring of gambling feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Extra Point Taking. Shield Capati here joined by Ben Solac following Monday night football, a good one. On Monday night, the Vikings upset the San Francisco 49ers 2217. We will talk about that game, of course, and then we will go around the league and share our takes from everything that happened in week seven. All right, Benjamin, you're leading us off today. We don't need to exchange pleasantries.

When you get a good game, you get right into it. What's your takeaway? I'm curious. What's your takeaway from that 49ers Vikings game? I'm really happy we had a good game because if we didn't and we had to open the show with something else, it might have to be our performance on the predictions pot on Friday, but now we can push that back a few days. That never happened. Tune in Friday for that. Can we get Brian Flores a head coaching job? I don't know if we can, but hold. he smokes, is he deserve it. Brian Flores, the defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings. He spent last year on the Steelers' defensive staff

because he was let go of the Dolphins head coaching job. He was let go with the record right around 500. He had winning seasons in years in which the Dolphins didn't really feel like he had a roster, which they should have winning seasons. The Shield Capati litmus test for a good coach is, do you do more with less? Are you overachieving relative to my expectation? Holy smokes with those Dolphins teams he really did.

Now, Flores also burned a lot of bridges and struggled to interact with some players and certainly struggle. I think in his relationship with Tuotanamoi Lo, who's the franchise quarterback, I think that's something that as a young coach who came up in the New England cone, kind of in that New England growth system, you probably had to learn a little bit about how different players act and how different organizations act and how you interact with guys.

Not only did he have issues interacting with players, it seems like he had issues interacting as well with his general manager and to a degree his owner, right? Obviously, Flores levied a lawsuit against, Stephen Ross and also just the NFL owners, I think, writ large for what he experienced to be racism and his hiring and his interview process over the course of his attempt to be a head coach and then to remain a head coach,

but get a new head coaching job after getting let go by the dolphins. And so Flores' relationship with the owners right now is probably at a spot where he's just not going to be getting a head coaching job, not going to be getting a legitimate interview. I hope that I'm wrong on that because it would be great if I was, and then I think Flores deserves it. But that's like my read on the room, as best as I see it from the outside looking at the tea leaves.

When we talk football, I wouldn't go so far as to call this Vikings defense good, right? The 25th and defensive success rate, 20th in EPA per drive. This is far from like a great unit. But man, we thought this would be a completely toothless unit entering the year. And Flores is coaching this thing with a kitchen sink approach, the likes of which, like, I really don't think I've ever seen. They are the league's highest team in Rush 7 rates.

So it's 7 in the Blitz. four in coverage. They're the league's highest team in rush six rate. The league's highest team in rush five rate. They are the leads highest team in terms of rushing with a defensive back in the rush. They throw everybody at you when they are are blitzing. They're coming from depth. They are sending multiple players. They are trying to get a body on you. You know what else they lead the league in? Rush three drop eight rate. When they're not sending everybody, they're sending absolutely nobody. And these guys sink off the line of scrimmage. They fill windows. Brock Purdy tonight in the Niners loss, 22 to 17 is the first.

final score Vikings over the Niners. A bad offensive performance from the Niners, disjointed, had to rely on some explosive plays to get down the field. Certainly had the opportunity to score more if not for the interceptions, but Purdy was really struggling against the rush three drop eight stuff, right? This defense, again, a kitchen sink defense. They throw it at you, throw it at you, throw it at you, and then all of a sudden, a key play, they drop everybody.

And you're frozen. You don't know what to do. You're not ready for it. Flores, this defense's coach job he's done against the Niners. I thought he did a great job against the Eagles when they played. He has taken some really challenging offenses to. stop and at least like slow them down, at least get the wind

out of their sales a little bit, right? He ran into Mahomes and gave up 27 points. You know, it's not like this is perfect. Again, he's dealing with some personnel deficiencies, certainly in the back seven. But Brian Flores, man, every single time I watch a Brian Flores coach defense, I am impressed. He consistently has the best game plans

for offenses that everybody else in the league isn't stopping. Remember when he got Lamar, man, like during Prime Lamar a couple years ago, and just housed him in prime time? They couldn't complete a pass, yeah. He finds solutions that other defensive coaches don't. Even if Flores can't be a head coach, I started to think about Steve Spagnolo today

and how the Chiefs just had this lovely life when they get to the playoffs and they just have a Steve Spagnolo, D.C., who's not going to be a head coach anywhere. He doesn't really want to, you already did that gag, but he's just so good at coming up with a game plan and the playoffs, get them a couple of stops, get a huge sack, keep them alive. Flores feels to me like the sort of guy

where if I had him as my playoff defense coordinator, I'd feel amazing at his ability to just get me those two, three stops I need so my offense can finish the job for me. So, so, so impressed by him. Wish you could get a new head coach and job. Yeah, I mean, you look at what he's done. I think when you started with more with less premise that I always talk about,

no doubt about it. I remember when I did the defensive rankings before the season, and I'm like, oh, I like Flores, but my goodness, look at this depth chart. I just can't predict that they're going to be mediocre. I think I wrote something where I said if they are mediocre, he's like the best defensive coordinator in the NFL and they're inching towards that. I just like that he tries stuff. You mentioned it.

I remember watching that film with the Eagles game in week two, and it's like, okay, every play, line everyone up at the line of scrimmage. Either everyone's coming at you or only three people are coming at you. We're not going to tell you which one. We're going to do one and two of those things and figure it out. And it flustered the Eagles. And in some key spots here tonight, it certainly flustered the 49ers. So yeah, they're blitzing, Ben, at a rate of 55.5%.

That's the highest rate in True Media's database, which goes back to the year 2000. Yeah. This season so far, through the first seven weeks, the Vikings send six plus players in the rush on 31% of their dropbacks. Oh my God.

The next closest is the Patriots at 13. They're doing it at more than double the pace of number two. I know they're doing it more than the second team. Like that difference is greater than two from 31 because mathematically it has to be. I don't even have to scroll down to find out. And then they're also, they're rushing three at a 16 and a half percent clip. Next closes is 10.5.

They're leading the league in these two by huge margins, and they are opposite things. I love, I love this team. I find it hilarious. I find them absolutely hilarious. Yeah, I think that last Brock Purdy interception, I believe, was a rush three drop eight, right? And he tries to step up, let someone uncover and then throws the interception. And there was no window there. Like the first one he's trying to do his little timing throw and like, you know,

Joan Jennings in the break and the timing and throws out to safety. This one, he's just trying to create a window. that didn't exist. Tough night for Brock. He's had shaky games now the last two games. I think they're going to be fine. Get Debo back, like whatever. Kirk. Holy smoke. Unbelievable Kirk Cousins game.

Kirk has been squirling away primetime performances for eight years. Just dud after done in the Eastern time zone on the night. Just waiting for one game to unleash it. It was in front of Kyle Shanahan, man. Crazy. Yeah. I mean, I really thought that was my biggest takeaway. I was stunned

at the way the Vikings went up and down the field on this 49ers defense all night long, 453 yards. They had eight possessions. They punted once in this game. I mean, that was an incredible, Kirk, he wasn't sacked at all in this game. Offensive line, Kirk Cousins, Kevin O'Connell, Jordan Addison. For them to do that to that 49ers offense, I thought was just absolutely stunning. So Vikings sit here, Ben.

You know, you mentioned Flores. We're mentioning cousins. I think we had a recent take where we were like, you know, they should blow it up. Vikings are three and four, baby. They're half a game out of that second wildcard spot. They pick up a game on the Lions in the NFC North. Are we saying don't, you know, they've had this whole competitive rebuild thing. They might hold off a little bit and say, wait a minute now.

We might be sneaking into the playoffs again this year. I think that that's very, that's justifiable. It's more justifiable than what I would have said when they were one and four. the question isn't as much about, okay, are we making the playoffs this year? The question is, do you envision yourself extending Kirk Cousins and signing him to a new contract next off season? That's the whole question, right? He is 35. He's at the end of his deal.

Next year, he has a $28.5 million dead cap hit when he leaves, right? Because of all the bonus money that you put into void years. So you're going to take, you're going to pay Kirk Cousins $28.5 million next year if he leaves, and then he's going to be gone. you can defray that cost, you can hold it in the void years, if you sign them to an extension. So that's the calculus. Do we envision ourselves signing that deal

getting two more years of Kirk at 36 years old and 37 years old? Is that the move for us? If he has more performances like this, heck yeah, it's the move for us. Troy Aikman's like, I've always thought Kirk causes the top 10 quarterback. Let's do it, man.

Sure, this is going to be Kirk every single time. I don't think it's Kirk every single time, but that's the calculus. To me, it's a lot less about, are we going to make the playoffs this year? again, like you can do that and have that vision. It's more so about what do you envision for your quarterback position of the future.

If you're not going to keep Kirk long term, then it's probably going to be more successful moving off of him now. It's going to be more beneficial to your team and you have better cap relief, better trade package. If you move off him now versus if he walks in free agency. If he plays like this, I mean,

my guy's not signing any extension right now. Wait, they hit the open market. There's going to be some QB needy teams out there. I might right now be like want to do an extension. Right now, yeah. If it's this week, It's this week, yeah. So if it's like three weeks from now, then maybe not.

My last thing on this game, I was ready. I thought Kevin O'Connell from a game plan cooking the Niners defense perspective, like outstanding job. I mean, they were outmaned. They had less talent on that side of the ball, and they went up and down the field. But Kevin O'Connell, I mean, so conservative in this game. If the 49ers scored there, I was going to be like, oh, my gosh, he cost them the game. They kick a field goal on fourth and goal from the three.

They kick a field goal on fourth and goal from the two. They punt on fourth and four from the Niners, 42. Third and ten, Kirk's cooking all night. You have a chance. Pick up a first down, put the game away. They run the ball, and then they kick it on fourth and six. They missed the field goal, and they leave that door open. At the miss, I was positive.

The Niners are winning positive. Me too. Me too. I'm like, okay, 24, 22, and O'Connell deserves to get killed here. So something to work on for the Vikings. but if you're a Vikings fan, given what this season looked like a few weeks ago, now you're three and four.

This was a fun performance. This was a very impressive performance. There was nothing fluky about this. They flat out outplayed one of the five, three, five best teams in the NFL in the San Francisco 49er. So nice win for the Vikings for sure. We'll see what it leads to. And you mentioned Purdy.

What about Niners overall? What's your sort of level of concern? Two straight losses a week ago was sort of that weird game in Cleveland. with the weather and everything. This one was a little, caught me off guard. You know, McCaffrey plays in this game. They don't have Debo. They don't have Trent Williams.

But otherwise, they had their guys. And like I said, I thought that they got out, played pretty handily in this game. Yeah, defensively, the Vikings converted on like, what, 60% of their third downs. Vikings players were making tough catches through contact or over the ground, the whole game. Like the Jordan Addison touchdown, like, holy smokes, you know what I'm saying. The Niners played defensively how they typically play, will let you have underneath stuff. We're going to play zone. We're going to let you throw the short stuff. Then we're going to rally, tackle, and hit. Once we get you

to a third down, we're going to play press. We're going to play real physical, and we're going to beat your guys. And they just lost over and over and over again. I don't think the formula needs to change. I don't think the personnel needs to change. I think the Vikings had a real hot night. This was a little different though, I thought, because they were getting cooked a little bit downfield in this game. Like, there was definitely, I don't have the numbers in front of me. No, I definitely felt like there was more blitz.

There was more man coverage. I think at one point, Cousins was like eight for eight on throws 10 yards. So that's what surprised me, because we We watch defenses that get just middle of the field in that. And that's not the Niners. I mean, they've got the guy where that doesn't happen. So that'll take a deeper dive, but that definitely surprised me. My read on that, like the broadcast was calling out man coverage a lot,

and there were reps of man. Charter various words is a, you know, historically very good pressman corner. Obviously, didn't have the best night. And so they get those reps. A lot of those quote unquote man coverage reps are quarters reps where they're playing off, right? And so you're, and Kirk's seen that for a long, long time. And it's just donned that up and playing. very aggressive and thrown into windows and trusting his guys.

And like I said, he got paid off a lot. KJ. Osmore's making tough catches. T.J. Hawks is making tough catches. I think the Niners aren't going to be that bad on third down very often. And I think the zero sacks thing, if anything, is the thing that gives me the question mark where it's like, okay, you make the Randy Gregory trade and you have Jay Van Hargrave, Nick Bosa. Like, you've always been known to be this defensive line. This was the night where really like a key sack or two is going to flip this game for you. that last third down conversion that Kirk had on the,

not the go-ahead drive, but the salt the gameway drive in the fourth quarter where he was, he had like five guys around him. They all bounced off and he throws it down in the field. I thought like, if I'm anywhere, I'm like wondering where the sacks were,

wondering why we couldn't finish the rush successfully. Because in order to throw 10 plus yards down the field, he's got to hang in there for a little bit. Offensively, I'm a little bit more like, hey, like, no debo. That sucks. Brandon Ayyuk is like playing is out of his mind and the contract year.

He has five catches in the first. half nowhere in the second half. George Kittle continues to run like extremely hot and cold. He gets banged up a lot. Kills is not the same athlete that he was. I don't know if we can be as reliant on Kittle in the passing game as we want to be just because I don't know body-wise if you can sustain that. McCaffrey obviously plays great. Like your guys had moments of doing what you wanted them to do and then you weren't

able to sustain. And I think a lot of that falls back on the quarterback who struggled on third down, struggled under pressure in this game. and I think largely just got bamboozled by Flores. Yeah, I mean, for most of this guy, I thought it really came down to that fourth quarter. He throws the two interceptions. I thought until then he had played pretty well.

Those obviously count. Those are on him. He throws two interceptions. I'm not too concerned about the 49ers offense. I think offenses, like you said, it's kind of hit or miss against the defense like this that you're not going to face every week, tough to prepare for.

And I think you saw a little bit of that tonight. All right. My first take, Benjamin. Let's go to the other kind. conference. The Baltimore Ravens have emerged as the biggest threat to the Kansas City Chiefs and the AFC. That's where I'm at after seven weeks this season. I don't think it's, I don't think it's recency bias. Now, I know you feel this way, but try to call me out if you think it's recency bias. But I'm trying to look at the first seven weeks of the season overall.

We were both excited to watch that Ravens Lions game. And then midway through the second quarter, I was like, well, I guess I could switch to another game. Ravens had 28 points before the Lions had a first down in that game. Like, that is wild. 28 points before the Lions had a first down. Over 500 yards of offense. Lamar Jackson in full control. This Ravens' offense feels more sustainable than any other Ravens' offense we've seen in the past.

And I don't mean to diminish that 2019 year because they were phenomenal, one of the best offenses we've seen in recent memory. But what we're seeing now, Lamar Jackson is completing 71% of his passes. like pocket Lamar dissecting defenses, creation Lamar, he makes appearances too. He gets out of trouble in nine seconds. Oh, there's Nelson Aguilar who's having a career resurgence because he's playing with me in the back of the end zone.

We saw that as well. I can't believe how good this offense is already. We had so many conversations leading into the season where we're like, I like the coordinator change. You know, maybe around Thanksgiving, this offense will really start to hit its stride and this will be the team no one wants to play. Well, guess what?

it's week seven and their top five already in offensive DVOA. And that's with having dealt with a bunch of injuries on the offensive side of the ball. So I'm impressed with the offense. And then defensively, since they made that Roquan Smith trade last year, we now have a sample of about 16 games, I think it is, since week nine of last year. They have the best defensive success rate in the NFL and their second in EPA per drive. I mean, this defense is just doing it consistently week in and week out. And it's such a funny mix.

I mean, it's like Roquan Smith, Kyle Hamilton, Marlon Humphrey, O'Dhue. Like, these are, like, they've spent resources on all these guys. And then you just have a guy, Kyle Van Nuys showing up. I think he had five pressures. Debian Clowny is playing well for them. Arthur Millett, I think played like the most snaps of any defensive player yesterday. So I think the coaching there definitely deserves a tip of the hat, Mike McDonald and John Harbaugh.

So I zoom out, I look at the team overall. They're five and two. I've said it before. they had probably the two stupidest losses of any team this season. They could easily be 7 and 0. They can win with offense. They can win with defense. We know the kicking game's going to be good.

I think the coaching's going to be good. Right now, I'm giving them the edge over teams like the dolphins and the bills and whoever else in the AFC. They look like aside from the chiefs, and I think they could compete with the chiefs for sure, this Ravens team. But aside from the chiefs, I would say the most complete team in the conference right now. I think you agree. Yeah, I do. Like the dolphins were definitely the apple of my eye coming into the season. And obviously, I don't feel bad about that at all.

But the Ravens were a team that we talked about a lot as I had them to win the AFC North. I had them to be a playoff team. I had them to be a team that took a little bit of time to fully get the wind under their wings here. You picked the Bengals in our podcast. So I don't know if you threw a little lettuce on the Ravens winning the AFC North or had multiple predictions. I can check the tape. Listen, I'm old, but I have a memory for something. because I was surprised when you did it.

That's why I remember it. You did have them as a playoff. Maybe I got talked off. Maybe I got scared. I did on the podcast. It was an emotional hedge. Financially speaking, I'm invested in the Ravens winning the AFC North. I apologize if I did not do that on the pod.

I know I predicted them to be a top five defense, which nobody, everybody remembers Shields prediction. Brown's going to be a top five defense. Ben's Ravens prediction is still as holding ground, all right? Listen, that's not as you got to go. I mean, I had him seven. People thought the deal. You got to really take a swing.

in the content game. You can't be going Ravens top. That's not getting promoted on social media. No one cares about that. You got to go big. She'll just cutting all of my Ravens preseason hype at the knees. All right, I got to go find a, I got to find some receipts to share. The Ravens talk about a month to get the wind under their wings, for sure, right?

Like there was a lot of sloppy play. Honestly, the Lions fell more offensively. Wasn't even perfect. There's still route issues. You know what I'm saying? There's still stuff that gets cleaned up, which is like bad, but also scary and also good. to have that good of an offensive performance details, I think just how high the ceiling is for this team.

And the ceiling is prescribed by Lamar. There are no quarterbacks better than Mahomes. The quarterback in the league who does the most things that Mahomes can't do is Lamar. The quarterback who is most likely to be better than Mahomes over an extended stretch because of his unique ability is Lamar. It's a weird conversation because I don't think he's better than Josh Allen. But I think Alan play.

a lot like Mahomes does and just has to kind of bump into the ceiling of the fact he's probably not going to be better than the guy. Lamar is like on a separate path entirely. It's like they're all racing up the mountain and the entire pack is following Mahomes up a trail and Lamar's just on like a different trail somewhere else trying to outpace everyone because he's such a unique player.

But what Lamar brings in terms of an offense that has actual functional passing route combinations, functional work from the pocket, functional receivers, like that is an actual real passing offense is Lamar by himself, just by his presence, creates such a unique defensive threat that it makes pass coverage really, really hard.

Like the Lions wanted to be gaped out in the box. They wanted to have enough players down. They wanted to have five down on the line of scrimmage so they can handle all the threats in the running game so that you can be safe against all the variety of the runs that Lamar can give you, can achieve. And so they played man coverage on the back end. They didn't have enough bodies to do anything else.

And previously, man coverage meant that Devin DuBronet and Tyler Wallace were getting press into oblivion. Like Sammy Watkins was going to, dropped into the sideline four yards deep. And now it means Zay Flowers on third and 13, just 15-yard outbreak around to the sideline, anticipation throw first down. It means Rashad Bateman on the backside against Cam Sutton,

deep comeback, Lamar progression through his reeds, right? Okay, they go to zone. We go Zay Flowers on the crosser, Lamar layers it in. Like, Lamar's always been capable of doing this. Just his presence elevates a passing offense so much because of the restraints it puts on a defense. And the Ravens weren't getting enough fruit out of that vine. They weren't getting enough growth out of that.

See, they had such a unique opportunity in the old passing system, but because they were so investing in the running game, and extra tight ends and extra fullbacks and linemen and all the shotgun and the pistol, they weren't getting what you needed to get out of the fact that Lamar just makes passing easy just because he's there, just because eight standing in the backfield, he's a nightmare to deal with. And now they do. And that's how easy it can look.

It can look like 28 points in the first quarter plus a little bit. It can look that effortless when it works because they just put you in such a bind. I wrote about Lamar winning the MVP award on. on the hot read this week for our column. And one of the strongest data points I think there is for, like, Lamar's the MVP right now, is that if you took just games the Ravens' offenses played out of the NFL sample this season, then the Browns are the first defense in the league by EPA per drive, the Lions are the eighth, and the Bengals are the ninth.

Lamar has faced all three of those defenses and clowned them, all three of them. Those are top ten defenses if the Ravens aren't playing. And their worst slash second worst games, each one of them have come against, Mar. He gives you an invulnerability to top defenses because he's just such a unique problem to handle. Yeah, he's been incredible. No doubt. And I think every time we talk about him, we have to bring up what happened in the offseason. I think it was Josh Norris, who had the great tweet where it's like how a quarter of the league at least was kind of bending over backwards to acquire Deshaun Watson. And nobody even took a flyer on this guy.

I mean, what are the conversations having? Again, I know that maybe he wouldn't have been available, maybe the Ravens would have matched, whatever. If Patrick Mahomes gets that type of non-exclusive franchise tag, guess what? Teams are going to call and find out anyway. So there's got to be teams that are just absolutely kicking themselves right now. That's one. And two, a lot of times when sort of the general conversation among analysts in our world are all on one thing, I try to be like, are we sure that, you know, you know, may I like to go the other way? This is one, everybody looks right in this. I mean, every smart, football person who I talk to, listen to, whatever, thought that, you know what, Greg Roman's holding back the passing game and they don't have enough wide receivers.

When they do, Lamar's going to look amazing. Guess what? I mean, we're seven games in. And this isn't even like an elite supporting cast. This is like a good, solid professional supporting cast. And this is Todd Munkin and look at what the Ravens offense is doing so far. So Ravens are a dangerous team. We'll see what it happens with them going forward.

All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back. We'll get to Benjamin's second point. All right, we are back on extra point taken. Did I cut you off? Did you have one more thing to say about the Ravens? Are you ready for your next point?

I was just going to say that I looked for the ringers season, preseason staff predictions, like the piece that we did, and I picked the Bengals win the AFC North. Oh, see? The old man still got a little memory left. I got scared in August, man. I got scared off. It's a show. Yeah, that might have been, maybe that was my doing.

I hope I didn't let you know. I wasn't like needling you. I know you're going to pick the Ravens. We'll say. All right. What's your second take? What are you got? It's less of a take and more of a cry for help. Okay, I like this.

Can someone explain the Deshawn Watson Browns quarterback situation to me because I am bemused? All right, I don't understand what's going on. Let's rewind the clock. Before week four, the Browns have a key game coming up. Like we just said, they're playing the Ravens, right? This is a divisional game. This can be a huge game for the team.

Deshawn Watson has a right rotator cuff. contusion, which is a thing that is hard to say, right? Rotator cuff contusion. All week, I'm going to play. Deshaun said I'm going to play on Friday before the game. He's adamant. I'm going to be playing in this game. Got to play a division-rival critical game.

He warms up before the game on Sunday. And as announced before the game, he needs a no-go. And so he's not going to be able to play. They start Dorian Thompson-Robinson. They lose. Post-game, Kevin Stefanski has asked about it and says Deshawn Watson was medically cleared to play,

and it was his call not to play. And he said, Watson, you know, knows his body and he chose not to play, and that was Watson's choice. The Browns have a buy in week five, and GM Andrew Barry gets on the mic during the buying pretty quickly is like, it was a team choice and we all agreed together. It couldn't have been easier for all of us to agree together. He said it was a very, very easy choice. He gave, I thought, as far as like these damage control quotes go, I thought he gave a pretty good

quote where he said, you know, we were optimistic he would play, it worked his tail up in rehab, went out on that Sunday. We took him through the pregame workout. It was obvious to all of us that he couldn't throw or drive the ball well enough to perform in the game. This is your quarterback. His job is to throw the ball anywhere from 30 to 35 times. If he can't push it, he can't drive it, he can't throw it down the field,

which became very evident early in the workout. It's a very easy decision for us not to put him there. Those are important lines because the Brown said they're buying week five, week six comes around, huge game against the Niners. Deshawn still is a no-go. They start PJ. They win, defense plays great. Here comes week seven.

We're getting the Colts. Deshawn Watson's the starter. Guess what happened when Deshawn wasn't played, Sheel? He couldn't drive the ball. He couldn't throw. Deshawn could not access downfield at all. And I know this because he tried to multiple times, like on scramble drills where he's like not even rooted to the ground. Like he doesn't have good like force from the ground up.

It's like all going to be on his arm. And the ball died and he threw picks. They were also like terrible decisions. Like he was he was off the entire game. He was late on timing, bad on accuracy, even in the short area. He was taking pressure and abiding. sacks that he shouldn't have done. And then when he's outside of the pocket, he's trying to make these, like, hero arm

throws that apparently is not capable of making. He takes a big hit, it's slammed it into the turf. Goes to the sideline, they put him in the concussion protocol. He doesn't come back in the game. All right. Deshawn must have a concussion. No, the broadcast clarifies. He does not have a concussion.

They're just keeping him out of the game. Head coach Kevin Sopansky says, after the game, I just wanted to protect my player. We're worried about his health. Deshawn said after the game, he doesn't know if he re-injured his shoulder, but he was worried he might have re-injured his shoulder. So he was, as a team, we're worried about him coming back in

and maybe re-injuring the shoulder. And then Kevin Sifansky says he's going to play in week eight against the Seahawks. Did he get re-injured or not? How are you going to say now on a Sunday that he's playing at a Sunday? And then Monday comes around and Ian Rappaport, second time Kevin Sopansky's comments about to be clarified,

says Deshaun's day-to-day. He's going to be day-to-day. They expect him to play on Sunday, but he's going to be day-to-day. Okay, so that's the recap. I don't get what's going on. If I'm giving my honest read, it's that Kevin Stefansky feels like he needs Deshawn to play

in order to save his job. And slash maybe ownership wants to Sean to play because they feel like they want to justify the contract. But then also like if he's worth this much money and you're worried about a shoulder, don't put him out there. Also, Deshawn's been bad. So why does he even have this out there? I don't understand what's happening at all.

But this is a mess. This is like a mess from like a PR perspective. the Deshawn Watson trade has always been a mess with a PR perspective. This injury is just generally being handled poorly. Deshawn is not playing well pre-injury. He's not playing well post-injury. Are they forcing him back out there? I don't understand what's happening.

What I know is the Brown's defense is ready. The Brown's running game, even without Nick Chubb, is ready. This team is four and two. They have all the pieces around to be a contending team, and they really screwed up their quarterback situation by trading for Deshawn Watson when he had a horrible, horrible criminal behavior in Houston. There was no evidence that he was going to

play well and he isn't playing well. And now he's got an injury and I don't know how they're handling this either. It makes no sense to me. I feel like the Browns are teetering on the edge of like hugely tanking an incredible defensive season and also like inviting new and more bad

interest and attention on their quarterback and Deshawn Watson. I don't get what's going on. Yeah, I think what you said at the end there is what really strikes me because like if you're a Browns fan, like Other than the Watson thing, this has been kind of a pretty fun season. Your defense comes out of nowhere. They've won the last two weeks on the last play of the game, right?

Both of the last two weeks here, Miles Garrett is just jumping over lines of scrimmage to, was it a blocked field goal or a blocked punt? Boxed field goal. Miles Garrett scored 10 points for the rounds in a game they won by a point. He won that game for them. He's playing at a high level. Again, the defense is playing great. You're figuring some stuff out without Nick Chub.

and then you have this Watson entry and you're absolutely right to flag this situation. You know, when I was doing the Big J journalism thing, doing like the, you know, a beat writer for various teams, there would be situations that would crop up where you wouldn't know what you would have to do reporting on

what you think is happening, but the antennae antennae, right? Sure. They would go up and you'd be like, something's weird about this situation, something's going on. It's so weird. Let's try to figure it out. This situation, the way you later, I mean, Deshawn Watson starts that game.

He goes one for five with an interception. Like you mentioned it, two of those balls are just like short incompletions. There was an interception. Could have had a second interception, but the ball just hit the ground. Kenny Moore, we're talking two interceptions on the first four possessions, goes out. You mentioned it doesn't have a concussion.

He's standing on the sideline. I don't know if PJ Walker went down. Does Deshawn Watson come back into that football game? Maybe. Right. So I don't know what the reasoning is. I feel like there's going to be big reporting on this this week. Hopefully it's obvious that player, coach, organization,

somebody's not on the same page with somebody else. Whether it's, if you're Deshaun Watson and you feel like you're not absolutely 100%, you probably don't want to be out there because you don't want to look bad. People are already clowning you for your numbers. You've got the guaranteed contract. You want to be out there when you feel 100%. And that's every athlete's right. There's no doubt about it.

the fact that Stafansky, who seems to me to be like a pretty media savvy, like professional savvy type head coach has kind of stepped in it two weeks in a row. That to me is also telling. And it's like they didn't have the great backup quarterback situation. From what I understand from the Browns overall, like, Stafansky tends to be like very like tight-lipped on player injuries. Like never one to be like, he's here. And he's like, yeah.

And he's been very like, well, Deshawn's cleared. I don't, what? David and Joku has burrower. burns on his face and is playing ball for the Browns right now. Like, it is a very weird situation. And here's, like, this is a very challenging thing to talk about. Because when you talk about the Browns acquiring Deshaun Watson, you don't want to just be like, here's a bunch of football things.

You want to start by saying the Browns acquired Deshaun Washington the Texans when he had 20 plus cases against him of sexual misconduct, of sexual assault. It was a horrible thing to do as an NFL team is to say, we would justify this man's behavior. We're going to defend him because we want to win football games. That was terrible. And that should be the whole conversation. but as the Browns move forward and they play games on their schedule

and football happens, you have to acknowledge the football ramifications of things. And when they acquired him and then gave him the contract that they gave him, not independent of what he did, because he can't be independent of what he did,

but just the contract alone, when you give a guy that deal, you inherently change the balance of power in the way that your organization should work. And especially after he did what he did, Deshawn in that organization has an insane amount of power because the Browns completely and totally endorsed him as the man who is going to save

the team and win the championships and be the quarterback of the Browns by saying we don't care about what you did in Houston off the field. Here's also all of the guaranteed money that any player has ever gotten after we traded for you. So now in this position where Deshaun and the coaching staff, I think pretty clearly feel differently about his ability to play football, the way that this should work in terms of like channels and medical staff and GM and ownership is tossed out of whack because you can't tell Deshawn to do anything, which I don't even know if you should.

I don't know if Deshawn's shoulder. I don't know if they should be telling Deshawn to do stuff. If Deshawn can only throw the balls I saw he did against the Colts, he absolutely shouldn't be playing. But that's why the power imbalance, that's why you get into these weird spots where he is starting and then he gets pulled. He doesn't have a concussion, but he doesn't go back in,

and then the coach says he's playing against the Seahawks 30 minutes after he was unwilling to put him in a one-score game against the Colts. Something is horribly weird and a foot in Cleveland. And I wouldn't be surprised if you and I are on this spot a month from now being like, man, what did the Browns do to get to the spot that they're in now? Yeah, it's, you know, they said day to day,

but I think the question was, could he go on injured reserve? And they were like, well, we're not going to, you know. Day to day, he might be out for four weeks. Who knows? We don't know. No one knows when he's going to play. He doesn't know.

The coach doesn't know. The organization doesn't know. So, yeah, I think you're right to flag that as we kind of set up the week and what to look for this week. It's weird. four and two. Again, their defense is playing well, but that I think is one of the biggest stories in the NFL right now. What is going on with Deshaun Watson and the Cleveland Browns? All right. My second take, settle down about the Bill's offense, but go ahead and

panic about the Bill's defense. I couldn't agree more. I said this exact same thing on a meeting today. 100% agree. Next thing. All right, next take. We'll move on. What's your third one? The Bills have lost two of three. The only thing saving them from a three-game losing. losing streak was a gold line stand against the freaking New York Giants. I mean, think about that, Bill's fans. Put some respect on Tyrod Taylor's name. That's my starter. Tarad.

Tarot. Tarot. That's my quarterback. There's a lot of talk I feel like about the Bill's offense and Josh Allen. I get it. I mean, it's kind of like what I said last year where I'm watching them going, man, they're really up and down. I don't think they have it.

And then I'm like, take a step back. And I'm like, wait a minute. That was the fourth best offensive performance by any team in week seven in terms of EPA per drive. The bills, they start off really slow in all these games, but in the second half, they went touchdown, turnover on downs, touchdown, and touchdown. Overall, they are second in EPA per drive. There are two teams scoring more offensive points per game than the Buffalo bills through seven weeks, the Miami Dolphins and the San Francisco 49ers. That's it. I was digging even further, Ben, this is wild. They are scoring more points per game and have a higher EPA per drive

than they had last year. They're scoring over 27 points per game. Last year was 26.9. Based on EPA per drive, this is their best seven game start to a season under Josh Allen. I'm like, no, my eyes are not telling me this. We forget they had that awesome three-game stretch and sort of the middle there.

They had the bad first game. They had the amazing middle three games. And then they had the okay last two games. But it's football. You have to like zoom out and look at the big sample. This is why you don't just look at what happened last week, what happened in the last two weeks. So I think their offense is going to be fine.

It might not always look pretty. I think when we look up at the end of the season, as long as Josh Allen's healthy, and Stefan Diggs is healthy, and we look at it, whatever metric you want with the offense, we're going to find the bills in the top five. The defense, I don't think that's going to be the case. Yeah.

Offensively, I want to get to the defense. Offensively, I'll just say this. So much of the bills, like the experience of how the bill's offense is consumed, is because of the way that Josh Allen improved. Right? They brought in Josh and he was so rough as a young player. And then Brian Dable and Stefan Diggs and under Dable, the off,

Josh Allen went from very bad to very good. And the offense went from very bad to very good. And there's always in football a tendency to say after it, therefore because of it. Brian Dable became the officer coordinator and Josh Allen got good. And that's certainly true to a degree, but it's always very hard to suss out to what degree? What percentage of that pie belongs to Stefan Diggs and to offensive line improvements? It is just luck and what belongs to Josh Allen, his offseason work. And so, Dable took them from very bad to very good.

And then he left, and then Ken Dorsey stepped in. And under Ken Dorsey, they've gone from very good to very good. Yeah. Josh Allen has gone from elite to elite. They are one of the league's best offenses again. But there's insane frustration with Dorsey. Why? Because the last guy nuts up 10 levels.

And so the relative measures feel off. It's like, why can't Ken improve this? If Dable were here would be getting better and better and better, well, probably not. Like that actually probably wouldn't have been happening, but that's our remembered experience of dable. And now here's Dorsey, who's just like, guys are producing a top five offense. This is the best guy can do. I think that's well said. Yeah.

When you take something in the NFL from bad to very good, that's like the best you can do. When you inherit very good and keep it very good, no one really cares. Now, having said that, I'm not saying it's perfect. I mean, they're getting off to these slow starts where they're just, they can't score in the first half. So there are absolutely issues there. But again, you have to take the whole game. You have to take the seven-week sample, and by all accounts, their offense is very good. Now, defensively, I have a lot of concerns, okay?

And a lot of it is really just injury-based. And whether you reach that point as a team, every team has injuries. And you know me, I usually yell at coaches when they use injuries as an excuse because I say everyone has injuries. I do think there are cases when the injuries kind of reach a point of no return where I'm like, I don't know what a coach could really do about this. And I'm wondering if the bills are there or if the bills are getting there. So we know they lost their best corner, Tradavius White.

They lost maybe their best player in Matt Milano, the linebacker, one of their best defensive linemen in Dayquan Joe's, those three out. Ed Oliver did not play on Sunday, highly paid defensive tackle. Von Miller, have you been paying attention to this Von Miller situation? Speaking of kind of weird injury stuff, Ben? He is back in that he's suited up and he's playing in terms of Von succeeding at football, not so much. He played six snaps.

He came back from the end. injury and he played six snaps in that game. He did not play in the second half. So they go up against the New England Patriots. The Patriots offense that has been horrible this season goes up and down the field on the bills all game long. Mack Jones strings together. A drive in the final minutes of that game gives the Patriots the win. I was looking at all the games Sean McDermann has coached with the bills, 104 regular season games. That one ranked 97 in EPA per drive. Now you can say one game anything happens. The previous week ranked 90th in EPA per drive on defense. This is the 90th and the 97th performance out of 104 for the bills under Sean McDermott. I think Sean McDermott is a very good defensive coach. We have a lot of evidence of that. But I'm looking at the guys who are taking the field right now. And these aren't like injuries where you're missing a guy for two or three weeks or four to six weeks and they're coming back. These guys are mostly gone for the season. So it's like can you develop these young unknown players? Can buy? Ron Miller get back on the field and be effective.

I have a lot of questions there, and I'm very concerned that this Bill's defense, like from now until the end of the season, could certainly be in the bottom half of the league. The injuries in the back seven make things really tough. They already weren't set at CB2, and now with the absence of Trudevius White,

they're at a spot where they walked into the year being like, Kyrieh, I'm Christian Benford, Dane Jackson, can one of you please win the corner two job? And nobody did. And now, like, Benford and Dane Jackson are starting for him. Like these are the, these are the only two that you got. You do not have a player that you like a matchup with on a wide receiver one on this team. Doran Jackson's a nickel.

He's a good nickel, but he's a nickel, right? Like you play Amonrodst St. Brown, you pay C.D. Lamb, you're like, all right, cool, we're lucky. You play anybody else. I mean, put this team up against AJ, AJ Brown, put the team up against Tyreek Hill. Like, they do, they just do not remotely have an answer. And then if you're going to be a too high team, which they're going to be, Jordan Poir and Mike Hyde, we're going to play too high, we're going to, you know,

too deep zone, whatever, you don't have a good spine. You've got to have a good backer. You have to have somebody who can cover that middle of the field. Tremaine Edmonds leaves and pre-agency, Matt Milano's hurt. Terrell Bernard and Dorian Williams, as guys with no experience, no NFL experience. Like, their heads are spinning as they try to stay alive. And both of them have, like, honestly, they've held their water in terms of like,

playmaking instincts and, like, they'll make flashy plays and they're fast. And, like, they're living out there. They're doing the thing. But it's just there's no down-to-down consistency. So unless your pass rush is dominating, you're not going to be able to consistently get off the field. You're going to get splash plays. You're going to get turnovers and stops and saps and

and TFLs, we're not going to get down and down wins. And the funny thing is, like, besides Vaughn, the pass rush was feeling like it was ready. Ed was playing well, DeQuan was playing well, Gregory Rousseau was taking a step. They were deep. This might have finally been the year the bills figured out the front and four thing.

And then Dequan gets hurt. Vaughn's not playing that well. And no, it doesn't matter anyway, because the back seven's a mess. I agree. Defensively, I find the bill is very challenging to trust. And that's going to be a hard, hard road to hoe through the playoffs. You get three thermonuclear Josh Allen games when you get to January football.

then you're fine, but that's the world you were living in two years ago, one year ago. You don't want to be living in that world. It's a very hard world to win in. Yeah, having to face a Mahomes or a Lamar or a Dolphins offense, like looking down the road for them, it does feel like it's once again going to take the Superman, Josh Allen, if they are going to make a deep play on front. There's a lot of time to go. Let's see. Sometimes young players develop and they surprise you and names we don't know now are names in December. We're saying, hey, this guy can really play. So we'll see if that happens. For the bills, I do think that's kind of what it's going to have to take.

All right, let's take one more break. We'll come back. We will get to our final takes. All right, we are back on extra point taken. Zola, what do you have for your third take? Yeah, from the studios that brought you, the Houston Texans are making the playoffs. The Atlanta Falcons are making the playoff shield.

There it burns, baby. This sets up for my third one perfectly. Rise up! All right. Listen, unpredictable, our good friends, NFL betting markets. They have the Atlanta Falcons. Currently with the 35% chance to get the fourth seed,

a 14% chance to get the three seed. That's 50% right there just in those two seats alone. They have the 32nd easiest schedule down the stretch. If you are an Atlanta Falcons fan, you have not looked at your upcoming schedule. Treat yourself. It's an unbelievable run. They get the Tennessee Titans who are probably going to be playing

Malik Willis or Will Levis. We'll definitely be playing those two guys. We'll see who they play this upcoming week. Minnesota Vikings, Arizona Cardinals, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets, Tampa Buccaneers, Carolina Panthers, Indianapolis, Colts, Chicago Bears, New Orleans Saints. The best quarterback on that run is Kirk. The second best is Carr and they get them twice. Oh, baby.

What a life. Great schedule coming up. So that helps you out. Currently, they're four and three. Leading the NFC South. The next closest are the Bucks who are at three and three. Saints are at three and four. Obviously, the Panthers are at 0 and 6.

The Bucks have yet to beat a real team, right? They faced the Eagles got punked. They faced the Lions got punked. Then they faced the Falcons in this most recent game. And they lost, excuse me, 13 to 10, Falcons win that game. A score of 13 to 10, you look at it, you say, okay, well, like, this is close. Like, these teams are tight. You watch that game.

The Falcons had a lot of opportunities to score a lot more points. And for the second consecutive week had three turnovers on offense from Desmond Ritter. He fumbled the ball three times. Fumbled it on the Tampa Bay 11th and the first half. Fumbled it on the Tampa Bay won on a bad snap was the center's fault for been honest. And then he fumbled it on the Tampa Bay one centimeter line while lightly jogging into the end zone and getting just hawked from behind by Antoine Winfield for the love of the game, Antoine Winfield, diving for the peanut punch. What a play. These turnovers,

Ritter had three fumbles against the Buccaneers and the week previous and lost the commanders, three interceptions are loading up to what's making this offense look worse than it is. They right now are 24th among NFL offenses in EPA per drive. This despite being the fact that they are 12th in offensive success rate, despite being the fact that in terms of plays that go for at least 10 yards, they're eighth, right? They're not really ripping off like 20 plus yard gains. They're ripping off like 15 yard gains.

The explosives aren't super there because they're lacking team speed, but their chunk and plays off and they have a high success rate. Turnovers are the main culprit here. They are fifth in the league in expected points added loss to turnovers right now on offense. Turnovers are going to be noisy. They are going to regress back. They're going to settle down a little bit more,

especially as Ritter just gets more experience. And when you go and when you look at how Ritter has played the last three weeks against the Texans, against the commanders and against the Buccaneers, he's been one of the more successful passing quarterbacks in the league. They have been moving the football down the field through the passing game. We thought this was going to be like, oh, rushing attack, and then Ritter every so often pops to play action pass. They even letting him drop back, and he's been gripping it and ripping it with success.

Defensively, Ryan Nielsen, wow, man. The first year, defense coordinator from the Saints system. Do you have you looked at the Falcons linebackers recently? Got any Nate Landman takes for the podcast shield? Got any thoughts on Caden Ellis? Because that's who's taking 100% of the snaps for this team. I remember watching Nate Lamb in at Colorado. Whoa, buddy.

I did not think we had an NFL player on our hands. Really incredible. They got Callais Campbell and Bud Dupree as they're starting edge rushers and they're getting consistent pressure. Jeff Akuta. Bring it, inks. I don't want to say this too loudly because. Last time I said Jeff Akuta was playing well.

he started to play really badly. Jeff Akuta's playing well. This looks like what we thought Jeff Akuta was going to be. AJ Terrell is playing great. Jesse Bates was a great free agency signing. They are right now, fourth in defensive success rate, 11th in defensive EPA per drive.

This is a above average defense with an above average offense. And once they get the turnovers ironed out over the easiest schedule remaining for any team, they're going to end up the champions of the NFC South. They're going to play a home playoff game. And I will dance on the grave of your anti-Falcon steaks. I just want to grab you and ask you who hurt you? Why? What do you possibly

like about this team? This is such a mediocre, boring team that, all right, they might, you absolutely could be right. They could win the NFC South. I think they're the favorites right now. Everything has to do with the schedule for them. Okay. And they're better. Here's what we should do. We should be taking the Houston Texans and saying you're allowed to be in the NFC South for just this year. They win the NFL's beat, right? I just want to make sure to know which team we're talking about. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, good, for sure, for sure, for sure. That's correct.

Put them in there, they will win the NFC South. I mean, yes, turnovers are noisy. Turnovers aren't noisy when the quarterback's not that good. And when the quarterback makes boneheaded mistakes, which Desmond Ritter does. Turnovers, wait, turnovers aren't noisy when the quarterback's not that good? Jared Goff set like an NFL record. for non-interceptions. Turnovers are absolutely noisy, independent of the quarterback's quality.

Brock Purdy threw like his fourth pick ever last night. Okay. Desmond Ritter is going to continue committing turnovers, I think. Three turnovers in the red zone, every single game? No, not every single game. That game, you're right. They should have absolutely won that game by two touchdowns. They had 400 yards of offense. They were moving the football. I just don't see why people

like this. Like, why do you like this? The ceiling is mediocrity with this team. And they're on a path to nowhere. Desmond Ritter is not going to be their quarterback for years to come. They have no playing a quarterback. They drafted all these guys. Like, they're just stuck in the middle team and it just annoys me that people like them. I think that's what it is. I'm not even denying they could make the plebs. They could win the NFC South. I just don't

know why, like anyone even talks about this team. They should just be stuck in the mud and we should sweep them under this rug that I have over here and we should never have to discuss them again. Like, what do you like about? There's 32 teams. How could this be a team that you like this much? I legitimately want to answer that question, like, in good faith. Because the Falcons, to me, like, I, I'm online on an NFL Sunday. Arthur Smith, offensive. I'm consuming, you know, people are giving me feedback. I don't understand why everybody hates this team.

Like, it doesn't make sense to me at all. No, it's just me. There are not many, I am alone in Falcons. Well, no, like, there's a huge contingent of the fantasy community that's just furious that Drake London doesn't get more targets and that. I think fantasy ire is where a lot of the anti-Falcons take on. I know it's not the case for you, but I think it was for a lot of people. since 2019, when Arthur Smith became the OC of the Titans,

I've been an Arthur Smith fan. He does cool stuff. In 2019, everybody was going outside zone, outside zone, outside zone, boot to play action. And Arthur Smith said, I'm just going to run Derek Henry downhill. And then Ryan Hennel is going to stay in the pocket and shoot from here. And he kind of changed the way that offense worked for a different variety of quarterback, for a Tana Hill style quarterback, working with a more physical running game.

He was one of the first OCs in this play action-heavy approach to say, we don't need to run zone. We're going to run a high variety of concepts. We're on Duo Inside Zone. We'll pull guys and do so successfully. So I've been Arthur Smith fan for a long time. I love the way that the Falcons have built their offense philosophically, schematically. The league is going to going a direction, and they zagged the other direction.

They said, we're going to build a heavy personnel. I'm going to build to run the football. And I criticized that sort of an approach with Lamarck, like with the Ravens. I didn't think that was the best approach for them. For a team like the Falcons, it's really nice to be able to Zag where other team zag. I always think about that Niners game that they won last year where they just bullied the Niners. The Niners are the best defensive football. And they were banged up in that game. But they just said, hey, you small, fast players, you can't play at our weight class. You can't play

at our size. And then they big boyed them. And I like big boy teams. Like, obviously, passing is sick. It's great and everything. But passing is down this year. Everybody's talking about points are down. Like, there's ways to get an umbrella on a passing game and to kind of neuter it a little bit. It's great in those moments. And you see this in the way the chiefs have invested in the way the bills have invested. It's great in those moments to be able to turn to a physical running game and be successful. And Arthur Smith beat everybody to the spot. I love what they are philosophically offensively.

Defensively, they now matched that. They didn't, like Dean Peas, they were doing cool stuff, whatever. But now Ryan Nielsen, what's Ryan Nielsen about? He's playing Callais Campbell on the edge, dude. Clay's Campbell's in a two-point stance. There are some hunking big fellas on the Falcons defense, right? I've made fun of Cain Nelson and Nate Lambin. They plus Troy Anderson, who's usually the lineback when they're healthy.

These are big dudes. They will hit you. Jesse Bates is going to hit you. This is a physical defense. I like what I say. I enjoy watching that. Ritter, you said emphatically with certainty that Ritter is not going to be a long-term quarterback for that.

I disagree. I feel pretty strongly. I would put it at like under 20% that I think he's going to be there long-term answer. Maybe less than that. A minute ago, you said there's no chance. Fine. I'll say 0%. I don't think through the first seven games you've been like,

All right, Ritter, like, he's clearly won the job for forever. Over the last three weeks, he's third and EPA for dropback, third and success rate, third, and explosive play rate. Behind Patrick Bahams and Josh Allen. Like, he is having a stretch right now that is similar to stretches that we've seen from late-drafted quarterbacks that convinced teams to invest in them long term. He hasn't done like a Brock Purdy thing yet where all they've done is win games and he's had historic production, but he's been pretty gosh-d darn staking good down this stretch, shield, besides turnovers, which are going to regress because they're noisy.

I think in a month from now, we're going to be sitting here going. Yeah, Desmond Ritter has done a nice job establishing himself as a legit quarterback option for the Falcons moving forward. I don't think they're going to sign them to a deal tomorrow, but this is why you take a look at the third round pick because if you can get good play out of him, guess what you can do with the rest of your money?

Build the team. And they've done a nice job building the team thus far. I think it is very defensible and very reasonable to enjoy the way the Atlanta Falcons play football. Are they as good of a team as they would be if they played the 50s, best schedule? Probably not, but they do. And the take was they're going to make the playoffs and they're going to make the playoffs, brother. Completely mediocre, boring team to me. They have three wins by less than a field goal, three losses by more than a touchdown. Every, I mean, all the, you know, all this stuff. I appreciate you answering what you like about the Falcons.

It almost got me excited. It didn't quite get me excited. 24th in DVOA, 20th on offense, 22nd on defense. There's nothing that, even their run game hasn't been great this year. Like, if you look at the advanced stuff on their run game. I thought coming in with Bejohn Robinson and you watch him play that it would be even better, it's been way less efficient than it was last year. That's the one thing about them where I'm like, hey,

wait a minute. Why is this not doing as well as it should? And it could get there. I mean, it should get there with him. It's not his fault. Fortunately, they have a quarterback who's able to pick up the slack in the passing games. They're fine. Red are three game winning drives and four wins, baby. Clutchee! Clutchee! The problem with

is we're going to continue to have this conversation all season long because the record's going to be good enough where they're going to make the playoffs. I'm going to be able to quote DVOA and bore everyone and say, no, no, no, they're not that good. And we're just going to go back and forth. So there we are. All right. That was fun. We haven't had a little falcons back and forth. I can't wait to buy you at Desmond Ridder, Jersey in a couple of years. Oh my gosh. I have nothing. Listen, I have nothing against it personally. I hope he has a long career and makes $500 million and is in the Hall of Fame. I personally don't see it. When I watch their offense and the good stuff with their offense, I'm with you. I say,

Okay, Arthur Smith knows how to use X, Y, and Z, knows how to scheme stuff up. I don't say the quarterback. The quarterback just needs to be competent, I understand, and execute. I think he's been up and down there. When he makes the mistakes, it's really going to sink the ship. Let's see it. Let's see it over an extended period of time, whether it works or it doesn't work. All right, my third take, but this is good because we didn't plan this.

And my third take, Ben, was the Los Angeles Rams are the team that Solak thinks the Falcons are. Or it's one of those like the Falcons are to Solac, what the Rams are. I think the Rams are going to make the playoffs. I don't know the Rams just screwed me last week with that loss against the Steelers. This is such a banana state. The Rams just lost in the Steelers? Exactly. But I agree with you.

I think the Rams are going to make the playoffs. I mean, if I say right now that, I don't know, who's a team that you, if I say the Ravens are going to make the playoffs like that, this is what you got to, again, the content game. You got to come in when the team's down, not when the team just won. This is why I'm showing you, I believe in them. So even though they lost an embarrassing fashion to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I had the prop on the last extra point taken of over 260.5 passing yards for Matthew Stafford,

and he was at like 230 midway through the third quarter, and he still didn't get that. Even though I make the Rams minus three, guess what? I'm showing I'm a bigger man. And I can put all that aside and say, you know what, I still really like this Rams team. So they lose that game to the Steelers. They outplayed them for three quarters. They miss two field goals. They miss an extra point.

They have a bad interception. They get a bad DPI call. Sean McVeigh doesn't have a timeout to challenge the last Kenny picket spot. There were a lot of things that went against them. I still think this is a very good team. I think they are going to get the final wild card spot in the NFC. You look at it. Four losses on the season.

Three have been one score games. One was that Bengals game. You lose your whole offensive line during the game. then they've lost to the 49ers and the Eagles. Two of the best teams in the entire NFC. They've had a pretty hard schedule so far. It gets to more mediocre here the rest of the way. And really, I just believe in that offense.

I mean, that offense, it seems like week in and week out in the passing game, they can move the football. I mean, that might have been the best Puka Nuku game. We've seen all season long with everything he did. Puka comply, man. I mean, holy smokes. The acrobatic catch on the sideline where Tomlin saying he couldn't have got his feet in. I'm throwing the flag.

He didn't get his beating. Yeah. Let's see, if Mike Tomlin challenges a play, the call on the field is going to stand, all right? That's not a, that doesn't, that's not adding at all to the effect of Fuka there. They are, they are, they are explosive, you know, so lack. Like, say, what would you call them, the big boys? What was your term?

Big fellas, the big fellas. Big fellas, the big dogs, have the big dogs eat. I don't know. You let you, you know what? I like big plays downfield. And only the lions have more explosive plays downfield than the rim. Stafford will just chuck it. Cooper Cups back.

Had a couple drops last week. still very good. So defensively, they're not great. Okay, I will admit that they can be feisty at times. I think mediocre defense, very good offense. Offense is top five, top six, and any metric you want to look at right now. I think that's going to be enough for them to kind of go on a little run here.

They're going to win nine or ten games, and they're going to make the playoffs. And maybe, just maybe, we'll get a wild card meeting between the Falcons and the Rams. So lack and I'll go down to Atlanta. You better get the five-seat ropes in the building. Let's get a live show. Let's get a live show in Atlanta.

A Falcons Rams in the playoffs, I'm making that like Rams minus one on the road, and I'll probably taking the Rams. I've no lofty notions to the Falcons in that regard. I like the Rams a lot. I was trying to run through AFC and NFC playoff teams in my head today, just those prepping the pod and thinking about the state of the league. And I think three teams out of that NFC West is certainly possible with the Seahawks, the 49ers, and the Rams.

I don't think you're getting a second team out of the NFC South. I don't think you're getting a second team out of the NFC North, right? And so someone's got to come from somewhere. And the Rams are as good of a candidate as you can find. I think, yeah, I think they played better than a seven-point loss of the Steelers would imply. I think that just the Steelers were a really tough matchup for them because of the past rush and then because of what they can do with their outside receivers, you're not always going to run into that.

And so I think you're going to be okay. They're also such a young team, right? I think the Rams, like, every time I look at the Rams, like, efficiency stats. I'm always like, okay, I don't really care. Like, they're like seven new starters on defense or something ridiculous. this, like, you know, through the first three weeks, whatever it is, like they're so, so, so, stinking young that you expect them to say, okay, get Cooper cut back and offensively, we know where our bread is buttered,

defensively we're getting better week in and week out, then maybe we can be a plucky team down the stretch. So I don't mind that for the Rams whatsoever. The Rams are to shield with the Falcons Art of Ben, I didn't get any of that. None of that made any sense to me. The Rams are just good. The Rams are fine. The Rams not make the playoffs.

That's the whole take. Now I'm criticizing you for the one-liners to the top. Listen, sometimes that will, well, I had a whole thing where I was going to lean in All right, Solek wrote this about that. Like your whole take in your column was that you believe that the Falcons are really good despite what other people are saying. So I was going to be, well, I think the Rams are really good, even though they just lost to the freaking Pittsburgh Steelers by seven points.

So that's where I was going with it. But listen, sometimes on the show you have to adjust. All right. Benj, hit us with your extra point taken. What do you got? Yeah, extra point taken this week. Shail has brought you by State Farm. We're out here, Brandon, baby.

We got the deal. some things are better together like tailgating and cornhole, buffalo wings and blue cheese and bottlinger home and auto insurance with the State Farm personal price plan. Now that's a play you want to make. The personal price plan lets you choose the coverage you need

at a price you can't afford like a good neighbor state farm is there. Prices are based on ratings that vary state by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability amounts of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. My actual point taken this week,

brought you by State Farm is that this loss might be really good for the Detroit lines. I think this loss might be great for the team. Firstly, we know for a fact that Dan Campbell is good at getting his team through losses and staying competitive and keeping their heads up. And I know this because the Detroit Lions lost a lot of games with Dan Campbell's their head coach. And obviously, that was a young team in different expectations at a different time. But I think the Lions have a culture where they can withstand an embarrassing loss like this,

and they can still bounce back, go play the Raiders, and be super successful and get right back on track. So I feel good culture-wise. I also feel like this lion's lossy to the Ravens, expose. a couple of truths for Detroit. The first is that, like, Jared Goff is still very capable of a Jared Goff 20-20 game, right? The kind of the stuff that had him

falling out of favor in Los Angeles. Goff is a much better player than he was during his Los Angeles stretch. For a lot of those quarterbacks who came from that system, Jimmy Garoppolo, Kurt Cousins, Jared Goff, a lot of those guys have gotten better, just as they've gotten older, they've matured, they've become veterans. The one who I think has improved the most is emphatically Goff.

I definitely think he's better than he was then, but he's still very capable of having those plays and those reps. He really started to struggle in this game with the Ravens just taking away his first route and he would vision in on guys and he would leave clean pockets and say stuck in dirty pockets. Golf is still a quarterback with some limitations. And they've been talking about a contract extension with him

and they were kind of around the quarterback class and they drafted Henan Hooker, red shirt year, kind of see what that would be. I think it's a very important game for evaluating golf. You end up against a really good passing defense and just didn't have a lot, that he could do to elevate the team. Didn't have a lot of those

star out plays where, like Lamar's doing on the other side, he's just winning a down for you, just by himself alone, he's winning a down. You're just not going to get that from Jared Gough. And so as they look long term, I think this was an important game as they try to calibrate to their expectations with Gough, especially if office coordinator Ben Johnson, as many expect him to,

leaves upper head coaching job sometime soon. Short term, and again, if you want to continue to evaluate Jared Gough, I think this game was also a reminder of the fact that the Lions need stars. This is something we've talked about on this podcast. As we get closer and closer to the trade deadline, I continue to believe stronger and stronger and stronger. The number one team in the league to be a buyer right now has to be the Detroit Lions. Offensively, Ammon

Ross St. Brown, not his best day. Dealing a lot of contact. They're handing him off the line. They're making his timing routes challenging. And the lions go to activate a Jameson Williams throw down the field. William just can't find the football. He's just struggling so much as a young player right now. Josh Reynolds is their second receiving option. They're trying to get Sam Leporta, who's a rookie tight end to be like a prime. primary pass catching option for them, I really feel like this team would benefit from a star receiver in enormous ways. Like every team would benefit from a Devante Adams. No team, I think, would see a greater boost than if they just had a guy like that than Detroit lines do. And even defensively,

where like Ayn Hutchinson's been a strong player at corner for them, or excuse me, off the edge for them. I like Aiden Hutchinson. He's taking a nice step in year two. But Hutchinson's not enough of the pass rush. You have to be able to add more to that. I like to see them in the defensive line and edge rush for market as well. This game, I think really clearly, told the Lions, you guys are a good team, but you are not up here yet. You are not in that top tier. And that should make you ask questions about your quarterback, and it should also make you ask questions about your roster. Let's not get too far over our skis. He did a great job on the rebuild, but there's still a lot more work to be done. I think this loss could be a great calibration

moment for the Lions if Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell handled it correctly. Yeah, I think they'll bounce back from this loss. I mean, it's just very rare that you get down by that much so early in the game and the game's over, like I said, in the middle of the second quarter. That hasn't happened often at all to them. I mean, I think they were, what, 13 and three in their last 16 games coming in? I think only one of those losses was by more than one score. Yeah, I mean, you're right about Jared Goff at the same time. If I was like Jared Goff's representation, I would be like, it was one bad game. Other quarterbacks have one bad game and we don't come on and say, well, you know, they still had this in them. Now, I agree with you. He is not on that upper tier

of quarterbacks, but he has played pretty well for the most part for that lion's offense. And as I think we talked about going into the season. He's quarterback to top 10 offense, I think, in four of six seasons or something. So, like, when the other stuff's around him, he can get it done over a large, large period of time there. I thought the past rush thing I thought really stood out in this game. If we're talking about, like, what kind of opened my eyes a little bit more, an area of the lines that I wasn't sure about were some weeks I'm saying, oh, they're getting after it.

And other weeks I'm saying they're not, they got handled up front in this game. I mean, no sex. Yeah, one quarterback hit. in this entire game, Lamar Jackson dropped back to pass, I think, almost 30 times in this game. So, yeah, I would agree with you there. That would be a good move. The Devante Adams type thing would probably be the more fun move for the Lions. But I think both of those are areas they can look out and say, hey, can we get someone not just for this year, but for years to come? So I agree with you. I wouldn't be panicking if I were a Lions fan. It's kind of a pump the brakes, come back to

down-to-earth type loss. But it's week seven. And I think they still have a really. good team. Teams that make deep playoff runs can have this sort of a loss. I think it would be like the thing I would want to tell Lions fans. Like you, I thought this was a huge litmus test game for them. I sat on this pod. I hope to beat the Ravens by 20s and I'll know for sure they're legit. Obviously that didn't happen.

And I think we then, you know, learn something in the other direction. But you can have this loss and recover from it and have a real deep post season when you absolutely can. You just have to take the necessary steps to not run into this problem where it's like, all right, our pass rush just cannot do anything. Our coverage unit is not good enough. We don't have enough

weapons to throw ourselves back into this game. You have to be able to address that. On the Goff contract thing, yes. Like, he can. You're absolutely right. He can. Are you going to get Goff to sign for less than Daniel Jones? No, no, no, I'm not signing Jared Kauff to an extension. No, no, no, I'm sitting tight. I don't think you are.

But I think there's no chance you could ever get golf below the 40 million that Daniel Jones got. And if that's true, then I don't think you can sign golf to an extension. You don't want to do that. I would love to have veteran golf doing what Kirk Cozzi just did to the 49ers. for my team. I just think because of the way the quarterback market inflates, there's no way I get them on a price tag that I can swallow. And that's

that Daniel Jones deal. It's just, it's a benchmark for golf and first contract negotiations. Makes it tough. The Lions handling of their quarterback situation, man. I mean, it's not the main thing now. When we get to February, we do that first like offseason orientation pod. What are you looking at?

What are you interested in? That's going to be 1-1 for me. It's how does this team so wonderfully built, so well-coached deal with this quarterback transition that they might have to make? It's going to be big deal. Yeah, that's the thing that I was like, do I want to say this to Lions fans now or not? Because it's like, there are a lot of good feelings, and I think there will be good feelings for this team. And I think they're going to have a great season and win the NFC North. They're a team that when you're looking ahead to the offseason, yeah, you could lose your

OC and you might still have to make a decision at quarterback there. So we'll see. But just the last thing there, the gap between the Lions and I think the great teams in the NFL are not, it's not as wide, I think, as we saw on Sunday. I mean, let's remember. the only team would beat the Chiefs. They took the Seahawks to overtime. The Seahawks looked like a playoff team. They beat the Falcons by two touchdowns, which if you do that,

I think you're guaranteed a spot in the NFC championship. Best team, the team has played the Falcons all season. Otherwise, it's been great Falcons performances. All right, I'm done with you. This part of today's episode was brought to by State Farm. If you want to score an affordable price on your home and auto insurance, talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan, like a good neighbor state farm is there.

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They got me doing the reads now, dude. They're passing off of the torch. How about it? I didn't even know what to do. You did it so smoothly. All right. That will do it for this episode of Extra Point Taken. Thank you to Ben Solek.

Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. Thanks to Eduardo Ocampo for the video production, additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ram Gopal. Next episode will be Nora and Stephen with the dual threat. And then Solek and I will be back Friday to take our medicine after the bloodbath that was week seven in the extra point

taking picks contest. Stream coming. Double seam coming. Can't even talk about it. Now we've got to bounce back. We'll be spending all week prepping the bounce back for that show. All right. Thanks everyone for listening.

Have a great week. And we'll talk to you on Friday. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Fanduel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 1-800-nextap or text next step to 533442 in Arizona, 18887777. or visit CCPG.org slash chat in Connecticut, 1,8009 with it in Indiana,

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