The Ringer NFL Show - Can Anyone Be Great in 2021? Lessons From the Chiefs and Cowboys

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

Kevin is joined by PFF’s Eric Eager and The Athletic’s Nate Taylor to discuss the Chiefs' early struggles, how teams have defended Patrick Mahomes, and what to expect from the Chiefs for the rest of season. Then he is joined by Dallas Cowboys staff writer David Helman to break down Dak Prescott’s MVP case, the Cowboys' status as contenders, and the upcoming Chiefs-Cowboys matchup. Host: Kevin Clark  Guests: David Helman, Eric Eager, Nate Taylor  Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, this is Warren Sharp NFL analyst over at Sharp Football Analysis. I want to welcome you to The Ringer Gambling Show. Join me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays each week during the NFL season with guests Chris Vernon, Ben Solac, and Joe House to guide you through the NFL betting landscape. We'll be talking spreads, game totals, parlays, player props, futures, and much, much more. Be sure to follow the Ringer Gambling Show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined today by some of the best people in football media to discuss a big question. Is anybody good?

We hone in on the Cowboys and Chiefs game this weekend as sort of a way to unpack the big questions about why the AFC and the NFC are so flawed. This year, I'm joined by Nate Taylor from The Athletic. He covers the Chiefs. He does a great job. And Eric Eager from Pro Football Focus, we talk about the AFC, the Chiefs, how defenses have adapted to not only Mahomes, but different quarterbacks around the league, and some of the explanations for why the AFC

seems so weird this year. And then David Hellman, staff writer for the Dallas Cowboys, joins me to talk about Cowboys, the NFC, Dak Prescott's emergence, and whether or not he is the MVP. Let's get to it. Two of my favorites,

Nate Taylor from the athletic. He covers the Chiefs, Eric Eager, who's a Chiefs fan and also a value member of Pro Football Focus. The reason I wanted to convene you guys here was because we did a podcast in September called Who Can Beat the Chiefs? And we had both of you guys on.

And it turned out, at least for a little bit, the answer was everyone can beat the Chiefs. And the teams we didn't expect to be able to beat the Chiefs were doing so. Teams that we thought wouldn't have a chance to beat the Chiefs were in contention to beat the Chiefs in the fourth quarter. And it kind of speaks to

what this season has been, which is that the teams we thought were juggernauts have not been. They still might be. There's just a lot of moving parts in a way that I think that is unusual. And that's why I'm excited to talk about this. Eric, I want to start with you.

Why hasn't there been a dominant team this year? You know, I've heard theories going from the 17th game to just sort of bad luck to, you know, for some reason, you know, the Titans have a million injuries, but they still are eight and two. If you were to sort of paint a broad, with a broad brush on this season and say, okay, no one's taken kind of the bull by the horns,

where would you start? I think one of that is, you know, the really great teams in the NFL are all sort of engineered to try to be the Kansas City Chiefs, right? Like, you know, I take Buffalo, for example, the team that I think we all believed could have been that sort of elite team. And you look at their offense and it's very characteristic of a lot of things the Chiefs want to do. They have a strong-arm quarterback who is mobile. they sort of ignore the run game a lot of times. And, you know, if you're a team that plays too high safeties and you make them be patient up and down the field,

you can get a noisy game like you had against Jacksonville or even Tennessee on that Monday night game. You know, I think that's one reason. I also think injuries to teams that would otherwise be able to capitalize on this has been a big deal. So, for example, the Ravens and the Titans, although the Titans have a great record, they're capable of losing into the Jets.

So it's a little bit of basically like the league has wised up defensively. And, you know, I think some of the truly elite teams tried to emulate what Kansas City was doing, which, you know, if you were just a poor man's chiefs and the whole league is engineered to stop you, you're not going to have as easy of a time of it. Nate, how did the chief's view the past, let's call it six weeks? Because it's interesting because I think the narrative about Mahomes got a little bit out of hand in the sense that, you know, I think three of us first four games had a rating over 130. and then he has a couple bad weeks

and everyone's like, well, up defense to figure it out Mahomes. Like, okay, relax. It's been three weeks. How were the chiefs internalizing their struggles, the process and their struggles when they were going through it?

Yeah. So in September, Patrick Mahomes was not the problem. It was this defense that was at the league's bottom and just about every statistic that was going through its own injury situations with multiple guys and multiple, levels of the defense.

The Chiefs were leading the league in turnovers, which no one saw coming. And weirdly, in a season that's been bizarre and perplexing, all of a sudden, the world's best athlete at quarterback had a slum. And this was something that Andy Reid mentioned after the win against the Raiders on Sunday. And he mentioned a guy who I don't really get to talk to a ton, but you, understand why, Kevin, his name is Mike Frazier. He is the statistical analyst coordinator. In essence, he's the Chiefs Analytics Department. And what Andy was sort of telling me after the game was Mike has studied just about every modern NFL quarterback since Tom Brady entered

the league. And from their position, they felt like Mahomes was the first quarterback who lasted it the longest in terms of not having a slump as we go into year four of being a everyday starter for the NFL team. It took Patrick Mahomes three and a half seasons to have a bad month. And so that sort of compounded some issues. But below the surface, the defense started to get more healthy. I think the coaching staff, which has been really ahead of a lot of the statistical curves, obviously what Eric mentioned about like, hey, coaches are starting to realize,

oh, the chutes are sort of finding advantages and play calling and play style. Well, Eric Beidami and Andy Reid and Mike Caffa, the quarterback coach, they've all sort of started to figure out how to get Patrick Mahomes in rhythm with some of the shorter passes, trying to be more deliberate. And you sort of saw that all come together against the Raiders where, hey, the coaching staff has, you know, sort of, you know, shape shifted, the offense a little bit to help the quarterback. Then all of a sudden, when the quarterback's in rhythm and out of a slump,

then all of a sudden this chief's team can still score 40 or they're so capable of doing that, which is a good sign for them. But all of a sudden you went from, hey, it's everybody but the quarterback to, oh, man, the quarterback can highlight some of the other issues with the roster. And they slowly sort of had to figure this out. And fortunate for them, nobody else is sort of raced out in the AFC. And so all of a sudden, at six and four, the top team in their division right now

and they have a shot of being maybe the two C when the regular season ends. Was there a sense of calm or panic or anything? I mean, was there a time? When you went to practice, you went to the facility and you were like, oh, oh man, like they're really feeling this.

It was the Tennessee game in Nashville. I talked to a few people in the organization and one of the comments I made was, well, I don't think we've seen this team yet. And the person said, well, what do you mean? And I said, well, you know, Chris Jones is playing out of position. Frank Clark doesn't look healthy. Tyrone Matthew was sort of, you know, going after fans.

Who was? You know, you guys are playing Dan Sorensen more than you should have. And the person in the organization said, well, we just have to play better. And then literally two hours later, they were down, I believe, 24-0 to the Tennessee Titans, and it wasn't because of Derek Henry. It was because Ryan Tannenhill had one of his more exceptional days on the field. And obviously, Patrick Mahomes threw a, you know, questionable interception to Josh Gordon, who's not been anywhere productive to their expectations.

And then he had this fumble where he could have slid for a first down. And so everything went bad to worse. And I remember how tense it was in the facility because they were playing, I believe, they were playing the New York Giants. And it was a Monday night game. And I sort of described it as the longest week in the season because everyone could not feel good about themselves, but they were going to play a home primetime game

against the team they had to beat in order to sort of remind themselves that they're a playoff team. But that was the hardest week of the season. It was nothing to do with the Giants. It was everything to do mentally with both the players, the coaching staff, in the front office saying, man, did we mis-evaluate this somehow? And is Patrick going to save us?

And at least for those first two games against the Giants and the Packers, it really wasn't Patrick Mahomes saving the season. It was everybody has to do their part for them to get back to being who everyone thought they were, like, including us in the start of the season. When we thought, when we all thought that they were going to sort of be the most dominant team in the AFC. I have two questions, Eric, about NFL defenses. The first is what were they actually doing that was effective against Mahomes?

Because it's so simplistic to say, okay, they put two safeties back there. And listen, there was data showing that they kind of put a ceiling on Mahomes and taking away the deep pass and all that stuff. But there's also evidence, a lot of it, that he saw more cover two or two deep safeties than any other look last year. Okay. And he was fine last year. And if you noticed that. But what were defenses doing? two patch from the homes this year that was working.

Well, I think one of the things was is that you know, every single defense from what I can tell has gotten better at solving the RPO game, right? And the like, so if you look at, for example, the average box

count against teams in this league, the Kansas City Chiefs are facing 6.22 men in the box on early downs, which is the lowest in the NFL. And the chiefs, you know, up until like relatively recently, we're leading the NFL and RPO rate. They're still running RPO's about 23% of the time.

Arizona, interestingly, at 24. And so what I was finding was this sort of like, and this is actually, you know, with Mike Frazier and Brandtilis, and, you know, that sort of like group is sort of, you know, one of, you know, I know something they're studying, which is, you know, when the chiefs are running the football, usually they're doing it out of an RPO. And I can understand what that's doing.

I can understand saying, look, if you just decide to run the ball, then there's almost no upside of the pass, right? And so if you leave in a little bit of the upside of the past via the RPO game, then maybe it's less of a bad decision to run on early downs. The problem was that backside linebacker was just never giving any, paying any mind to the run game. And so you almost got none of the upside of the past. In fact, the Chiefs for a stretch of the season were worse on RPO passes relative to normal passes

and worse on RPO runs relative to normal runs in terms of success rates. And, you know, what that was doing was hampering them because they did not have a running back who was good enough to necessarily run the football when the offensive line was designed not to make a push, right? And what we saw on Sunday night, which was really good, was their RPO rate was cut in half. And you looked at, you know, Creed Humphrey was offensive line porn to everybody, right? And like, Trace Smith and even Orlando Brown, who I think is a player who is successful when he can move forward half the time. And so, you know, I'm not a huge proponent of running the ball that much if you're Kansas City.

But I'm a proponent. And they're early down pass rate is the highest in the NFL, higher than even Tampa or Miami. But like, if you're going to run the ball, I think what you have to do now is run the ball. Don't chase this upside of the RPO because it makes you worse. I completely agree. It was funny because you're making a case, a roundabout case for establishing the run. And that to me, I was on tilt last week during the Four State Miami game when RG3 said, oh, they got to establish.

Miami has to establish a run. And I agreed. And I was like, oh, no, what have I become? What have I become? I'm just tilting. And now I'm like, we got to establish the run here with Jalen Knight. I want to ask about the defenses in general, Eric, because. You mentioned some of the, some of the ways defense is getting smarter.

And we've seen, and maybe this is just our eyes, maybe it's just anecdotal. But we've seen so many games this year, whether it's Dak Prescott against Denver, you know, what's Dafford's going through right now, where there's just these mini slumps the middle of the season. Is there something the defenses are doing from a game plan standpoint, a little bit more this year? Is that just, you know, weird things happen in the middle of the season? Is there anything this year the defense is just in general, our defense is just in general, doing better to confuse or take away elite elite quarterbacks?

Well, I think there's evidence that every single quarterback gets worse when you play a different. So like it can be blunt or it can be or very specific, but basically if you play a different coverage than you show pre-Snap, right? So on offenses, it was almost always like if you run play action, then it doesn't really matter who you're running back is. You know, linebackers have been trained to move up at the snap. so you're going to get an edge their running play action, right?

And some of that has gone away because of what I just said. On defense, like, the best teams in the league just show different coverage than they play a lot of times. You look at the worst defenses, so Houston, Minnesota, Seattle,

New York Jets are the four teams in the NFL that play the same coverage than they show more than 81% of the time. And even Baltimore at 80.9% like Baltimore's defense is one of the worst in the NFL this year, sneakily.

Those are the worst five teams. Like, if you were to show basically like who are the worst offenses in the league like let's say three years ago it would be all the teams that didn't run play action right and and now it's like you look at the top teams in terms of show play rates

the L.A. Rams at 54%. So they literally only showed the same coverage that they play half the time. The Giants who are a better defense and I think people believe the Chargers, the Falcons who I think are actually overperforming defensively until last week in Cleveland who overperforming defensively until last week.

So like that's another one where it's like you're trying to add deception to it. You know, another thing you're seeing is a lot more contested targets. So there's like no team in the NFL right now that contests fewer than 11% of targets and some of the best defenses are contesting a lot of targets.

And then, you know, the best defenses are just simply sitting back and playing low box counts. Right? And they're just saying, look, you know, and they're reinventing what it means to be a defensive tackle in football. Like, you know, I think analytics people for a long time said, oh, interior defensive linemen, other than like,

maybe Aaron Donald aren't that important. And now that like the schemes have shifted to, you know, playing back and and almost no one in the box, well, if you have a person that can eat block, you know, it can be two men in the box as one person, then obviously that's extremely valuable. And so to me that I think that those are the kind of things that defensive defense are kind of shifting to is sort of these like fewer men in the box, manipulating the box count so that guys are sitting in different gaps than they used to be.

and then, you know, being deceptive because, you know, offenses where all the deception came from, but defense are trying to find a way to recoup some of that. Nate, and by the way, Eric, that was an amazing answer. I just wanted you to know that. I just learned, like, five different things. I also learned that analyze people didn't value the defensive tackle until just now, which makes me an article called Interior Defenders Matter last year

because it was like my own self-owned. Thank you, Er. Thank you for coming around on that beautiful. mattering. Nate, you know, it's interesting because when I look at the AFC in particular, there are no, as we've talked about, kind of complete rosters. There's no team where I'm like, okay, this team is ready to go.

You think about the Ravens and their defensive holes. The Chargers, Lord knows what's going on with them, even though they have some top, top talent. I mean, it seems to me, I guess the bills are the closest one to where, I think, coming into this season and a lot of people saying, okay, this team has talent at every level. Even the bills have had those weird games against Jacksonville. some of the other ones.

And I'm curious, from a chief standpoint, we know with that sort of the off-season game plan to fix the offensive line. You know, they lost a third receiver, all that stuff. They promoted from within. But I'm curious, if you're looking at that now, how do you think, if they get a mulligan, I guess, on the off-season, would they've done anything differently?

Ooh, that's a really interesting question. They pursued trying to get a number three wide receiver in the offseason. Most notably, Juju Smith-Schuster. There were some buzz about T.Y. Hilton. I don't think the Chiefs would necessarily change their first two picks in the draft because Nick Bolton is probably their best tackler in the open field as a linebacker. And Creed Humphrey has just been one of the more dominant rookie offensive linemen in the league thus far. So I don't know if they would change necessarily anything in the draft.

they knew how valuable Sammy Watkins was, even though maybe the common fan was like, well, from a fantasy standpoint, he's not racking up all these numbers, but he is getting open, or he's helping Tyree Kill get open deep. He's helping take some attention away from Travis Kelsey, and he was the veteran who was really reliable

running consistent routes when the targets were there for him. So I don't know if they would necessarily be more aggressive on the defensive side of the ball and free agency. That's the only question. Listen, they hit the offensive line pick out of the park. Out of the park. I mean, I think that both of both Smith and Humphrey are two of the top five graded rookies for all positions right now.

I think that the money-and-money quarterback comes in with the defense. Yeah. And look, they felt like they got a pretty good deal with Jen Reed, but that was a situation where they sort of played back similar to like what Eric was talking about in terms of defense as a whole. Like we just play back and all of a sudden, you know, Jeremy becomes a cap casualty for the Seahogs and we go out and we sign him for a one year sort of deal.

But they weren't aggressive on the defensive end, right? There are smaller mistakes. Most, you know, one of the best examples is honestly Melvin Ingram, right? They could have been, they could have offered him more money. But they got outbid by the Pittsburgh Street was for $4 million for one year. And the Chiefs were like, oh, snap, we need more. of a pass rush. So they make a small trade to get Melvin Ingram back.

He's been honestly awesome as just a veteran, you know, another guy who can win one-on-one blocks who can sort of manipulate or sort of collapse pockets for other guys to have higher success rate. It's interesting that Jaron Reed had his best game of the season with Melvin Ingram sort of in the flow of the chief's, you know,

rotation on the defensive end. They could have been more aggressive. And from a coaching situation, I would love to get some truth serum into Steve Spagmelo, who I think is one of the best defensive minds in the league. It was hard, Kevin, to try to explain to people in October. I'm like, it's not Steve Spaggno's problem. But then I would love, again, to just ask this man straight up,

what were you seeing in training camp that allowed you to think that Daniel Swarmson was either not at the cliff or was free-fall? Or Ben Neiman, too. And Ben Neiman, too, man. Yeah. Well, they signed Ben Neiman just because they felt like, well, Willie Gay will be a starter. And then unfortunately, he got hurt in late in the preseason, I believe, and he missed the first handful of games. And so they thought they had got a reasonable value with Ben Neiman on, you know, a relatively cheap one-year deal

to be that sort of plug linebacker. But they never anticipated him starting. And that's why I always say the biggest issue was, A, not being aggressive on defense in terms of free agency. It's okay, and they did the right decision, and Patrick Mahomes sleeps comfortably most nights knowing that he has a better offensive line. Moving forward than obviously what he was dealing with in the Super Bowl last year.

But there were times in training camp where I would look around and I say, wow, they're given a lot of reps to Dan Sorensen, who's their oldest offender, which I don't think people realize. He's the oldest guy on roster playing defense. And then they were still sort of taking Juan Thornton Hill through some baby steps, even though he was a guy that played relatively well as a rookie,

had the ACL injury. You know, they did an admirable job sort of rotating him in as a second year player, but now it's year three. It's time to find out how good that draft pick can be for you. And they didn't really start him until the Washington game, I believe, in week five or six. And so as fans have,

just wanted and they have started to receive it. Dan Sorsen only played half of the snaps last week. And that was one of his better games. Obviously, he had an interception on a lollipop from Derek Carr. But the changes they could have made were trying to get a little bit better on defense, trying to get ahead of a curve instead of just feeling like that unit was going to stabilize. And knowing that they're probably going to have to get more defensive backs as the years move on. because what they were getting out of that second grade last year was probably unsustainable.

But yet again, at least they're playing the best five DBs on their roster right now. And that's Juan Thorne Hill, Tyron Matthew, of course. And then you have three cornerbacks who are legitimate in, you know, Ligerius Nied, Traverius Ward and Rashad Fitton. Yeah, I think I find it very impressive that they are, like, I agree with you. Like they were in on Josh Reynolds too. They tried at the second Super Spot. I think, you know, interestingly, Josh Ward.

and last week out snapped McCull Hardman for the first time all year. Even though he has not been productive, I do think that they view him as possibly that replacement for Watkins as somebody who is not going to be productive. Like, Watkins was not productive with Kansas City, but he was such a credible threat that he required

coverage. And that was something that McColl Hartman has not been able to do. That's been something to Marcus Robinson, Brian Pringle, had not been able to do. I think the defense aside the ball, I do praise now their pragmatism there. They have two former first round picks they're sitting on the bench.

DeAndre Baker, Mike Hughes, they do a good job at the corner position of throwing numbers at the problem and basically saying the best three guys play. And I do like that. And I do think that that's one of the things that as much as I've criticized them for some of the moves that they've made or not made,

like I think that one's one where you can give them a lot of credit. Like they do get way more out of that corner position than they're given as far as talent. I'm obsessed with the fact, and I should have known this, but Daniel Sorensen is one of two players who's been around since 2014. Travis Kelsey was drafted the year before.

He's like the Cal Ripkin of the Chiefs. He's just never going to leave. He's just going to be there forever. He's just going to have like a 20-year career. Right. I mean, he is an undrafted legend because he's from BYU and everybody assumes that that helped his connection with Andy Reed.

But for a while there, he was a legitimate third safety that you could play and sort of manipulate the numbers in terms of him being both a linebacker and a safety at the same time. But it's always tough, and I try to remind fans of this. Like, it's so hard to play in the NFL in general. And then if you lose a step or if teams start to manipulate your side of the ball and they start targeting you and you're not one of these physical freaks,

then you can fall off pretty quickly. And that's clearly what's happened with Daniel Swarison. He's missed tackles in the open field, which is one of their biggest issues in the early portion of the season. And quietly they were one of the best tackling teams last week against the Raiders. So Steve Spagnolo has gone through these waves where he sort of figures it out towards the middle of the year. And I'm going to say this and Chiefs fans sort of know this already, Kevin. But I feel like a lot of teams are getting to this point in the NFL season where they're like,

wow, we can't have any more significant injuries. And for the Chiefs, if they want to sort of get back to being. and who they are and having the defense compliment the offense, they have found their best 11 to 13 players in their rotation, and none of those guys can get hurt. They just, they don't have any reserves, and that might be the case for most of the contenders in the league, where you're sort of saying, oh, wow,

some of the things we projected aren't true. We're still doing this, this, and this well, but we can't have an injury sort of collapse the progress you're making, and most coaches around this time are not comfortable playing a younger player if they haven't seen it thus far for 10 weeks. All right. Moment of truth. The AFC ends how is your error?

That's a great question. So, you know, I have, here are the conference championship probabilities I have. I have Tennessee at 27%, which I feel like is a little high, although they have the easiest schedule moving forward and a very easy path to the one scene. How much is that is the buy? and home field and all that. Yeah, they have the 30 second most difficult schedule coming up. They have the Jags.

Wow. They have three games against Houston and Jackson, right? Like combined. So there's that. There's also the fact they have the tiebreaker over Buffalo, the tiebreaker over the Chiefs. So Tennessee is there. Buffalo at 22%.

And then after that, I have Kansas City at 13%. New England at 9. I think that the emergence of the Patriots is something that's interesting. The Ravens, by contrast, have the third toughest schedule moving forward. And as much as I think this has been a great natural experiment for Lamar Jackson because the hardest problem in football is deciding whether a guy who's been great on a rookie deal deserves the $40 million. I think the Ravens are getting the answer yes with Jackson this year because of all the injuries.

I don't necessarily know if in that division how tough it is that the team that comes out of the AFC North is going to be equipped to win the AFC just because of how beaten up they're going to be. So those are the three teams I have. They brought up a great point about the Chief's health. Like right now you're looking at a team that's six and four. They have three straight home games, including a buy,

so they don't go on the road for a month. They're pretty much healthy. If that continues, they have a great chance. Chances are they're going to have some injuries. And, you know, teams like Tennessee and Buffalo have already had those injuries. and I think are stronger as a result. Nate, same question.

I'm going to stay with the pick I had when the season began. I'm going to be very bold, Kevin. I thought this whole season was coming down to AFC championship game in Buffalo and Jim Nance and Tony Romo sort of telling the American public, can Kansas City do this one more time or other Buffalo Bills who have been designing for two years now to have this moment with Josh Allen.

Are they going to finally break through and get to the Super Bowl? I'm not necessarily concerned with either Buffalo or Kansas City going to Nashville and winning a playoff game. I think teams will be terrified if Patrick Mahomes continues to learn, right? This is the tough part for every team. Hey, we've sort of figured out a solution or a formula. But that guy is learning it. in the middle of the season.

The coaching staff is learning it in the middle of the season. They're going to start to create and adjust to the adjustment. And that's my assumption so far. And so if Derek Henry doesn't come back and isn't amazing, it's going to be tough for Tennessee to, I think, withstand two really, really good offenses in Buffalo and Kansas City. So I think it'll come down to either the Chiefs and the Bills. And NFL history would lean towards the Bills winning that game

and getting to the Super Bowl. And the bills should have confidence because their best win of the season was in prime time in Kansas City against the Chiefs so that they wouldn't have to play the AFC championship game in Arrowhead. So I'm going to give it to the bills right now, but I think the Chiefs are capable of getting back on track,

winning the AFC West, winning a home playoff game, going to Nashville and probably winning that if that scenario sort of plays out. And then it sort of sets up for Buffalo to take that next step in the AFC. I think the Chiefs in Nashville are favored in the playoffs, much like Baltimore was last year.

I think if the Chiefs go to Nashville, they're favored, and if they go to Buffalo, they're underdogs. But, you know, when they won the Super Bowl in 19, they avenged a Houston loss in the regular season and a Tennessee lost the regular season. So just because they lost in the regular season, it doesn't mean they can't, you know, in the playoffs. You talked about Mahomes kind of learning the season goes along.

What does he need to get better at if, for this season, specifically with what teams are throwing at him in order for him to win the AFC? Yeah, I mean, some of it was sort of an old. noticeable in the Raiders game. His footwork was so much better in the pocket. He is starting to, I think, gain some trust with Orlando Brown and knowing where he needs to be.

They need to obviously stay healthy in the offensive line department. Most notably, Lucas Neang is dealing with the rib injury. Mike Remmers is dealing with the knee injury. That's why Andrew Wiley is the third string right tackle who somehow held up admirably against Max Crosby on Sunday night. But for Mahomes, a lot of it is going conventional with play action. and being excellent when the opportunities are there. And I think he's starting to learn that.

Like, hey, I can't throw the ball deep 10 times a game. It's probably going to be three to four. And you want to maximize those opportunities. But if he doesn't turn the football over, I don't know what to tell NFL defenses. Some of their turnover luck started swinging their way against the Raiders. But Mahomes is a quarterback who's accurate. And if Travis Kelsey gets healthy and gets back to be,

and the player he was earlier in the season, then defenses are going to have to play this bend-don't-break style of play and hope that they are successful in the red zone. But that sort of plays into Andy Reed and Eric Beanimy in terms of their play calling in short distances, which I think the Chiefs are one of the best teams in the league when it's fourth in goal, fourth and one, where they can really design something to get somebody open.

So if Mahomes doesn't turn the ball over, if Mahomes is comfortable in the pocket and uses, wise discretion when to scramble, when to extend plays, when to take the deep shot, there's a chance that this offense all of a sudden in a month from now can be a top five offense for the remainder of the season. There's something that speaks to what Nate's saying in the statistics. One of the things that I've been trying to say, like, you know, the Chiefs don't have a James White.

And I think that like when you watch the Bills game specifically was just like Patrick would get out of Dodge and he would just throw the ball in the middle of field, no one was open and I was like, was he being inaccurate? And somebody's like, no, he just doesn't have anywhere to go. And you know, the Patriots had, you know, when the Patriots won the Super Bowl and like, oh, they had James, or Kevin

Fall. Yeah. And they, Shane Verene had like 10 catches in the Super Bowl against the Seahawks. You know, obviously James White had his game against Atlanta. And interestingly, Patrick Gomes on Sunday against the Raiders at 11 completions past what we call the first read, meaning

it's a checkdown. And, and And that was the highest of the season. He had six such completions to running backs on Sunday, and it was the most of the season. He went a month at the beginning of the year without having so many of those plays. Whatever chemistry he's developed with Daryl Williams, he did not have with Clyde Edwards-Layer. And he had that with Damien Williams when they won the Super Bowl. There was a, there's sort of that disconnect there where if the chiefs continue that, then there is a floor on that offense that wasn't there when they were really struggling,

which was, you know, things break down, and because the receiving court is not quite as good as it used to be, you have that outlet where you can pick up four or five yards on a bad play and instead of a sack or a zero-yard play. To me, if that continues, I think that, in addition to no longer running as many RPO, to me, is part of the solution to the problems that ailed them in offense early in the season.

Eric Eager, Nate Taylor. Thank you so much for joining us. I can't wait for us to just reconvene who can beat the Chiefs every three weeks from now on. Thanks so much for having it out. Awesome guys. Thank you so much. All right. Join now by David Helman. He's a staff writer for the Cowboys. He's a buddy.

He is making his ring around NFL show debut. What's going on, David? I am honored, honored to be here, my friend. I mean, the host of Slow Newsday, I can't tell you how big this is. So this has been a very strange. year. I think the teams that we've wanted to crown as contenders have given us the reason not to crown them. Dallas has been interesting. They have talent on both sides of the ball. I felt like Dak Prescott has always been a franchise quarterback to win a Super Bowl.

But within that building, David, the Cowboys are viewing this season, how and their contention status within the NFL, within the NFC, how? It's funny, man. As the season goes, you can feel this belief start to build, right? And I'm sure, Sure, that happens in every building in the NFL when you've got a good team. But this is probably, this is the third time in recent memory that the Cowboys look like they've got a good team. 2016 was special.

They go 13 and 3, but they're doing it with a rookie quarterback. And I think that kind of lingered in the back of people's minds, that entire season is like, well, can we really go the distance with a rookie doing this? And 2018, they start 3 and 5. They get hot at the end of the year. So that was special in its own way, but you already knew that was a flawed team this year. And it just gets hammered home every week. You brought up the Rams yourself.

Everybody else looks like they've got their flaws too. And all of a sudden you're sitting here at midseason like you can't prove that the Cowboys aren't the best team in the NFC. I'm not saying that they are. But I think that they have every reason to believe that inside the building. And I don't know that that's been the case anytime in the last decade or so. where the Cowboys have a rock solid case to maybe be the best team in the entire conference. Yeah, I totally agree. But I think the theme of this episode, David, is every team we try to say,

okay, now they're the guy, Dave laid a stinker. And I think that's interesting because every year seems weird as it's happening, but I kind of feel like this year there's been weeks for everybody where they have a Sunday or a Monday where it looks like they'd ever played the sport before. Or they just found out about the rules, like an hour before it started. For Dallas, it was Denver. That game should not have been even, I mean, it ended up being 30 to 16, but it wasn't that close. There was some garbage time there.

Explain that in the context of this season. Is that, I mean, you know, being around that, being in that locker room, because I think that understanding that game kind of unlocks what's going on throughout the league is there's a lot of weird results sometimes. And maybe it's a 17th game. Maybe it's just, you know, a concentration of whatever. But what happened in that game? I guess big picture before we get into sort of nitty gritty. So it's easy, it was easy last week to say, I don't think they were focused. I think that they were smelling themselves a little too bit, too much.

It's easy to say that before they play Atlanta, right? And that's really what I thought happened. I think Dak Prescott said it himself after the Denver game. You go up to Minnesota, tough home field environment. Maybe the Vikings aren't the best team in the world, but they're certainly not a bad team. and you win that game without Dak Prescott. I think the Cowboys went into that Denver game thinking that they could roll out of not really think about it and win.

And clearly that's not the case. But what made it even more impressive and what really hammered that home is they go out the next week. They're focused. They're pissed off. They don't just beat Atlanta. They beat the brakes off them.

I mean, I've used this analogy. I know you're a big college football guy like me. That looked like, Ohio State bowling green, you know? I mean, it did not look like an NFL contest. So that's what really hammered that home to me is like, wow, yeah, these guys, they just let the hype get the best of them in that Denver game. And that's not to say that they won't lose another game or that a team can't beat them

when they're trying. But it really, it seems obvious in retrospect that they just weren't ready to play that day. Vic Fangio knew what to do with Dak. You ran cover one robber. I mean, there have been some really great breakdowns. I think that ESPN NFL matchup had a great segment on it. I think it was last week. With DAC in particular, his ability to bounce back is pretty impressive, I think.

And for that, and kind of going back to that Denver game, was that a weird deck game? Was that Fangio kind of exploiting his weaknesses? Where do you kind of put DAC on that scale within that game? it's a little bit of everything i mean honestly you go back and watch that game it was a perfect storm of trash um right i think i think that is the worst deck has played since he kind of morphed into this accomplished passer right i mean they trade for amari cooper in 2018 and that's really the marking point for me of when he started to become what he is now and i think that's that's the

worst game he's played in this in this second era of his career um missing open throws and all credit to to vangio and the broncos they had a great game plan um they got pressure with three guys a lot of the time they didn't have to do a ton of blitzing to get home cowboys had to shuffle their offensive tackles because tyrant smith wasn't available to play in that game that plays a part in it but that just missed a lot of stuff as well i thought there was a real eerie or fitting kind of parallel. Fourth and two against Denver early in that game. They go for it.

He's got Cedric Wilson open on a crosser. Maybe he can score as a touchdown from 38 yards out if he hits him. He threw it at his feet. I mean, it's one of the worst throws I've ever seen Dak Prescott made. They come back the next week against Atlanta. They do something similar. They go for it on fourth and five.

He hits C.D. Lamb for 21 yards on a beautiful ball. So that's a round. rambling answer, but yes, Denver had a great game plan, but it was totally exacerbated by the fact that everybody on that Cowboys offense played a horrible game, including that. Is that the MVP? I can't say that right now, but I certainly, I think he is on a very small list of people that have a real shot to win. And I think when you think about the Cowboys brand, the Star Power, when the Cowboys are good, it just kind of snowballed. into this all-encompassing force. And, I mean, if he keeps this up for eight more weeks,

I really, I think he's got a fantastic shot to win. I think, I mean, it's him, Kyler Murray, Matthew Stafford, Tom Brady. I mean, I, I think. Stafford's playing his way out. Kyle has been hurt. Stafford's star is kind of like diminishing a little bit. But, yeah, if Dak plays like this for eight more weeks,

I would bet on him. That's for damn sure. So this cheats game coming up was probably, I think if you're looking at it in September, it was looking like something you circling your calendar was going to be kind of a proving ground, measuring stick, and now it's not. Now the chiefs are trying to actually get where the Cowboys are. Having said that, it still is important. That defense going against Mahom still is measuring stick,

making sure that they can do the things to Travis Kelsey and Tyree Kill, but most teams, not all teams have done to them over the past, I don't know, six weeks or so. the Cowboys are viewing this game, how, especially as it relates to Patrick Mahomes, because I think that, you know, I'm going to be the last person to say that Mahomes isn't the greatest quarterback we've ever seen. Even if he throws 20 interceptions over the next three weeks,

I'm still going to say, guys, he's going to break out like John Wick. We saw that a little bit with the Raiders. But when it comes to defending Patrick Mahomes, the Cowboys are looking at it, how, David? See, this is the funny thing for me. Obviously, as a beat writer, sure, you catch the end of the Sunday night game when you have a chance or whatever. But like, I, and I know the chiefs have struggled,

but I absolutely still view them in the prism of this is the team to beat. I mean, these are the guys that have been to the AFC title game, three straight years, Super Bowl, two straight years, all that stuff. And yeah, the Cowboys are great, but the Cowboys haven't proven any of that stuff. You know, the Cowboys have had a few great regular seasons over the last five or six years. They have not had that kind of sustained playoff success. So until further notice, I still think of the Cowboys trying to get on the Chiefs level. And I think this team views that as well. This is going to be, I hope the game even comes close to living up to what it could be because the Cowboys have been awesome on defense. They've been

opportunistic. They've got 17 takeaways. Obviously Mahomes has struggled with that. But Mahomes is also a chunk play king. And that's probably the Cowboys biggest weakness is as aggressive as they are, they will give you some 20, 30, 40-yard plays. So I think this has real potential to be a track meet. And I'm interested to see how Dan Quinn balances, knowing that you need to get takeaways off this guy, but you also have a real pension for giving up an explosive plays because that's been a theme for them all season,

is getting takeaways, but also giving up big plays. Yeah, the defense's been boom-buss. I mean, you see that with, I mean, Trayvon Diggs sort of is emblematic of the entire situation, which he can get eight interceptions, but he can also, I think at one point he was allowing the most yards of cornerback. I actually haven't looked at that, but I do know that he's, you know, it hasn't been all roses in coverage this year.

It's funny because I don't think there's anything that that we don't talk enough about with the Cowboys because if you turn on any cable network at any point, there's probably a Cowboys segment. I've joked with this before, but I talked to a television executive years ago who said that they figured out that if you just talk about the Cowboys all the time and never talk about any of the,

other team, you will literally have better rating. So if some of these channels became the Cowboys Network, that would actually be the good business decision. But having said that, with all of the things we debate about this team, what is one thing we're not talking about enough for the Cowboys this year? Oh, wow. Fantastic question. I think there's so many cool performances happening underneath the stars.

Like, of course, Dak Prescott. Of course, Trayvon Diggs. Of course, Micah Parsons. But there are so many awesome little storylines. Randy Gregory comes to mind, which it's a shame. He's not going to be part of this game. He's on IR right now. But to come back from everything he's done, this is the first time he's been available

for a full off season because of all the suspensions. He's got five sacks. Oso, Digizua, the rookie defensive tackle. If Micah Parsons wasn't doing what he's doing, OSA would be getting so much shine for coming in as a third round pick starting right away and doing a hell of a job. Like I think he's second behind only Micah in rookie pressures, or he's certainly near the top of that list.

J. Ron Curse, a guy that he's really kind. Dallas fans have fallen in love with him. He's a career journeyman special teamer slash like nickel defender, sixth round pick who never really got a chance in Minnesota or Detroit. He comes here, takes the starting job, and has become like the captain of this defense. He calls the plays. He sets the tone from an attitude standpoint.

And I just, I don't think anybody saw that coming. The Cowboys gave him like $900,000. Like they gave him the NFL equivalent of peanuts. And he's out here playing more snaps than anybody. And I don't think even the most diehard cowboy fans knew who he was until about September. So just there's all kinds of cool little performances that are boosting the stars.

Terrence Steele is another one, an undrafted rookie offensive tackle who, to be frank, was terrible last year. You know, he scarred a lot of people with his performance. He comes back this year, gets put into the lineup because Lyle Collins gets suspended, and he's been a baller. So there's all kinds of guys like that who, yeah, you need Dak, you need Zeke, you need Parsons. But there's so many kind of unsung guys that have really helped this theme get where they are. Interesting. Same question though, but the central lot localized to

DAC. Is there something that Dak's doing this year that we're not appreciating enough or that he's changed in his game or is this just DAC elevated from previous years and kind of the same version? You know, I think Dak has been this guy for a little while. But yeah, I do think he's on a new level. he really is because even last year before he got hurt there were there were turnover issues he was throwing picks he was turning he was fumbling part of that was his offensive line but yeah man he's just he's he's he's he's so clean and he's so in command like I know I think people respect

that I think people understand how good he is but I don't know if there's enough appreciation for just how much command he has like I think maybe there's like this subconscious thing of like, well, he's a fourth round pick. So, you know, he doesn't get that benefit of the doubt of like mastering the offense, mastering what opponents are trying to do to him. And then there's the leadership component as well. I mean, I think all teams probably feed off their quarterback. But this dude is just like the Pied Piper, you know, like he, this team goes how he goes.

He is the absolute heartbeat of this franchise. And I don't really know how you quantify. quantify that, but it's, it's incredibly important. And you see it, you see it in everything with him. And I just, it's incredibly impressive the way that that really the entire franchise kind of feeds off of his demeanor. Yeah, I wanted to ask about the evolution of that because, you know, I remember a couple of years ago, David, at training camp in Oxnard, I was listening in a Stephen Jones. And he was talking about how when they were looking at their draft board, they actually had Connor Cook above Dak Prescott because

Connor Cook had played in a pro style offense and Dak had and they didn't want to do the calculus of how Dak would translate. Obviously that's not a concern anymore around the league but this was 2016. It was a different time. But I'm curious being a fourth round pick coming in and even remember the narratives was oh well you know, Dax just playing well

because he's behind that team that was go for Tony Romo and the offensive line is amazing. He's got these skill guys and you know, all that stuff. I'm curious the evolution of Dak as the kind of franchise guy has it pretty much been the same since the end of 2016 or what you know the year the week in 2016

where they decided to go with Roma excuse me go with Prescott over Romo Romo gave the concession speech I'm sure you remember it well what has the evolution been like of Dak as a franchise quarterback in that building and just his his presence I guess over the past five years

it's I think we're like this week or last week is like the anniversary of Romo's concession speech. Yeah, it's, it's fitting timing. That's the funny thing. I actually, Dax's demeanor has always been in that way. And I was actually, I was really privileged. I got to go. I went, I went to Starkville after his rookie season. And we did a whole thing about his time at Mississippi State. And I remember Dan Mullen told us a story about how he was a three-star recruit. Same thing as him being a fourth round pick. He was a three-star recruit. It's not like he was the stud of their recruiting class, but even as kind of an unsung like underclassman quarterback,

he was in their weight room like leading workouts and guys just gravitated to him and just kind of felt that energy. And that was before he had done anything at Mississippi State. And then he goes, he becomes Dak Prescott and leads them to these unprecedented highs. And that was, It was on, I mean, it was a good Mississippi State team, but those teams weren't loaded by college football standards. And I think you see the same thing in the pros. As a rookie, guys gravitate to him. He's confident. He's relatable.

He is able to kind of unite a locker room in a way that, and to be fair, I haven't been around as many other quarterbacks as much as I've been around Dak Prescott. But I think it's unique in the way that he is the star quarterback who does the commercials and all that stuff. but he's also one of the guys. You know, he is able to, he's able to relate to the third string safety just as well as the star receiver. I think that's really unique.

And so he's always had that. And that's part of why he took the job as a rookie is he was able to kind of rally guys around him and inspire people or whatever you want to say with, with that demeanor. And now what we're seeing probably, like I said, since like 2018 moving forward, he's now matching that natural charisma with ability.

You know, in 2016, he was limited in what he could do, obviously. He didn't understand NFL offense or what they were trying to do as well as he does. Now he's had the same offensive coordinator for three years. He works incredibly hard at it. And so we're seeing him unlock a level of ability that he hasn't always had to go with that kind of charisma that he has had. And I mean, it's, it's incredibly fun to watch. And, yeah, like I said, I mean, I won't be surprised that this season ends with an MVP.

Where does the Cowboys season end? Oh, geez. I mean, I can imagine, like, that's the funny thing is, and I know, listen, I know there are like Browns fans listening or Lions fans. Like, I hate to compare the Cowboys' struggles to that type of stuff. but this is a bit of a scarred fan base. You know, this team hasn't been to the NFC championship game since 95 season. Everyone associated with the team is reminded of that on a daily basis.

And when you're the Cowboys, you either love the Cowboys or hate them. So anybody who's not a Cowboys fan is going to be rooting and waiting on their downfall. So who the hell knows? And I know, like, cowboy fans get uncomfortable even talking about it because they don't want to get hurt. But I mean, shoot, seven and two, like we already talked about, they certainly look like one of the two or three best teams in the NFC. And in a year where there's no obvious team in their way, I mean, that's the expectation. The expectation at the very least is to break that drought of not being in the NFC title game. And I think anything short of that with the way the season has started,

will be disappointing. David Hellman, thank you so much, buddy. Anytime, man. Thanks for having me. I thank you to Nate, Eric, and David,

for joining me. This show, because of Thanksgiving, will not run in its normal format. Next week, I'm going to be on the player show

with Jason Goff, James Jones, and Ryan Jay Zier. Next Tuesday, so be in the lookout for that. I'll be back next on Sunday with our normal show

with Norr, Norrinsiai, Ben Solac, and Steve Louise. Thank you to Stefan. for production help with additional production supervision by Arjuna Rampevold. It's been the Renner NFL show on The Ringer Podcast Network.