The Ringer NFL Show - Defense Is King: The Juggernaut 49ers, Patriots, and Saints Dominate Week 8 | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

In an offensive world, the teams with the best defenses are dominating with another week of 49ers, Patriots, and Saints wins (0:35). Then, a legendary Stock Down led by the incomparable Freddie Kitchens and his Cleveland Browns, followed by a Stock Up led by Deshaun Watson, and finally a debate on what the Jaguars should do at quarterback as Nick Foles nears his return (15:20). Host: Kevin Clark Guest: Danny Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the NFL show is brought to you by State Farm. When you need a game plan for protection, State Farm agents are here to help. With personalized service, agents are available to talk in person over text or through the state farm app. So go with the one with coverage and agents you can count on. Find an agent in your neighborhood today. State Farm.

Talk to an agent today. It's the runner NFL show. I'm Kevin Clark. Joining me, Danny Kelly at the owner.com. Mayzes out tonight. Danny, how are you, buddy? I'm doing really well, man. How are you doing?

It's good to talk to you. It's great to talk to you. All right. So I think that what we want to talk about are the highs and lows of the NFL season so far. And the highs at this point are the Sam's-Sko 49ers. It's the New England Patriots, two undefeated teams. And then we want to get into Adam Gase. We want to get into Freddie Kitchens.

We want to get into the Chicago Bears. Those I probably don't need to say are the lows of the NFL. Well, let's start with the great teams, the teams that are undefeated. Yeah. Nick Bosa. and the San Francisco 49ers. So we talked about this, Mays and I talked about this last week,

where essentially both of the undefeated teams have been dogged by this weird, oh, they haven't played anybody, and eventually, as Mays and I talked about last week, eventually, you know, this is just the NFL. They're beating up on these bad teams because there's just too many bad NFL teams. That's sort of the way things are going right now.

There's like five good teams that are, quote-unquote, you know, nice schedule wins. And then there's 2017, teams who everyone considers to be inferior, one double a competition. Having said that, the 49ers host the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. They win 51 to 13. The Panthers were the fifth ranked offense in the NFL, 15th ranked defense, Nick Bosa, three sacks, three tackles for loss, one pass breakup and one interception,

that interception was turned for 46 yards. The 49ers, I don't feel the need to say they're legit because we already knew they're real legit. You've written about this. But this was the type of win that I know this isn't very analytical. This shuts people up. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is what they call a statement win. I think it was like the most points they've scored since 93 or something like that. I think I saw that stat today. Yeah. It's a type of win where if it was college, they would get like 20 more first place votes this week. It's that kind of win. They wouldn't jump over the Patriots, but they'd be getting close.

Yeah, I mean, what stood out to you when you just looked at, I mean, it was as a completed performance you can get. Is there anything that stood out that maybe I didn't mention already? I mean, yeah, obviously the defense, I think, has been the foundation, you know, that they've been operating on this year. They've completely remade that front seven. I should say the front line. Nick Bosa, you know, changes everything. DeFord has been good. DeForest Buckner is just playing at an elite level still.

Eric Armstead has been playing really, really well. those, you know, two. And then I actually saw Solomon Thomas make a really good play today, too. So, I mean, they've got guys, they've got, it reminds me a little bit of the Rams of old in one sense that they spent several years, like, accumulating talent, and it's finally all starting to kind of click together. And their defense just looks like a juggernaut. And then on the other side of the ball, their run game is just so dominant.

You know, we saw, we saw what they could do today. Tavin Coleman looked really, really good. They've got like, Coleman, baby, yeah. They've got like four backs that could, that could be their starter. Yeah, they're just really, really good. So they control the clock. They, it's such an old school method.

And, you know, it's funny because in this day and age, when passing is so much more efficient, they're kind of breaking that rule that passing is more efficient because when you can run with that level of efficiency and that level of explosiveness, I mean, it just, you don't, why, you don't actually really need to pass that much because they've just been doing it so efficient. my favorite maybe event of 2019 so far is field yates tweeted out most past attempts prior to first

career interception NFL history number one is Dak Prescott number three was Kyle Allen after the game Richard Sherman yeah Richard Sherman you know what I'm going to say have you seen this yet Richard Sherman quote tweeted that tweet just said LMAO which is I'm just so happy to have Richard Sherman back in our lives I talked to this couple weeks ago but just like the thing where he maybe made up that thing with Baker Mayfield, I'm fine with it. Let Richard Sherman do whatever he wants. He's back in the spotlight.

He's going to talk trash, he's going to quote tweet Field Yates tweets with that and say LMAO. I'm 100% of the Richard Sherman experience. He's back. Oh, you know I am too. He had a pick today. Yeah, I know.

This is a pro Richard Sherman podcast. Now, I think it's really interesting what happens now in the NFC. Obviously, the Green Bay Packers won tonight. There are, you know, Drew Brees comes back with the Saints. and they look like they didn't miss a beat. Obviously, Teddy Bridgewater was a very good quarterback

while he was out, but Drew Breeze is Drew Breeze. Where in your mind is the peck in order in the NFC and are the Niners significantly above those other two teams? Yeah, man, that's such a good question. I really like the Saints still. I think the fact that they were able to do what they did, go 5 and O with Bridgewater, and just kind of keep going and, you know,

keep that momentum going forward. I think they are still one of the favorites. I would say, you know, it's San Francisco and New Orleans one A and one B, and then I'd have the Packers just slightly below that. But with the way that Aaron Rogers has been playing last couple weeks, they're certainly scary. I think their defense has taken a little bit of a step back. So they're maybe not quite as balanced as we thought they were.

But, yeah, I mean, I think those are the clear top three teams. There's no question about that. And then you could, you know, make arguments for the Vikings or whoever. But, yeah, I think those are like the, like the, like the cream of the crop for sure. And then there's just a bunch of other teams. Speaking of the cream of the crop, New England Patriots. Okay, so this stats from the NFL.

The Browns, I can barely get through it. The Browns had turnovers on three consecutive offensive plays against the Patriots. That is the first time that any team has done so since week one, 2012. Wow. Only the seventh time it's been done since 2000. This is not good if you're the Browns. we're going to get to the Browns in our very robust stocks down section in a little bit. But this Patriots team, unfortunately, this is not kind of the schedule win that we thought it was going to be.

You know, obviously the Niners get theirs. The Browns are not as good as the Panthers. The Browns have been kind of a disaster. But this was just another performance. Devin McCordy looks like maybe a defensive player of the year candidate. The defense is just unbelievable. I mean, Baker Mayfield, after the game said that the Patriots didn't do anything to confuse them. they were just playing really well.

Yeah. And you kind of wonder, like, isn't that the worst case scenario for a team? They're not even doing anything new. They're just being the crap out of you. I mean, it was amazing. When you think about this Patriots defense, what comes to mind? Yeah, I think a couple things come to mind. Number one, discipline.

You know, that's kind of the hallmark of the Belichick teams is just being really disciplined. And, like, you know, obviously it's such a cliche, but do your job or whatever. that's the first thing. Versatility, you know, they're able to play. It's kind of like what they've been doing on offense over the years. You know, they're able to play different schemes and different styles,

whether, you know, like last week they were just loading up and all out blitzing. They can play zone. They can play man. They got guys that can kind of do it all. You know, you got guys that can rush that can drop. Basically just can do everything. And so, yeah, I just look at that team. It's very versatile, very, very, very disciplined.

and adaptable to whatever they need to be. And that's just, I mean, that's, again, it's just a hallmark of every, like, Belichick coaching and all that. But like you said, they're just really, really talented for, you know, they're the most talented, maybe the most talented defense other than San Francisco right now and add in that coaching,

and it just makes them terrifying. So, yeah, I just think, man, they just look like a, like a band cell right now. They're just like. It's amazing. It's amazing. And one of the things, Justyna Anderson and then talked to Kyle Van Nooy before the game.

He said they don't need to zero blitz, Baker Mayfield. They can do other things to get him rattled. So it was a totally different game plan than it was last week. And I know we harp on this, but just Belchick's ability to be this flexible. And we saw it in the Super Bowl. If you had not seen it for the previous 20 years, you saw it against the Rams, their ability to, okay, Jonathan Jones is safety now. Not only that, he's like the best safety.

And they played around with that in Kansas City game two weeks before, all that stuff. but we are seeing, and it's interesting to me, because I think coach of the year is a narrative award. It's going to go to somebody like Sean Payton who overcame the loss of a quarterback or Kyle Shanahan who went from a mediocre team to a great team in one season, potentially an elite team. Yeah.

Super Bowl contender. We'll see how the next half the season goes. But if you're talking about coaching jobs from a purely schematic football standpoint, Bill Belichick is doing the best coaching job. I mean, really, one of the best in history. I mean, this defense is, like, historically great in an era where you're not supposed to be historically great.

I mean, that's amazing. And their ability to just take the ball. And listen, all props to the Niners, they have a great defense as well. But the ability just take the ball like that. I mean, you know, they're basically just taking it. One play, they just took her from Baker Mayfield for the line of scrimmage. Yeah, they're just, at some point,

they're just going to start. taking the hand. There were two weeks away from Belichick figuring out how to take the hand off from the quarterback. Okay? That's an neck. Adam Butler is just going to start scoring on every play like when he turn off sides off and Madden. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like this is what we're going to get to eventually. Do you think it's kind of strange and this is you alluded to this, but in an era when everything is like tilted towards offense that three of the best teams in NFL this year have really good defenses in the Patriots, the 49ers and the Saints. I mean, it's interesting to me that teams are winning with defense this year, too.

So this happened two years ago, where the top four defenses made the NFC and AFC championship games. And then last year it was the reverse. It was the offenses. And this year, it's coming back to the defenses. And it's really interesting to me, the AFC and NFC title games two years ago were the top four defenses. And last year it was the top four offenses. So the pendulum keeps going and swinging back and forth. And I think that's what's interesting is.

that I don't think there's any rhyme or reason. I think we look too much into the, oh, it's an offensive league or whatever. But I think that what's amazing about what the Patriots are doing is they're doing it, and the Niners are doing this as well. They're not good defenses for 2019. They're just good defenses in the history of football. And that's the really, like, it's okay.

Like the top four teams, the top four defenses two years ago, they were still graded on a curve because the ranking is in 2017. Okay. what the Patriots and Niners are doing is just playing a different sport. I talked to Ron Rivera before the season, and he used the word capitulated when talking about what defenses have done to offense

is because of the rules, because of just the athletes, because the schemes, because defenses hadn't figured out how to swing the pendulum back. Yeah, yeah. And it felt like when I was asking people around the league, it felt like there was just an error of resignation everywhere. And I thought that was really fascinating.

And so when I came into, you know, I was kind of like everybody else, I was waiting to see whether or not the Niners and Patriots who keep this going, knowing what the rules are, knowing what the athletes you like on offense. But I've seen nothing to suggest that at any point,

either of these defenses are going to fall off a cliff. These are legitimately great defenses, and when you consider the error they play in, it's even greater. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you totally said it. It's that much more impressive to me that they're doing that this year.

And I think that you could say that literally every year because the rules are always, going to be designed. I mean, then NFL doesn't even hide from this. The rules are designed to stimulate scoring. Well, I mean, yes and no.

I mean, I feel like part of it is that, yes, while the offenses get every break when it comes to rule changes, I think player health in a lot of way, quarterback health, they want the quarterbacks to be healthy

because they realize that Scott Tolzeen taking over for Aaron Rogers four years ago is not exactly a ratings bonanza. They want quarterbacks healthy and so it's don't touch the quarterback and everything stems from that and i think that you know obviously the emphasis on illegal contact and all that stuff that that's the stuff where it really gets it really gets um you know anti defense i think with that you know i remember talking about matt hasselbeck for a story earlier this year and he was basically saying that there were only

five hits that hit his end of his career and that all of them are now now illegal whether that's body weight stuff whether that's you know helmet to helmet whatever it is but those he could pinpoint the hits the end of his career and then now all illegal. And so if you're Tom Brady or your Drew Brees or your Philip Rivers, you can just play forever. And the NFL wants that. The NFL is not upset that Tom Brady at age 42 can still play football. That's a ratings bananas. And so they understand that a healthy quarterback means a better product. Yeah. And that, I think, is where a healthy thriving quarterback is where attention comes from. And so I think that's where most of the rule changes have come from the last couple of years.

Anything else on the Patriots or the Niners? Well, I was just going to add that, I think, like number one, like you said, a lot of the scoring and quarterback emphasis is related to fantasy football. I was watching from a fantasy football lens today. And I think it's interesting that what the Patriots are doing this week or this year is absolutely super fantasy relevant. They came into the week as the number one or number seven. Sorry, the number seven overall fantasy player.

And then they scored another 20 points this week. It's like completely absurd what they're doing. That is, that is phenomenal. Speaking of fantasy, real quick, who impressed you? I got to say Darius Slayton and the Giants. Danny Dimes actually had a pretty good game this week. And as he's going along, it's becoming more apparent that he really trusts this Slayton guy.

He's a, you know, a mid-round pick. really, really fast, good size. He ran like a sub 4-4 at the combine. Didn't get a lot of hype, but he's really looked really good. You know, he made a couple of really nice contested passes or catches for touchdowns, and then he almost had a third one that just got broken up. So Slayton, to me, was an interesting one. And if Daniel Jones can kind of continue to get his mojo back as a passer going forward,

then he could be a big-time fantasy player, you know, especially with Sturring Shepard kind of up in the air going forward. So I thought he was impressive for sure. Okay. So we're doing something new this week. And it's only going to be a one-time thing. We've moved stock down ahead of stock up because there's way more stock downs

than there are stocks up. Here's the first stock down. It's Freddie Kitchens. The Browns on a 4th and 11 deliberately false started so the offense could return to the field because Freddie Kitchens did not want to burn a final timeout.

Goes from 4th and 11, 11 to 4th and 16. Afterwards, Freddie Kitchen said, he didn't want to give up. Don't really understand that. Wanted to keep his timeouts. I understand. Keeping your timeouts is good. What?

We love timeouts. We all love timeouts. You've had some problems understanding the logic of this, Danny. Yes, I don't understand the content. I'm very confused about what his goal was here. Here's the problem, Danny. You keep asking me that, like, I understand it. before we started and now again,

you're doing the thing where you think that I have any idea what Freddie Kitchens is talking about. Listen, I think it's way too early to start talking about, you know, modern NFL, the way training camps work, the way so many new faces in Cleveland, I'm ready to give Freddie Kitchens as much leeway as possible. But there's some really basic coaching problems here, coaching flaws that have me really worried,

about the direction of the Cleveland Browns. Where are you right now in the Cleveland Browns season? Listen, they lose to the Patriots by two touchdowns. Everyone apparently is going to lose by two touchdowns. Let's not make too big a deal about this specific loss. I'm just reading the tea leaves, and I'm not enjoying the Freddie Kitchens experience as much as many of us on this podcast, thought.

Oh, yeah. I mean, absolutely. I'm kind of in that boat, too. It's disappointing me because I kind of expected them to come in and be really creative and do a lot of, fun things on offense. Like we saw in the second half of last season, I mean,

they ran, you know, wishbone, they were running wishbone stuff in the run game and doing all this kind of fun, creative things that made things easier for Mayfield. And we haven't seen nearly as much of that this season,

you know, it's just been kind of night and day what their offenses look like last year and this year. You know, there's been moments where Kitchens and experience as a play caller is really, really apparent. And he's even admitted that.

You know, it's like, he's like, I just don't have a lot of experience doing this. There was one, I can't remember a couple weeks ago against the Seahawksley, ran a draw play on fourth and nine. And that was kind of like the, I guess the best example of where it's all gone wrong for the, for the Browns this year. But I mean,

that doesn't, like he said, that doesn't necessarily condemn him to be a one and done coach. I agree. I agree. But it's not. not promising, clearly. And, you know, it's definitely, I don't know what the answer is for them. I don't think you can read too much into this game because the Patriots are absolutely freaking dominant. Again, this game, let's put this aside. Everyone's going to lose by two touchdowns

of the Patriots. What everyone's not going to do is intention to take a false start to go into fourth and 16 and then run a play in which Baker Mayfield got drilled on that play. He was coming off hobbling. This was, no part of this was good. No part of this was good. No part of this. was good. Now, moving on, speaking of stocks down, listen, completely different expectations. We did not have a New York Jets week this year. We did not write stories about how much we're going to love the Jets this year and get excited about the Jets. They weren't on the cover of Sports Illustrated in ESPN the magazine. However, it's from Chase Stewart. Adam Gase has now coached 56 games in his NFL career. His teams are more likely to lose by double digits, 25.

than to win the game, 24 games. That's bad. The slack that I'm giving Freddie Kitchens, who's been a head coach for eight games, I'm not going to give to Adam Gase because we've seen this in Miami. Adam Gase is not a good coach. Adam Gays should not have been given more power inexplicably. Listen, let's look at everything in a vacuum here, okay?

It's actually okay to fire Mike McHagdon. Mike McHagdon was a terrible drafter. he made very few good moves outside of perhaps drafting Sam Darmes, who I still think could be a good quarterback. But to do that because Adam Gase came in

and ran a power play, that's worrying. Now, you got Joe Douglas. I really like Joe Douglas. I think that I was surprised Joe Douglas wanted to take this job and even though it seemed preordained because as soon as McHennawis

fired, people were reporting Joe Douglas were going to take it, I'd never question that. but all I question was, why would he take it? He took it. Here's the problem. Are Douglas and Gase because of the sort of the way that the hires were made tied at the hip? Did Gase get Douglas the job and now nobody wants to fire him?

I don't know the answer to that. I don't know the answer. I truly don't. And so what I would do if I was in New York Jets is if some, there's not dramatic improvement, both with the entire team and with Sam Darnold. I would look very seriously at making a move if this disaster continues. I mean, I just,

this is not going to get better. There are so many more people, if you want to do the Redskins thing and just throw money at someone famous, that's better than this. Because you got a guy who was not a quarterback whisperer, okay? And his,

we got the Coletio Assembly thing. That's off to the side of that. I don't even know if that involves case. And that's a disaster. I mean, right now, the Jets, here's the problem, right? the Browns have become a national joke, not because they're bad,

but because of the expectations they have. Right. The Jets have become a national joke because they're just always a national joke. And they continue to be a national joke and they continue to step on it. They are sideshow Bob in the Simpsons continuously stepping on a rake,

rake after rake after rake. That is what the Jets are doing. Say they all lose to Gardner-Minchu and the Jacksonville Jaguars. We'll get to Minchu in a second. but the Jets have to do something to stem this tide because they made an uninspiring coaching hire. Quarterback doesn't seem to be going in the right direction.

He's seeing ghosts of Monday Night Football, a statement I think was a little bit overblown, but it's still very, very, very funny, very funny. Yeah. It's a very specific jet scandal, which is that it's kind of normal for every other team, but it's like 10% just jets flavored. So it's a little funnier the most.

So I don't know, listen, I'm going to, I'm open to Adam Gase being a better coach and I think he is. But at this point, he's won one game since the Miami miracle. Like, let's get the show on the road. I would, yeah. I mean, if I'm, you know, I'm sending in a no, a vote of no confidence on Gase at this point. I was actually texting with noted Jets fan, Ryan O'Hanlon, former, former editor at the ringer. And I was actually, I was texting him about how I think, I'm not actually convinced that,

that Gase isn't purposely doing this, like, just torpedoing the entire team. I mean... To get fired? Who knows? Some people just want to see the world burn. We were comparing him to, like, the Joker kind of thing. You know, like, he, I couldn't, I could not believe the way that he handled the debacle that was that Patriots game last week.

I mean, you know, obviously the Patriots are very, very good, but he just kept dialing up deep shots for Darnold. Like, what, what was the plan here? and why did he keep him in for so long? And then he's like feigning like he's mad about... Wait, I have an answer. Because he's a bad coach. Right.

So yeah, I don't know. I've lost all confidence that he has any ability to kind of write the ship. And I'm losing confidence in Darnold as well, which I was really high on Darnold coming into the NFL. But I mean, at this point, he has, I think, 22 interceptions or 22 touchdowns to 23 interceptions in 17 career starts. That was a huge problem for him in college, the propensity to, you know, turn the ball over and just heave up terrible, terrible passes.

I don't think this marriage is going to work between Gase and Darnel. It just clearly doesn't seem to be, you know, a good match. So, I don't know. I'm just really, really discouraged about what the jets are doing. Because I was excited, you know, a little bit. You were the guy? You were the one guy? Well, I was, I guess, looking forward to seeing if the Jets could do anything promising,

but it's absolutely a disaster. And, yeah, I think they need to make a change. Hey, Danny. What's that? It's the Jets and the Giants merge, and you're the GM. You get to take one quarterback. Who are you taking? Dimes or Donald?

Oh, my God. I'm still taking Darnold because Dimes has the exact same problem. I was going to say, that's the funny, the funny, even if you did the weird thing we're like, well, if we take the best traits of him and the way, it's like, no, they have the exact same problems. Yeah, they're shockingly similar, I guess. But yes, I still am higher on Darnold, but I mean, man, it's just, it's ugly. It's not been good.

And yeah, I don't know what the solution is because I just haven't seen anything that would indicate, you know, that, like you said, that gase is a good coach. I mean, they, like, we've seen so many teams go through injuries at the quarterback position. and the Jets became literally the worst offense. Worst offense in history. The history of football since 1976 or something like that. When they lose Darnold. And I mean, to me that just says a lot about the state of like their offense,

the state of their scheming, their ability to adapt. A lot of teams have gotten through it. The Jets did nothing that showed me any of that. So, yeah, I'm not promised. I don't think it's, and there's not much to be excited about right now for that. All right. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. Hiring can be a slow process.

Cafe A Altura's CEO O'L. Dillon Miskavits needed to hire a director of coffee for his organic coffee company, but he was having trouble finding qualified applicants. So we switched to ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you, it finds them for you. Its technology identifies people with the right experience and invites them to apply to your job. So you get qualified candidates fast. Dylan posted his job and ZipRecruiter and said he was impressed by how quickly he had great candidates apply. He also used ZipRecruiter's candidate rating feature to filter his applicants so he could focus on the most relevant ones. And that's how Dylan found his new director of coffee in just a few days. With results like that, it's no wonder four out of five employees who post on ZipRecruiter

get a quality candidate within the first day. See why ZipRecruiter is effective for businesses of any size. Try ZipRecruiter for free at our web address, ZipRecruiter.com slash ringer NFL. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Ringer NFL. ZipRecruiter.com slash ringer NFL. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. Support for today's show also comes from sideline, the free real-time prediction app that lets you get more out of live sports.

Look, anyone who listens to this podcast knows that I can get excited by watching a random second quarter Kyle Shanahan play action concept, but I can still acknowledge that every moment of every game can't be as exciting as that is for me, or as a Pat Mahomes deep bomb is for, you know, a normal person. That's where sideline comes in. With sideline, you get to predict what will happen next and make money doing it. Sideline is the game about the game. It's not all insidery like daily fantasy sports.

It's not complicated like live prop betting. Sideline is fun and super easy to play. Just join the game before kickoff and answer the questions like, will the Cowboys have more rushing or passing yards on this drive? Or will Aaron Donald Sack to Sean Watts in the next five minutes? Get five right and boom. You just want some kids. And did I mention it's free to play?

Sideline, the game about the game. Download it now by searching sideline sports in the Apple app store or visit Winsideline. com. That's Winsideline.com. Okay, a couple more stock downs. Chicago Bears spent eight months trying to fix their kicker situation. It couldn't have gone worse. So Kaelin Kaler writes the Sports Illustrated story a couple months ago about how essentially

they had a nine guy try out at one time, which everyone said was highly unorthodox. They showed them a video. They talked about the double doink all the time. Everyone thought it was a little bit much, but it was for a goal when it was to not lose a game on a kick again. And it's, here we are.

It's still bad. Matt Nagy. Matt Nagy, I still think he's a pretty good coach, but Bears fans seem to not think that. We'll probably get more comments later in the league from Robert Mays on this. But it's really funny to me.

That funny is not the right word because actually it's very serious. That Matt Nagy spent eight months worried about the kicking game and let a lot of other problems fall by the wayside. I don't think he was nearly as urgent as he should have been with this offense. I don't think he was treating Trubisky's potential regression, I guess if you want to call it that, with nearly the urgency you should have been dealing with. this is not a good football team right now. And, you know, look, the Philadelphia Eagles,

I was saying about this, about them last week. They were not a good football team last week, and I was ready to kick them out of the playoffs, but they have one bounce back week. I'm ready to talk myself into the bears if they have one bounce back week. Okay? I just need to see it, because right now I'm not seeing it.

They lost to a pretty bad Chargers team at home on a kick. They were super conservative. Matt Nagy wouldn't even entertain the idea of running more plays to get more yards for the kick. that is such a vote of no confidence in your quarterback that it makes me question every single thing about your franchise. If that's how you view your third year quarterback, then you shouldn't have him a quarterback.

If you can't have him make a play to get you a few more yards, and by the way, he made a play with his legs right before. Let's trust our quarterback. Either you can trust your quarterback or you need a new quarterback. That is the thing that bothers me the most. I think about this whole situation is, number one it's not like trubisky so there's there's a tipping point for quote mobile quarterbacks where you were coaches i think have to make them so they have to play from the pocket

you know because at some point you're going to lose your athletic ability you're going to lose that quick twitch muscle fiber to be such a dynamic rusher we saw it with russell wilson after a few years they decided they want to try to make him more of a pocket pass or he still does like every once in a while he'll do like a keeper or whatever but yeah he's much more of just like a regular dropback passer than he was early on his career when he was very much a dual threat. We have not reached that point with Chubisky. We don't even know if Chubisky is going to be a long-term starter at this point. So like the idea of going away from some of his best skills and he's very, you know, he has that ability to be a dual threat guy, you know, uses athleticism as a runner.

It would make things easier on their run game, which has been completely ineffective in many, in many, of their game so far this year. I just, I don't understand why they've kind of gone away from that when that's like a big part of his skill set. Yep. So last stock down, we just, this is, this has just been a absolute feast of stockdowns. Thanksgiving is coming early for stock downs. Is it stock down or stocks down? I think it's stocks down. Stocks down. The last stock's down, last of the stocks down, the Denver Broncos outside of Joe Flacco, 52 people in the Denver Broncos. and then Joe Flacco, he's a stock up. Joe Flacco's called out his coaching staff

for being afraid to lose, even though they lose all the time, which I just love this. You know, it's one of those things, I understand this, right? And so I was texting with someone, it was actually during the, it's a boxing thing, but it was during the last Danny Jacobs fight against Canelo.

And somebody was telling me, why doesn't he just open, why doesn't Danny Jacobs is going to lose the fight? Why do you just open up and go for broke? and the 12th round, all this stuff. And it's easier said than done. You know, you take those big shots. You leave yourself very vulnerable. I understand that.

But at some point, you do have to go for broke. You do have to say we're a bad football team if we don't take chances. I'd love to see a team like the Denver Broncos just stop punting. Yeah. For real. Who cares? Who cares? What are you going to do?

What are you going to lose more? They can't put two losses on your record for one loss, brother. Like, just let it rip. just let it rip that that's i'm continually disappointed in and teams like the Denver broncos who just have no no gung-ho attitude about them they never go for broke i mean just like fortune favors the bold my guys let's go and joe flacco seems to understand that it's kind of funny to me now one one flaw in this logic is that joe flacco wants to get more aggressive and the problem is if that was listened to the quarterback in that situation would be joe flacco which is a

which is a problem. That's a perfect way of framing it. Yeah. This is the first time in a long time I've remembered liking Flacco, but then I remember Flacco's back. Can I say something real quick? Flacco's going to be an amazing TV analyst. He's going to be great.

He's just super, super blunt and super like just smart and straightforward. He's going to be great. I think that his style of play, which was kind of boring and, you know, it kind of wins that Super Bowl gets his, big contract never really plays up to that specific contract. Obviously, the Super Bowl, it's worth all the money, whatever. But because of the kind of reputation he's gotten as a player the last couple years, I think people have not understood how like interesting of a guy he is. And so he's,

and change the wrong word. But his press conferences are vastly underrated. I'm in on Joe Flacco in the CBS booth in like, you know, in, in, in Houston, in two years. No, next year, please. Next year? Week 15 of this year? Yeah, just ASAP, really. All right. We're going to get to a stock up really quickly. And the reason I want to bring up, I'm only going to stock up because I want to praise Deshaun Watson. Deshaun Watson threw a touchdown with one eye.

He said he was blind. He gets kicked in the eye. He looks like a boxer after the game. He's an amazing human being. Yep. A couple of things on back from this game. Number one, as we said, we love to Sean Watson. Number two, John Gruden is a pretty decent coach.

And I think that Raiders team is better than we think. Number three, JJ Watt out for the season. This is a huge blow for a team that we think is a fringe contender and could have won one or two playoff games now without JJ Watt. I think for the third time in four years. This is becoming kind of a football tragedy. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, God, it wasn't too long ago when he was like a multiple defensive player

of the year award winner like Aaron. like Aaron Donald plus is just crazy to think about how like injuries have derailed. Was he Aaron Donald plus because he could play tight end? Yeah, because of the touchdowns for sure. And the commercials and the brothers. He had he had, you know, the, the TJ and those guys. It was just, it was, it was a lot of JJ Watt. We saw a lot of JJ Watt when he was at his peak.

Yeah, I mean, there's not much to say about this except that it sucks. Yeah. I feel bad for him. And this is a huge blow for, again, a team that is a. borderline. If they played in the AFC championship game before this, it wouldn't

surprise me. I need to see what they looked like without him, but they did have a lot of depth despite, listen, we knew that this team

was going to have talent because they went all in on this year. They traded two first round picks from Laramette Tunsell. This may be the best shot they have in a few years because of sort of the capital they've spent on the 2019 roster.

And so for you to lose a guy like JJ Watt, that's not what you want, as now what Rubin would say. It puts the onus on the offense to be just about perfect. Oh, wow. We're putting more pressure on to Sean Watson who already, like, does he have to fly the team playing at this point?

If he can fly, if he can fly because of his ribs. But like, let's ask, let's ask Sean Watson to do more. He's already running the franchise. What if he were the GM? That would be better, right? Yeah, he probably wouldn't have just given away to Davian Clowny.

But that's just me. So I think when, when the Texans offense is on, it is one of the most fun, most explosive, and best offenses in the NFL. And I think that alone just gives them a shot in what's a pretty wide open AFC field outside New England and partly KC.

So, yeah, I mean, I think they're still in it. This isn't devastating necessarily, the Watt injury, but yeah, it's just, the margin of error is just got smaller with that offense. And if they have a bad day, then that's, you know, they don't have something to fall back on. Yep.

Next stock up, Andy Reid just schemed Matt Moore into a quarterback duel with Aaron Rogers. Yep. This is going to be pro. It's not that surprising, is it? This is going to be a pro-Green Bay. The stock up is actually Green Bay, but we need to just give five seconds a praise to Andy Reed, who is just a master. His ability to some of those play action plays were just perfect.

We don't need to keep going on Andy Reid because we've talked about his scheme ad nauseum here. Green Bay. Aaron Jones is like a damn player. Aaron Rogers is making the throws that we anticipated Aaron Rogers making. This looks like a pretty complete team. Now,

we know that Andy Reid punted the game away essentially. We know that maybe against the back of quarterback, the margin victory should have been a little bigger. But to go on the road against a pretty good Kansas City team and get this win, they show me what I needed to say. That throw that Rogers made to,

I think it was Jamal Williams in the back of the end zone. He's falling down, just chucks it up. That had to be up there with the best throws of the entire season, right? Like that was an amazing, amazing throw. I think it's amazing to me that Aaron Rogers, and listen, he is statistically from a, you know, week one through 17 viewpoint is not the quarterback he was in 2011 or 2014 or whatever, 2013.

But I guess it was her a few years in there. But listen, he's not at his MVP level. But his ability to make throws that only Patrick Mahomes can make, I mean, it's really amazing. I think that speaking of football tragedies, the fact that Mahomes is not on the field for this game was a real disappointment. I'm not saying I should have rushed him back. I certainly do not. I think they should have rushed him back.

But had he not gotten hurt with the throws that Rogers is making right now, this would have been one of the most fun regular season games of the decade. And I'm upset that the football gods robbed us of this. But I'm also happy that the chiefs didn't rush Patrick Mahomes back. I think they should, someone said the report was he might be back for the next game. I think you just give them, let's go total load management, give them like two more games off. Let's, let's not rush Patrick Mahomes back. And the last thing football needs is Patrick Mahomes with lingering injury.

Let's get them all the, let's get them all the rest he can get. Anything else on the backers? I just think it's amazing what they're doing. Well, number one, Aaron Jones is a stud. He's a star. And the way that they're using him as a. receiver particularly has been really impressive to me. I mean, I think that that's a credit to Matt Lafleur.

Obviously, it's a credit to Jones and Rogers and scheming up ways to get him involved in vertical routes downfield, which is what we were really hoping to see prior to the season because that's what, you know, we've seen the Rams do with Gurley. And we've seen the 49ers do that. And Shanahan's offenses over the years have done that. So I think that's been really fun to watch getting Lefleur, getting Jones into that Lafleur offense. and letting him become a star because that's just he's awesome. He's really explosive and dynamic.

I also just think it's really fun to watch that Rogers is playing like Peak Vintage Rogers without DeMonte Adams. And he's passing to guys like Alan Lazard, Jake Kumero, Valdez Scantling and Allison. I mean, there's just, you know, they, we heard Packers fans despair over the fact that the Packers hadn't invested any draft picks or many draft picks and in receivers over the last few years and with good reason,

but then these guys have stepped up, number one, and number two, I think just it tells you how good Aaron Rogers has been playing, how well he's been playing, just the fact that he can get these guys involved in the offense. And so overall, the Packers have been fun. The number, like, early in the season, I was like, man, their defense is so, so good.

And now it's definitely the story of the team has been like how good their offense is now. And if they can kind of get those two things to click at the same time, this could be another like juggernaut team I think. So NFL next gen stats put this out. Jamal Williams, when Rogers threw that pass, was 0.8 yards from the back of the end zone.

He had less than a yard to move before he was out of bounds and Aaron Rogers got it to him. I mean, that is, that is vintage Rogers. That's exactly what you're talking about. It's vintage, vintage Rogers. Eagles bounced back. I mean, this was the game we all expected from them. I think this is probably the game a little bit we expect it from the bills.

Just, listen, I still think the bills are going to make the playoffs. And I really like that Bill's team. This was not, you know, I don't think that this is, no one's accusing the bills of being exposed or anything or nobody's legitimate. But, you know, Josh, both quarterbacks, weird weather, couldn't really throw the ball. Both quarterbacks under 200 yards. Yeah, super windy, right? Yeah, Josh Allen was the top runner for the bills, 40. yards. That was a little different. Yeah, super windy, super gross, weird game, but the Eagles put up 31 points.

And that's, you know, this is, this is, listen, I'm still skeptical and holding out on the Eagles. They're four and four at this point. I'm not ready to say that they're the team I thought they were, but they just have to keep doing this. And I'm just so, I'm like a disappointed parent with the Eagles. Yeah. And also, the worst part is, is that we're, tonight is tonight we have to file our midseason and predictions so for the rest of the year. I had celebrated the fact that I was, I was going to get to not have the Eagles when I Super Bowl pick anymore and then they win

by three touchdowns on the road and now, oh, geez. So I don't even know what to do. I think I might pick him to win the NFC East like an idiot. I think it's exciting. The thing that stuck out to me in this game was, it was exciting what they were doing with Miles Sanders.

It's kind of the same lines of the Aaron Jones thing. They're using him as a like a verse vertical receiver on vertical routes on the field. He has, I think I saw he has more 25-yard receptions than anyone else on the team. So he's just, you know, he's a big play waiting to happen. They haven't really integrated him into their run game very much in the beginning of the year. Jordan Howard is definitely like the guy on the ground for them.

But he brings that sort of explosive ability. He had a, I think a 65-yard touchdown run in this game. And on a play where both Howard and Sanders were on the field. So there's, I don't know, there's some things that they could do with that guy that he's, I think he was their second or third rounder. He's, he's taken pretty early. I'm, I confuse both him in Montgomery, but I think he was a second rounder. And so, I mean, they obviously had a vision for him.

And we're starting to kind of, yeah, yeah, exactly. Super athlete, very, you know, versatile, very, very explosive. And I think we're starting to see kind of like flashes of that. So hopefully they can get him more involved because that's one thing that's really been missing from their offense is not having to Sean. Jackson, not that Sanders and Jackson are the same player, but just having an explosive speed element, I think, helps a lot. And Sanders is the type of guy that can exploit mismatches. Okay, last thing, Gardner Manchu, he's now avoiding pressure like, I don't even know,

Lamar Jackson. I mean, he's just, I'm joking, but he, he looked really good today. And he beat the Jets, so let's not go overboard on this. But Nick Foles is eligible to play, should he? I think they should stick with Munchu personally. I mean, and I'm a Foles fan. Like, I like Foles. I think he's a very, very solid quarterback and could make, in theory, could be like a good fit on the Jaguar's offense.

But I've been really, really impressed with what I've seen from Minchu. I think I tweeted out today. He's just really good at buying himself an extra beat or two to make throws downfield. He keeps plays alive. And he's not like a scrambler in the same mold is like a Josh Allen or like you said,

like Lamar Jackson. But he's got functional, I guess maneuverability in the pocket and like outside the pocket where he can make guys miss, keep his eyes down field, keep making plays. And I think he had one touchdown

on a play like that where he just made a guy miss and kept the play alive. And he's very accurate. He's had a couple of down-ish games over the last couple weeks. We bounced back hard today. And that was good to see.

It's just, I think he's made the decision very, very difficult for the Jaguars. I don't know what they're going to do. But if it was me, the way that he's kind of galvanized, I think, that whole offense and really the fan base, it says a lot about how good he is and how good he could be. I think he has a skill set to be a very good player. And so I'm just high on Minchu.

I don't know if he's going to keep the starting job. I would not surprise me at all if the jags ended up going back to Foles just because of the money thing. all that, but I don't know if I'm then. I kind of just go with Minchu and see where it takes you. So on that touchdown pass, the one I was joking about this mobility, his quote after the game was,

I just kind of blacked out on that one. Which is what you did you start from Garlandish? The tank, yeah. Okay, Danny, thank you for joining me. Yeah, absolutely, man. This has been great. Thanks for pinch hitting. Appreciate it.

Of course. All right, thanks for listening. We'll be back with another show on Thursday on the Ringer podcast. Network.