The Ringer NFL Show - Don’t Count Out the Bengals, D’Andre Swift Keeps the Eagles' Arrow Pointing Up, and More Big Takeaways From Week 3 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Sheil and Ben get together to share their takes on a 'MNF' doubleheader that saw the Bengals defeat the Rams and the Eagles dominate the Bucs. Next, Sheil airs out his many issues with Raiders coach Josh McDaniels, while Ben praises Pete Carroll’s ability to right the ship up in Seattle (20:39). They then debate whether the Bears' rock-bottom status might be good for the team in the long run and examine the Cowboys' continuing red zone woes (45:26). Sheil ends the pod with his extra point on the future of the Jets with Zach Wilson at the helm (55:45). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Social: Kiera Givens and Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Hopefully everybody can understand. We'll try to win some money along the way. and be sure to subscribe to the ring of gambling feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Come to Extra Point Take and Shield Capati here, joined by Ben Solac, coming off another Monday Night Football doubleheader. Is this our last of the season?

I don't know, Ben, but the... God willing. God willing. The Bengals beat the Rams, the Eagles beat the box. We're going to touch on those games. We're going to get to the rest of the week three slate, what we saw, what stood out, big storylines,

how we're feeling after week three. But first of all, how are you feeling, Benjamin Solac? I'm in football. Pretty good. Here we are in the swing of things. Three weeks, you start to finally get to be like, okay, this team is kind of like this. That team's kind of like that.

You see them against a couple defenses. You get it up, you get it down. It's a little bit easier to calibrate, I think, to where everybody is. Like, Jaguars have lost two. The bucks have lost one. The Rams are one and two. Like, we're figuring things out a little bit more

than we did previously. Maybe. We'll see. That leads me to my first take here. We got the Bengals winning, like I said, over the Rams, Joe Burrow plays with the calf injury. My take, first take, I'm not giving up on this Bengals team.

I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, Sheal, the way they played that game, come on, that's not sustainable. They eked out a win against the lowly Rams. They scored 19 points. Joe Burrow couldn't move. He just sat in shotgun. He couldn't escape pressure, nothing under center.

And this injury's not going anywhere. This wasn't like a one-time thing. He's going to be dealing with this for a while. There's truth to all of that. But to what you said there in the open, and I didn't tell you what my first take was going to be, Ben, I think we forget how long the season is. I mean, think about last year.

The Bengals were four and four after eight games last season. They go on a huge run. They're absolutely a legit Super Bowl contender by the time we get to the playoffs. The Jaguars were two and six. They finished nine and eight. The Steelers were two and six. They finished nine and eight.

So I'm looking at this Bengals team. And listen, this might just be me telling myself a story. I'm curious to hear what you think in a minute here because I picked the Bengals to win the Super Bowl before the season. And I don't want to give up on the Bengals because I really like them watching them play football. I like watching Joe Burrow play football. But to me, this is about just like a week-to-week survival.

This is almost like playing in the NCAA tournament here for the Cincinnati Bengals. Like that's what it felt like against the Rams where Lou Anorumo, it's like, oh, baby, Lou is breaking out the special stuff for this game in week three, huh? Oh, my God, Matthew Stafford. His head is spitting. One for 11 on third down. Six sacks, two takeaways.

I mean, they couldn't even drop back and pass the football in the fourth quarter of that game, except for the one late drive they had there. So going to need you, Lou Aniruma, going to need you Logan Wilson and T. T. Hendrickson and everybody else on that Bengals defense, going to need you Jamar Chase to play like you did on Monday night. T. Higgins is going to need you to play better than you did on Monday night. You're going to need all these. pieces to kind of come together for them to just survive the first half of this season. And my hope

is that by the time we get to December, we're seeing, ooh, Joe Burrow, okay, a little more under center this week. Oh, did you see Joe Burrow escape that one sack there in week 10? The calf maybe it's feeling a little bit better. So to me, the scope of their season has changed. Like I thought they could be the number one seed in the AFC. That is no longer what I think they're one and two. And like I said, barely won a game. But I do still think there's the possibility of like a 10 and 7 season where they sneak into the playoffs, where they're getting, where they're peeking at the right time, where Joe Burroughs feeling healthier. And by the way, we'll give him credit. We take this stuff for granted, but like I can't imagine what the calf injury felt like. Me or you would probably

say, let's delay the podcast this week. We're in pain. The guy goes out there, was not perfect, but does what he needs to do, make some nice throws. They scheme it up the way they need to, and they get a win. So I'm not throwing them out yet. I'm still saying it's holding out some hope if you're a Bengals fan that maybe you weren't all encouraged by that win Monday night,

but it's a long season. Let's just survive week to week and see where you are later in the season. Yeah, no, my week, my three weekend comment was more about like the identity of teams, the character of teams. Like, okay, you all thought, like every team thought they got better

in every single position. And you could talk yourself into that in the off season if you wanted to. You start to like, realize, like, okay, this unit actually is this problem. Oh, they actually did. Like, these pieces do work for them. For the Bengals, I will not count this Bengals team out until the bell rings because I

did that in 2021 and they went on an insane postseason run. I did that in 2022 and they fixed the offense halfway through the season. Like, this team's just been good at scraping it together, right? This is a very tough team. This team wins ball games. And I agree with you. Like, we went to Rumo last night, man. I mean, that's my boy.

I continue to have few individual games every season. Hit Big Lou. Big Lou's been out of the Ben Solac umbrella for quite some time. Such an impressive defensive coordinator. There will be few games every year that impress me more from a defensive game planning perspective than some of the games that Lou Anirumo puts out on a yearly basis. And it's always against top 10 quarterbacks. I haven't updated the stat in a bit.

but during the 2022 season, if you took, like, Loo's games against, like, Herbert, MVP Rogers, Mahomes, Lamar, and, like, just like the best quarterbacks you can think of, Josh Allen, and it just averaged out their performances, they were like Mac Jones.

Like, his ability to take, like, and like Stafford's not an elite guy, but Stafford, great start of the season through two weeks looking like the old Stafford, top 10 quarterback, and just pumpkins them. Just everybody hits midnight when they, when they're going to go against Lou

when they're these elite quarterbacks and they're nearly league quarterbacks on these runs. So I agree with you, like, Lou, the defense, the bones of the defense are still great. The thing about the Bengals, like, I know I just said, I can calibrate the teams now. The Bengals I still can't calibrate to. This is a ridiculous offense. It's an offensive offense. Not in a good way. It's, it's, it's

an affront to the sport. That it's just like, all right, one step, drop back and immediate throw. Like, Joe Burrow just so clearly cannot move. And it is great that toughness and when wanting to be out there with your boys, I'm so worried about him getting actually hurt long term.

Like, you can run this offense with a different quarterback. You can do like the kind of function of the same stuff because like, you're not maximizing Burroughs talent at all by running the offense like this. And you're risking that every time Aaron Donald gobbles him up, the calf gets worse. Like, he retweeted it at the end of we two. I don't know why they feel so okay with him being out there just doing this. Like, I would be, if I was Zach Taylor, like, even talking about it, now my butt cheeks are clenched. I'd be on the sideline just like every single hit, just like gritting my teeth, praying that he gets back up.

I'm worried about his long-term health. If he's going to be playing at like 80, 85%, which I think is about where he's at for the foreseeable future, I just, I'm so scared that they're going to incur a real legitimate long-term injury that he has to sit for, and that's really going to cripple their season. Well, but is long-term, long-term is beyond this season or long-term is this season? because like if he sits, okay, but if he sits, then you're sitting him for what? Like how many games? Like a month, six weeks and you think when Jake Browning and Reed, like, they can't run this

offense with those guys. If they had a good backup, then maybe I would say, okay, yeah, maybe they got Jake Browning and Reed Sinette as their backups. And we can, you know, take them the task for what are you doing going into season with these guys as your backup quarterbacks? I think that's absolutely fair. But I still think, like, that was week one, you know, the first time he, I know he's been injured like previously in the season, but that was like a different level where it's like,

no, no, no, you have to play this exact way. Like maybe it takes some. All right, now I got used to it a little bit. Now what I, now I know what I have to do. Like, I think there's a possibility he comes out next week and looks better. Like he's so accurate. He's so smart. He's decisive. He's got great instincts. Like, obviously they're not maximizing the Joe Burrow experience because they can't because the guy can't move. But I don't know. I don't, I don't think that the other, like the other options to me, the season's over. if you sit him for like three weeks or something. I think, so firstly, they have, you said,

Jake Browning and Reed Senate, you're absolutely right. They had Trevor Simeon in camp, cut him, and he's a street free agent. I don't understand why he's not back. He's the one guy who has a starting experience. Like, I'm not going to sit here and be like, wow, Trevor Simeon, but you can't tell me that Simian's not a better backup

than Jake Browning and Reed Senate are. So there's that for number one. Number two is, okay, the framework that I was just using was he's out for a month, he's out for six weeks, and you say, but if they have to put Jake Browning out there for four weeks, but there's no way they're pulling this off.

I agree with you. There's a different framework for long term, which is the more than four weeks, the more than six week one. I don't know how calves work, but I think if Burrow gets hit and he's down, he's got to get carted off the field, you breathe a sigh of relief on the next day

when you learn he's only out for four weeks, and the out for six weeks, because it could have been way worse. It could have been the season. You could have been rehabbing him in the summer. And so I just don't like seeing a player who is so clearly hurt playing this early in the season when like the problem isn't fully solvable.

The issue with his health isn't like 100% solved. Like you can't just plug Trevor Simeon in and go. It won't be 100% the same. But it feels like you should be able to get Burrow on the bench for two weeks, on the bench for three weeks, be two and four when he comes back and then say, all right, Joe, let's do the thing we always do. Let's go and finish and get well strong in November

and beat some ASC contenders and make a push for the playoffs. Like, you just pay this guy, 275 million, $255 million? You got to, I feel like some more long-term vision in the room would be nice. Yeah, I mean, the issue is with an injury like this, it's, we can't speak in absolutes because, like, well, you just, I mean, he had, what, six weeks between when he injured the calf and week one,

and he re-injured it. So, like, you don't know. How much better is he going to look like in two weeks? In three, so I'm with you. If there's, like, and I will never give the NFL teams the benefit of the doubt with this stuff. Luckily, with people like Joe Burrow, you have agents and other people in your corner who will be like, no, no, we're not doing that. Like, we have a long career ahead of us. So I know he's a gamer. I know obviously these guys always want to play. And

you're right. If there's like legitimate, hey, long term as in like beyond this year type damage you could do just based on this entry, then I would be with you. It seems to me like what would happen is he would re-indred it and yeah, he would be out for a while. And you'd, you'd be out for a while. your season would be sunk. But to me, if you sit him for whatever, three, four weeks, I know you say still be two and four, like he might come back and he might re-injured on the first possession and he might look like the same guy. So there's no easy answer.

I'm fine. If everyone in his corner says, no, it's okay, you can play. We'll figure it out. And if the team says it's okay, and he goes out there and we get this version of him and you just try to survive and you're doing treatment during the week and you see what it looks like three, four weeks from now, I think that to me is probably the best case scenario for the Bengals. But you're absolutely right. There is a worst case. There is a worst case scenario here, which very well could be realized when you look at how we looked on Monday night. All right,

Benny Souls hit me with your first take of the show. What do you got? Yeah, the second game in the double header was the Eagles bucks. Eagles went at 25 to 11. And score got me, by the way. Weird game, rain at some point, interception into a safety. Good times are had by all. Can I say there's almost nothing I care about less than squaragami? You're so lame, dude. That is the ground shield coming. That is the grout shield coming out. But anytime, I should mute this.

I wish I could mute this in my life. I do not. You can. At all. You can mute the Twitter account. In my life, like when you started talking, if in my life somehow came down and it was like, I can't even hear what he's saying right now. All right.

Sorry, go ahead. That was rude. I interrupted you. How many people talk to you about squaragami live? person, not online. This is maybe the first time it's ever happening. I wish you just mute Ben, which is not good podcasting. For those who don't know, Skorogami is the idea.

It was piloted by John Boyes, I believe. I might be wrong on that. But Skorogami is the idea of identifying unique final scores in NFL games. And so when the box game ends 25 to 11, you go NFL history. Has any game ever ended 25 to 11? No, this is the first time the games ended 25 to 11. Nobody like changes their life. off of this. This is like, bro the chair. She's like, oh, that's cool. And then that's it.

I will say my editor does have a group chat with his friend, so they take a shot every time those are scorgami. So his life is affected by scuragami. But generally, no one's life is like, actually affected. Just like, oh, what a unique gizmo? What a quirk? How nice. Then you move on. So anyway. Now I'm not only offending you. Now I'm offending other colleagues at the Rish. She'll just sometimes shut up and let him do his take. Yeah, just let people enjoy things. 25 to 11 is the final score. My main takeaway is that. We might be seeing a historic rushing team in the Philadelphia Eagles. I don't know if you if you check the stats there, Sheel.

The Eagles right now are successful on 56.6% of their rushes I have from True Media. The next, the best single season mark since 2000 is the chiefs at 49.9. They're currently good. They're currently good 6% of points. of second place. Now, this isn't going to continue, right? They played the Brian Flores, Minnesota Vikings and the Todd Bulls, Tampa, Buccaneers, both of which were teams that wanted to blitz them and spin safeties and do a lot of chaotic stuff. And when you do chaotic stuff, you become a little bit liable in the box. It's harder to be really sound against the run.

You have a guy for every single gap, and he's playing the run. He's crushed size to play the run, so on and so forth. And against both teams, you saw the Eagles just decide to become a running team. DeAndre Swift, with back-to-back, 100. 30-yard rushing games. I saw from Ruben Frank, who covers the Eagles, that he already has, there are only three players in Eagles history, who've had more 130 rushing-yard games in a season.

That's going to go down a little bit. But we have to remember last year in 2022, the Eagles had a 48% success rate rushing the football. That's sixth since 2000. Like, this team was just at the top. This team was just doing it about as well as it's been done previous history, about as well as it's been done in history. This year, it feels like they're going to be

a little bit more invested in the running game through three weeks, because D'Andre Swift is giving them a lot more talent at running back than they got out of Miles Sanders, right? They didn't walk in with him as the starter, can you gain a little injury? But through two weeks, you're at the point where you're like, all right, we legitimately, earnestly need to talk about making sure in the week that we have a game plan for D'Andre Swift.

We have to make sure we have ways to get him activated, get the ball rolling in a way that I don't think they thought about Miles Sanders last season. So as long as that truth remains, and Jalen Hertz is not necessarily had as good of a passing season as he had last season. I think they're relying on the running game a little bit more as they figure that out. I think you're going to see the Eagles continue to be more successful than not. When they just hand the football off or they call an option run. This offensive line is not going away, man.

I mean, they can incur injury, but they have great depth along the front. They have an offensive line coach in Jeff Stoutland, a head coach Nick Siriani, who have worked together for a few years now, who know that they can trust one another, who know this offensive line can get them out of tight spots. they're going to continue to run the football. And in a modern NFL where, like, defenses are increasingly investing in run defense, I think this train is going to keep rolling.

So keep an eye on the Eagles rushing game every single week because I think this could end up being the best rushing attack that we've seen by success rate in this century. Yeah, every draft season, like Howie Roseman or somebody in the building, convinces, like, some national draft next that they're going to draft a running back in the first round.

And I don't think that that would, will ever be the case, although I think, you know, the Christian McCaffrey year, maybe, but I don't think that's going to be the case. However, last spring, I remember thinking like, oh, man, like, I am, you know, I think listeners would know I'm pretty much in the bag for the whole positional value thing, but I was like, oh, man, it would be really interesting to see what this looked like with Bejan Robinson next to Jalen Hertz, this offensive line, this scheme, because we talked about this a little bit on the ringers-filly special. Like, you looked at Miles Sanders' numbers last year.

And if you looked at it statistically, you would absolutely make the case. He was a top eight, top 10 back. If you just look at efficiency, all the nerd stats, basically, I don't need to go over all of them. But anyone who watched the film or watch the games, you were never really like, wow, Miles Sanders is amazing.

He's the thing that's making this whole thing go. There was always that part of you that was like, what if they got a more dynamic back in there? And so even Kenny Gainwell previously in his career with the Eagles, again, efficiency stats were off the chart, but you were like, well, is that Kenny Gainwell, or is that the offensive line, Jalen hurts, the scheme, all the other stuff? And now D'Andre Swift, like, DeAndre Swift is not a top 10 most talented back in the NFL, but he's more talented than those other guys. And he's already got three runs of 20 plus yards. I mean, he looks explosive. He's seeing, you're not seeing the stuff where he dances around too much.

He doesn't go where the play is designed to go. Like, he's going where the play is designed to go. And then he's making someone miss. And all of a sudden, that eight, nine yard run from last year, is turning into like a 25-yard run. So, yeah, it's not even just the efficiency. I feel like it's the explosiveness, too, with this Eagles offense. And you look at all the overall offensive metrics, even though the passing game has not kind of hit its stride yet, they're still up there and basically all of them

because they're running the ball at a clip that's way more efficient than any other team in the NFL. So I think that's a good one. They had this luxury that they can just lean on it. Hey, the passing game's not working. Well, you know what? Let's just run the ball over and over and over again. It's like the sports talk radio thing where, like,

the caller calls in and you're like, no, no, no, you can't do that. But with the Eagles, like, no, no, you actually can just do that. When things aren't working, hand the ball off. I mean, they had a drive at the end of that game. They take off nine minutes and 22 seconds at the end of the game. And like, Eagles fans probably are just taking that for granted because that's what it's been like for two, three years there. That's uncommon to be able to just do that. So, yeah, I think that's a good call. That's something they're going to lean on. And it will be interesting to see, you know, how much different does it look than kind of previous iterations of that rushing offense. Yeah, Ruben Frank, the three players with more 130-yard rushing games in

a season are Stephen Buren, LaShawn McCoy and Miles Sanders, but it's week three, and those guys did over the course of the season. Swift is presenting for the Eagles a more talented back with Bell cow potential, back with three-down lion's share of the carries potential, then we've seen it in quite a bit. And that is a scary thing, because you're not supposed to have a Super Bowl offense and then trade a four, three, round pick three years in the future for a guy and have that be your only major addition and have the offense get dramatically better.

That's just annoying. That's so well done by Howie. You're not supposed to ledge upon Hargrave walk for a $20 million contract, draft Jalen Carter and then have Jalen Carter be second in the league and defensive tackle pressures only to J. Vaughn Hargrave. You're not supposed to be able to just do

this. And the fact that the Eagles went to the Super Bowl and I've just pretty quickly and pretty effectively plugged some major gaps and made some improvements at some weaker spots. is impressive. They got injuries in the secondary. They got stuff to figure out in the passing game, but it's hard not to still feel arrow up about the Eagles. They're 3-0, and they've barely looked like

the juggernaut they were last season, so we know what it can look like. It's an impressive team. Yeah, no doubt about it. All right, let's take a break. We'll come back in a minute and get to my next take. All right, we are back on extra point taken. Benjamin, I have had

enough of the Josh McDaniels' Raiders experience. I really don't need to see anymore. Now, you're probably saying she'll you had this take like the day he was hired. So what has changed? And I have had it at least one episode for every like six week period we've done this. I disagree. Although if someone wants to do EPT analytics and tell me which topics we hit on, the most of this is kind of me saying I'm just going to put a bow on it for the 2023 season. So there you go. You'll be happy. I don't have to talk about this.

Guarantee it we'll be talking about Josh McDaniels and the Raiders by Halloween. No question. on Sunday night with all the nerds watching, the Raiders face a fourth and four from the Steelers 8 with 2.25 left. They're down eight points. Josh McDaniels sends out the field goal team. Listen, I can give you all the nerd, you know, all the analytics, all the nerd. The truth is with a lot of that stuff, there's often a gray area where it's like, well, you should probably do X, but it's almost like a toss-up.

This was not one of those. I mean, he cost them, I think it was 5% in Winpenter. probability, which is just a huge number for a decision that a coach makes in game. I mean, think about if you could tell a coach during the week. Hey, we can do something that gives you a 5% greater chance at winning. I mean, they would be all over it. Yet, when it comes to an in-game decision like this, Josh McDaniels is not paying attention to that. And again, you don't need the numbers. Just use the common sense. I mean, is it more likely that you convert a fourth and four square touchdown and get a two-point conversion to force overtime? Or is it more likely that you kick a field

goal. Stop the Steelers, get the ball back, and then score a touchdown. But you still needed a touchdown. I don't know if Josh McDaniels understood that or not. Like, you still needed to score a touchdown. It wasn't like, well, it'll kick a, can stop them and then kick a field goal. No, you're supposed to be an offensive guru. You don't trust your team, a team with Devante Adams who had, what, 13 catches for like 170. Imagine being Devante Adams, Ben, in that spot. And like, it's fourth and four games on the line. You are just this like prime time. player who comes up in big spots over and over again in your career. You kind of got screwed by going to the Raiders. They trade the quarterback you wanted. Come off the field. We're going to let this

defense that has been like a bottom three defense for like a decade for the most part and sucks this year and has no players on it. We're going to put the game in their hands to go out and get a stop. I mean, just a mind-boggling decision by Josh McDaniels, not his first. I'm sure it won't be his last, according to opta stats. Since the two-point conversion was adopted in 1994, the Raiders are the only NFL team to attempt a field goal in the last three minutes of the fourth quarter, went down by exactly eight points and less than five yards to go for a first down or a touchdown. Ben, think of how many terrible coaches we've seen since 1994, making head scratching, mind-boggling, in-game decisions. I mean, I've made part of my career about

making fun of these people and writing about them on a weekly basis. And Josh McDaniels is the only person who made this decision. So that's the micro. The macro is just like, this is, you know, now they got Garoppolo in the concussion protocol. This is such a rudderless team and a rudderless franchise. They're one and two. They don't have a long-term QB plan. They don't have good young talent on the roster.

McDaniels is now 18 and 30 as an NFL head coach. There's seven and 13 in 20 games since he's. got hired. How about this? His win percentage with the Raiders is now worse than his win percentage was with the Broncos back in the day when that whole thing ended in complete disaster. So I feel for Raiders fans. You got to watch this the rest of the season and then what? What's the plan? There is no plan. So I think SolEx right. Maybe I talk about Josh McDaniels and the Raiders too much. I'll put a moratorium on my McDaniels. Raiders takes. I just had to get this one out there. I'm done with them. I'm done with the McDaniels Raiders.

come up with something new, come up with a plan because this is just a disaster. The best thing about McDaniels is trying to answer the question of what he brings, right? But it, all right, like, they throw the ball a lot to Devante Adams. I agree. Like, and there are some coaches who don't do the obviously good thing. And so there's one moderately sized feather in Josh McDaniel's cap for being like, hey, Devonte is really good. I'm going to throw the ball in him a lot.

I'm going to make sure we get it. We get them opened up. they ran the ball a lot with Josh Jacobs last year. Same kind of concept. He was really good back. You're running the football effectively. Like, don't fix what ain't broke.

So McDaniels is good at like knowing where his bread is buttered, which I appreciate. But they can't get Jacobs working this year. They have Devante Adams. They have like, last season, like I think people thought Devante had like a down year. Devonte had one of his most productive years last season.

They can't leverage that into winning performances. The offensive line, play is, have you ever tried to figure out if the Raiders' offensive line is good? It's one of the most challenging things in the NFL. Like, they play two good games. They're right, they're good. And they play one of the worst games you've ever seen. They're right, they're bad. And then the next week, they're good.

They're constantly all over the place. There's no consistency. There's no rhythm, right? Like, I look at the Texans offense and the Seahawks offense and the Vikings offense and just like, all these other mid offenses across the course league. I'm like, okay, I get what you're trying to do. And with the Raiders, it's just like, you just are hoping that

Devante saves you. You're just hoping that you throw the ball to Devante enough that you score enough points to win. Like, there's no, there's no creativity, there's no direction. You said rudderless. It's exactly the right term. From a personnel perspective, they're exactly the same, right? I don't know. Who have they added over the last couple of years besides Devante?

Again, that's kind of like a change the course of the team that is really like, say, like, oh, McDaniels can bring these guys in and make them work. I think Jacobi Myers looks good. I also think that Jacobi Myers is not enough of a needle mover, right? there's a total lack of impact from the head coaching position. And if there's positive impact, we know you're a very good coach. And if there's negative impact, we know you're a bad head coach, but at least you're trying something.

It feels like there's just a zero impact. Like he's just there on the sideline, calling some plays, do a headset, and it turns out the Raiders are going to be six and ten again this year. And why are we just pretending like that's okay? And why are we just going to let that keep happening? They're like egregiously worse head coaches probably Like you know When in your division Nate Hackett is doing the rust thing

Like last year when like Nate Hackett's going on Obviously you kind of fly out under the radar But eventually it's kind of like Oh like every time you run a team like it doesn't go well So let's stop doing this Like it lacks punch It lacks like you know wow big explosive reveal Big like this is the like Brandon Staley

The Final Straw like there's so much to talk about But it's just okay like These teams these teams that Josh McDaniels run tend not to perform very well. That's the long and the short of it. Yeah, I mean, he's won 37.5% of his game. So you're right.

If you want to put that train wreck category below him, the Joe judges, the Nathaniel Hackett's, the Urban Myers of the world, I absolutely agree with that. But then when you get to that next tier of these guys aren't really doing it, I mean, I think he's in that tier right above it.

I don't know that we've seen anything to suggest otherwise. At times you watch their offense and you go, all right, they're doing stuff, they're moving the football, they're putting up yards. But like, that never, like, there's more to being a head coach, as we've discussed many times than just doing that. And I don't see where he gives them an edge in any of the other stuff beyond that.

So there you go. All right. So I kept me with your second take. All right. After week one, you and I had a little bit of Seahawks panic. That's a big loss to the Rams. More bad. Hey, dude.

I felt take them to win the division. I both starting tackles are down. I don't like the way I'm feeling in my tummy. Three weeks in? Why do we ever doubt Pete, baby? Trust the ship. Trust the man. Seahawks are back.

Consecutive 37 point performances for the Seattle C.Ox who in the last couple of weeks have beaten the Detroit Lions and they've beaten the Carolina Panthers. Now, the Panthers are far from like a complete team and a dominant team. Obviously, Andy Dalton in made the offense a little bit more effective than when Bryce Young was in. but that defense has still got some teeth

even with their corner injuries that was an impressive defense they hung 37 on them I think the lion's defense like it's pretty solid this year right 20 points to the chiefs they held the Falcons under 10 points they put 37 on that team now took a pick six to get to overtime to win the game and so again it's like Seahawks are far from perfect

it's not like they just beat you know the Brady Patriots and the Mahomes chiefs and whatever there's still stuff to talk about but the ship got quickly righted why firstly, Gino's playing some good football. All right? Gino Smith, I was surprised by the lack of questions coming into the season. I thought there'd be a lot more like, was Gino one year flashing the plan in the pan?

Like, is this going to all fall apart? You saw a little bit of that, but not a lot. And I think that that was a good foresight by the football community. And Gino's paying us off. Right now, by success where he's fifth. By EPA, he's eighth. By inaccurate pass percentage, he's fifth. One of the issues with Gino last year was sometimes he would spray, right?

Sometimes he'd go a little bit wild. So far, playing a little bit more of a controlled game. His sack rate is down from last season, playing a little bit better risk management. Running game, I brought up the fact that the Eagles right now are record setting in terms of success rate. Guess who's winning in terms of expected points added? Guess who's winning in terms of ripping off explosive plays

and getting key rushes on late downs, getting scores? That's the Seattle Seahawks right now. Lead the league in expected points added per rush. Kenneth Walker looking a lot like he ended last season on the ads Jack Charbonnet, who had a great highlight run this week. But really, Walker, the guy has impressed me with saying, you draft a second round running back if you want. This is my job.

He could take it from me. Walker, I thought, has played very, very well. And then this offensive line, who, that first Rams game was really shaky, not just for the injuries of tackle, but I thought on the interior they played poorly. They've really settled in. You saw that Pete gave a big shout out.

I think game balls to Stone Forsyth and Jake Curram. I think I'm saying his last name, right? Who are those bookends now that are in, those two tackles that are holding the four down and doing so fairly well. They've played acceptable football for your O-T-3 and your O-T-4 through the last two weeks. So offensively, really feels

like week one was a knock-the-rust-off situation. Defensively. Teams got the juice a little bit, right? And it gave up 31 to the Lions. They gave up 20 and then some garbage time to Danny Dalton Panthers. It's kind of as we expected. It's going to be a high offense team and then an erratic defense team.

But you see Devon Witherspoon. You get on the field. It's got 11 the tackles. He got two past breakups. He gets called for a tic-tack DPI. Pete's running down the field at 73 years old gum-fly and headset moving. They love this cat. Everybody's excited about the rookie. Rieck's trying to come back from injury. Jamal Adams is potentially on his way back. They have some of the same fire they had last year, but they're far from a perfect unit, but they have playmakers, right? They have kind of the guys who can get them that one-stop, guys who can make that key play. And they've been hurt. They're trying to bring that back.

They need more from Draymont Jones. And the Bobby Wagner thing is just really rough. Like Bobby cannot run right now. I do not know how much longer they're going to be able to put him out there and just be serious because, I mean, opposing teams are picking on him at this point. They have defensive questions to answer. They always have. But Seahawks, man, week one, it was, oh? And then week three, it's like, oh, okay.

They're not necessarily like going to steamroll the Niners. Like maybe we thought they were. Niners look pretty good. But they've righted the ship. And they feel a lot more like what we expected them to be coming into the season. Yeah. I mean, that was my take after week one. It's like, I don't know how you survived this.

I think we said at the time, like how many teams, quarterbacks, offenses, whatever, lose both starting offensive tackles and can still have a functioning high level offense. Their top five in success rate and EPA per drive through three weeks of the season. And they're, like you said, they're playing with two backup offensive tackles. They had 27 first downs and 425 yards of offense on Sunday. I'm with you. That is really a credit to.

Not only the players who are coming in his backups, but the coaching, hey, let's make sure we're developing them during the week. Let's make sure we're putting them in position to succeed on Sundays. I thought their run game, like that's better than their run game to me has looked in a while with both Kenneth Walker and Charbonnet. Shane Waldron, man, their OC. Shane's got the goods, dude. Shane, they put Will Disley and Kobe Parkinson out on the field and they cook. And that's something to see.

It's really cool. That's something to say, Will Disley and Colby Parkinson and they cook. There you go. Right. Yeah, no, I mean, it's highly encouraging. If you're a Seahawks fan, if you're someone like me who picked them to do big things, and then we're in full panic mode after week one. I'm still not there with the defense.

I think their defense is like a, their classic 20, 23 NFL defense where their performance is going to be a direct function of the team they're playing, in my opinion. Like they're playing a bad defense, a bad offense. They can hang in there and play okay. They're playing, I think, mediocre to above average offenses. they're still going to get cooked, but I could be wrong because they have some younger players, like you mentioned, Witherspoon, Rick Wollin coming back, Adams is supposed to come back. So they have talent in the secondary at least, and they have some talent up front also.

So maybe there's a higher ceiling, but man, it's been like five straight years of that being mostly a mediocre defense. I know you're not saying they're like elite or anything, and they don't have to be. I mean, the formula, if you have a top eight offense and like the 18th ranked defense, guess what? That plays. That gets you into the playoffs. most year. So yeah, I think that's a good one. They've had two good back-to-back weeks.

When I think about defenses, especially in the framework of playoff teams, I think about like, okay, can you just like win on the weekly because of your defense? And like, there's like three or four teams in the league that get that, right? The Browns are there right now. The Niners are there right now. The Patriots are like always there. Like just like gives your defense so good that you can just like win on the back of them. And then the next tier is like, okay, do you have the chance to stop an elite quarterback, right? Like can you get a game plan together and have enough talent that you can like actually hold. in an elite offense like under 30.

And then that way your guys can score 30 and you can win a playoff game. Seahawks are probably not in that group yet. They're in the tier below, which is the like, do you have two dudes who are good enough playmakers and then get one stop so you can win a shootout? Right.

And that's what they have right now. Like, we're Chennauosu, Jordan Brooks, Adams Reek when they come back, Devon Woodo's mood if he keeps doing this. Like, you have a guy who can, third and six, huge pass breakup. You're getting the ball back down three.

Like, that's what you want it from your defense. They can get from tier three into tier two. Two, I believe it. But that's the problem for them on defense right now is being less of like, we made a play and like, woo, we played a whole good game for four quarters. That's you kind of got to make that change.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. All right. Take number three for me, Benny Souls. You know what? This might work out for the bears. That's my take. Whoa. What?

Joe, why do we throw it? The bears stink. the Bears had a miserable week last week. We went over it on the Friday show. Then they go out. They lose 4110 to the Chiefs. They don't look like an NFL franchise. Their offense stinks, their defense sinks.

They're poorly coached, yada, you know, we can go over. All of that. They have now lost 13 games in a row and been outscored by 190 points during that stretch. 80 points worse than any other team. Like this is hard. This is a level of. dysfunction and horrible play, horrible performance that is kind of hard to achieve in the modern NFL. There really are pretty much no signs of hope. Wait a minute, Shield, did I miss hear what you

said with your take? I thought you said this might work out with the Bears. Yes. So here's how it might work out, Benjamin. If the Bears were a middling team, if they were seven and 10, six and 11, eight and nine, where would that really have left them? I mean, you're probably talking about a scenario where you come back with Justin Fields. You're come back with Matt Iber Flues. You say, let's make some tweaks to the supporting cast. We'll get over the hump next year. We'll win nine games.

We'll get into the playoffs. But if this team continues to suck, I think they might have a much clearer picture as an organization, and it might be better for them long term. It's early. It's very early. We're three weeks in. But there are four O and three teams right now in the NFL. The Bears own the draft picks of two of those four, oh, and three teams.

their own and the Carolina Panthers because of that trade last draft season. So there's a lot of football to be played. But a Bears fan, if you're saying, this season sucks, we're punching bags all over the place. There's no signs of hope. Like, there's a scenario where you go into 2024 and we're talking about Caleb Williams throwing to Marvin Harrison, Jr. or we're talking about Drake May being protected by Olufasianu. Am I pronouncing that? right? Penn State left tackle. I think it's Olo Foshanu, but I don't, I'm not positive. You would know, you're the Penn State guy. I know, I should know. Listen, I should know. I'll learn it. I looked it up. You know, there should be better like name pronunciation stuff there. I felt like I spent

a nice three minutes on a Google search trying to figure it out. It's a bad job by me. I should have gotten it correct. I will get it correct. So I know it sucks, Spares fans to have to sit through this season week by week. I've said before a lot of the fan experience is about enjoying those three hours on a Sunday. You are not enjoying your three hours on a Sunday at all. However, there could be sunnier days ahead. This could actually work out for you in the long run when you're talking about your next five, seven years of fandom there. All right. Did I convince you? You don't look convinced. I see that look on your face. So yeah, like in the sense that if you're super bad, then you get the best things possible to then become good. But that's always true. Like,

I think if the bears had ended up six and 11, I think that they probably would have moved on from fields anyway because you had three seasons with fields. Maybe not. I think maybe if they ended up six and 11, they would have done a third year of Matt Eberfluse, and you can argue that now if this season goes away, it looks like it's going,

they're going to do only two, and that's good. And like, sure, like you get a new guy in. We can go and look back at the history of bears head coaching hires. I'm not sure bears get new coach is actually good news. I think bears get good coach. Bears get new coach might be same news, bad news, old news, right?

Like, it's not even like a grass is always greener phenomenon because clearly the grass is greener on the other side of whatever this bear season is. But it's the idea, it's the, it's like the mystery box thing. There's a family eye clip of Peter Griffin's getting offered a boat or a mystery box. And he's really tempted to take the mystery box. And his wife, Lois is like, Peter, like, let's take the boat. Don't take the mystery box. And Peter goes, but a mystery box could be anything.

It can even be a boat. Your top picks can turn into a very highly drafted quarterback, just like they did a few years ago when they became Justin Fields. And just like they did a few years before that when they became Mitchell Trubisky. But new first round picks, new top picks could be anything. They can even be a franchise quarterback. So yeah, but you've done this. You know, we've been here.

So it is good. Like if this causes the bears to blow it up and get and strip it down to the studs and go back to brass tax, like that is good. But it's still, it's just an auto-organizational failure round two. And that's just from the football perspective. Like, I don't,

it's very hard to be like, but the sun's shining, Chicago, like I, it's cloudy. It's very sad. It gives you, it will offer,

you wanted some clarity this season one way or the other, and it looks like you're going to get some clarity from the keeping. Now, you're right, from the top down, they're kind of a dumpster fire.

So there's no guarantee that it's going to go well in the future. but at least it looks like you're going to get some clarity. Now, again, three weeks in, maybe it flips. Maybe they reach the mediocre stage. I don't know. Where are you?

What do the next three years of Justin Fields in the NFL and beyond look like to you? Because you are a Fields guy? Do you still believe? Are you saying, all right? I'm kind of changing my tune. Where are you with Fields here three weeks into the season? He's got to take a Mario DeK career arc, right? I mean, he has, he should go be a.

backup somewhere and a backup somewhere where, like, there's a coach who's actually interested in using his physical tools. And that's the thing is, like, Fields didn't develop over three years. And there's a ton of different reasons for that, offensive line playing, wide receiver play, and scheme and whatever. But fundamentally, like, he didn't get better, right? And so it's very hard to say, all right, like, put Fields somewhere else and he'll be able to start. Because, like, he's just going to continue to make the same mistakes. And there's a chance that a different coaching staff and a better environment will help him learn from his mistakes and improve his mistakes. But typically we just don't see that really happen in like the fourth, fifth,

sixth year of a player's career, right? Like you can make a Gino argument, but even then, like, I think Gino is playing better in the mid-2010s than Fields is playing right now. So you have to go be a backup somewhere. What about Daniel Jones? I feel like Daniel Jones is like the best, it feels weird to say, but it's almost like a best case scenario. Like Daniel Jones, if you look at it everything statistically, the first three years of his career, You were like, players in this bucket have no chance of even salvaging an NFL career. Now I'm not telling you, Daniel Jones is like a top five quarterback or anything like that, but he got a big contract.

He quarterbacked a playoff team. He quarterbacked the top 10 offense last year. That to me, and you're right, it might not, it wouldn't happen in Chicago. It might not happen right away. It might lead to a backup. But I feel like that would be the count. Now, Jones was the exception. So you're right.

You're counting on fields to be the exception if you still bowl. believe in him because everything else would tell you that typically somebody with this start to their career, it doesn't turn around and they don't really end up salvaging it. It's like, I agree with you. The Daniel Jones comparison, here's why it's tricky because A, the Giants just gave Daniel Jones $40 million. So it creates an expectation where like, oh, Fields could go earn a big second contract, which I don't think it's true. And also, Daniel Jones is currently a starter. And I think that sets the expectation that Daniel Jones is like a starting caliber quarterback. And that's true in the sense that there's only 32 starting jobs,

I don't know if it's exactly the wagon you want to hit your horse to, right? And so, like, I think you could experience a Daniel Jones bump if he got hitched with a guy like Brian Dable with an officer coordinator like Mike Kafka, who's, you know, jack up the run rate. We're going to go

multiple tight ends, right? We're going to find creative ways to use you as a scrambler in design and then use you in design runs. But I think that the giants are going to reach the end of that rope and realize they don't want to be there. And so even if Fields gets like a Daniel Jones moment, I don't think it's overall going to be like, and now Daniel Jones starts until he's 35, or now, now Justin Fields starts at least 35. I don't think that'll actually have a huge

long-term impact for Fields. I think Fields can absolutely have a Jacoby-Bresset, Marcus Marioita caliber career, where it's like bouncing around as a veteran, free agent quarterback who, like, when you put him out there, the sort of offense that you run is really obvious and can work. Like, it can work for a stretch. She's just you have to be a good coordinator. You have to be able to calibrate the offense to the guy's skill set, which Fields is in, is 40 something. No, he's in his high 30 career start, right?

He's reaching nearly 40 career starts. He has not once played an offense that's calibrated for him. Like, even like when the bears were kind of good last season at like doing quarterback run stuff, even then they were still like grafting it into their existing structure. He has, Fields has taken zero snaps in the NFL in an offense that's built for him. And that's why like, it's very hard to shake him.

It's very hard to be like, it's done for sure. I think he's going to stick in the league for a while as a backup. How good he is when he gets on the field as a backup is conditional on the guy calling plays for him. Casey, Buffalo. Yeah, if you're his agent, it's like, let's just get you to a coordinator or a coach who we think is good. We'll be a backup.

Let's kind of rebuild this thing and see where we go from there. All right. Let's take one more break. We'll come back and get to Solax third take. All right. We are back on extra. point taken. Benny Soltz, what do you got for your third take?

The third and final take is this. Oh, wow, Mike McCarthy's causing problems in the Cowboys offense. You can see this coming on. This is so crazy. Wow, what are we going to do? All right. The Del's Cowboys lost the Arizona Cardinals, which is bad.

You're not supposed to do that as 12.5 point favorites. Shields, as you brought up on Philly Special, the pottery recorded last night. It's only the second time in the last two years that a favor of such a high margin has outright lost the game. So what happened?

A few things. The offensive line injuries really make it tough, right? They didn't have the ability, I think, to call as many plays just as they wanted to because they were worried about those guys. You heard them make some comments about that. McCarthy said he needs to do a better job getting the team prepared to deal with injuries, which as a guy who's been a head coach for 20 years, you kind of assume he's a little bit ready for that, but whatever.

You have, I think, a Trayvon Diggs practice injury that kind of exposes your your corner depth a little bit. What are you going to do about that? Corner depth is really hard to come by. You're going to ask him to be a star dude. Duran Blan is going to experience playing on the outside now a little bit. You're going to try some stuff. It's okay to struggle with that in week once.

There's some mitigating stuff. You also have six points on four red zone drives in the entire second half. The Cowboys went in to the halftime locker room down 21 to 10. They're down 11 points. They had four drives in the second half, all of them went in the red zone. They lost by 12. They lost by more points than they were losing by

after going to the red zone at every drive. That's not, you can't do it. That's not good. I was trying to get stathead to tell me exactly how rare that is in the NFL and either I don't know how to use stathead or it's like never happened. I think it has happened, so I just think I'm just using

stathead wrong. But it is, I promise you, a very irregular current. So red zone woes. Kind of kept a little bit. quiet from, okay, the Giants game, big defensive blowout, the Jets game, they're controlling the game, it's Zach Wilson, whatever. Right now in the

season, the Cowboys have scored a touchdown on 40% of their red zone drives that is tied for 27th in the league with the New Orleans Saints and the New York Jets. That is not where you want to be. They have scored on 86.7% of their red zone drives. That's touchdown plus field goals. That's at 21%.

21st in the league, 21st, 21st. This is a direct result of losing Kellyn Moore. Last year, the Cowboys led the lead in Red Zone touchdown percentage. And Kellyn Moore, who is a

great Red Zone designer, they were perennially top 10, was a huge part of that. The other guy who was a part of that is Zekeel Elliott. There's a nice, familiar Zique button you can press when you have him on the depth start, because Tony Pollard, who's a great back, and I like Tony Pollard a lot, is not it between the tackle slumper. It's not a put your nose down, turn a one-yard

gain to a two-yard gain, two-yard into four, four- right into six. Like, that's, that is not Tony's game. That was always Zeke's game. They lose him. And all of a sudden, in the red zone, Rico Dottle is just getting carry and pass catch and everything. They're trying to make Rico Dottle into this player.

And Rico's just not the same guy that Zique was. So the departures, the absences are a big part of this change. But when you go and you look at McCarthy's Red Zone performance, especially down the end of his career in Green Bay, over the last six seasons in Green Bay, the Packers were averaging, it was 57% touchdown when they were in the red zone

and that would rank so far this year about middle of the pack last year would have ranked a little bit below average McCarthy's offenses tend to move the ball down the field very effectively and then they get to the red zone and they lose creativity and they lose muster. It's the thing that's been known about him

over the course of his career. Through three games, the Cowboys have that issue and I think, you know, Dak had a quote where he was like, I need to make some throws and maybe also make some players with my feet. And if the quarterback in week three is saying like maybe I need to scramble

more in the red zone, I don't, I really don't like that. That to me is like a little bit alarm belly where like reds, I don't want scrambles in the red zone. Like, when quarterbacks make good scramble plays in the red zone, that's awesome. But that's generally, you don't want like, let's make some stuff happens. There's just space. There's no room. You can't have like a legitimate scramble drill where like some guy goes deep and some guy goes intermediate. Like you just don't have the, the area for it. You want to be making quick, decisive, effective plays. And you go and you watch the film and they're they're trying to run gadgety stuff and they're trying to run running back swing stuff

and they got some option stuff and like I said they're trying to get doubt all active and like it seems like it's correct but the effectiveness, the execution is terrible. Maybe the offensive line comes in and improves it. I think the fact that they can't get CD Lamma target in the red zone is astonishing.

This is a guy that you're planning to pay $20 million per year in the future. You won't just put them on a slant and beat a one-on-one. You could be with Keatrell Clark and Marco Wilson. It was a frustrating watch to watch that Cowboys Red Zone drives against the Cardinals.

It's a reason why they lost. And like two weeks into the season, the Cowboys are killing it. Everybody's like, Mike McCarthy, baby, so good. Look at this offense. Why were we worried? This is why we were worried, man,

because there's stuff in this guy's offense that just perennially breaks. And this, I think, is one of those things. The number's going to get better. They're going to settle in. They're talented. The Office of Lions is going to help. But the Cowboys were a top scoring team

in the Red Zone last year, and I doubt they're going to be such a thing this year. And it takes the wind out of their sales in these games that it feels like we should be able to win. All right. I have to do a classic shield question for you. Who was saying that? Who were these Mike McCarthy defenders out there? Everyone in my orbit is just constantly making fun of Mike McCarthy. So maybe I don't look at it. You don't have to name. He's good. What are you go? What could you possibly Google it be Googling? Mike McCarthy Defenders, week two? What is this search? You know, you have to just call people out. Now I feel like you're going to get me in trouble. All these, all these headlines are from one day ago. And it goes, after. of the Cardinals lost. I promise you they existed. Wait, I need to know. What were your actual... Did you just Google Mike McCarthy, like Google News?

Mike McCarthy Prescott Cowboys, and then I went to News, and now I'm scrolling. I'm just trying to learn tips. I'm an old guy who wants to navigate the internet better, so you're helping me there. I would love to... I would love to read, like, a study on Red Zone Efficiency and whether it's like... Play... Like, in my head, I'm kind of like the quarterback has to take, like, more of the responsibility in the red zone. But I could be totally wrong on that. In my head, I'm like, the great quarterbacks, their red zone offenses are always good.

They're willing to fit the ball into tight windows. They know when to take a risk, when to not take a risk. Not to say coaching doesn't matter. I think coaching does matter. I think if I were Mike McCarthy's agent or his wonderful PR team, which I've given a shout out to many a time for helping him get hired there. In Dallas, I would say, Ben, they had three backup offensive linemen in there. It's not just losing Z.

How are you going to run the ball with three backup offensive linemen? By the way, yeah, they had red zone issues. They gave up 400 yards, the defense to Joshua Dobbs. You know, they allowed the Cardinals to run for 22 yards. I wouldn't say that this is, you know, Mike McCarthy and the Red Zone is the only thing that cost them this game. This was just a simple week three, everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. It's okay.

Those things happen early in the season. They're going to be fine. That would be my Mike McCarthy. It's all those people who you said defend Mike McCarthy. I'm trying to put myself in their shoes and tell you what they would say. How would you respond? I would say that Aaron Rogers became one of the most effective Red Zone quarterbacks in the league the year Mike McCarthy left. Okay.

All right. I mean, that's one example, but it could be true. I'm not saying I know one way or the other. I'm just asking. I bet you it's one of those things that on a league-wide perspective is pretty noisy. But from a, we've seen Mike McCarthy head coach and offense since 2006, I feel like I kind of know what I'm seeing. Yeah, there's a lot of data there.

And early in his career, they were better, right? And like, this was like Prime Rogers. And so they were, they were strong. When the McCarthy offense really started to lose the wind and at sales, like down the end of his career, they dropped an efficiency between the 20s, but they really started to struggle inside the 20s. Yeah, I mean, like, looking at at Kellyn Moore seasons,

they were 71.4% last year, like I said, that led the league in 2022. In 2021, they were at 63.1% touch. down perspective. In 2019, they were 57.4, which is, again, that's right about that average that McCarthy was. You can say, okay, if McCarthy gives them that average, then they'll be this. And then in 2020, they were really low, but the Cowboys were just generally terrible that year. That was the COVID year. That was a horrible season for them. Right now, they're 40%. Like, again, that number is going to get better. I don't think it's going to reach Kellanmore

numbers. I certainly don't think it's going to reach Zeke numbers. I think that's a big issue as well, and that's going to limit this team if they can't solve the Red Zone problems. Throw it to CDLA. Put them on a slam. Let's do it. Yeah, my non-mic McCarthy defender thing agrees with pretty much. I mean, they weren't prepared for that game. I mean, they went in 13 penalties for 107 yards. Like, again, it's so rare for a team to be 12.5 point favorites and to lose.

It only happened once all of last season. Like, that could be the biggest upset we see the entire year. And so now he took over the offense. The offense is stalling. Like you mentioned in the red zone, three drives inside the Arizona 10 with one field goal in the second half, four drives overall. It's not even just the red zone. They're inside the 10, four times and got two field goals. So they found a way to navigate that and move the football for the most part. But yeah, there's no doubt about it that he deserves some heat for that performance. And then you

look at what the Chargers are doing. I know the Chargers are only one and two, but if you just isolate the Chargers offense, the Chargers offense has been, you know, their top five in pretty much every statistical category through the first three weeks of the season. And you thought, no, we can do a better job. Mike McCarthy and Brian Schotton, how. than Kellyn Moore did. That's the move. That's our big play this offseason. I don't know.

I think they're still a very good team. I don't know, brother. They're still going to be there at the end. But unlike the Josh McDaniels conversation, this is not the last time we're going to be talking about Mike McCarthy and the Cowboys on extra point taken. All right. Speaking of stuff we've talked about before, I'm on the hook for the extra point.

All right. So we did the show after Aaron Rogers went down. And I said, you know what? They got to do something. and now I'm just begging. I am begging you. Joe Douglas, Woody Johnson, anyone with any sway in that organization,

I am begging you to do something. The Jets lost 1510 to the Patriots on Sunday. They scored one touchdown. Their first red zone snap came with six minutes left in the fourth quarter. The offense also gave the Patriots points. They took a safety there in the second half. It was a bottom five, offensive performance on this season, league-wide, according to all the nerd stats, through three

games. They are last in EPA per drive. They have the worst offense in the NFL. And you watch that game and you look at it and you said they just need one play here. They put together one drive and the second half. The defense forces six straight punt to end that game. Think about that. You're a defensive player on that Jets team.

You force six straight punts to end the game and your offense still cannot do enough. How are you supposed to be invested in the rest of the season and believe that your team has a chance to win? You cannot keep doing this with Zach Wilson. It's not fair to the rest of the team. It's not fair to the coaches. It's not fair to the fans. It's not fair to me as a podcaster who has to watch all these games every week. I don't want to watch.

That's the important part. That's the important one. I don't like this. I don't like it. I know Ben doesn't. like it. We don't like it. We don't want to watch this. Now, everything I read her here out of Florham Park, New Jersey, is that the Jets aren't going to do anything. That everyone calm down. They got no options. They can't do anything. Quarterbacks don't get moved in the middle of the

season. I understand all that. Guess what? This has to be the exception. Think of the best run teams in the NFL. You can name whoever you want. Picture them in your head. I'll pick a couple out in the NFC. You think the Eagles or the 49ers in this situation would just say, we're going to throw our season away and let Zach Wilson be the quarterback and we're going to win. We're going to win. They're weeping. They would be calling every single team in the NFL.

They would be scouting every backup quarterback in the NFL, every third strigger, every XFL or every USFL or every CF. I don't care who they would be turning over every NFL. every single rock to find an upgrade at quarterback. You don't just sit there and say, we got screwed. It's a bad situation. Now we're throwing our season away. I mean, this is what the money is for to deal with these difficult situations.

Call the Vikings. Make them an offer they can't refuse for Kirk freaking cousins, who I've somehow turned into like Joe Montana at this point with all the times. I am so positive they'd win the Super Bowl with Kirk. I'm so fully there. It's not even funny. Every Viking's loss. I'm like, we're one step closer to Kirk on the Jets baby. I'm so excited. Call anybody. I know it's hard to develop chemistry and new offensive line, a new scheme. Guess what? It literally cannot be any worse than what it is right now. It is organizational malpractice to sit there and just keep throwing Zach Wilson out

there Sunday after Sunday, do something now. I'm begging you, Joe Douglas, Woody Johnson, whoever else, do something now before it's too late and you've thrown your season away. So there you go. That felt good. I could not, like I could not possibly agree more. This was, I wrote about it for the Hot Reading Week 2. I did a bit last year on the play sheet where Robert Sala does these press conferences. I'm probably going to do it again at some point. But I legitimately love Sala. I love his defense.

I love what he thinks about football. He's from Dearborn Michigan, Northern Michigan Wildcat. He's a, I'm a Michigan man now. Like this, I love Sala. This is ridiculous. Just like, there's good lying as a coach where you like say things at a press conference, say anything behind a mic. that, like, you know people aren't going to believe

and you know people are going to see through, but it's for the team or it's for a guy or it's for the organization, and it, like, makes, like, I can get why you're doing it. And then there's just whatever the Jets think, giving confidence to Zach Wilson is. And it's just, I, like, the framework you used there that was so important, if I were a defensive player, I would be livid.

Imagine if Jamal Adams were still on this team. Imagine they had, like, a veteran defensive leader who'd been around the league for a long time, all with New York, right? Because they have, like, guys who are vets, but, like, DJ Reid joined the team and Dr. Dr. R. Fica Myers joined the team. Solomon Thomas joined the team.

They haven't had, like, a homegrown defensive guy who just, like, you know, Quinn and Williams. How about that? What's he thinking? He just made a lot of money. He's a year old. Yeah, he's hanging.

He's living a great life. Yeah, but, like, CJ Mosley, Quantos and San Diego. Quinn is 25. You know what I'm saying? Like, if we had a guy in the building who was 30, who's just been there for a while and just sit there and say, hey, like, knock down Solves. door and be like, listen, like, I'm not coming in here, like, tell you how to do your job.

Like, I'm pissed, but like, I'm not going to like, you know, be like, just like, dropping quotes or screaming at coaches or whatever. Like, I'm here to talk to you. Like, you're going to lose the guys. If you keep on getting up there and saying, we're just going to keep running with him. Because we don't like this. I mean, Sala would absolutely, he's probably like, please give me somebody else. But what's he supposed to say?

He's gotten literally nobody else on the roster. I don't think it's on him. So I agree. Right? Like I said, like I love Robert Sala. Jeff's fans listening will know my opinions on Joe Douglas. My general opinions on Joe Douglas. He built the defensive line gray.

He did a lot of the Eagles approach, but the quarterback situation has been really, really bad. With that said, like, for solace sake, you got to get behind the mic and get a little spicy with it to put some more pressure on Joe Douglas to make a change. You can't. You are going to piss someone off when you get up there. It's either your entire defensive room or it's the GM.

And like, I get that, like, you've pitched your wagon, you've pitched your career to the GM and like job security and whatever, but you're going to lose too many games to hold on to the job if you don't start really stoking the fire for a quarterback change. And that's why like it's, someone's got to get spicy. If it's Sala, if it's Quinnin, if I, Garrett Wilson, Michael Carter's yelling at his running back's coach on the sideline. Someone's got to, like, someone's got to get this thing moving because if they do Zach Wilson and they go through the trade deadline, I will, I will be the pod after the trade deadline if they don't get a

quarterback than Zach Wilson will be get where we it will get me fired I will be so angry so that that's that's the only thing I'm trying to avoid for the next month month and a half I love I love the cousin's idea but honestly at this point take a swing on anybody I don't care bring in three guys did you see the Matt Ryan rumor but then and what Matt Ryan said he what isn't interested or something but then there was a report that he reached out it's like a classic like coach who pulls his name out of the you know he's not interested anymore oh he didn't get the job is it is that what's happening here? So it's a you know what it is? It's a classic Matt

Ryan veteran move. Matt Ryan is with CBS sports. The Jay Glazer with Fox reports that Matt Ryan and Wenz reached out to the Jets. And then Matt Ryan is asked about on CBS and he goes I don't reach out of the Jets. I love working here at CBS. I'm not interested in that at this time. But my

agent, Todd France, he's a great agent. He's a really good agent. I know he's constantly working the phones and just checking on stuff and stuff. But that's exactly what he said. He was like, me? I would not reach out to the Jets. I love working for CBS sports. the man who represents me professionally in my football playing career, he might have done something. Who could say good work by Matt?

That's exactly how you do it, buddy. So that Matt Ryan report tickled me greatly because of how well Matt played it. Matt had a tough season with the Colts. I think Matt's best years are behind him. I would bring Wednesday in. I would bring anybody in, just that it's not Zach Wilson playing.

Legitimate, I would feel good about it. That's how sicko and distorted this circumstances at this point. I don't disagree with that. literally any i am at literally anybody right now maybe they inject like this again this is not have to be a great player this needs to be someone who gives you a chance to score uh more than 10 points in a game to win a game where your defenses forces six straight puns so uh we'll see i don't know i just like i don't know how you can do it how you can just play this guy week in and week out and feel like it's the right thing to do solid did last thing solid did stumble

little bit in his post-game press conference this week where he didn't quite get to what you're saying he should have done, but it was a little bit like, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say here. This kind of sucks. Last year, he said on like November 6th, Zach Wilson's our starter. And on like November 22nd was like, I won't commit a Zach's our starter. And he's on the exact same time frame this time around. We're like two weeks ago, he was like, Zach's our guy. And then two weeks later, he's like, anyone could be our guy. Why do you keep doing this to yourself, man? Get something. I want before we record Friday, I want the, to have another quarterback in the building.

Please do something. I'm begging you. I'm not even a Jets fan, and I'm begging you. All right. That'll do it for this edition of Extra Point. Taken. Thank you to Ben Solek.

Thank you to Christopher Sutton. Great producer. All-time producer for producing. Thanks to Eduardo Ocampo for the video production. You can find those videos on the Ringer NFL social media channels on Solex TikTok on my Instagram, wherever. If you want to say a little video,

some of these clips. You can find those there. Eduardo does a great job of putting those together. Additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna, Ramgapal. Next episode will be Nora and Stephen, and then Solek and I will be back on Friday. Thanks to everyone for listening. Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Van Duel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement

with Kansas Star Casino LLC gambling problem. call 1-800 gambler or visit Fandul.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 1-800-nextap or text next step to 53342 in Arizona, 1-888-787-9-777. Or visit CCPG.org slash chat in Connecticut, 1-8009 with it in Indiana, 1-800-522470 or visit KS gamblinghelp.com in Kansas, 1-8777-7.5.com in Kansas. 770 stop in Louisiana. Visit MD gambling help.org in Maryland. Visit 1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia

or call 1-800-5-22470-470 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline, MA.org or call 800-327-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-8-Hope-N-Y or text HopeNY in New York.