The Ringer NFL Show - Expectations Overwhelm the Bills, Dan Campbell: King of the Nerds, and More Big Takeaways from Week 10 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Sheil and Ben get together to share their reactions to the Denver Broncos' upset win over the Buffalo Bills on ‘MNF.' Next, they shine a light on the Jaguars' offensive woes and commend the Lions' recent success under coach Dan Campbell, before predicting a high first-round pick in the Giants' future (15:36). They end the pod with a breakdown of the top NFC teams and an examination of the red-hot and rising Texans squad (53:07). 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 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

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Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Extra Point. Take it. Chil Kapati here, joined by Ben Solak following Monday night football. The Broncos go on the road. Beat the Buffalo Bills outright. Seven and a half point dogs.

They go to Buffalo. They win that game 24, 22. We're going to talk about that game. Believe me, we're going to talk about that game. We're also going to talk about everything else that happened in week 10. Benjamin Solek, how are we doing? What in tarnation was the end of that game?

Holy smokes! Do you remember the James Cook fumble that he picked up and carried another 30 yards? That happened? Yeah. And it was like the seventh craziest thing to happen in the last three minutes of that game. Over the course of that game,

it was the ninth craziest thing to happen. Ludicrous. Ludicrous performance. If I were a Bills fan, I would be in a state of absolute disarray. of mental breakdown of cardiac arrest, I would be gone. You would not be able to bring me back

to this earthly plane if I were a Bill's fan right now. Well, I'm on the hook for the first take, so let's get to it. Now, normally, I like to do stuff and we'll get to some stuff. You know, you analyze. Maybe there's some X's and O's.

Maybe there's some numbers. Maybe there's some evidence. Maybe there's some stuff you saw with your eyes. My take, Ben, watching this, and you'll probably have better analysis. My take is just that expectation have overwhelmed this Buffalo Bills team. When I watched that game,

I couldn't get that out of my head. I don't know how else to explain a team coming out like that in a big spot in prime time, turning the football over four times, just coming off right out the bat. Just turned over once. Okay, turn it over again.

Oh, a turnover got overturned. We wanted to give you another one. Mental error after mental error, physical error after physical error. The field goal attempt, Ben, the Broncos are going to hand it to them. They're going to say, here, you don't deserve to win this game, but we're going to give you this game and the bills have 12 men on the field,

on the field goal attempt, ends up being a miss by Will Lutz. You see the flags. He gets to redo it there. So I had thoughts. I was going to come in. I was like, what's my take going to be off this game? And I thought, you know what? Maybe Ben and I said last week, it's not time to bury the bills.

maybe I just come out say we're wrong, bury the bills but I don't actually feel like that. I really don't feel like I want to bury the bills yet so I'm not going to go on there and lie about something that I don't feel I don't think the bills are a bad

team. I refuse to believe that however we talked about it on Friday's show I watched them and I see the weight of the world on their shoulders with every snap you can feel it with the home crowd you can feel they're thinking about, man, we were just at the

AFC championship game a few years ago. We were 13 seconds away from beating the Chiefs. We had DeMar Hamlin situation last year. I think it's taken the entire team to a place where they cannot play freely, they cannot play loose, they cannot play with joy. I mean, when this team

was coming up and 20, this was like the most fun team in the NFL, now they can't get out of their own way. It's like, everything is like, hey, can we get back to that? Can we get past the point where we've been? Can we find get to the Super Bowl? Can we finally win the Super Bowl? And it just feels like this overwhelming cloud of something bad about to happen for this football team. So listen, they're five and five.

A lot of teams bunched up and the AFC will get to some of them during the show. Bills have the second hardest remaining schedule. So if you're listening to this going, Sheel, you are a moron. You should just come out and say, bury the bills. You might be right. I mean, listen, they face an uphill climb now just to get to the playoffs. I'm not willing to go that far. I fully acknowledge it just might not be their year. So again, you probably have better analysis of what happened in the actual game. But when I was trying to sit back and say, how do I feel about what I just watched?

That's how I feel about what I just watched. No, like we're going to sit on this show. We, you know, we did it a couple weeks ago when I talked about like the Texans and the Falcons, you know, the Vikings are six and four. We're going to sit on this show and talk about teams that are around 500 as potential playoff teams, right? Because we're still in that range of the season where you can be around 500. but you can push and make the playoffs. Now, it'd be easier to do so in the NFC than it was in the AFC,

and the bills happen to be in the AFC. But if you gave me a 500 team with like a top five offense by every single metric that I know matters, that's turning the ball over on 17% of their drives, so just the third, the 12th highest rate for any offense or the last 10 years of football, I'd be like, all right, well, turnovers are noisy, those are going to go down, offense is going to be good, they're live, right?

And so if you, if you stripped away, like you said, the expectations and the names from it, and just gave me the bills profile. I'd be like, yeah, no, this team is still very much within the playoff hunt. It's been a bad start of the season, and they're in a bad spot. It's an uphill battle. It could have been way easier, but they're still there. Reintroduce the context and give me the fact that it's these Buffalo Bills,

and it starts to feel like it's pulling apart of the threats, right? One of the things that we talked about with the bills, I did them for the play sheet last week, was the idea that like, all right, even if the offense is playing well, which it is, even if they're moving the ball down the field, the metrics are good. As things start to fracture, this is not a team that is constructed to hold it together, right? Josh Allen tends to deteriorate into hero ball.

You started to see that in this game where he tried to throw the same pick like three separate times. Stefan Diggs, Trayvon Diggs, his brother, Cowboys Corner, was tweeting right after the game, man, they got to get 14 out of there. 14's got to get out of there. Like, Diggs tends to make it very vocally known when he is frustrated with the state of the offense.

Ken Dorsey is not the chosen one. He's not the guy that has earned the trust of the fan base the way Brian Daibled did. He's going to come under insane scrutiny. Sean McDermott took more of the defensive of game planning on his shoulders this offseason. This is not a team that has the infrastructure to say, oh, we're underperforming right now, but it's okay.

Like the Chiefs have that on offense because the Chiefs have won Super Bowls. The Bengals had that on offense earlier this season because Joe Burroughs been great in the clutch. The bills do not have that. They don't have that lean back on it, you know, a stool to catch them. And accordingly, as things get worse, as they lose in such embarrassing, such a travesty, the way they lost this game with a mismanagement.

They already burned two of their team-only, player-only Latavius Murray calls and meetings. They don't have the infrastructure to kind of pick themselves up by their bootstraps here. So this is an extremely damaging loss. It is a damaging loss because they're 5-5. and the AFC is tight and they want to win games and stay close with the dolphins or whatever. But it is even more so damaging because they're not built to bounce from this. They are at the end of a long rope of multiple seasons of having a very good team, but falling short in the AFC playoffs,

it feels like they're barely holding on. Yeah, a lot of what you're talking about is the infrastructure of a team in many ways. You know, that steadiness that you hear coaches and players talk about. The way Josh Allen operates, I mean, no one would describe, I love watching Josh Allen. Allen play football. No one would describe Josh Allen as a steady player. I mean, they're going to be ups. They're going to be downs. That's part of the fun with it. But man, you're right. When there are the downs, like, you know, the coach is a very intense guy. Sean McDermott. I think he's done a

excellent job for the most part over the years there. But he is an intent. It's just like everything there. Yeah, it just feels like there's this added, added weight to it. So listen, the schedule I mentioned, they got the Jets, which, you know, that's a winnable game. But not, There are no gimmies for this team. I mean, they just lost to the Broncos. They lost to the Patriots a few weeks ago. They have a stretch where they go, Eagles, Chief, at Eagles, at Chiefs, Cowboys at Home, at Chargers. I mean, and this is a five-and-five team.

So if they're going to do it, you know, if they're just going to get into the playoffs, it does feel like it's going to have to be Josh Allen taking them to another level. I said last week, I thought that's what was going to happen. After watching this game, man, I'm. I don't know, the body language, the vibes is you and the ringer folk like to say. The vibes are bad on this team. I mean, there is just... Vives is such a regular word.

It's such a socially accepted and largely mainstream word. You and the ringer folks. I didn't even see the Trayvon. Trayvon Dix was tweeting about this. I didn't even see that. Yeah, he tweeted 14's got to get up out of that referring to his brother. Oh my gosh. Turnovers and end of half management and interception before halftime and getting down the field

and missed extra points. Like so many stuff, so much that's going on in this game. To call a timeout after 1st and 10 when the Broncos, actually, no, let's rewind it. To get a sack on second and four in an all-out pressure look and knock the Broncos out of field goal range. And then on 3rd and 10, to walk out in the same look and bring the pressure, play cover zero behind. They have the ball on the 45-yard line. They are not in field goal range. Not on a day like this in Buffalo with their kicking situation.

To bring that same pressure is unbelievable. unbelievably poor coaching. On second and four, it was high risk, high reward. On third and 10, it was high risk, minimal, if any reward. Just get to fourth and five. They're going to have to go for it and then win fourth and five. Maybe they're going to kick from the 40-yard line, 57-yard, are you like your chances?

To make that play call is horrendous. And then when you give it up on the DPI, which sucks at underthrown, reward, Russell Wilson for a terrible ball. DPI gets involved, but of course it does. To then call the time out when they're salting the game away. Call your second time out. Call your third time out when they're sitting on the clock and setting up the field goal. And to not have it known who your 11 players are for field goal block is unbelievable.

In a year in which we saw Josh McDaniels coach games, it is the worst end of game management. I can remember seeing this season. Just a complete miscarriage of justice for the bills. I was furious watching it. The first zero blitz was almost a brilliant call because, like you said, they're right, they're right there on the fringe where if they get like a four or five yard completion, now it's not going to be a gimmie, but they're going to be in field goal range. And so you said, like you said, there was a high reward there where they get to them.

They actually sacked and they move them back to the 45 yard line. And then you're right. I was thinking, wait a minute. Third and ten, now you can kind of chill a little bit. Like you give up a five-yard completion here. They're setting up for a 58-yard field goal potentially. And who knows if they're even going to get a five-yard completion here. They go zero blitz again, Taryn Johnson with the pass interference penalty.

And you're right. I mean, the Broncos, Sean Payton had the unusual tactic there where they come out, no timeouts left, go with the kneel and then hustle the field. You know, most coaches are like, we're not doing that. Which they had done the fire drill in the first half. They had a very recent rep of it. So maybe you feel good about that. McDermott should have, in terms of the usage of his timeouts,

McDermott should have taken the clock down to 15 seconds and then called his last time out instead of calling it with 24 left. Because at 15, you're really putting, or like 14, I don't know, whatever, you're really putting stress on them to snap the football, kneel it, get the team on, get the team off, and kick it. So at 15 seconds, they're just going to kick it. And now you have the chance for a return or for a Hail Mary. So he already wasn't calling timeouts.

time, but that's small potatoes. Know who the 11 are for field goal block. Goodness gracious. I mean, he missed the, let's miss the freaking field goal. He missed a 41-yarder. You were gifted it. You were gifted it. You were gifted it.

All right. So, there you go. That's up. I don't know. I feel like, the majority of listeners, I understand if you listen to what I said and are like, get out of here. That team's done. I get it if you feel that way.

That's how I felt after why. watching that game. All right. We should we should probably, you know, give the Bronco some credit. That was kind of mean to me. Didn't even mention them. They won the game. They're four and five. I will say they are much better.

Like, this is more of the type of team I expected them to have under Sean Payton. Not a great team, not a team with a high ceiling, but a well-coached team that could kind of, you know, squeak out some of these upsets and do the little things right that we just mentioned at the end of the game. Do those little things right and give your team an edge. And I thought the defense was going to be good coming in. into the season. Now, the first month, they're absolutely garbanzo beans. And then the last month, they have been much, much improved. So yes, give them credit for, you know, you can tell,

for the most part, Sean Payton is coaching this offense, like, I'm not going to put too much on Russell Wilson over and over and over again. But hey, this was kind of like a, not a total throwback game, but to some of those ugly Seahawks wins where Russell Wilson made kind of a handful of plays that got you a victory, this was that type of game. So yes, credit to the Broncos are four and five. Broncos are four and five and five, and bills are five and five. So I probably, if you're a Broncos fan yelling at me saying you should have led it with our team, you're right. Yeah, smack me in the face

virtually. Broncos winners of their last three, which have been Green Bay, but then also Kansas City and Buffalo, far from easy wins. And they played the Chiefs tough before that, even in their loss. Yeah. They have Sunday night football coming up against the winners of their last five Minnesota Vikings. Man, two or three weeks ago, we were looking at that game. Oh, gross, nasty Sunday night football. Now, implications. It's a meaningful game and all science point to entertainment.

You know, Troy Aikman was like, this is really good Russell Wilson. I'm not sure it was really good Russell Wilson, but it was generally, I don't want to say mistake-free, but less insane risk-prone Russell Wilson. He did far less to damage the offense than he typically does. Took sacks, but largely only five incompletions. He had no interceptions. Didn't make the back-breaking play. Didn't make the back-breaking. Let me launch it 50 runs down the field play when I don't need to. Played within the offense and was rewarded for it. Yeah, Broncos' talent is starting to show out.

Just too many good players on this team to continue to be as bad as they have. Quarton Sutton, terrific, terrific. I mean, that was sick. That touchdown catch getting those feet in there. I think the Broncos best play is Russell Wilson drops back. You let the

tackles get beat, high side. You step up in the pocket, you let someone hit you, and you flip it to the check down there. That was like automatic seven or eight yards every time. They did death. So we'll say, we'll see what the Broncos end up with here. They are four and five. All right. Now we go around the league for the rest of week 10. Benny Souls. What's your first non-Monday night football take? Yeah, it's time for extra point taken. First take of the show brought

you by State Farm, Shale. Some things are better together like tailgating and cornhole, baffle the Wings and blue cheese and bundling your home and auto insurance with the State Farm Personal Price Plan. Now, that's a play you want to make. Personal Price Plan lets you choose the coverage you need at a price you can afford like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

The pairing that I like seeing the most is Doug Peterson and Trevor Lawrence. I haven't gotten to see it this season. I'd like to see it back. The Jaguars lost a big game against the 49ers. Home game. They lose 34 to 3. Offense never gets out of the mud. Doug Peterson gave a wonderful answer in his press comments.

They asked what's going on. He starts walking through the drives. And he's like, we blow a block, we miss a check on a screen call, we end with a sack. We have a sack fumble. It creates more of the penalty. We go three and out. Like just walking through the issues, it takes four or five drives for the offense. We start moving the ball down the field.

And he says it's unacceptable. We can't take that long to get going. But Doug Peterson isn't the one calling the plays in Jacksonville. He was in 2022 when Trevor Lawrence started to look like the quarterback that was promised. But in the beginning of the season, before the season began, it was announced that Peterson was giving overplay calling duties to office coordinator, Press Taylor, who he brought with him from Philadelphia. Now, Doug's doing this because Andy Reid did it for him in Kansas City. Andy would let him call plays for certain sections of the game, certain stretches of the game.

He'd be more involved in the play-calling process, and it helped Doug get head coaching interest. He gets the Eagles job, and we know the rest of the story from there. When he gave play calling duties to Press Taylor to the Jaguars, the Eagles fan of me felt the hair raised up on my back because he did that in 2020 when the Eagles were kind of struggling on offense a little bit, and it was not good. It did not help Doug save his job, did not give the offense the kickstart and needed. And here in 2023,

this Jags offense is become by Lombardi Herbert offense, where it's just extremely painful to watch. The Jaguars right now have the lowest route depth in the league of any team besides the Cincinnati Bengals who started the year with Joe Burrow not being able to play football. By route depth, I mean, their receivers don't run down the field. They don't run vertical. routes, they don't run deep routes.

The Jaguars have fewer than 8% of their routes go more than 20 yards down the field. It's the lowest number of the league comfortably. They don't run vertically at all. They run short and intermediate breaking routes. And all of the concepts they run are traditional and classic, beautiful West Coast concepts, triangle reeds and horizontal stretch and vertical stretch, snag and spacing and spot and levels. Oh, it's all so good. And because they have Trevor Lawrence, who's like a very good process.

A very smart, fast guy in the pocket. He'll always make them right. He'll always get them to the right play. And it just doesn't, there's no juice at all. The 49ers defensive game plan was absolutely hilarious. I don't think a single player ever got deeper than 15 yards. They just sat in the middle of the field and never sang. Just, nope, we don't play deep here.

We don't, we're not, this is not concerning to us. If whatever receiver takes us there, maybe we'll chase him. But they were on top of every single route. Calvin Ridley is being pressed at the second highest rate is from next gen stats of any receiver in the league this year. Only DeAndre Hopkins is pressed more. They don't put him in motion. They don't hide them in stacks and bunches.

They just stick him out there and just say, why isn't he winning for us? Why isn't he beating for us? And certainly it'd be great if he were. You tried to get a star-wide receiver. But look at how the other teams use their star receivers. Look at how the dolphins send Tyree kill hither and there. Look at how the Eagles hide AJ Brown in the slot.

The Vikings hide Justin Jefferson in the slot. Look at CD-Land this way and that way motion. every single team is pressing the easy buttons. They're pressing the cheat codes. They're just making life easier on their quarterback. And the Jaguars are not doing this. You and I talked a lot, Sheel, about how the vibes on the Jaguars, even as they were winning games, before the Snyder's game,

we were like, I don't know, it doesn't feel the way it should. This game was really eye-opening to me in terms of what feels so off. It's that the offense is stale. It is very basic. It is very, it lacks creativity. It lacks easy buttons. and to me this is a direct result of the play caller change. When Doug Peterson was managing this office last year,

they did not have nearly this number of issues. Now they've lacked Zay Jones. He's been out, and Zay Jones, it was reported on Thursday today from John Shipley at Sports Illustrated that there was a domestic battery arrest under Zay Jones and he might not be, we don't know what his situation is. They haven't had Zay, but that's not as big enough of a thing

to kind of be the difference in 2022 to 2023. The difference is Press-Taylor. I don't understand what he's bringing to the offense, they need to bring Doug. Doug Peters needs to take play calling back if he wants this offense to get the teeth that it needs to be a legitimate team in the AFC. I don't disagree with your takes

on the design of the, yes, everything is horizontal. Now listen, maybe there are reasons for that. They, you know, they were getting beat up front quite a bit, at least in that game

against the 49ers season long. I agree with you. There are not enough plays where I watch it and say, let Trevor Lawrence show the natural talent that he has. That has been my issue with this offense. Now,

I think you're a little misguided not to say that the play calling isn't an issue, but I think you're letting Doug Peterson off the hook way too much here. I mean, Doug Peterson, his imprint is all over this offense. I mean, he doesn't sit back and just hand it over to press tail. I mean, Doug Peterson, the defense, yes.

If you're a defensive coach, you don't even need to see Doug Peterson. He's not coming in the meeting rooms. Just, hey, you know, keep us in the games, we'll be okay. The offense, I mean, this is designed in a large part by Doug Peterson. I mean, this is his offense.

He is the head coach. He is not just sitting back. So it's not just the play calling. Because as you mentioned, a lot of this stuff is design related. You know, the stuff they have in the game plan that they're calling was not good stuff on Sunday. It was too easy to defend. Was too horizontal. Nothing downfield.

They don't threaten teams downfield. So I think he has to take accountability for that as well. I think Doug Peterson is a very good, very good coach. I still think there's time for this group. to figure it out. But this was, you know, these issues surfaced during his time in Philadelphia, you know, and at times she said, well, is it personnel base? They don't have great wide receivers. But there are times in Doug Peterson's history where it feels like his goal is like a nine play, 70, you know, an 11 play 75-yard drive over and over and over again. It's like it's hard to

operate that way. I mean, you mentioned that clip he gave today. It was a great clip. Good for him. He's actually explaining what he thinks is going wrong with the offense. But some of that does have to do. Like when you're trying to string together drives and maybe not as explosive as you want to be, and then all of a sudden you have a penalty here. And all of a sudden you give up pressure here and you have a negative play. Like those things are hard to come. It's a harder way to do it.

So, you know, the Jaguars have like a number. I mean, the Jaguars and people are going to be like all you guys talk about is, you know, turnovers. The Jaguar's biggest problem is they are getting kids. Now, they have offensive structure problems. I agree. It's not as efficient as last year, but turnovers. They are 30th in the NFL in turnover EPA.

They have 11 turnovers in opponent's territory, most in the NFL. Oh, so when the Falcons had all those turnovers in opponent territory, you were not. They've never shown me anything. Absolutely right. You're freaking right. Definitely. I'm messing. I'm messing.

I mess. I'm not Trevor Lawrence and Doug Peterson. So yes. And since you said that, that you. I have a Capadia curse where I say something good is going to happen. And then the opposite out, there might be a Solac curse. Listen, we'll get to the Falcons if we want to. The Falcons, man.

I don't know. What do you think? I feel like you're letting Peterson off the hook a little bit. I don't think it's just the play calling. So here's my thing. This gets, like, whenever you and I discuss play calling, we always end up in the spot. Like, this was our Shane Steichen conversation from the Eagles last year to the Colts this year and kind of that transition.

I agree that game planning. designing the collaborative impact of looking at offense and like the Monday to Saturday work is probably a bigger piece of the pie and a more substantial part of how good play calling happens on Sunday than most like average NFL fans realize. I think that's absolutely true. Oh, Ben Johnson is such a good office coordinator for the Lions. Yeah, Dan Campbell's got his fingerprints all over that offense. You know what I'm saying?

Like, oh, like Kyle Shanahan is such a good offense in San Francisco. Yeah, well, there's a reason why like these guys go to all their staffs are also really good. It gets a collaborative effort. So I absolutely agree that like we oftentimes put all of the laurels or all of the blame on one dude, the dude on the headset on Sunday when they should be better shared both the laurels and the blame among the entire offensive staff. I generally agree with that concept. With that said, I feel like I can watch a game on Sunday. I'll watch plays go through and be like, oh, the dude on the headset does not have his thumb on the pulse. And that's absolutely how I feel about watching the press tail offense.

like Calvin Ridley was nowhere for the first half and then the first time they called a shot play they called like a man-beater rub route shot play down the field it's to Christian Kirk that's just the wrong dude like that's just not the dude to dial that you have to get Ridley activated you're down by multiple scores in the first half get your guy going like the

the inability to get the ball to Ridley in easy ways when he's struggling early is to me like an immediate death knell on the or not death no excuse me but like that is directly on the guy on the headset. That, like, it's a little bit like, you know, you make a plan and God laughs.

Like, everybody has a plan until the bolts are flying. You do all the Monday to Saturday working. It's great. Within, like, you know, 10 plays on the script on a Sunday, it's just you open the silo, baby. It's you open the booth and you've got to be good at it. All right, this is what they're doing. This is how we're going to adjust.

You obviously have support. But if you're going to be on the headset, that buck stops with you. And so there's times, like, when I watch an offense, like I'll watch the Steelers offense and go like, oh, there are legitimate design issues here. Like the entire offense of staff needs to. The details are bad.

This needs to improve. When I watch the Jaguars offense, I feel like there are sequencing issues. I feel like there's situational issues. They are remarkably worse on third down this year and they were last year. Fourth down they were last year. Gold ago, as they were last year. Red zones they were last year.

Yeah. This to me is the guy on the headset, seeing it better than the dude on the headset on the other side. And last year for Jacksonville, it was always yes. And this year for Jacksonville, it always no. There's stuff to me that I feel like I can figure out that's on the guy who's calling the place, and it feels that way in Jacksonville.

Yeah, I'm not saying. So, all Doug Peter, I think you're right. I think what you're saying certainly has validity. I mean, you just came up with the answer there. Solac. Get his butt out of the booth and on the sideline. That solves everybody's power. Get him out of the side line.

Get him on the side line. Two or two. Performance, baby. Mac, Canada, they score on their first possession once again there. So, yeah, I mean, now, now you, we have to at least mention us. So are you putting Z. 0% of the blame pie on Trevor Lawrence. I know it's a very small percentage.

I was just wondering, is it any of it? There's absolutely a percentage because Lawrence is dealing with like, so a lot of the routes are short to intermediate. Like I said, they kind of stunt the offense. And you can experience Lawrence getting frustrated with that in game and then taking plays into the scramble drill earlier than he needs to, more aggressively than he needs to. And they're getting a ton of sack.

a product, like, their sack rate is near, Lawrence's Sacrace nearly double what it was last season. And some of that's the offensive line play playing poorly. But also some of that is on like Lawrence, it's an internal clock right now, was screaming at him because he's trying to play. He's trying to play so fast on like all this, there's quick games on the spacing stuff that he'll pick a half field,

go to read it. It's wrong. And then he's out. And like Lawrence was such a good pocket manager and really good throw in the move guy last year and he's lost some of that. There's absolutely a part of it that belongs to Lawrence. In general, I feel like that it's a little bit,

Occam's Razor after it therefore because of it the Jaguar's offense has a lot of similarities from last year into this year in terms of the personnel that they have like they lost Joanne Taylor like I said Zay Jones hasn't been available but in general it's like same offensive staff mostly the same weapons you introduce Calvin Ridley

the one big thing that changed feels like the thing that's causing the issues and that's Press Taylor taking overplay calling for me. Yeah well what you mentioned with Lawrence that has stood out I was just looking at the pro football focus does the the stat pressures into sacks You know, how many, what percentage your pressures actually end up in sacks?

And Lawrence, this has been like a strength of his. He doesn't take a lot of sacks. This year, 23% of their pressures turn into sacks. That's the third worst mark in the NFL behind only, you boy. Desmond Ritter and Sam Howe. Oh, wow. Minimum dropbacks. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. Dropbacks or nuts. But last year was 14.8%. So, again, Lawrence, it goes from 14.8% to 23.1%. Yeah, it just. feels like you just watch him and go unleash the guy. Let him play a little bit. You don't need like the robot guy at quarterback where you're scheming everything up. Let him do a little bit more. I actually think, let's close this out. I actually think that they're going to figure stuff out in the

second. I watched that. I didn't feel great about it. I watched that Doug Peterson clip. And I thought, all right, they acknowledge what the issues are. I've seen him turn stuff around before. The quarterback's healthy. That's always the most important thing. Like you mentioned, the talent is very similar to last year. I mean, you may, even if they don't have Zay Jones, well, they got Calvin Ridley. Like, the talent should be enough for you to be way more efficient. And remember, this was not a great team in the first half last year. So maybe there's something to that where they have to figure some things out.

So I don't know if he's going to make a change or not and yank the play call sheet back. I never thought Doug Peterson would give up play calling. It was like his favorite thing. It was basically his favorite part about being an NFL head coach. He loves it. And it's from a good place. He wants to improve press his chances of being hired as a head coach somewhere. But it's like, all right.

Yeah. You got the offense needs to improve. Yeah, they have Titans at home this upcoming Sunday. And then on the road against the Houston Texans in a game that just may be for the division lead shield. Mm, mm, mm, mm, those Texans. There you go. That part of today's episode was brought to you by State Farm. So if you want to score an affordable price on your home and auto insurance talk to a State Farm agent today,

during how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and saving shield and eligibility. Very state by state. I love it. There you go. All right. Let's take a break. We'll come right back with more on extra point take. All right. We are back on an extra point taken. I'm up with my second take. Dan Campbell is the new king of the nerds, Ben Solac. I mean, who would have thought this guy? Always has been. My boy. right. Probably always has been, but even like I thought this was such a shining example on Sunday. Great game. Really a great game. Against the Chargers, fourth and two, the Lions from the Los Angeles Chargers 26-yard line. The game is tied. You kick a field goal and you take the lead there. There's 147 left in the game, 38, 38. Dan Campbell says, I don't think so. I don't care if you crush me if we don't get this. I'm doing what I think gives our team the best chance to win, which is really all this is about the decision-making with the analytics.

So he decides to go for it. Golf hits Sam Leporta, Leporta, six-yard completion. They kick a 41-yard field goal as time expires. Chargers don't get the ball back. Reason I'm bringing this up, and I've really, this year, I've tried to reel in how many times I bring up like the game management because I know you give me that look sometimes. Like, Shield, we get it.

Not again. So I do feel like I... I hope I never give you that look. I always love the game management. Oh, you too. I think, let's rehash some Josh McDaniels decisions, buddy. I'm with you. Let's do it.

All right, that'll be my extra point taken. But the reason I brought this one up specifically is because this is the exact type of decision that gets killed if it doesn't work. I mean, there's a scenario where they throw in complete there. The chargers get the ball back. They drive into field goal range. They kick a game winning field goal. And guess what?

The lead segment, every show you watch today is about how analytics don't take this into account. Analytics, analytics don't know that the three techniques. I know she only never got a voice on the show before. So that's all you would have heard today. You'd say, oh, Campbell got carried away. He shouldn't have overthought it. Kick the field goal to tie game. What are you doing?

Well, that would have been a bad move if he did that because the Chargers had scored on five consecutive possessions, five straight touchdowns. And so at that point in the game, it's not just about taking the lead and kicking the field goal. Again, it's about what decision gives you the best chance to win. The decision he made gave him the best chance to win, and he was willing to accept the consequences if they didn't make it. Now, a couple more things on this. So, like, I read this story from Colton Pouncey of the Athletic does a good job covering the lions about the whole process here. And it got me even more excited because this was not like a spur of the moment decision by Dan Campbell. he was in a similar situation last year against the Vikings, not exact but similar.

He kicked the long field goal missed. The Vikings scored. And after the game, Campbell just like ripped himself. He's like, I hate it. I hate that I did that. I was stupid. Why did I do that? I don't want to do that.

I want to be aggressive. And so now this season, he does something different. Even in this game, anyone who was watching that game, they were going for it over and over and over again. They had a fourth and goal from the one. It failed. Guess what? They then had another fourth and goal. goal from the one. And Tony Romo says, you got to take the points here. You can't have another

possession where you don't get points. Obviously. Dan Campbell says, I don't think so. We're sticking to the process, baby, goes for it. And they get the touchdown. And so to me, the big thing here is that like this is part of the Lions program. You know, there was this passage again from that article by Colton Pouncey and the athletic. Earlier in the week, he informed his players. They would be aggressive in those situations. He prepared them for the moment, spent time on it in practice, and watch them execute when it mattered most. I think this is like a big aspect of the whole, you know, decision-making process that gets lost.

It's not like, you can't just show up on a game day and be like, oh, yeah, go for it on fourth. Like, it helps so much when the players know, okay, we know we're not coming off the field. We're going forward in this spot. And then guess what? The players fail and they don't panic. There's not like this fracture between the offense and defense. What is the coach doing?

Because they know this is part, this is going to help us more than it's going to hurt us. throughout the course of a season. And I love that he had that in that article. And then in all the quotes I was reading from the players in there. So I love how Dan Campbell coached that game. He's done an awesome job all year long. He knows what he's doing in so many different aspects of being a head football coach from culture to leadership, to camaraderie, to game management, to scheming.

By the way, if you watch that offense, again, yes, Ben Johnson deserves his flowers. But, man, that is a highly scheme well-planned. offense. Lions are seven and two. Great position in the NFC. And I think Dan Campbell deserves credit for how he coached that game. I'm really glad you did this because I just watched, I watched that Lions game on Sunday, and then I watched the film through on Monday. And then you're looking at a sheet that has the Lions is four for five on fourth down. Charged by the way, three for three on fourth down. It was 41 to 38. It was an unbelievably fun game. It was two offensive playing an extraordinarily high levels, back and forth,

slobber knocker, last thing to possess the football, like everything you want in a game. And I just knew if I, if I tweeted, like, oh, where are the people mad about Dan Campbell going from a fourth down now? Then it would like cheapen it, right? It would just be like me. And I usually do just being like, oh, like the fourth downs. Oh, Ben, with the analytics.

I was like, I'm not going to get into it, whatever. Like, no one's going to pay attention to the fact that this was an excellent, excellent example of why analytics are helpful and why you should do this, and how it helps you win. But I won't say it. So I'm glad that you brought it up because I was too cowardly to do so. The number one thing about Campbell making good fourth down decisions, and I think even like presenting him as a bit of a foiled Brandon Staley here is useful,

the number one thing I always come back to is how a lot of people, when they present anti-forthdown arguments, present anti-point conversion arguments, basically anything that's like anti-math, they're like, well, the guys in the locker room won't, they get it. Like, you're going to lose the locker room when you make decisions like this. It's going to negatively impact the players. They're going to view you differently because they feel like you're making suboptimal decisions, which is a reasonable stretch of logic if coaches weren't allowed to talk to their players, ever.

But they are. And accordingly, like, Campbell understands, in the same way, like, remember that famous club of John Harbaugh, asking Lamar, like, hey, Lamar, you want to go for this? And I was like, yeah. Yeah. And then Harbaugh was like, okay, we're going for it. All you need is buy-in. Like, it's organizational.

It's leadership stuff. Take the football out of it. It's CEO stuff. Like, all these coaches, they love to read about these CEOs, read about leadership and managing a team of people, whatever. It's developing buy-in from your team. It's bringing them into the collective aspect of it. The Lions so clearly are on board with the way to go about things that it doesn't matter.

Like, oh, Dan Campbell, man's man, football. Oh, God. He got his team on board with a philosophy, and they're going forward with a philosophy. He did the work to make sure it's the optimal philosophy. He did the math with the nerds, all the spreadsheets, but he also did the work to make sure his team was behind him. It was a single thrust behind one spearhead.

The reason why I say Staley is an interesting foils, because obviously Staley's a huge proponent of this stuff too, and I think largely the Chargers have been behind Staley on that. When I think about why Staley's defense has been so bad with the Chargers, I often think about how, like, philosophically, it's a really big shift. You go from, like, saying, we're always going to be gap sound to being like, we're not going to be gap sound ever. And, like, that's just hard for defensive players to get behind.

It's hard to generate buy-in for that big of a defensive philosophy change. And I think that's part of the reason why, like, you see this defense struggle the way it did. And so it's always important to think about that idea of like, all right, is everybody with you on this? And Campbell's so good at getting his team with him. And we're all on the boat together. We are the Detroit Lions. That's like that word culture gets.

bandied around. It's what it means, right? We're part of a collective. We're unified by some links. And when we tell the story the seven and two lions, you tell the story of Dan Campbell and his culture. And a big part of his culture is embracing analytics and going for it on fourth down. You can't excise that out. That's a part of him. It's part of how the Lions play ball.

And preparing for it, you know, like he said in there, like, yeah, they've got, they've get the reps during the week. Here's what we're going to do in these spots. They're ready for it. Yeah, I think all, especially when you're, when you're, the strength of your team is your offense, which it is for the Lions, it makes even more sense.

Sometimes, listen, if your offense stinks, you don't trust the quarterback, you don't trust the production, you have a great defense, then okay, we'll give you a pass, but in this situation, it made all the sense in the world. So nice job by Dan Campbell. All right, what do you got? Hit me with your next take. Shiel, on the pot, we talk a lot

about what we're rooting for. I endorse the Houston Texans as a playoff team. I also endorse another team as a playoff team. Doesn't matter who. That's why we're going for. Oh, this Lions team, what if they got the home playoff run? all their dome games, right?

We're like, all right, like the Green Bay Packers, the team of the show, like we, we, we, uh, we have a lot of stuff

we root for. I would like to add one more thing we're rooting for. Ooh. I'm excited. I'm rude for the New York Giants get the first overall pick. No,

my next thing is the giants are getting the number one. Yes. Shoot, we're so good at podcasts. We're the best podcasts. Good, bad. I don't know,

yeah, I don't know what the right word is. But I didn't have more rooting for it. So give me the case. I, I just think it's going to happen. why are we rooting for it? Why are we rooting for it?

Because if they have the first overall pick, then they have the Caleb Williams pick and they also have a $69.3 million dead cap hit on Daniel Jones's contract. And I just want to see what happens. The Daniel Jones extension, which we've talked about a lot in the show, is just a thing that I thought never made sense

and he was such a clear franchise to tag candidate and to give him this big extension, 40 million per. It's going to have, again, like this extension is going to have tectonic impacts on the middle class of quarterback contracts. Every single guy who hits free agency, Kirk, Tannahill, Goff is going to be able to very easily argue that they are better of and deserving of this contract. And it's going to balloon the second tier of quarterback contract.

It's going to happen. So this deal is extremely meaningful. Structurally, for those who, you know, how do you move on from stuff? Jones had a $1 million-dollar base salary this year. Next year goes up to $35 million. So like his big, big, big cap hit start. coming. His cap hit was only 15.5 this year.

Next year, it's 47 million. So if he's on the Giants cap next year, if he's on the team, he costs them $47 million. But because of the bonus money, if he's off the team next year, he costs more. He costs 69.3 million dead cap. It'd be the largest dead cap hit by tens of millions of dollars. So the Giants are in a spot where they are like extremely more so than any other team in history has been when they might move off of a guy. Like, they are tied to Jones.

It's very, very, very, very hard financially to move off of Jones next year, which means if they get the first overall pick, which Seth Walter of ESPN tweeted out today, the ESPN analytics projections for who gets the first overall pick. The Bears are currently the leading in the clubhouse at 39.3% chance. Remember, that's both that's the representation of the Panthers pick at number one. They also might get the pick by themselves with an additional 2.5 percentage. but that 39.3 is the Bears because it's the Panthers. But second place right now is the Giants at 38.4%. Now, they have a game against the Patriots later this season. There might be like the game for the pick, which is very exciting.

We love a Super Bowl for the first overall pick, the Burrow Bowl from a few years back. I know. I feel like we might need to like live pod that game or something. I don't know. That is an exciting. Are you able to do a live thing while you watch a game? Because from what I understand, you sit in a hole and you don't. I was wondering while I was watching that Bill's end of game sequence,

I was like, I hope she'll's talking to someone about this right now because I'm talking to everyone I know about this. And she all just sits by himself, doesn't do anything apparently. You got my first take. See? No one else heard it. What an honor. Like 45 minutes afterward.

So if the Giants do end up with that Caleb Williams selection, with that first overall pick, it is going to be one of the most unique corners into which a team has been painted, one of the most unique environments. They're going to have to do a lot of PR work and locker room work. Like, when, if you sign a guy to deal this big and move off of him in just one year,

other players notice that, agents notice that. That's a big deal. But they might have to just because Caleb Williams versus Daniel Jones. Like, it's too much of an issue. Then there's the Drake May have it all. Like, what if you like two quarter? But can you move? There's so much that goes into that.

So Giants holding the first overall pick would make this offseason, probably the best, like, most interesting question I've covered in an offseason in my entire career. I'm rooting for it so, so so much. I can't believe you also had kind of this. That's amazing. Let's just, you know, sorry. So I do want to respond to what you said there.

So, yeah, mine was just the Giants are getting the number one pick. You gave the percentages there. And so just to give you a sense of who else is in the mix, as Ben mentioned, Panthers are 1 and 8 right now. Giants are 2 and 8. Patriots are 2 and 8. Cardinals, we can bump out. Cardinals are going to win some games with Kylie.

Yes, sir. The tank is over. Yeah, Kyler Murray looked good this weekend. And so they're going to win some games. So I think it's a three-team race, Panthers, Giants, and Patriots. Of course, Panthers goes to the Bears, as Solek mentioned there. Now, Patriots are a bad team, no doubt about it, but they have five losses by seven points or fewer. I think they probably luck into a win or two the rest of the way.

It's not the easiest schedule, but they do get the Giants. They're going to be big favorites in that game. So the Giants, meanwhile, Ben, I mean, this team they're putting out there, okay, they've been outscored by 148 points through 10 weeks. That's 51 points worse than any other team. Listeners, think of the worst team in the end, the worst non-Giants team in the NFL. Guess what?

The Giants are way worse than that team. Last 10 years, only one team has had a worst point differential through 10 weeks. The 2019 Miami Dolphins, and that was by one point. So the Giants are just Tommy DeVito. they're just sticking with the man for Tommy DeVito. He's getting paid.

His mom's making this bet. That's his family came to a game. Yeah, he's living a good life. That's right. He's living. Stay healthy, Tommy. And then you'll have a great story to tell one day. We don't know when Tyrod Taylor is coming back.

They just gave up. I don't even know if people realized this because I don't think guys were glued to that Cowboy Science game. They gave up 640 yards of offense in that game. Like Tommy DeVito does not play defense. They gave up 640. yards of offense. This week Solek against the Washington

commanders, they are nine and a half point underdogs to Ron Rivera, Sam Hal, and the Washington they're playing some competitive ball. I don't want to rip on the commanders here. They've entertained me more than I thought, but nine and a half point underdogs. According to the website, which we like, impertictable,

which tells you how teams stack up on a neutral field according to the betting markets, the Giants would be at least a three and a half point underdog to every single team in the NFL right now. That's including the Carolina Panthers. If they met the, what's halfway between Carolina and New Jersey? Probably Northern Virginia somewhere.

Yeah, I was going to say, Virginia. All right, I'll find it. I love that. You look it up. Whatever. All right. Let's say Herndon, Virginia. We had a family friend in Herndon, Virginia.

Let's say they meet them in Herndon, Virginia. They go to a high school football field. They play them. They would be three and a half point underdogs. that game. I don't know how the Giants are going to win another football game. Maybe Tyrod Taylor comes back. I don't know. But I think they're going to get that number one overall pick. Now, to what you say, Solacabal. Like, I don't know that I'm to me, like, they're going to draft a quarterback if they have, you know, if they have a top two pick, they're drafting a quarterback.

they're only tied guaranteed money-wise with Daniel Jones to 2024. Now, his ACL injury, which I don't know if you mentioned that, that throws a big wrinkle into this. Because maybe there's a scenario where you restructure the deal, your trade Daniel Jones. I remember you threw out the Falcons when we talked about this last time. And I can't stop thinking about that, by the way. When I think of Daniel Jones trade destinations and I watch the Falcons, I'm like, Daniel Jones is meant to be an Atlanta Falcon place. for Arthur Smith, but I don't know when he's going to be healthy coming off that ACL.

So you're right. It is weird. It's a little bit messy at the same time. Like you're just drafting a quarterback and either figuring out a way to restructure Daniel Jones and move him, or you're just like, you know, all right, hang out over here. You're going to be a backup. You know, there are weird situations that arise. Responses in order of importance. First, most important. Halfway between New York and Charlotte is Daweswell, Virginia. It's a little bit north of Richmond, which I have a buddy, Richmond. So there you go. Richmond, Fredericksburg area.

I was going to say Richmond. I thought Richmond would be too south. It is. It is a little bit south. But still, like, you should have been gone rich. You would have been very close. Okay.

Second most important. Here's why Daniel Jones is impossible to move next year. Because you could move a contract like this. If the other team, the acquiring team played ball with you and helped you out a lot money-wise,

no team is going to do that when you are saddled. with this deal and have the first overall pick. Why would I ever help you? No chance I'm up. You're about to get Caleb Williams and you're calling me like, can we restructure Daniel Jones's deal a little bit to get you out of it? No.

I'm not, there's not a shot. I am making you trade this contract as is, especially because I know that you, Joe Shane, GM of the Giants, are going to be getting insane pressure from Daniel Jones's agent who Spot Rack tells me as Cameron Hahn of athletes first. Cammer's going to be on the phone every day of the week, 9 a.m. the moment you get in the office, restructure this deal, get Jones out. Like, we are getting Jones out of here.

We're trading this deal. We're going to move around the deal. We're going to make him, trade him, trade him, trade him. I'm not going to be one to play a ball. You're going to have to give up something. You, the Giants, are going to have to figure out with Daniel Jones, how you're going to restructure his deal before I even get involved. So no team is going to help them by moving off of Jones.

So you walk into next season with Caleb Williams at QB1 and with a 47 million-dollar man in QB2. It's a tricky situation to handle as a coach. It is delicate, it is challenging, especially if the rookie doesn't play well. first. Again, I have room for this because I want to see it because I don't know what it'll look like and it'll be, I think, very challenging for a lot of parties involved. Jones at the Falcons, like, I'd be interested, like, I think there's ways that that's good for Jones.

Like, that's ways that Jones would play well and they'd have good offense. Like, it's not even totally riding off Jones. It's just once the Giants have the first overall pick, we enter a really unique world. And I'd just like to see how that goes for the months of the offseason. Yeah, I think the restruct, like it would be, you know, you just could, all right, convert it. you get the money up front and then you can spread the contract out over more years so that it's not as bad of a cap hit for the Giants. And then, you know, Jones is like, all right, I get more money in my pocket right away. It's easier on the Giants. And then maybe it makes it tradable. But again, the guy's coming off in ACL. So I don't know what the market would be for him.

When you don't see him play, he's coming off an ACL injury. What are you giving up for Daniel Jones? I actually think the Giants are sort of getting rewarded here for a terrible process. I mean, we said, We were on the same page. Why this is what the franchise tag is meant for? Why aren't using the franchise tag? They don't use it. They sign them to the extension. Now they suck anyway.

And guess what? Now they might be gifted. Now I've noticed in this conversation you have said Caleb Williams every time. Is that because Solek is on Caleb Williams is 100% QB1 in the draft or just for conversation purposes? Or you probably haven't done all your work on it yet. But I just did want to point out that you didn't mention Drake May as a possibility at all. The reason I was doing that is because I think the average extra point-taking listener, the average expat is going to be like,

like Caleb Williams is QV-1, Caleb is the chosen prince, like to understand the gravity of missing this pick. I think it will be Caleb. I think it right now if you made me pick today, I think I would pick Caleb. Drake Mae is a very, very good young. That young man can throw the ball a little bit.

I had nothing against the Drake May. I enjoy Drake May quite a bit. I think that Caleb right now illustrates the point better, but we might be sitting here in February talking about this pick is the Drake May pick. I did bring up the fact that maybe it's a two-quarterback draft and maybe according to moving off

of pick one and into pick two has some interest to it. But that's again, like if we get there when we get there, sort of a situation. All right. So I think it's going to be

Giants 1, Bears 2, Patriots 3. Man, that would hurt like you said. Three is not great. I mean, there are great players.

I shouldn't say three is not great. Marvin Harrison, the tackle from Penn State. There are great players available, but if you're in the need for a quarterback, it looks like, and there's a lot of time to go, it looks like one and two are the spots. What do you think? Call your order here. Are you with me? Giants, Bears, Patriots, or you think somebody else sneaks up there? You think Patriots get up there? I think Giants Bears, Patriots makes the most sense right now. I agree with you that. I think the Patriots are better than, there are a step above. The guy of the Patriots is the highest of any of us in like our power rankings. we did as a staff before the before this week coming in and like I forget what the exact stat was I saw it

floating around today they had like over 150 rushing yards and also like controlled league ball late like teams that had done this like previously 266 and oh and now the 266 and 1 they should have won that Colts game as just they could not execute in the red area. The problem is like the

Patriots might implode like Bailey Bill Belich Jack Jones yeah weird stuff like the Patriots might just just go thermonuclear and that would throw a wrench into things. All right, let's take one more break. We'll come back. Get to Solax third take and my extra point take.

We're back. All right, hit me. Now, if you're, no, let's see, let's see if this leads into my extra point take and if this is the same as my extra point taken, what do you got?

I feel like you've, like, kind of rumored your take. You like mentioned a Falcons thing. I have, no, I don't have, no, I didn't mean to. I thought maybe we would get to some of those.

No, I don't have anything on the Falcons. I'm giving you a break. It's the bye week for the Falcons. It's the by week of me asking you about the falcon. All right. This take coming to you from the person who wrote literally like last Sunday, week nine, the Eagles control the NFC, don't worry about it.

The Eagles are in control for forever. AFC is highly competitive this year. It's unbelievable. Don't sleep on the top of this NFC, man. I mean, I was sleeping on it last week. Well, I watched the Eagles and their win over the Cowboys and like, okay, the record and now they have at least one win over Dallas. and the 49ers who just dropped three

and the lions had gotten boat raced by the Ravens. It was like, all right, like the Eagles are just clearly the cream of the crop of this conference. Certainly, they're going to, like, the Niners game is going to be tough and the Cowboys are going to play them again. Like, the Lions shouldn't be thought out.

But like, this is, you know, like this is the Eagles conference. Oh, man. Niners, Cowboys, Lions. Just great, great work across the board by the top tier of the NFC this week with the Eagles on by. The 49ers felt like the easiest

explanation here, right? No Trent Williams, no Debo, Samuel, Brock Bertie a little bit, you know, he's propped up by the offense. There's no two ways around it. Starts to get hassled a little bit. They have some bad end of game scenarios, and they lose three games in a row.

They take the by week, they circle the wagons, they walk up and they just bloody the jags, right? I mean, they just punch him in the face. And it's just such a good get right, mouthwash game for them. We're like, oh, yeah, that's right. We dominate when we want to.

We get away with everything. Christian McCaffrey, we're just trying to score touch us with him late just because we're dominant and we can. this Niners team is still very, very much for real. Like, uh, uh, that three game lost streak, I think we're going to look at in late December as like, that was the tune up. Like that was the wake up call.

That was the thing that kind of got them. Like, all right, we're sharp. We're ready. We go on our playoff run now. Like, you know, you kind of, when you carry these one lost records into December, I can get a little bit spooky. It feels like that was like, all right, we took everybody's best punch. We took our biweek.

We figured it out. And now we're going to go. So the Niners, I feel like it's nice, easy and tidy. The Lions, it's also nice, easy and tidy. They score a lot of points, man. Real good offense. What more is there to be said about Ben Johnson, about the improvements of Jared Goff,

who's playing absolutely unequivocally the best ball of his career? This offense helps him. It props him up. It gives him the stuff that he likes, but it does not do it to nearly the degree, not nearly the degree that those Rams' offenses used to. He does big boy stuff, right? This is a veteran quarterback now in command of the offense.

And, like, you know, the Jemir Gibbs, David Montgomery, re-experience in the backfield is sick. But let's not forget, like, the passing weapons here are Amon Rae St. Brown, Sam Leporta, Jamir Gibbs, Josh Reynolds, like the occasional Jameson Williams. This is not the elite pass catching group that most teams have. Ben Johnson and golf make it work. The only thing that really slows down this offense is the Baltimore Ravens' defense

or cold weather, and they're not going to see the Ravens defense in the NFC. And cold weather, man, the Lions, it is so critically important that they continue to win the game so they're supposed to win, because if they can do so and if they can sneak home field advantage. It is a table tipping event in the NFC if they can be the number one seed. Lions schedule, by the way, they have one real-ish game left. They play the Packers. They play the Saints. They pay the Bears. They pay the Broncos. They play the Vikings might be a thing. Saints are around 500, but really like the lion should be cleaning up against the rest of their schedule before that week 17 game against the Cowboys. They have a shot to hang around at the

one seat the whole way. And then the last team there is those Cowboys. I wrote a couple of a couple weeks ago about this. I still feel this way. Dak's playing the sort of ball where he might just decide to win three playoff games in a row. Dak and CD right now are Alex. This is something, dude. They have really, really fixed a lot of what I felt in offense is really frustrating in

terms of how they were playing. Red zone-wise, they're still not perfect. And I think some of that's just their personnel deficiencies. But they've figured out what works best for them in terms of like the Jake Ferguson targets and they're experimenting with different wide receiver usage or Martavis Brian's there now for whatever reason. Rico Doudal is getting activated more. They're doing more two-headed backfield stuff.

But in general, this is what Dack looks like when he's at his best. It is surgical what he does to Diva. And there's like, obviously, 49 points because the Giants, whatever. He's been doing this for the last few weeks. And for as long as CEDY is uncoverable, like this is what the Jaguars offense is supposed to look like. Where it's like, okay, we have a supercomputer quarterback, but also we have a receiver who just wins. And we can build the ship around him. This Cowboys passing game is just, like, it's terrifying.

When we talk about, again, like guys who can make runs in the playoffs, like if Dach just plays like this three weeks in a row, the Cowboys aren't going to lose to anybody. They're not going to lose, not going to lose big games. They're blown out, like embarrassed by the Niners again. No, they'll keep pace with those guys. And then defensively, they are what they were. They lost Trayvon Deges and they kept the chugging, man.

Dron Bland, can't say enough about how much he stepped up into those shoes. This top of the NFC is legit. We are in for a very, very good playoffs. I can't wait. Yeah, right now, Eagles are at 8 and 1. Now, unpredictable has them future strength of schedule 16th. That's a little misleading because they get the Giants twice, so I think that drags everything down. They've still got the Chiefs, the Bills, the Niners, the Cowboys, and the Seahawks coming up here.

In consecutive weeks. There's no breaks between those five shields listed. Then they end with two against the Giants and one against the Cardinals. So the Cardinals are not the same team. They were earlier in the season. Now, the Lions, based on Vegas. based on the betting markets have the 28th ranked

remaining schedules. So they've got one of the easiest remaining schedules in the NFL and they are seven and two here. Cowboys have the eighth hardest schedule according to this. Now part of this is probably, well yes, that they face the Eagles here. They are sitting right there

at six and three and then the Niners at six and three. They have a middle of the pack remaining schedule. So yeah, I mean, it was a big weekend for all those teams. The Niners, the defense was of what I was more concerned about than, you know, I figured the offense, even during that losing streak was still moving the football pretty well. And the defense played great in that game against the Jaguars.

Cowboys looked like a well-rounded team, no doubt about it. I know, I'll just say it because I know the listeners are thinking, well, yeah, Dak could win three in a row, but they got a show they can do it in the playoffs past the divisional round. Listen, until they do it, they can't. I'm with you. Since that Niners feet down, he's been fantastic. I mean, he was great against the Eagles two weeks ago. go. Obviously, this was the Giants, but he is playing good ball. No doubt about it. And listen,

if the lion, I really think, again, I've said it before, Lions got to get that one seat. If the road goes through Detroit, I think they have a real shot at it. They have to go on the road. I'll be a little skeptical. But I just like that. I like, they already, we're going to talk about the lack of joy from the bills. I sit down and watch a Lions game. I'm having a good time. You know what? There might be some bad, there might be a bad play here and there, but, you what? Jared golf's going to be chucking the ball downfield. Amon Ross St. Brown's going to be doing something. Jamir Gibbs is going to be doing so like I am having fun watching that team. They play a very entertaining brand of football. Now there are eight units we talked about or there's 14s to talk

about eight units. We mentioned, you know, Eagles we didn't really talk about, but like offense defense great. I mentioned Niners offense and defense great. We mentioned Cowboys offense and defense great. We mentioned Lions offense. Great. The eighth unit is one I would like to see you step up. Lions defense over the course of the remaining part of the season. We will see they don't have as many stars. They don't have as many guys with high tier impact on that unit. So it's got to be a coaching thing. And Aaron Glenn is the DC there.

I think it's a good coach. I have a great weekend and all of a bad week. And I think that they just don't have as much in the cupboard as the other units too, and that might hurt them. But yeah, the lines are certainly scary. Cowboys are scaring me more and more every time I watch them. And the Niners are terrifying. And so the NFC is tight.

If you had to put a percent chance, now that the Eagles get the one seed in the NFC? What would you put the percent chance at? Well, I'm cheating because I just looked at the unpredictable percentages. Okay. And I think mine would be lower. They had it at 54%. I would probably, I don't know, my gut tells me maybe it's more like a in the 40s, I feel like.

What do you think? On Fandle right now, the Eagles are priced minus 140 to get the one seed. That's an implied probability of 58%. assuming a juice market, which this is a highly juiced market, but implied probability 58%. So I would come in below that, right? I think they're more like a 50% chance. I would probably put it to get it relative to the field.

This schedule coming up is just far too challenging to pretend like the Eagles have this much of a stranglehold on the conference. And again, a week ago I wrote that. I understand that. I'm better calibrated now to these lions and these Niners than I was previously. the AFC gets so much attention The AFC playoffs this year is going to be crazy The regular season race

It's like 10 teams that should make it's going to be nuts But man I think we're in for Just a really really good playoffs this year I was thinking about from my extra point-tick And doing the following teams Can win the Super Bowl Should I do that? Or should I go with something else

I had a team-specific one And I had here are all the teams that can win the Super Bowl Which one interests you more? Team-specific one Team-specific one All right team-specific one is for your Houston Texans. C.J. Stroud deserves, I was going to do a joke

and do C.J. Stroud is overrated just to see your reaction for social. I would know. I would not be so easily baited. But I blew it by telling you. All right. C.J. Stroud deserves all the accolates. He's getting this week. Amazing. Love watching him. Has been fantastic. However, I think I made a mistake. Was it last week where I was going through the coach of the year candidates? So I don't remember if that was last week.

or the week before. But I didn't mention D'Amico Ryans. And I was watching this Texans game on Sunday. And again, C.J. Strouds doing a lot. But I was looking at all the players who were making plays for this Texans team and just thinking about, like, where did this guy come from? You know, like, wait, this guy's playing better than he ever played before. So here's some of the names.

Noah Brown, seven for 172 in that game. I mean, that play he made on the final drive, just to, willing the extra yardage to get them to kick the game-winning field goal. He's got 439 yards in five games. This guy who's been in the league since 2017. He was on the Cowboys. He's never had more than 555 yards in a season. Now he's having a career season.

Well, Stroud gets credit for that. Brown gets credit for that. But guess what? What do I always say about coaches? Who's doing more with less? Who's getting guys to outperform what the expectation is? Well, they're doing that with him. Jonathan Granard, the main.

Man, I don't even know if, do people know who this guy is? I wasn't right about this guy in the preseason. I don't know about a John Grenard. We've been on John Grenard. Okay. Seven sacks. I mean, there were reps in that game where he just looked absolutely unblockable. Again, having a career year at Dresher, John Grenard.

Even Devin Singletary, you know, Devin Singletary is on the bills all those years. Kind of like, all right, is this going to be the year sort of underachieved? sides with the Texans in the offseason one year, $2.75 million. They don't spend a lot of money. 30 for $150 in that game. He looked fantastic. Now, a lot of people look fantastic. We're in the football against the Bengals recently,

but still, he looked great in that game. How about Sheldon Rankins? Three sacks in that game, just killing Alex Kappa. I mean, this guy was a free agent last offseason. They signed him to a one-year deal. I think he had four sacks all of last season for the Jets. He had three sacks in that. that game for the Houston Texan. So I just like, yes, it always helps when you have the great

quarterback and the quarterback playing like Stroud. It makes everyone else better. But man, I look at that roster and I'm just like, this coaching staff is getting very strong performances out of gotten. These aren't like, you know, these aren't like 22 year olds who are just in their state. These are guys who have been in the league who have not performed at this level before. And so I thought that the Texans coaching staff all around deserved a shoutout. They're kind of a popular team being discussed a lot this week. So I wanted to hit them with that little bit of a different angle. There you go.

D'Amico, my son, I love him so much. The Texans played the Ravens in week one, and they lost my multiple scores. And that was the most eye-popping week one game to me. I was putting a clip of it. Competitive game, yeah. Yeah, and I said on Twitter, like, okay, Stroud is making plays, like, he's playing in place, in structure and out of structure, like, he very clearly gets the offense,

like there's positives there, he looks like he belongs. But then defensively was what really drew my eyes. And, like, obviously, we didn't know what the Ravens were going to be on offense yet, whatever. But the 49ers defenses under D'Amico were so characteristic. They were so very clearly his because they would just rush four and drop seven. They just played cover three and quarters. They would do nothing new under the sun. They'd play the lamest stuff you'd ever seen.

but only they could play it well against top offense. Every other team would get shredded by top quarterbacks that they try to do this, only then I just could do it. It's because they played so smart and so fast and tackled so well. And just watching, you were like, all right, like this feels like it's Domeco Ryans, has physically inhabited 11 bodies. It feels like number 59 for the Texans,

the middle linebacker, Demico Ryans, just on the field, just his spirit, just controlling the whole dehuman. It is taken on his nature. And you can tell it they loved him, right? They would just, oh, on the sideline, third down blitz, They would get home and D'Amico would be jumping off the sideline of high kicking and Tano Funga back running into him. Like, you just tell you, they loved it.

He goes to Houston and you go, okay, well, like, John Lynch is pretty good his job. Like, they got some good guys here. How is Domingo going to map now into a defense where it's Denzel Perryman at Mike and not Fred Warner? It's Jalen Petriot safety and not Hufanga. It's Derek Stingley at Corner and not, yeah, not Traverius Ward. It's John Gron and Will Anderson instead of Nick Bosa, Eric Armstrong said, whoever he had, I can't remember now. Wherever they had a pass rusher,

Samson Ebukam. Samson Abilcom. Yeah, there you go. I was like, do I say this or not? It's not really going to boost the conversation, but I think it's the name he's looking for. So yeah, I hesitate. My head went like, D. Ford,

Randy Gregory, Charles Medihano. I was like, there's just so many guys had it been on this Niners team. Kerry Heider. Yeah, I couldn't remember who was there when he was there and it wasn't, whatever. And in week one, you just see that Texans team playing my thin-niners team.

Levels below in terms of quality and they're making mistakes and they have liabilities and there's young players. But it is fast. It is physical. It is tackling. It is high effort. There are a lot of similarities to how D'Amico impacted this Texan's team to how Dan Campbell impacted his Lions team.

Where the moment they started playing for the guy, you go, oh, this team feels different than they did. Now, Detroit had bear cupboards. Houston had some stuff to work with and they really hit on this draft and that's why they are on a much faster path than the Lions were. But it is the experience of watching the

games and saying like, man, the team is playing in line with the coach. We're ending what we started on for me. They are one spear, one spearhead, one thrust in one direction. And that's offensively and defensively where the offense very clearly gets the philosophy. They get the system.

Stroud plays aggressive. He plays free. He plays loose. He's allowed to do what he wants. defensively, it's the same stuff. Like, they are young. I think if they get to the playoffs, I think they're going to be knocked out. I think they make too many mistakes. I love them.

I love them so, so, so much. But they have too many gaps personnel-wise. I think, like, really make a run in the AFC. But, man, it feels the way it's supposed to feel. It feels the way a young team entering contention feels. And so much of that is the character of Domeco. All right. Thank you to Benjamin Solak.

Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. Thank you to Eduardo O'Connor. for the video production, additional production supervision by Connor and Arjuna, Ram Gopal. Next episode will be Nora and Stephen with dual threat. Then Solek, and I know what we're going to do this week. We're coming at you with extra point taking. We're going to just come on after Thursday night football.

We got Bengals Ravens. We're going to do a late night Thursday night. We got to talk about that game after it finishes. And then we will preview week 11. Wow, I had to think about that for a second. Week 11. All right. Thank you to everyone for listening.

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