The Ringer NFL Show - Get Off Dak's Back! Plus, Joe Burrow's Window, Bad Bills Overreactions, and More Big Takeaways from the Divisional-Round Weekend | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Sheil and Ben share their reactions to the NFL's divisional-round action, starting their conversation by explaining why Dak Prescott wasn't the only reason for the Cowboys' loss to the 49ers on Saturday. Sheil then details how Joe Burrow is always right, and Ben breaks down how San Francisco will benefit from surviving Brock Purdy's worst game as a starter (17:12). Next, they swat down all of the negative Bills hysteria, and speculate on Aaron Rodgers's next move (37:23). They end the pod by giving some love to Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo (1:01:28). Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Would you bet a few thousand dollars that you could sink an eight-foot putt? What about 10 grand that you could win a drag race against a Camero with a thousand horsepower? If you bet two million dollars, could you bet it all on one football game? Maybe you wish you could, but you probably wouldn't. Gamblers is about the people who did. From the Ringer podcast network, listen to Gamblers Season 2 on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Extra Point Taken. I'm Sheel Kapadi.

As always, joined by Ben Solak. If it feels like we got a little more energy, a little early recording time. No Monday night football. We don't have to wait till midnight to record. I mean, Ben was yawning as we started, so I can't promise. See, I knew.

As I was even yawning, I was like, Shield's gonna make fun of me for yawning. Not allowed to be tired in this economy. It's the middle of winter. We've gone for championship round. Buddy's been grinding, and Shield's going out here making his little yawn jokes.

Listen, so I can't promise that we're going to be fresh. Ben's energy will pick up. I've never seen Ben not excited. I think that's the biggest difference between us. You seem to be excited about everything. I don't think I really get excited about anything. So that makes for a nice dynamic for the show. We each offer three takes.

We don't tell each other what the takes are. It can be anything this time of year. We only have three more football games, Benjamin. So we can go in any direction we want. We can go divisional round. We can go conference championships. We can go off-season buzz. And then it will be Ben's,

turn to finish with the extra point taken. Benjamin, start us off with your first take tonight. What do you got? All right. Take one was easy. I knew what it was like pretty much like 10 a.m. this morning. Stop overreacting about Dak. We don't have to do this. I mean, we really simply don't. Dak Prescott film against the Niners really was not all that bad. It simply wasn't, right? Box score-wise, he has a touchdown. He has two picks. He has a couple. He has a couple. He key runs. He's a couple of third down conversions. The film, when you watch it, has the Cowboys for the first half. And man, like, I don't want to understate this scared out of their minds of the 49ers defense. They're throwing everything behind the line of scrimmage, just screen

passes and swing passes, and just every opportunity they can get to get the ball out of back's hands, avoid the pass rush, Tony Pollard, you know, juice it up, let that C. Lam juice it up. You go and you look at their touchdown drive, and you go and you look at the drive, they almost scored a touchdown on. They had to kick a field goal because their drive stalled inside the 10. And it's heavy personnel and they're running the football, which is a good way to beat the Niners, right?

Niners are not a great run defense out of like 12 personnel, right, multiple tight ends because they only play with like four down defense alignment and all those guys are pass rushers. But they're just trying to inch their way down the field and trying to get rid of the ball quick and just not challenge any of the outside corners, not try to push the ball deep at all, right? I mean, like, Prescott starts the game with that, like, beautiful backside comeback against the T.Y. Hillen, right? Full field scan, read the pressure look, go left to middle to right, hit on the outside. And after that, they just don't test any outside coverage. Well, they come out

in the second half, and they start hunting Diomador-Lanour, right? They say, okay, we got to get a little more aggressive here. They start going after that outside corner matchup. You get the 50-yard bomb to CD-Lam, right, which it's not the most accurate throw Dax ever made, but CEDA does a great job keeping leverage, makes the catch. They go right back to Diominole-Lon-Lonor. Don't-Sholts drops it, right, on the move. Great ball from Dax, straight drop from Schultz.

The next drive, they see the Lamer-Rone's that sick, like fake stop, fake nine route, come back on the double-move route, beautiful, right? On Lenore, excellent. And then they go from Michael Gallup, right, on that one last throw that everybody's talking about, right? Michael Gallup on isolation on the lean nine, right, on the nine route.

And Dack puts the ball, where Gallup's not able to get to it. One, because Gallup's about four yards further inside that he should be, and Dak's trying to throw him away from the safety, because if Dak throws him in stride, he's going to get his head taken off by Deshaun Gibson, and two, Gallup doesn't find the football, right? Gallup adjusts to the football way too late.

He's no chance to get to it, so it looks very inaccurate. It's Dak trying to save Gallup's life. He's getting hit while he throws, and he's trying to make sure he doesn't run right into Sean Gibson's teeth. Prescott largely played a fine game. Wasn't his best game, right? The pick he was laid on the throw, We got caught by Jimmy Ward lurking on the route.

Like, you made his mistakes. No question about it. But in general, like, Dak played a very fine game against the Niners. Was it enough to win? Could have been better. If it was better, they might have won. But it wasn't, like, the Washington film two weeks ago, right? It wasn't dreadful.

So that's the one game. You look over the course of the season. You look over the course of the last three seasons. Look over the course of last four seasons. And Dak's just a good quarterback. He's just very clearly in expected points added, in aggressive throws, in accurate throws,

and playing outside of pocket, playing in second reaction, in scrambling, in depth of targeting, completion percentage of over expectation. And even like, sack totals and interception totals, which like the interception totals

were really, really up this year, but over the course, it's like multiple years, three-year sample size, that's a very good quarterback. He's not, like, you know, he's not Mahomes,

he's not Allen. Burrow is probably like, you know, becoming a version of DAC that's like similar playstyle, but a little bit better. Like, that's the trajectory

that Dax on. Rogers is that trajectory right where rogers is again similar to that like working from the pocket changing protections reading out the play but just a little bit better not telling you dach's like you know the greatest things on slice bread but dag is a fine quarterback we don't have to do this every time a quarterback gets eliminated from the playoffs where we just pretend like we haven't seen the last three years of football and act like the last game was the only data point that we had there's a lot that can get better with the cowboys that is not dack related we got to get off dach's back man well define we don't have to do

this because i'm not you i'm not saying you're arguing against the straw man but the Mondays after a divisional round, there are all sorts of takes flying. So I don't know, like, what specifically, are there takes right now that, like, Dak stinks and Dak's never going to do it? Are there takes that Dak played a poor game that you disagree with?

Like, what is specifically the take that you are pushing back on when you say we don't need to overreact to that performance by Dak Prescott? Right. Like, I saw, like, Dano broke down the Prescott incompletion, right? Danilowski for ESPN. Fred Warner gets on top of a CD Lamber. route and like, like Dan and Sage Rosenfelds have this whole conversation in the mention, so I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said. Kurt Warner also broke down the same play.

We're like, you know, Dan was like, Dak's got to see this pressure look. And Sage and Kurt were like, not really. Like that's really hard to do. I'm saying like, that's an unreasonable expectation. Like David Helman, who's a wonderful, wonderful Cowboys, a guy who spends time on Fox Sports One, I'm a big fan of David, had the, he had the take that he tweeted out today that was like, Dak can't be the reason this team wins. He was He's not going to be like the dude that wins the super like, like Dack carries them. And Helman made the point.

There's only like two or four guys like that in the NFL. And I agree that there are two or four dudes that like give you a fighting chance no matter what, like no matter what your personnel grouping is. But Prescott has been the reason the Cowboys have won almost every game the Cowboys have won the last two years. Like the Mike McCarthy offense puts an unreasonable, irresponsible amount of, of work, responsibility on the quarterback's shoulders. Like, this game, like every third and long,

the Niners have got seven dudes on the line of scrimmage, and Dak and Senator Tyler Beaudesh were lights out, lights out handling the pressure looks, right? Getting a body on a body, preventing free rushers, like the only free rushers the Niners got were when Talano Hufanga decided to do, like, the mind reading thing. You know what I mean?

Like, other than that, like, they were excellent at interpreting blitzes. And Dax got, you know, he's throwing one-on-ones. He's trying to throw Dalton Schultz open against, you know, Jimmy Ward and Schultz can't uncover. Michael Gallup, holy smokes Michael Gallup, just off of the injuries, just not what they needed. The amount of reps on this film

where, like, every dude is covered up and there's nowhere to go with the football, but Dax just got to figure it all out. He's got to be in the pocket, live five against four in protection, and read out, like, left side or right side. Like, it's just, this offense is just so conditional on having Peyton Manning, right?

Like, this is why Rogers got pissed off with it, and this is why Dax struggles in it. It's because it doesn't do nearly enough, not nearly enough. in the margins for its quarterback compared to modern offenses. So, like, those sorts of perspectives, or it's like, Dax's, like, you know, not making the right play here. Like, like, Dack needs to be more so the team can win.

I just don't think it bears out over the course of, like, multiple seasons worth of watching Crescott play. Okay. Let me try to respond with what I think about all that. I mean, first of all, I think Dax's a very good quarterback. I absolutely agree with that part of it. One game doesn't define you. I think he's a probably, like, a top eight quarterback.

I don't do my rankings every week like Stephen Ruiz, but just up the top of my head. head. I think that's probably where I would have him somewhere in that six to ten range. That makes sense to me. I think he does a lot of things well. I think just a week ago, we're watching him against the bucks. And it's, you know, one of the best playoff games. We've seen anyone play this year or in recent years. I mean, he was absolutely on fire. And so when he's clicking, he has that ceiling. He's accurate. He's decisive. He knows what's coming from the defense, all the pre-snap stuff. We know he's really smart and can do all of that stuff. So I agree with

you there. At the same time, I feel like sometimes we all have our guys and a guy, like, I think that got a bad game against the 49. I don't think it was the easy situation. I think the 49ers defense is great, but I think you can point to multiple instances. I mean, that interception in a tight game where it's going to come down to just two or three plays, an interception in the red zone, and you had a great video on it. It was a nice play by Jimmy Ward, no doubt, but you throw an interception there, like, that has to fall on the quarterback. You look at the fourth quarter. You look at the fourth quarter, of that game, he's on tilt a little bit. I mean, he had what should have easily been a pick, six there on just the stick route that gets dropped there. I mean, he's a little shaky there.

He almost takes a safety in the end zone there where he's indecisive, where they're rolling him out to his right. So if you're a Cowboys fan and you look at this game, or even if you're not a Cowboys fan and you're an objective observer, the team scored one touchdown on 10 possessions and you're paying the quarterback a lot of money. And he didn't play well. So I think it's fair. Like I think we can point out, or at least my take would be, Dak Prescott did not play well against the 49ers. If you want to criticize him for not playing well against the 49ers, that's perfectly reasonable.

At the same time, I would agree with your take that if we zoom out, is he a good quarterback? Is he a bad quarterback? Like, he's a very good quarterback. And there absolutely are things that you can pin on people other than Dak Prescott when you look at that loss. And you look at the other Cowboys issues. I mean, you just look back at the Amari Cooper trade

and the way that was mishandled. I know people have brought that up. But, I mean, you look at that game. And my gosh, they could have used just a second option there, especially after Pollard goes down. who has juice. CD Lamb has juice. Who else has juice? I mean, you're throwing to Dalton Schultz is dropping is dropping that ball that Dak Prescott threw down the left sideline. That was a great throw. He drops it there. You mentioned Michael Gallup, they paid a lot of money to last off season, coming off an injury, assuming he's going to come back healthy and be the same guy. And now you're

putting him out there in a playoff game. And so I think there are personnel issues. I think there are coaching issues. But I will say, I think criticism of Dak Prescott for this game is absolutely. is fair. And listen, if you're looking at the Cowboys as a whole, it's been 27 years since they've gotten out of the divisional round. So there's a lot of pent up aggression and anger about, oh my gosh, every year, and especially from the public who's not Cowboys fans, because the team gets hyped up every year. And I actually think it was fair this year because I think they were legit Super Bowl contenders.

I mean, we talked on the show. We thought they were one of the teams that could come out of the NFC. But if you don't like the Cowboys, you're looking at it going, why is everyone devoting all this time to the Cowboys when they haven't really been relevant passed a divisional round in 27 years since some of our listeners have been born. So that's kind of how I feel about it. Not just some of your listeners there, brother.

Now, I'm going to do this now because anytime you and I get into these like where we disagree, I always lose these because... I don't even think this one's that strong to be honest, but go ahead. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Like, oh, it's not that strong.

See, this is why you're very good, like, politician. Not like a bad way. But you're just like, grade it, like, like, just like, I take 10 sentences. to say something and you take one sentence. And then every auditor is always like, man, like I kind of agree with Ben, but then Sheel said DAC wasn't good.

And I was like, oh, shoot, like I agree with Sheel. So explicitly, I don't think DAC was good. I wouldn't characterize it as a bad game. I would characterize it as an okay game. If DAC were better, the Cowboys would have beat the 49ers. It is reasonable to expect

that a highly paid second contract quarterback is better in a playoff environment than DAC was. All of that is true. However, I think because of the, way that we, you know, not to like get like, you know, too highfalutant, are as a sports media, as ways we are as a sports consuming public, everybody walking into that game knew what? Dak had a lot of money and had won a lot of playoff games. So the second the Cowboys lose the playoff game, what do we want to do?

Well, Dak's got a lot of money. He hasn't won a playoff game. Yeah, but like I can't watch that game, having watched the last year of Cowboys football and go, oh, man, like this, DAC issue is a big problem. for them. It's like, like, Dax's not one of the top four biggest problems in the Cowboys. And we don't talk about that because we want everything to be about the quarterback. It always, it always tickles me so greatly, how strongly, how virulently we say wins are not a quarterback stat. And then after our team wins, we say the quarterback played well. And after the team loses, we say the quarterback played poorly. Like, that's just how we, how we, like, as a general

football guy, like probably do like 95% of it. Well, we don't think wins are a quarterback stat. Why, how come we keeps ending up like this? So just, just, I like that's not play well. If that played better, the Cowboys would be moving on. The Dak has to sit down and figure out how he can play better. Cowboys have to sit down and figure out

how Dak can play better. But the Cowboys also like, need to get out of Michael Gallop's deal because like I loved Gallup and I thought that he earned the extension he was a good player. Off the injury, he just does not seem to have juice.

They need to get more serious about what talent they can get into the building. The whole old Delbeckham thing only to sign Ty Wylylton to never get Jalen Tolbert any snaps to cut James Washington. Like what were you guys doing? What did you think was going?

to happen here. The offensive line carousel, not figuring out how they wanted to deal with Tyler Smith and Tyrant Smith coming back from the injury and where they wanted those guys to start, how they wanted them to start. The Mike McCarthy Redux. I mean, this is so much like watching late stage Aaron Rogers, Mike McCarthy film. It's shocking how similar it is. In terms of like, well, we ran a common concept and nobody got open, but like,

Dax should have seen that the corner was going to break at eight and a half yards of eight yards and thrown with anticipation a bender to Jake Ferguson for six yards. Like, well, no. Like, that's dumb. You know, it's stuff like that where it just becomes hard for me to see the criticism that that Dak gets off of this game when there's just, to me, like, interesting and more meaningful and more impactful things to talk about. 100% they should, they need to prioritize how do we make this easier for the quarterback,

and they need to add more juice to the offense around him. I mean, the truth is, they wasted a huge opportunity here. I mean, the last two years, they've produced a top five offense with Dak Prescott as their quarterback, and they didn't get out of the divisional round. Like, that is a massive disappointment, a massive failure if you're the organization. Like, that's what you dream of is the efficient offense. And, hey, one of these years, our defense is going to put it together. Like, that's the formula you're looking for. And they were a very good team for most of the year.

I mean, when Dak Prescott was healthy, they operated, I think, in terms of EPA per play, like the sixth best offense in the NFL. They withstood the stretch with Cooper Rush playing quarterback. The defense carried them. They suffered some injuries. And honestly, like, I think we probably have the biggest overreactions after a divisional round weekend. Because they were one of the, you know, I think we both felt the same way that on Sunday morning before those games were played, the six best teams were still alive. And it was like, what's going to happen? I tweeted that and got made fun of for it.

It just happened to be a timing thing. Oh, no, it's true. No, I thought it was absolutely true. One of the things about these shows, Shield, that I discover is you see a lot of my tweets. I don't get a lot of likes and retweets from the Shield Capadia account, though. It's very interesting now. She was like, oh, you had a great video. Oh, that was a good tweet.

Yeah, no, I don't engage. Never any engagement, though. That's interesting, interesting. I like a lot of Shield Copadia tweets. As you know, I'm old, and now I don't know what tab I am clicking on. I also heard you guys on the recap show yesterday say not everyone on Ring or NFL follows each other. And I use lists for my Twitter. So now I'm paranoid thinking, who don't I follow that I have?

have on a list that now I'm going to have to follow and they're going to be like, this jerk joined the company five months ago, and then he's following me now. He comes in and thinks he's hot stuff. So that's weighing on my mind also. We all have at least one. All right. I'll take a look at it. All right. That was your first take. My first take, this one's not going to be that controversial or anything. I kind of just wanted to talk about him. My take is Joe Burrow was right. Before the playoffs, Burrow, I mean, he has these one-liners that I love, was asked about the Bengal Super Bowl window, and he responded, the wind is my whole career, which is just a fantastic line. But the truth is, he's right. And just watching

him in that game on Sunday, I was wondering if aside from Patrick Mahomes, if I were just an NFL franchise, is there another quarterback I would rather have over Joe Burrow right now for the duration of their career? I mean, what he's accomplished, the guy is 26 years old. He's in the AFC championship game here for the second straight season. I know you just had the QB wins conversation, but his teams, I'll clarify for you, his teams are five and one in the playoffs. He got to the Super Bowl with a terrible offensive line last year. He helped the Bengals get through a five-game stretch without Jamar Chase this year. And on Sunday, he goes to Buffalo against a Bill's team that we're going to talk about

very soon here, had not lost a game by more than three points all season long. The Bills had three losses by a combined eight points. he beats them by 17 points missing three starting offensive linemen in the snow, which by the way probably helped the Bengals slow down that pass rush. But still, in the snow, the Bill's defense, I didn't think of them as the best defense in the NFL. DVOA had them ranked as the number one defense going in to last weekend. I could have sworn it was the Niners. That's surprising.

The Bengals were up 14-0 before Burrow even through an incompletion. So I'm just so impressed with him. He doesn't have the, you know, the cannon of an arm where those clips are going to get circulated. But my gosh, he's just so accurate. He's a problem solver. He's a special player. He's such a quick processor. Everything is done with such a calmness and a rhythm.

And over the last two years, he's beaten Mahomes and Josh Allen on the road in the playoffs. He's played those two quarterbacks four times. The Bengals have won all four of those games. So really, this is nothing more than just a Joe Burrow appreciation and like a little message to Bengals fans who I think Bengals fans obviously know this. But this is like a feeling most fan bases don't get to experience. When you have a young quarterback who is so good that you know you're just going to be in the mix every year, barring, you know, some type of catastrophic injury for the next decade. Like the Patriots had this with Tom Brady. The Colts had this with Peyton Manning.

The chiefs have it with Mahomes. Like this is what you're always searching for to get the quarterback. who's going to get you in contention every year. You might not win four Super Bowls. Who knows how many you'll win, but you're going to be in the mix every single year. And the Bengals have that with Joe Burrow. So really just a Joe Burrow appreciation for what he did.

And he is right. As long as he's back there, as long as he's healthy, their window is going to be open, which is not something the Bengals fans have been able to say for a long time. Yeah, I'm writing about Burrow for this week. So I don't want to throw all my pitches yet. Bengals fans click on the article.

Share that, John. But I'll throw one here. Last two seasons. If you go for the first 23 games of the last two seasons. So for Burrow, that's all of last year. And then the first couple weeks of this year, in 10 of those 23 games, Burrow had a sack percentage over 10%.

It's on almost half of those games. He took a sack on over 10% of his dropbacks. Since week three of this year, yeah, since week three of this year. Two games. He sat on podcasts this offseason and said, I take a bunch of sacks. Who cares that I take a bunch of sacks?

I take a bunch of them on third down. I'm trying to make plays. This is the sort of quarterback that I am. There's nothing wrong with that. Russell Wilson, good quarterback for a long time, taking a lot of sacks, right? We talk a lot about the three-legged stool, Adam Harset of Dynasty Theory,

the three-legged stool of quarterback play. Sack percentage, interception percentage, and then throwaway percentage, also like yards per attempt. What are you going to give up? right? What are you going to be bad at? You have to be bad at something. It's going to be, okay, I don't take a lot of sacks.

I don't throw a lot of picks, but I throw the ball away a lot. Is it going to be, okay, I don't throw the ball away a ton, and I don't throw a lot of picks, but I take a lot of sacks? What's going to be? And for Burrow, you're just a high sack quarterback. No problem. Russell, Deshawn Watson and Houston, high sack quarterbacks. And then early this year, he's taking a lot of sacks.

The offensive line's playing better. It's clear that it's on him. And Burrow just goes, okay, I was, like, I was wrong. I'm going to change my play style. You, you, you, quarterbacks can't change their play style. It doesn't happen. Quarterbacks get better and worse within their, their playstyle, within their approach, within their perspective. But they, they never become different players.

This happened once in, in my five, six years of covering football. It was Patrick Mahomes. It was Patrick Mahomes who started throwing more shallow routes. It was Patrick Mahomes started throwing more underneath, who stopped being just like super gunslinger. We score 40 points every game. And it was a huge testament to Mahomes. It was the thing that, that was the crowning jewel of his greatness. He said he became a different quarterback because he needed to.

Josh Allen tried to do this this year. Josh Allen started the season. Low A-Dot. Low time to throw. I'm a quick passer now, baby, all thinking dunk. And he couldn't withstand. He couldn't endure. Couldn't change his DNA.

Couldn't change his stripes. And he came back and regress into the offense that you saw struggle against the Bengals. They're constantly looking deep down the field. We ask a lot, like what's Joe Burroughs superpower? Like you brought up, but he doesn't have the physical attributes, right? So what's his superpower? And a lot of people say processing. And I'm not sure I agree with that.

Like when I watch Burdle, I don't see Peyton. I don't see like the incredible post-knap, like feet moving, always right, getting to the correct breed, realize where the defense is going. To me, he's not that player. The superpower is that he changed. This is unbelievable. Like, I stand here as a guy like at this exact time last year

off the division around game, I was like, okay, they can't keep doing this. All they do is just chuck up go balls against single coverage. He is an insane A-DOT, and they have an unbelievable success rate on downfield shots, unbelievable success rate yards after the catch. He takes a bunch of sacks, and hang around in the pocket, he's taking hits. They can't do this. And then they went to the Super Bowl, and we all off the season like, they can't do this.

Bengals can't do this. There's no chance we can do this. And then in the beginning of the year, they had legitimate offensive problems. And like, Brian Callahan and Zach Taylor didn't solve them. They may have done the work of helping Joe solve it. They're like credit to them. But Joe solved the problem. Third year quarterback Joe Burrell solved the problem by becoming a different.

and far more mature passer. The quarterback that Joe Burrow is now and the resulting offense of the Bengals have on the field is remarkably, distinctly, more reliable, more consistent, more trustworthy than the one they had last year. And that one took up to the Super Bowl.

I am in awe of what Joe Burrow has achieved this year. I did not think he could do it. I, like, tattooed on my skin as an analyst, quarterbacks don't change their stripes and changed their, he's changed the stripes. I'm in awe. Yeah, realizing your weakness and being able to address it and change is absolutely difficult. I mean, he was talking way back in the offseason about, yeah, we're going to face more too high this upcoming year,

and we're going to have to take the underneath stuff. And it's like one thing to say it. And then are you able to change and do it in the run game? By the way, has been phenomenal, really for most of the year. If you look at the efficiency numbers, they've had a top five rushing attack. So that's helped as well. And he's able to change his style of play based on what's needed. He is a problem solver, which is a great attribute to have at quarterback.

By the way, bills were fourth. You were right. I was wrong. Let's get that correction out there before we have to re-record the whole episode until we faced a top five defense and still custom on the road there. Tweet at Benjamin Solac. Ben won that debate. God, do I click pause and give one of your tweets a like here or something?

All right. You want the likes and retweets your generation. Unbelievable. I've been talking a lot about Twitter this thing on pause. I've got to stop this. Go ahead. What do you got? Number two.

Here's what I got. Take number two. It is not bad news that Brock Purdy just played his worst game for the 49ers. It's good news. Why? Because they won. And it wasn't pretty. It wasn't the cleanest game the Niners would play.

I play the game back a lot of times. Cowboys win some of them. Niners have better performances. Like, absolutely, they're lacking in the style points column. But here's the thing about the NFL playoffs. You don't advance on some. style points. You advance on win-loss, and they won that game. They won it handing off to Christian McCaffrey, handing off to Elijah Mitchell, who's their backup running back, despite the fact

that he's a really good running back and has been a really good running back. And they don't need to worry too much about their death of running back because when McAfra gets banged up, they can just go Elijah Mitchell. And Kyle got back in his run game bag there in the second half right there, you know, again, double teams going and they got these tight surfaces and they're doing good work of getting vertical runs and inching their way down the field. They get a field goal. They get a touchdown. They salt the game away, eight-minute drive to end the fourth quarter. quarter, right? Defensively. I mean, D'Amico is just as good as it gets, as good as it gets at doing his stuff. They are an impossibly well-coached unit. They're terrifying. They're great

tacklers. They're super physical, gnarly pass rush. And then they get you into a third down and they can send these pressure packages out of you that are just a total nightmare to deal with. But what's we all of eyes? So what's the elephant in the room? It's Brock Purdy. Right? It's Brock who tried to throw two interceptions against the Seahawks and they both got dropped. It's Brock who was under pressure on 45% of his dropbacks against the Cowboys. Brock, he had the largest A-DOT of a game in his career in this particular game. He had an EPA per dropback of 0.08, which is the worst game he's played since the Dolphins game this season. This was his worst game.

He had to throw the ball down the field. He's getting pressure to the time. He's getting hassled. Low completion percentage. Brock looked bad. But what did we all talk about before the postseason? We said, will the bad Brock game kill the Niners? When they eventually run to a defense that can stop them and they can't get the yards after the catch

and they can't get the easy running game and they can't get the easy throws and Brock will be bad and Brock will make mistakes and he'll be inaccurate. Won't it kill him? Like this is the thing they have to worry about. I'm telling you it just happened.

Like there's a chance it happens again. There's a chance he plays worse. But Brock was not good, bad against an extremely good, very dangerous. Like you said, best six teams are left, Cowboys team. And they beat him by seven. They beat him by seven

and they took the lead in the second quarter and didn't give it back. Controlled the game, right? And this is the thing about the Niners that's so terrifying. So the reason why, like, you know, we talked about this a lot in the Phillies' special pod.

I've been scared of the Niners being the Eagles all year. I think the Niners can beat the Chiefs. I think he can beat the Bengals and they can beat everybody left. And it's because we just saw the bad Brock game and they got by. And it is off of the seven games

we've seen him play previous, off of the years we've seen Kyle Shanahan coach in the playoffs, it is way more likely the next Brock game, against the Eagles is better than this game was against the Cowboys. And outside of Brock, you still have Debo and you have Kittle who made the incredible catches, multiple great catches moving down the field.

You still have McCaffrey, you still have Mitchell, you still have Ayuk, and you still have that defense. So I said, like, the Niners proved to me that they could be a team that I believe it was a legitimate Super Bowl contender in the Cowboys with a bad Brock game. So, like, there's this temptation to be like, oh, Brock looked a little shaky against the Seahawks. It looked even worse against the Cowboys. He's going to kill him.

I don't think, I don't know he is. I think he could still be bad and they might just keep on winning football games all the way home, man. I really wish I could come on here and just fire off a strong take about Purdy. I'm just like, I don't know. I don't know. I watch him and like, I understand what you're saying. All right, that was not, that was his worst game. But typically when we think of worst game for, you know, or bad game for a rookie quarterback,

it's going to look a lot worse than that. Just in terms of the negative plays that actually. happened. Like, you know, you say, yeah, all right, is there dropped interception here and there? But when you look at a box score and you say, rookie named whoever had a bad game, you're typically not seeing took two sacks, zero interceptions, zero fumbles, 19 for 29, 214 yards. You're like, that seems like an okay. Like, that's an average game. That's not like a terrible game. And also, I would say, his predecessor, when we were talking about Jimmy Garapolo having a bad game, I mean, it looked a lot worse than I think.

I don't know if you agree or disagree with this. In my head, it is something that looked a lot worse than what we saw from Purdy on Sunday against the Cowboys. So, yeah, I mean, I absolutely hear what you're saying. And I'm wondering, is that game coming? I mean, this is a wide, the sample is getting larger and larger here. I mean, if you look at the numbers, they're just silly. Like, their offense, now football outsiders has the DVOA filter where you can do it by week. If you just check off all the weeks that he started, they have the best offense in the NFL over that stretch.

And so it goes back to the thought I would always have with Garapolo. Is Jimmy Garoppolo a top five quarterback? No. Can the 49ers have a top five offense with Jimmy Garapolo? Yes. And so it's similar to that. But then there's this like massive uncertainty because we don't have a large sample. I will give him credit.

He seems more poised. He doesn't seem to get rattled. He doesn't seem to tank under those bad plays. Now, we had the bad one right before halftime. Like, even that one, like, that would be one where we could be pointing to right now. Still got that one second left on the clock to kick the field goal there. So he's narrowly escaping in some of these spots. And then in other spots, he's making really nice plays.

I mean, they're working the middle of the field. It felt like there were stretches. They were third down in that game where you're like, come on, the Cowboys. You know what's coming. It's going to be something in between. It's going to be right there. Put some bodies there. And he's still completing passes.

he's still letting the guys around him do their job and the offensive line and not getting shook to the point where he's making that game-changing mistake. So I don't know. I don't know if it's going to come either. We will see this weekend he's going on the road against a team that I think certainly has as good of a pass rush. I think a better pass rush, the best sack rate in the NFL. In the Eagles, to me, that's probably the type of game where if he's going to get rattled, it would be a game where his offensive line is just losing. when he's holding the ball or making those second reaction plays. I mean, when he makes a second reaction play,

like I don't know what's going to happen. Like my mind is usually telling me this is going to end up in disaster. And sometimes it ends up in a really bad play. Other times, like the kid will play. He ends up making a play. So I don't know what to think. Again, I'm all over the place just blabbering because I don't really know what to make of this guy at this point

or be able to predict what he's going to do. So I hear you on we haven't yet seen him have a game in which he's going to make multiple backbreaking plays, multiple backbreaking interceptions, and just like totally, like, you know, it's like a complete dumpster fire game. I'm comfortable saying at this point that I don't think that's going to happen.

And a lot of people have said, like, if people just catch the picks, the Brock Party throws at them, like, you're going to be fine against this team. And it's half true, but at the same time, like... I think it's a little overstated. Yeah. This Cowboys game, the only, like, pick that was drawn,

was a ball that was batted off of Anthony Barr. 100%. I think people are going way too far with that. I was had the same thought earlier today when you're, yeah, because you're hearing that get thrown around a lot. It's like there are some, but most games, a quarterback has, you know, one or two or whatever, but sorry, go ahead. Right.

And then like Seahawks Niners, right? People brought up like, he had two in that game that should have been intercepted, where on both of them, he expected the Seahawks to flood the coverage strong side and they plugged it weak side. And he went to throw one of these weak side slants that, like, the Niners love this weakside slant stuff because they just expect all of their guys no matter who's lined up there

to win the one-on-one matchup, right? So two times he throws this weekside slant, this week-side bang eight, the linebackers right underneath it, and both of them the Seahawks don't pick it off. It's like all of the Seahawks would just pick it off. I got news for you. The Seahawks lost that game by 18 points, Chief.

The Niners ended up with 41. Like, yeah, if the Seahawks could have stolen a possession, it's certainly would have helped. And I think the Niners had them generally dialed up, though. and lest we forget, Gino is driving down the field, right? It's still like a two-score game. I think it was a three-score game, actually,

but it's still like, you know, there's a snowball's chance in hell for this one. And the Niners get a strip sack. Yeah, you could get some more turnovers on a, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, who's really good at getting turnovers back? This, DiMico Ryan's defense, right? So I don't, like, this, this absolute pit game, this crater game, I'm certain it exists in the sense that, like, it exists for all quarterbacks.

You know what I'm? I'm saying, like, in the sense that, like, you could, like, a guy can always just, like, spiral and fall apart and, like, have just, like, two or three of the worst place of his life in the worst possible moment, right? Like, Dak, that interception in the Redsone, one of the worst plays of his life, one of the worst possible moments, and boom, there you go. I think with Purdy, it's as simple as, like, all of you just catch the picks, like, they got him. And you brought up the second reaction throws. Like, the fact that Purdy's doing that, and it's, like, I would say generally a positive more than a negative on the second reaction throws. He understands

when to throw the ball away. He's actually had a great job. like avoiding a pressure and then realizing, oh, shoot, balls just got to come out. Like a lot of rookies would eat that, take a sack, try to throw that in balance. He just kind of chucks it. Like, done a great job with throwaways. It's done a nice job finding receivers outside of structure. Like, the fact that he's bringing second reaction throws, which Jimmy really didn't bring to an offense that doesn't need the quarterback to do anything in the first reaction plays,

but just point and shoot. Like, my overarching take is like the Niners' offense is more high floor than we realized with Purdy. I don't think the Purdy meltdown is going to come. I just don't, I don't see how it does with how. the kid gloves that this offense gets. Like you said, right? Like I was like, oh, it was a bad purdy game.

And then you told me the numbers, 19 for 29, 200 yards. It's like, holy smokes, the kid was as bad as what I just watched. I watched the game right before this pod. And they did that. Like, it's just, it's gonna be hard to really have a bad offensive performance

from this Niners offense. Like, worse than the one we saw against the Cowboys, I'd be shocked. The Cowboys played them so well. Cowboys held him to 19 points, and that was with Kyle punting the ball multiple times past midfield. It was with them attempting a field.

on fourth and two, you know? So I think this theory that Purdy's going to fall apart, I just don't see it happening. If it does happen, like, in, you know, the violence of Lincoln financial field, I'll look like an idiot and I get it, but I don't think it will. The quarterback storylines going into this weekend are juicy, man. Like, there's, I feel like there's more sort of unknown or uncertainty than we're used to. Usually you have the familiar faces. And now it's like, is Purdy going to keep doing this? Are they just going to win 14 in a row and win the Super Bowl? he going to go on the road and have a good game? Is Jalen Hertz going to get to the Super Bowl a year after the Eagles were pretty much

like, let's just set ourselves up to get a quarterback next year? Is Patrick Mahomes on one ankle going to be able to get back to the Super Bowl? Is Joe Burrow going to win his first title at 26 years old? There are a lot of good ones. If Kyle's Shane Ann is going to win a Super Bowl, this poor young man, by the way, who just like always looks so tired on the sideline, really wanted him to win one. Just get the monkey off your back? if he's going to win one, it is only appropriate that he wins with a seventh round Mr.

Relevant rookie quarterback. That's the only way Kyle Shanahan, with what he's done to raise the floor of quarterbacking in this era of football, it has to be with Brock. I don't want to see it with Tray. It's got to be with a guy like Brock. You know what? That happens in sports like a lot of times, you know, like the Red Sox. It was like, all right, if they're going to win one, it's going to be coming back from a 3-1

deficit. The Eagles, if they're going to win one, it's going to be with this backup quarterback with the rest of his career. after that is not going to do anything. So maybe you're right there. Maybe it's, if they do win one, we'll look back and be like, yeah, it was meant to be. They trade all those picks for Trey Lance. They get Jimmy Garoppolo and they end up winning it with Brock.

My second takes kind of like your first take, but on a different topic. I think everyone needs to settle down with the overreactions on the Buffalo Bills. Buffalo, I think we might disagree on this one, so we'll get into it. The Bills had a terrible game. The Bills got out coached. The Bills got out played. this was supposed to be their year. It did not happen. It was the first time all year they lost a game by more than a field goal. The last three years with Josh Allen, they are 37 and 12.

Josh Allen is 26 years old. I feel like we want Josh Allen to be a nice finished product. I feel like we want him to know every nuance of how to play the quarterback position. I feel like we want him to adjust exactly to what the defense is doing every week. He's 26 years old. Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Aaron Rogers at 26 years old, combined zero playoff wins. I'm not telling you this team's perfect. This team has work to do the number one reason why they signed Von Miller. They thought Von Miller, two things. One, playoffs, we want him down that stretch run.

I mean, they were literally preparing for that in the summer with how they treated him in terms of practice time. He gets injured, goes down for the season. And then they thought he could be a force multiplier. They've used all these picks on these defensive lines. and pass rushes, and they thought if we get Von Miller with these guys, then their play is really going to improve. Obviously, that plan fell apart with Miller getting injured. Josh Allen suffers the elbow injury. And then this one, and I feel like no one, I hate saying

no one's brought it up because in this world, like everybody has had every take, so no take is really original. But I mean, this team experienced unprecedented emotional trauma just three weeks ago. And I'm not smart enough to know how that impacted each individual or the team as a whole. But I do know that sometimes we look at athletes and it's just like, all right, there they are on a Sunday afternoon. They're expected to perform. Oh, they didn't perform. They choke. They got to blow it up. Brandon stinks. Sean McDermott stinks. Josh Allen regressed. Whatever. It's like maybe that affected them. I mean, this was a, you know, and again, unprecedented emotional trauma just three weeks ago. So I think they have worked to do. I think Bean has worked to do. McDermin.

Kandorsi, Leslie Frazier, that was not a well-coached game, no doubt about it. I'd love to see some offensive line upgrades. I'd love to see some more firepower on offense. But I feel like this organization is in good hands. Like I feel like for the most part, they are a model of stability. And I think they're going to win a Super Bowl eventually with Josh Allen. I don't know what year it's going to be. I don't know if it's going to be next year.

I don't know if it's going to be five years. I don't know if it's going to be when he's 33 years old. But it doesn't always happen when you expect it to happen. of people, including me, picked them to win the Super Bowl this year. It didn't happen, but I think it's going to eventually happen for Josh Allen and the bills. And I think there's been way too much overreaction about that one game. And it wasn't just one game. I know they didn't play well in the wild card round. So I guess a couple of games there and how they finish the season. But to me, it's not like, it should not be full out panic mode for the bills in terms of what they're going to

be in the future. I think my bills take is adjacent. I don't think it's the same, but I don't think it's contradictory, right? Let me give mine, because I have my Bills take for number three, and then we'll just kind of talk bills overall. My Bills take was this. Losing to the Bengals in this fashion is going to help the team long term. And the reason I believe that

is because when you look at your kind of your king contenders here in the AFC, you have Bills Bengals chiefs, right, as your three contenders, you go, all right, what links these guys? And everybody wrote the piece. I just got these elite young quarterbacks. Jags got Trevor Lawrence.

Oh, wow. You know, again, Lamar with the Ravens, here we go. Justin Herbert, the Chargers. This is what the AFC is, the elite quarterbacks. But the Bills, Bengals, and Chiefs are the three on the top, right? These guys are the elevated ones. So, okay, let's go and let's kind of look and try to understand why. And with the Chiefs, you see really good coaching, right?

Like Andy Reed, as good as it gets on the offensive side of the ball. Steve Spagnolo for the 19th season in a row, spent the entire regular season just kind of like vibing with the 18th ranked defense and now just like is going to have a good defense in January because this is what Spags does

but you see good coaching and you see good roster management right like they needed to improve in the offensive line and they did it in one season in almost like a mistake free swoop right like Joe Tuni which remember the Joe Tuni surprise

nobody was ready for that Creed Humphrey Trey Smith Atlanta Brown I think probably a little bit more of a shaky move and I think they're going to let him walk this year but in general like office line problem solved, right? Like, we're talking about roster management for Tyree Killow to leave and for their passing

game to still work. Like, that's just the sign of an organization knowing where they can cut and say, okay, we don't need a $30 million wide receiver. Our passing game will still be good and we can go spend this money elsewhere, right? They're well-managed team and their well-coached team. You go to look at Cincinnati. It's the same stuff with a little bit more drafting and a little bit less free agency, right? I mean, like with the way they've gotten first round picks in the, like, in terms of

Jamar Chase, who's been so beneficial to them in terms of the T. Higgins, strafers have been great. The little free agent signings, how good is Von Bell been? How good is Mike Hilton been? How good is Hayden Hurst been? How good is Trey Hendrickson, which, like, wasn't little, but still, like, there was drama. They let Carl Lawson walk for Trey Hendrickson and absolutely unequivocally won't that exchange.

Tremendous work by the front office, right? And then coaching-wise, I'm obsessed with Lou Anirmo, right? I'm obsessed with Lou Anirmo, right? I'm a big Lou, I'm talking about Big Lou later. I won't get too far ahead of it. The Bengals defense is really, really good. You go when you look in Buffalo. And you say, all right, like, well-coached, you know, Brian Dable was great.

Ken Dorsey left some meat on the bone this year. I think Ken largely gets over-blamed by Buffalo fans. But, yeah, there was stuff Ken should have improved upon this year. And then defensively, you see a team that they're good. They're good defense. They're a top-five defense. Their record against top quarterbacks is pretty bad. Record against top-offense.

They typically give up 27, 28-plus. They put this offense in a place where they have to be in shootouts. And then you go and you look at personnel, something that I talked about on the ringer NFL show. last night. Brandon Bean hasn't drafted a pro bowler for years. Not since 2019, right? At all of her draft,

have they drafted a pro bowler? They haven't had great free agent luck, right? I talked a lot about what they did in the defensive line. Quinn Jefferson, Mario Aderson, Dequan Jones, right? They brought these players in. They brought, you know, free agents in to try to solve corner two, and that didn't work.

Wide receiver, they didn't address. Like, this team has struggled in terms of personnel. But because they have Allen, and Allen's up there with Mahomes, and he's up there with Burrow, I think we were blind to some of those deficits relative to the other top guys. And I think they were blind

to some of those deficits relative to the other top guys. I think they played that game against Mahomes, lost it because they didn't get the ball in overtime last year in the playoffs. And then they got the NFL to change the overtime playoff rules. And then they said, sick, we did it. And I think because of our quarterback obsession, because of our quarterback visibility,

DAC lost bad, Josh Allen lost bad. Because they had Josh, and Josh is so good, so uniquely gifted, so uniquely talented, a player that they developed, a player that they received heavy criticism for drafting, and they got him around the bend, and they made him into this just super canon of a quarterback. They said, yeah, we're here. And they're not. This team is more similar to the Chargers and to the Ravens than they are to the Bills than the Bengals. They absolutely 100% can. And I believe, like, with you, still will win the playoffs. The one difference, big difference between them and like the Chargers and the Ravens is they're not out here firing their OC, right? They've got the coaching stuff handled. But in terms of personnel, they need work. They need work. And I think it was important for this team to not get to another Mahomes playoff game and not lose the Mahomes playoff game by four points and go, oh, we got unlucky again.

Let's run it back and let's go. I think it was important for this team to run into such a smoothly oiled machine as the Bengals are, such a wonderfully operated team and lose that game by more than three points. Get pants in that way that you're talking about because I think that even though they're 90% of the way there, it would be easy for them to continue to not get the final 10%.

It'd be easy for them to continue to, like you say, get improvements on the offensive line, get a little bit more juice in terms of playmaker. I want to see them get a big body. I want to see a big back. I want to see a big tight end. There's stuff they can do to make their window wider. And I think it's important that they suffer some of this loss so that they do that. I disagree. I think that's recency bias. I think that's small sample. I mean, to say that they're more like the Ravens and the Chargers than the Chiefs and the Bengals to me is a wildly inaccurate, ridiculous statement. And they were easily one of the best teams in the NFL the entire season. Zoom out. I mean, they could play with anybody any weekend. They had a bad end to the season.

They had a bad last game. That was it. I mean, they played the Chiefs and beat the Chiefs literally this year, right? And they played the Chiefs and they already beat them this year. So I disagree with that. I think they were every bit a Super Bowl contender who had a bad day when the stakes were at their highest at the end of the season. I mean, for all everything we want to talk about, and I don't disagree with what you're saying about some of the personnel stuff, offensive line receiver.

Like I look at them now and I say, yeah, you could absolutely have upgrades and that should be a priority this offseason. They were the second best offense in the NFL if we zoom out and look at the entire sample of this year. They were one of three teams that was top five offensively and defensively in DVOA or EPA per drive, whatever metric it was. It was them. I think the Eagles and the 49ers were the only three teams that were that efficient, top five on both sides of the ball. So I think they were every bit of a Super Bowl contender. I hear what you're saying with some of the draft misses.

That to me, anytime we look at is a GM good at drafting or bad at drafting, it's like you don't get enough picks to really be able to say like what you said with the chiefs, right? You said like roster management, they're able to get rid of Tyree Kill and play well. Like I don't think that's because of like great roster management. I think that's because the quarterback is on another level than anybody else and can make it work with anybody. Like, I wouldn't say that they've necessarily, like, I don't look at it and say,

if you give me a GM from like any of those, I'm not saying, oh, I would definitely take Brett Veach over Brandon Bean. I mean, Brandon Bean orchestrated, like one of the best rebuilds we've seen in recent memory. So now it's a different step in the process. You're right about that, and they've got to make certain moves. I thought the Von Miller move was out of character for him. I thought that was pretty aggressive. I kind of get it.

because when you have the window, sometimes you're just saying, let's go for it. I thought that was an aggressive move in year one that didn't work out. So I think they have moves to be made, but I think if I don't view their season the same way you viewed their season. Okay, so three things. One, when I said they're more similar to the Ravens and the Chargers, what I meant is in terms of a star quarterback hiding deficiencies in the offense. That was what that comparison was.

I started by saying that they are the triumbrate in the AFC. I'm just clarifying what that metaphor was. Okay, sorry. I'm on my shield's not getting me on technicalities. I wasn't trying to pull the blanket over your eyes. I'm not a great listener, yeah. Number two, you said recency bias. I got receipts.

I said in December of 2021, this is before the playoff run last year. Bills are such an interesting case of team building optimization, build the whole thing out of the passing game, and now they fundamentally can't do the basic things. Run from under center, use cadence sets, heavy personnel the teams need to do, and it's all blurred by the Josh Allen factor. That's exactly what this season was.

I wonder why they were so good, all regular season, because Josh Allen's so good. Because in January, you have to play, you know, Dolphin, Skyla Thompson, but you have to play like Mike McNeiliel to a tongue up by Loa into Zach Taylor, Joe Burrow, into Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes. Like, that's the run you have to make. But in the regular season, you get the Broncos, you get the Jets, you know, and, you know, and they look really good over that sample because Alan blurs this all, right?

Alan conceals this. Alan's just so good. And this is what I wrote last week is that like, Alan's throwing the ball all the way down the field and it's crazy and they need to like clean up some of this, but there's no second EPA. They're still second in success rate.

Like Alan is a superhero, so he pulls them up. He lifts them up. But when you run into Bengals chiefs, which they, like, their future is every January, they're going to have to play the Bengals and the Chiefs. And like,

that's how you're planning out, you know, your team, for the next three is, your brain of being. It's like, all right, we need to beat that team and then beat that other team in the very next week, back to back. That's why we're going to have to do that every January. They don't have the necessary pieces to do this stuff, right? What is so much of the Bengals season been? It's been like, wow, they fixed the running game. It's helping them not

become one-dimensional. What was so much about the Chief's offensive line improvement? It was they found ways to run the football, right? The Chiefs do all the same side zone run out of the gun that nobody else does solely so they can have this second tenors, they can have the second flavor that will help them in the playoffs, that will help them become balanced, will help them beat the good teams, all of them control the ball. It rounds out the image. The bills are slanted. And this has been the case since Daible was there.

They sell out to be insanely good against the pass, and then it comes back to bite them against elite teams. Defensively, I think it's the same thing. They have sold out to be a good passing team, and they're light. They're small. Stephen brought this point up on the NFL show. They couldn't tackle. Every single three-yard run for the Bengals became a five-yard run.

every single seven-yard pass for a game a 10-year-up pass. They just couldn't stop them. They didn't have stopping power. So I don't think that's recency bias. I think that's been an issue in Buffalo for a while and it's been something

that I've been talking about. Number three, there's still, it's Josh Allen's a superhero. They're still fine. This is important because it's going to give them visibility on the 10%. And that 10% might be the difference

at beating Mahomes in the AFC championship game in 2025 or not. And getting that 10% right, pushing them over there, the final 10% is critical. So this is important for them because it's going to put visibility on the 10%. But the 90%, the 95%, the hard stuff,

the really difficult stuff that you brought up, do the rebuild and get Josh Allen good. They already did it. The hay is almost in the barn. I just think this loss of the Bengals really, really, really exposed the final few bales of hay that are not yet in the barn.

And if Buffalo takes that message and they heat it, I think they're going to be in a better spot in two years. Give me a couple old line upgrades. Give me a little more juice on offense, which I think they, you know, I don't have an issue with their approach. They thought maybe Gabe Davis will make a leap off of the end of last season.

They thought maybe we'll bring in James and Crowder. We have Isaiah McKenzie. We'll draft Khalil Shakir. Like, I don't think they ignored it. I think they said, let's throw a few darts and see what hits. And none of them really hit this year. So now you have to go back to the drawing board there. Those two things.

And then I do think of fair criticism based off of this game in the past couple of years, it's what's going on defensively, like you mentioned, against some of these big boy quarterbacks. You don't expect to shut those guys down all the way, but these are like pretty epic performances. You got to give your offense a chance. This was a, you know, on Sunday against the Bengals, the Bengals outplayed them on both sides of the ball,

but you want your defense, which, you know, those are two really good defensive coaches, McDermott, Leslie Frazier. You know, you need to figure out a way to come up with some game plans that are better than you have in recent years. All right. My third one? We're on my third one, right, Ben? This one I need you to help me with. Because I was going with third one, and I said, let's look ahead to the offseason a little bit.

And I was looking at the Sunday headlines. You know, all the insiders come out with their headlines on a Sunday morning. You check your Twitter feed, oh, what was happening at 4 a.m. in the morning where all these Schefter tweets were coming in on my timeline. So my take is, I'm having a hard time finding a team that should, should, should trade for Aaron Rogers. So Adam Schefter reported that, quote, a trade is a very, real scenario and that both Rogers and the Packers are, quote, fully aware a trade is a real possibility. You had Peter King in his column this morning writing a little bit more about it, saying his guess would be a trade would need to include two first round pick. So let's get

some of the stuff out of the way here. Jason Fitzgerald over the cap. If you have any questions about trades or cap or anything, that is the man. He's awesome. He helps all of us. invaluable resource. And so I think we have to draw the difference and I don't want to get too nerdy or put everyone to sleep here, but the difference between cash and cap, because cash, that's the money coming out of the owner's pocket to the player. And so a team that trades for Aaron Rogers has to pay him $59.5 million in guaranteed salary for 2023. So you're saying, no one can, no team can afford $59.5 million on the cap. Well, the cap is different. It would be in the form of a bonus.

Again, I'm not trying to bore you, I swear. But that would basically be spread out most of that over the course of four years. So from a cap perspective, it's manageable for just about any team in the NFL that wants to trade for Aaron Rogers. Cap is not a problem. The problem to me, Ben, is do I want to pay a guy who turns 40 in December? $59.5 million. That's one thing. And also, by the way, give up multiple first.

first round draft picks for a 40-year-old quarterback. I think this is kind of getting treated as the Tom Brady thing. This is different than the Tom Brady thing. Tom Brady was a free agent. You just, sorry, sign him. Who cares? We're not giving up any draft picks. Let's see what happens.

That's one thing. This is different. You're giving up potentially, theoretically, draft capital, and then also banking on Aaron Rogers playing well for you in age 39 season and really age 40 seasons. And then there's all these other new ones. Do you have to have conditions on the picks? What if after next year, Aaron Rogers is like, well, that didn't work out.

Great, I'm going to go ahead and retire. Wait, wait, we know. We just gave up to first round picks. So are there conditions on the picks? Like, I think it's a more complicated trade than maybe people are thinking it is because I think a lot of people are just looking at the cat pits and saying, oh, that's not bad. Go ahead and trade for Aaron Rogers. But to me, it's a lot trickier.

So I just wrote down some teams. And I didn't give you a heads up on this. So I'm hitting you on the fly here. So here are some teams I wrote down. Again, if I'm like a GM of one of these teams or if I'm a fan of one of these teams, I'm kind of going, I'm good. Like there are other quarterback options. I don't want to do this. But your mom's not going to be happy.

The Jets are obviously, blame Danny Highfits, tell her he's the one who wrote about it. If there's a quarterback, my mom likes less than Tom Brady. It's Aaron Rogers. We'll get in text about this. I like your mom. That's outstanding. So listen, the Jets are just going to be linked to every quarterback this offsy. and so I had to write him down.

Peter King mentioned the Patriots in his column. Do you bring him in and bear him with... His face is not like that. Oh, brother. I mean, the dolphins, we don't know what's happening a quarterback there because of two as hell. Here's one that I think you would really be able to get on here and crush me about.

You see Mike Vable saying, should we think about this? And then making the trade for Aaron Rodgers. When the Titans make the aggressive Brady slash Rogers move, I will find you and get you and get you on a mic, wherever you are in the United States. That was a threat. That sounded a little too threatening to me.

All right. The Colts, I mean, I don't think they would do that, but whatever. They need a quarterback. The Raiders may be an interesting one. We know they're going to have to do something. The commanders, the bucks, the Panthers, the Saints. I mean, those are just the teams I wrote down. Like, does this make sense for any of these teams?

I mentioned, another team that you have on your mind to trade, multiple picks for the right to pay Aaron Rogers, a lot of money, and see if he still got it at age 39 and 40. What do you think? Yeah. So I think, right, the important thing is, right, emphasizing that the Packers have to make this choice this year. They're not able to make it next year because of the way the dead cap goes up. Like, there's impetus and there's a push on this year, which is really, really tricky because Rogers had backtrack MVP seasons and then did not look like that this year. And so, like, there's just that internal feel that Lakey's coming off the cliff, right?

By the way, sorry, I'd not to interrupt you, but you brought it up. I meant to mention it. I think for the Packers, it makes, like, complete sense. Like, if they can do, if you get a draft capital, see what you got with Jordan Love before he leaves, I think that is perfectly reasonable from their mind. But sorry, go ahead. Absolutely. I love when you apologize for interrupting, given the fact that I interrupt you at least

four times a show and never say sorry. I'm just shooting. Yeah. I almost interrupted you when you brought up the Brady point, because the other critical thing about acquiring a 40-year-old Tom Brady versus acquiring a 40-year-old. year old Aaron Rogers is that Tom Brady famously, religiously, religiously takes care of his body. Aaron Rogers uses substances of which I'm unfamiliar in the offseason.

Listen, we don't know what is in TB12, so I'm not willing. I don't know what's in what. I know what substances anyone's using. So I don't, I don't know. You see he works on the mental health, right? The meditation is easy. He's doing stuff. Yeah, right?

A little ayahuasca going to a trans. Brady, ultimate competitor, lives and dies for football, wanted to make a point out of New England. Like that, to me, like, I could see him going to Tampa Bay and being really good for another five years. Okay, it makes sense. Rogers is not the sort of individual. Iwaska jokes aside, just in terms of, like, knowing his motivations, knowing how he likes to interact with his teammates, knowing the way that he's been treated in Green Bay previously and how that might make him feel about, like,

having roster control and roster input. Like, he's just not the sort of individual that you feel, comfortable hitching your wagon to in his 40s relative to Brady. Like, Brady upping and retiring last season was not only like not super random because he was 44 and he was coming off of like he had won a Super Bowl recently. It was also like quickly undone because he's such a competitor. If Rogers retired tomorrow, who among us would be even a little bit surprised? A lot of money on the table.

That's the only reason why. But yes, I hear what you're saying. Yeah, right. He's such a more difficult individual to pin down in terms of his motivation to what he wants to do that, right, having to spend resources on that, let alone signing it for agency, to me, it is an extremely dangerous proposition. If I, you know, through my back channels and through talking to agents and whatever, knew that I could get Rogers for next couple years, right?

I'm going to get him and he's going to stay for a couple years. And I know that, like, you know, he's healthy, right? Like, I can, like, see him throw in the arm of cray and I can watch the film or whatever. I don't mind it. I mind it at two bursts. I don't mind going for it, right? If you're like the Raiders, the Titans who like want to win now and whatever. Like I can't endorse it.

It doesn't bother me. But you have to know something I don't know. Right now, the information I have, not a chance I'd do it. If you know you're getting Rodgers for the next couple of years and like, if you're the Raiders, you know he likes Devonthe who's going to be happy with that. Like I don't fault it, but you've got to know something I don't know. Also, like, do we know he's going to get along with the new coach? Like you just saying the Raiders, I'm just picturing Aaron Rogers, MFing Josh McDaniels as he comes off the field there.

I mean, I think Matt Lafleur, honestly, like this could be a situation. Remember when Antonio Brown leaves Mike Tomlin and then we find out, wow, that must have been really hard to coach Antonio Brown for all those years. Like, that could be a situation where we're going, well, Matt LaFleur, actually, we underappreciated what a job he did there with Rogers. So I don't know if, you know, if it tweet at me if you're like, no, this would make perfect sense for, Team X. Maybe it is the Titans. They're just going to go for it anyway. It will allow Ben to make fun of me for the John Robinson thing once again. And then you know what? They might just go ahead and win the division with Rogers next year. So we'll see where he goes, but that's going to be a huge storyline. All right, Ben, finish us off with the extra point taken.

What do you got? Extra point taken. When we were talking about the bill's defense there, you brought up the fact that this bill's defense, when they run into the elite quarterback, something I mentioned as well, you just don't see them make game-winning plays. You don't see them get the stops that are necessary. And when I think back, like, I started doing this in 2016, I would say the most prevailing question over the course of my career in covering the NFL has been how do you stop the elite quarterbacks, right? Like, it's just what are you going to do to handle these guys?

Like in 2016, it was something like the late stage pocket passers, Breed, Rogers, Brady, whatever. And then as we got into late tens or the 2000s, of these new school guys who move outside of the pocket, right? And it's just, what do you do? What is the solution? What's the secret sauce? How are we going to stop these top quarterbacks?

When is the pendulum finally going to swing back to us over here on the defense? The extra point taken is this. Bengals defense coordinator, Lou Aniruma, has faced eight games of elite to nearly quarterback play over the last two years. It's had Mahomes three times. He had Rogers once the MVP season. 2021, Josh Allen once now, Justin Herbert once now,

and then Lamar Jackson twice in the last two years. Those eight games, the quarterback has averaged an EPA per dropback of negative 0.03, which is about what Mack Jones did this season. If you even take Lamar out, which I'll give you taking Lamar out, if you're such a different quarterback, right,

dropback versus Russian plays, whatever, it's 0.04 EPA for dropback, which is Andy Dolan this year. This man has no head coaching interviews. Zero. Now, there's a chance. off of my vibes on Big Lou. The Big Lou is just going to be a head coach anywhere.

Big Lou is on the Fangio track where he's going to be a defense coordinator for the next 40 years. And then they kind of eventually take head coaching job. But when you, when we talk a lot about head coaching hires, and I know something that you talk about. We talked about your list before. We always like to talk about offensive-minded. Go for offensive-minded guys. That's where the future is.

That's where the move is. The list of guys who I trust against an elite quarterback right now in the NFL is two names long. It's Bill Belichick and Lou Enerumo. He is the exception. that proves the rule. And critically, he's doing it, shield, with no all pros on the defense. None.

How many... Look at those corners he's playing with. How many Bengals defenders do you think, like, the average NFL fan to name? The average NFL fan? Yeah, I mean, maybe Trey Hendrickson and Jesse Bates. I don't know. Jesse Bates, right?

Exactly. Eli Apple has the memes on Twitter, right? Like, there's that. You know what I'm saying? This defense is impossibly well-cast. Every single player is in the exact correct role for his skill set. Why does Trey Henderson have 14 sacks? It's because he's able to get off the ball extremely fast in the two-point stands.

Why is Mike Hilton so valuable? Because he's the best flitzing nickel in the league. And guess what they do with them? They play him in the slot and they blitz him. Jesse Bates, deep-middle safety doesn't like the tackle. We play him deep middle. J. Pras is a gap plugger. He plugs gap-prud.

Zach Carter's a big end. DJ Reader's a big, even tackle. They stuff the run for us. everybody does exactly the job that they are supposed to do in their NFL skills on the Bengals defense, all 11 every time. They are never wrong. They are never surprised. They are never outcoached.

And it is true against Kenny Piggin and Mr. Trubisky in Pittsburgh. And it's true against basketball, Holmes and the sheets. And, like, Mahomes had good games, right? Like, I brought up those, like, overall stats. Malmns has had games of, like, you know, 0.3 EPA for dropback. But again, like, you're holding Mahomes, like, mid-20s? you're doing the job, right? I am astounded that he has no head coaching,

he has no head coaching interviews, but more importantly, this. I think Lou is our first instance of the pendulum swinging back towards defense against these elite quarterbacks. I really think he is. And the reason is because this guy was the Purdue defensive backs coach in 2011. He was the Dolphins defensive backs coach for five years. He was a Giants defensive backs coach in 2018

before being the Bengals. inglorious, no name, no recognition, no fanfare, defensive coordinator. He was getting made fun of, they were getting openly mocked when they hired him as their defensive coordinator. Right. When like Ray and Seattle got hired with the charges, like all this fanfare, fanjo system, college coach, masterpieces with rank, Sean McVeigh. Like, this is a guy who like, he's come up, like, you know, in the fanjo system.

And he, like, is a result of being able to stop this McVey offense. Like, this is what he does. And Arumos just bit in the league for the last decade, watching these guys play, learning from different people. and now he says, you know what, this is, I can do a little bit of everything. I can do this against these guys. Stop Mahomes from scrambling,

force her to throw this way, throws Aaron Rock's pressure on this wagon, stop Lamar's option running game. He just sees it. And I think as more defensive coaches study what Lou is doing with his specialized players, with his patient play polling, and with his matchup-oriented stuff,

you're going to see more defenses realize that we can find ways to stop these elite quarterbacks. You think, Lou, it's not going to be immediate, It's not going to even be like noticeable. It's going to be gradual. It's going to be slow. It's going to be annoying. It's become with hiccups.

But for a guy like just, you know, again, I don't mean like every man. But for a guy, just like Lou and Rumo to start to figure this out to me is a sign that we're going to start to get on top of these league quarterbacks, at least a little bit more with a few more defense coaches. I think he's one of the best coaches in the league. I'm astounded by the work as you know those every week. Big Lou, baby. Or he could just be a one of one. With the head coaching thing, I'm torn because I've seen this a lot.

Why isn't he? But like, we know that great coordinators are not always. always great head coaches. And there's like a mystery to him. Like you said, we don't, I don't know a lot about him. I don't know what his leadership skills are. I don't know. Who would he bring on as his offensive coordinator if he were a head coach? How does he command a room? Does he believe in, like, does he connect with players? I watch his team and I'm with you. This sample is getting large of this dude just year and year out against elite quarterbacks shutting them down. I mean, even the, like the bills, even when the bills generally play a bad

game offensively. They're getting like, you know, three drives where they're going to be able to score a touchdown because Josh Allen does something nuts. And they scored one touchdown on eight possessions. I was just looking at that Bengals Chiefs game from earlier this season. And like the Chiefs numbers are pretty efficient. But what happened? What were the big plays down the stretch? Jermaine Pratt forces the Travis Kelsey fumble. And then they had a big third down where they drop eight. And Joseph Asai wins on a three-man rush because Patrick Mahomes holds the ball and they get a sack there. and they produce those plays time and time again. I mean, a lot of the stuff I was referring to with Joe Burrow in these big games,

the defense has been right there or in some of those games, the defense has led the way. So, yeah, he has done a fantastic job. I think his biggest strength is that every coach says, oh, we don't have a ski, you know, we cater our scheme to personnel. The amount of coaches that actually are able to do that are, it is, I'm saying it's easy to do, it's hard to do, and he does that. You said we don't know anything about this guy, like,

like what what's like what's the situation like I don't know enough about him and like that being a part of the reason why he doesn't have head coaching hires this is why I think it's difficult for defensive coaches to get jobs and hold jobs and hang jobs as long as they do is because good offensive coaches have a bill right they have like they got the laundry list I sit down with an owner I say listen this is what we're going to be about we're going to be about you know clash and pass game and we're going to run the ball this way we're going to do like the way of these you know watch shot movie ever going to do it like that and then we're going to get speed of receiver and we'll take these shots.

Like you can like you can build it out right. Lou and like other like there are some DCs who are like that like wing Barndale's got a bill right, Bill right, he's got a launch of us. We're going to play man coverage and blitz. One liner, bang, this is what we do. Right. Even Brandon Staley, you know what I'm saying?

Like we're going to, you know, defend the past instead of defending the run. Like Staley's got as one liners. Lute doesn't have a one liner. Lose, lose entire sell for what they do on defense is. Well, what does what's the offense do? Yeah. Well, whatever they do, you know, because like, They run 9,000 different fronts.

The Bill's film is just constant. Like, we talk about simulated pressures. They're blitzing four guys, but the different four guys every snap and they're rotating coverage line and they're playing cover two out of single high. They're running cover zero out of two high. It's everything under the sun. It's everything you can put in a kettle, man. I mean, it's all that.

You can't get that across to an owner or like critically like, you know, to a ESPN reporter or like, you know, some national out of federal reporter. You can't get that across in one line. Like if I'm trying to sell loot right now to a, an owner, I would just kind of be like, I'd show him the numbers against the league quarterback and say like, this guy can do this for you, but I can't show you his defense

be like, look at the big buttons that he presses. This is the identity. You know, just the way to build it. It's being multiple. It's being able to adapt. It's being patient and it's doing the right thing and it's being well coached. And that's so much harder to communicate. But if you're good at it and you get

a head coached job, you survive the first couple of years, then you get on that Tomlin path, right, you get on that Bill Belichick path. you can ride that thing out by just being a really dong on good coach. It's the key to playing defense in the year, uh, 20, 23. Can you do different things? Can you adjust based on the opponent? They're all going to look different.

What gives you the best chance that quarter, that possession, that third down, whatever. He has really kind of emerged as the king of knowing what buttons to push there and has done a fantastic job. I mean, you really can't overstate like with this personnel. This is not like this personnel. Like when you were going through, it goes back to the conversation. we're having like roster management, coaching, like all these things go together. Like you put this personnel on paper and you hand it out

and compare to the other 31. You're not going, oh yeah, baby, they're loaded with Eli Apple and Cam Taylor Britt on the outside. Tim Taylor Britt, which I have great love and appreciation. Yeah, I like Cam Taylor. It's a rookie. Plays Corner. Exactly.

Like, I would play Corner. Which is how. He's just guessing and trying really hard. 100% how Ben still I have to be playing Corner. I love him for it. There you go. All right, that was a good extra point taken to finish on. That will do it for this episode.

So what do we have? Next week, we'll be talking. We'll have two Super Bowl teams when we talk next week. The week after that, we'll be potting, I believe, from Glendale, Arizona. There are only three more football games this season. The offseason is going to be coming very quickly here with some major quarterback moves. That's going to be the story of the offseason, even more so than in. in recent years. So thank you to everyone for listening. Thank you to Benjamin Solek. Thank you to Christopher

Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal. Nora will have the island next on this feed. I'll be back on the Scramble. Austin Gale joining me. Sorry, we didn't do it last week. It was a little under the weather. We'll be back Thursday with the Scramble. And then Ben will be back with Danny Hyfitz and Stephen Rees on Friday for the preview show. Have a great week, everyone. enjoy the conference championship games. We will talk to you next week on Extra Point Taken.