The Ringer NFL Show - ‘GM Street’ — Saturday Sit-Down Week 5 (Ep. 155)

Episode Date: October 7, 2017

On this special mini-podcast, The Ringer’s Michael Lombardi and Tate Frazier preview the five big matchups to watch this weekend: Carolina Panthers at Detroit Lions (1:52), Arizona Cardinals at Philadelphia Eagles (2:51), Seattle Seahawks at Los Angeles Rams (3:56), Green Bay Packers at Dallas Cowboys (5:19), and Baltimore Ravens at Oakland Raiders (6:24). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to GM Street, a special GM Street. I'm joined by Mike Lombardi. Lombardi, how you doing? I'm good, Tate Fraser. I'm doing good. I think by the end of this season, we're going to be recording on every single day. You might be showing up in people's living rooms at that point,

just giving them inside and info on the NFL. That'll send everybody off. But hey, it's Friday before a game, and we all talk about football games. I mean, it's the perfect venue, right? Yeah, so this is going to be a little quicky thing. We're going to run through five games. Real quick.

You're going to knock out two minutes on those games, what to look for this weekend. But first off, let's talk about that Thursday night football game real quick. another ugly game on Thursday night. The Patriots come out with a win in 1914. James Winston has happy feet. I don't know if it was the most fun game to watch, but it happened and the Patriots are back above 500.

You know, two things. I mean, Nick Folk was horrendous in the Giants. I know we kicked the game winner the last week, but I tweeted out Tuesday, like Tampa needs a kicker, and they went through it. Now, you know, I know that Nick Folk's salary is guaranteed for the season, and they have to pay him whether he's on the team or not, which shouldn't be involved in a decision,

especially when you have so much cap room. But to me, you know, like, and then Dirk Cotter's managing the game, like he has a field goal kicker. Yeah. Like at some point, Dirk, you don't have a game winner. So he's just, he's buying into that. Don't think about the other stuff. At some point, you don't have a field goal kicker. But the thing that drove me, the absolute craziest was Dirk Cotter called time out of 203 at the end of the game.

And that, like, he actually basically gave the Patriots a chance to put the game away. And for me, watching that game last night, the Patriots were like an old championship boxer that knows how to box and was great at one time. time, but really can't box it anymore. I mean, those players were in Patriot uniforms. Well, really, not Patriot uniforms. It was all whites. But that did not look like a Patriot team. Over 100 yards of penalties, had a chance to win the game on offense, couldn't do it. The defense made a few plays thanks to Winston. Wow, there's a lot of work to be done in New England. Yeah. Well, if you win, then it's fine. Everyone will figure out later. All right, let's rapid fire this, Tate. Let's do it, Tate Frazier. Let's start. We've got the

Carolina Panthers are going to play the Detroit Lions. So pretty big game. Obviously, the whole Cam Newton thing this week. We'll see if that carries into the game itself. But big game there. Panthers Lion, we're going to see who's for real in the NFC. This is really two teams that mirror one another. It's really kind of when you look at them on tape and you watch and look at the numbers, they're very similar. Both teams are good red zone defensive teams. Both teams tackle really well. The Lions are the fourth best tackling team in the league and they're really good in the red zone. So they tackle well, they're good in the red zone, and then their offense controls the ball in time of possession. So that formula

adds up to why they've won three games. I mean, they're not pretty. You can move the ball at times on them. The Panthers are the same way. The Panthers are really good on third down. They're really good in time of possession. They struggle when they get the ball offensively in the red zone. But for me, this game comes down to this. I don't know how Matthew Stafford has been able to stay healthy all season. The Carolina defensive line is way better than the offensive line for Detroit, especially when they rush from the edge. I just think that'll be too much for Detroit to handle. I think Carolina's line will win the game. Absolutely. Let's keep it going. We got Cardinals at Eagles, Bird v. Bird. What are you going to see in this game? The birds are playing. Yeah. Well,

this game is interesting because the last two weeks, Arizona has control the ball, 36 minutes in both games, which the Eagles have led the league in time of possession. Their defense, which really is a single-header defense, has only played. The most they've played in any game this year is 26 minutes, and they lost that game. Okay. So when the Eagles have to play more defense, things badly happen. Just like in the fourth quarter, they've given up more points in the fourth quarter than they've given up in the first three quarters combined. Now, the other thing that goes in the favor of the Cardinals in this game, the Cardinals can throw the ball down the field. Eagles are one of the worst defenses in the National Football League and defending the deep throws. They've given up more 20-yard

plays other than any other team in the league except the Patriots. Once again, it comes back to the offensive defense line. To me, the Cardinals will struggle block of this Eagle front. Carson Palmer gets better in the second half. I just don't know if he can stay healthy through the game. I think the Eagles defensive line controls the game. This is a really close game, though. Yeah, look out for some big plays from Larry Fitzgerald down the field. Yeah, everybody against this Eagle defense. Absolutely. Let's keep it going, NFC West. The class of the NFC. West. I'm going to take it out.

Seahawks coming down to Los Angeles. Everyone remembers that thrilling victory last year for the Rams. This will be a fun one to see who's for real in that division. I think the Rams have beaten the Seattle three out of the last four times they've played them. They've always played them tough. I think it's always been a game that they've challenged for. And this game going in, Seattle is not a very good run defense. They usually typically build their team on run defense.

They've been much better against the pass this year than it gets the rush. This game really comes down to can Seattle win first down? The Rams average over 12 yards per pass attempt on first down. They've done a great job with golf being able to handle. of that. They're not good in third and long. Seattle has to find a way to play better run defense. And I think Seattle has to find a way to block the front of the Rams. They have to block Aaron Donald. They don't block very many people with their offensive line. And Russell Wilson has some magic. I think this is really a statement game for the Rams. Can they

challenge the Seattle team if they're for real? And I think Sean McVeigh knows this. It's going to be really interesting to see if they can protect the football against Seattle. And Seattle, you know, they're a funny team. They win in the fourth quarter. They relish those games at halftime of the game against Indy when they're down 15 to 10, I bet they're playing loud music in the locker room. They don't care. They just like to get the game in the fourth quarter. I think this will be a fascinating game. I think Seattle's gamanship and their championship level of play could be the difference in the game, but this is time for the Rams to make a statement. And it could actually be an offensive showdown to a little bit, a little bit different than

last year. It was like a 9-3 game. Keep it going. We're going to go to the Green Bay Packers, going to the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys surprisingly favored in this game. Yeah, that's a shocker for me because, look, when you look at the Cowboys, all their numbers are way down. Doc Prescott last year averaged eight yards per pass attempt. This year he's down to 6.7. Every player on the team is down, is declining in their numbers. Witton's down a yard. I mean, Terrence Williams is down almost four yards per pass a reception,

but the guy that's killing them the most, the guy they can't get the ball to, and this is why they're losing is Cole Beasley. Cole Beasley was averaging 11 yards on third down last year. He's down to seven. He hasn't been able to convert those third down, which is why the Cowboys have been able to keep the ball. Their defense is playing way too much. The run defense is bad.

I think this is the perfect situation for Green Bay to walk down there. Aaron Rogers, be Aaron Rogers. They're actually the better team. Without Sean Lee, they won't have Sean Lee, the Cowboys this week, which is really bad for them. Without Sean Lee, Jalen Smith, great story. We all love the kid. Really can't run. He's a liability in past coverage.

I think the Packers, healthy with some time off. I think they'll go in there, and I think the Packers are the better team. And we saw Sean McVeigh pick on Jalen Smith last week. So we know Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rogers probably have something to put up. Yep. And let's go to our final game of the week. Ravens at Raiders should be a fun one. Yeah, it should be.

And to me, not to bury Joe Flacco, we insulted them a little bit on our last podcast, but then I did some more homework on the guy. Do you realize on first down, Joe Flacco in the last 30 games has thrown 15 interceptions? On first down, Tate, that's the down. Look, Jared Goff's averaging over 12 years. Maybe he's trying to throw the defense off. I don't know. I mean, he throw 15 interceptions on first down, and you keep letting this guy play in the game,

and he was pissed off week one. This is going to be a fascinating game because two really, basically, You can call Flacco a backup, a very high-priced backup. E.J. Manuel, not very accurate with the ball. Needs to be under center a little bit more. They need to get Marciaun Lynch going. Ravens can play some past defense. I think this will be a low-scoring game. I think it goes either way. I think the one thing the Raiders have in their advantage is their defensive line has to be able to dominate the game because this Raven, offensive line is not very good. And every time Flacco goes back to pass, it could be a chance for them to score points for the

Raiders, not for the Ravens. What happens if Flacco just throws up another debt again? Do we have anything from Harbaugh? They have no alternative. At some point, Harbaugh has to take on Flacco or else he's going to lose the team because the team sees how badly Flacco's played over the last 30 games. And I know they've paid him, and he's won a Super Bowl. He's a sacred cow.

But when you look at the numbers and you look at what he's done, they're going to have to take him on because his performance level has to be held to all the other player standard, and right now it's not. And we saw Rathisberger come out and, you know, go at Antonio Brown and say, I'm the guy, I'm the leader of this team. Joe Flacco is sort of in the same position with the Ravens. But who's going to be the guy to do that to him, I guess it has. He couldn't lead us back to where we're parked.

So you can forget about that. That ain't happened. All right. Before we head back to the parking lot, and we get out of here and we have ourselves a nice weekend and watch a bunch of sports that are going on, we just got to have one guy to watch, one person, one player, even could be a coach, whoever, that you want to watch this weekend, that you want to keep your eyes on because they may do something to stand out and make a difference.

I want to watch Miles Garrett of the Browns. I mean, the Browns passed on DeShawne-Mawks. They passed on Patrick Mahomes. They passed on all these quarterbacks. Let's see if they passed on, and let's see if this guy can make a difference with his ability to pass rush against the Jets. The Browns are favored. in the game. They're a home favorite. The Jets have come off a game where they got 500 yards of offense against a fairly good Jacksonville defense. The game's in Cleveland. Cleveland is the

favorite to win. Miles Garrett's first game. I want to see how he plays. I want to see how he can handle the kid as he make this defense much better because this defense has been trending downward and I want to see what he does. Yeah, we want to see if he's Mario Williams or if he's a Dave and Clinton. Those guys took a couple years to really find their footing in this league, but a lot of people expected Miles Garrett to be the defensive rookie of the year. Let's see how good he is. We've seen some of these other rookies play well i want to see how miles garrett plays all right well we're going to wrap this thing up lombardi this has been a lot of fun it's been a nice saturday we're going to come back sunday night and we're going to give you more gm street thanks tate