The Ringer NFL Show - 'GM Street’ — Week 6 Rapid Reactions (Ep. 161)

Episode Date: October 16, 2017

The Ringer's Michael Lombardi and Tate Frazier discuss Aaron Rodgers's injury (02:15), the lack of firepower in Atlanta (10:00), the wide-open MVP race (15:00), the underperforming Raiders (19:15), and the mess in Cleveland's front office (25:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Use promo code ringer NFL to activate the offer. Visit mybooky.orgie.orgie today. You play. You win. You get paid. the GM Street on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Tate Frazier. And sitting across from me on this lovely Sunday night,

Mr. Mike Lombardi, Lombardi, how you doing? I'm good, Tate Frazier. Sundays, Sunday nights have become a thing for you and I. We're spending a lot of time together. We were just talking back and forth. We can't believe it's already week six. It's amazing. We're moving on to week seven at this point.

And time really flies when you're watching a lot of football is what I've learned. You know, the one thing about football season is always a great routine. You know, you do this on Monday, do that on Tuesday. The week flies by. And then Saturday's college football and, you know, and then Sunday. So it's really pretty good. Today was a fascinating day in the NFL because I can honestly tell you, I don't know who the best team in the league is.

Yeah, there's a lot of teams that try to make that claim and a lot of teams that don't want to make that claim. They're trying to step back, Kansas City being one of them. The 1972 dolphins, you know how every year we tell them to get another bottle of champagne? They must be pretty hammered at this point because they get another bottle every single year. It's amazing. And this is what? This is week six they get to crack open the champagne.

Yeah, it's a little early. I mean, two years ago, I was at the Patriots. We went 10 weeks before, but they had to crack open the champagne. But look, I don't know, as Michael Quirleone said and Godfather III, I don't think our true champion has yet to reveal himself. I don't think we know anything about this season. It's all going to come down to health and playing well. Because you could say, hey, the Steelers are great.

They played good today. Well, you know, they lost to Chicago, and they lost to Jacksonville, who lost to the Rams and lost to the Jets. So who knows. Yeah, it's a domino effect at this point. but the one thing that we did learn today is that home field advantage does not exist in the NFL anymore. Eight road teams go in and win today. But the first big story, we're going to do the five things that really jumped out to you.

The first thing that obviously jumped out is Aaron Rogers goes down with most likely a broken collar balloon. That's what most people are saying right now. Yeah, and you're going to miss the season. And I mean, I think what Mike McCartney said after the game was probably the best thing you can do because, you know, everybody's, then the first question, everybody's going to say, well, who's going to be your quarterback? Well, you know, he's been grooming Brett Hundley. So you want to put the, you want to put the bed the Tony Romo rumors. Look, we're not trading for Tony.

Tony Romo. We're not getting him out of retirement. We're not going to, Brett Farve even put something up on Twitter. Hey, we're coming back. I think it's smart. And here's why. McCarthy has to send a message to his team that he believes in Hunley. You know, when Brady got hurt back in the year, he got hurt, there were two quarterbacks scheduled to come to England on Tuesday for just a random tryout, just to keep their emergency list and check. Belichick sent them home. They got to the hotel that Monday, Monday, or Sunday night, they went home Monday morning. He wanted everybody to know that Matt Castle was his starting quarterback, and he was sticking with him.

I think McCarthy did the smart thing this week. Hey, we're going with Brett Hunley. He's our guy. We got a lot of confidence in him. He played bad today through three interceptions, but we're going to get him a week of practice, and things are going to be fine with Brett Hunley. I'm not sure about that.

Yeah, and that was like they cut to the booth at halftime there, and we saw the main guys on Sunday night football, Ronnie Harrison, they were all doing the whole Brett Huntley treatment of, you know, this guy's finally getting his chance. And, you know, we saw him drafted in 2015, a UCLA guy, six foot three, has all the measurable. I mean, his first pass of the game is 0 for one for an interception. You know, for this season, it's 55% completion percentage.

He's one touchdown, three interceptions in his career. We haven't seen Brett Hundley do it at the NFL level, so it's not going to be Aaron Rogers. I feel bad for Brett Huntley because the people are going to dare him to beat. I mean, look, when you play Aaron Rogers, you're worried about them moving in the pocket. You know, all those plays that Green Bay run that people complain about Aaron Rogers or whatever, those plays that he produces yards on aren't going to be the same production of yards for Brett I can just tell you that right now. Yeah, because they're broken plays for the most part.

Most of the time they are broken plays, right. And so now he's going to have to handle a whole different set of how people are going to play them defensively. Like Minnesota, you could see Mike Zimmer's brain rack, and he started to put some blitzes in during the game because he figured, you know what? I can blitz this guy, whereas I'm going to be a little careful about trying to mess with Aaron Rodger. That's out the window. And what I think what's happened now is what people don't realize is they're going to play Green Bay's offense a lot. It's going to start looking like the New York Giants offensive. when they go to 11.

You know, everybody's going to say, well, what's wrong with Eli? You know, it's going to look like that. You can't throw slants all the time. And you can when you have Aaron Rogers because then he's going to scramble out. The other factor is if you're down by three and there's a minute to go in the game and you still have a timeout, like the Clapper gave them last week, like that's really not a bad play because, you know, Hunley may not leave them down the field. Rogers can lead them down the field.

It's going to be interesting to see how they change what they, because they're going to have to change what they do offensively, Tate Frazier. There's no way they're going to be able to play the same offense. No way. Well, Montgomery came back and had a good game today, so hopefully there's something in the running game. Obviously, the young rookie that we've mentioned a lot of times, Aaron Jones. Yeah.

So maybe those are the guys, maybe the run game becomes the main thing. I have a little conspiracy to throw at you. The guy that hurt Aaron Rogers is Anthony Barr, linebacker. Where did he go to school? Do you remember? UCLA. Guess who his quarterback was, Brett Huntley. Maybe he believes in Brett Huntley.

I'd say the league was in full cover up this weekend. The league was in full cover up. First of all, the jet call. Oh, yes. All right, they said that was the perfect. call. It was bobbling. Okay, you know, look, all I know is I was at Tony Pease again, minor plug. Great seat sitting right in front. All right. Now, I will say this. Mike Holmgren's line about the tuck rule, if 50 guys in a bar think it's a fumble, then it's probably a fumble. Well, I can

honestly tell you, everybody in that bar, and the bar was packed, thought that was a touchdown. Only the people in the league office didn't think it was. And they said they could clearly see the ball move. If they clearly saw it, I didn't see it. Look, you know, When they scored it, all I know is they went to commercial. My head turned around. I was busy watching Desaum Watson throw a touchdown pass as I turned around. Next thing, I know the Patriots had the ball on the 20. So they're saying that was the right call.

Then they're saying that Anthony Barr's was not an illegal hit, even though he drove him to the ground. And you could see Aaron Rogers MF and him going off the field. I mean, he knew it. Like, come on, why was it there a flag? How much do you want to bet that Anthony Barr gets fined this week? I'd say it's pretty likely. He should get fine.

Who's going to, I mean, somebody from the Packers is going to, and call and say, hey, we saw the tape on this guy. Well, we're protecting quarterbacks, right? Now we're in a league where we lose Beckham. Yeah. We lose JJ Watt. And now we lose Aaron Rogers. That hurts the league. Look, Beckham's injury was unavoidable. Same with JJ Watt. This one could have been avoidable. I mean, through the guy to the ground. I don't know. And then the league comes out and says, well, it was a good hit. I don't see it. Yeah. Well, speaking of OBJ, I hope he comes back. They did a shot of his helmet tonight. It's Ferris. We call that narrative, right? Say Ferris. Save Hodel.

It's like he's in a hospital bed, just waiting. I hope he survives. Say Ferris, say Ferris. He's got flowers all over the place. He's got Mia, whatever that girl's names. He's got celebrities coming to his hotel or to his medical room and he's running home. He's probably running back to his room. He stops to see the two girls.

He says, I'm Ferris Bueller. You know, that's perfect. Hi, I'm Odell Beck. I'm Jr. I'm so happy for OBJ. Let's talk about a team that really bounced back this week, a team that we had, you know, kind of been down on. They had some problems last week with Big Ben,

but they come back to Steelers. They obviously upset the. Kansas City Chiefs. And Leveon looked like the Levyon that you would expect to see. I think what the Steelers did today was they found out who they are. And they are a little bit better than Jacksonville's game plan. They do have a quarterback. Jacksonville doesn't have one, but they need to run the ball.

Over 170 yards rushing. Take Ben out of the game. Like make them throw it to Antonio Brought. Use your weapons, but basically feature the run game and then play really good zone defense. And one thing I think they were able to do in this game, which really matters when you play a team like Kansas City is when everybody is playing man-to-man against Kansas City, because you think you can play man-to-man against because who's going to beat you? If you take Tyreek Hill out of the

game or all that. But if you play zone against Kansas City, all eyes are on the quarterback. All eyes are on the ball. So all that motion that comes across the backfield and this guy's going here and that, you don't pay attention to it. You're kind of numb to it. You just focus on your area and they're a very good zone defense. And that zone defense for three quarters gave Kansas City a ton of trouble. They really did. And they rushed well. And when the game was on the line, Kansas City had a chance to come back. My man, Andy Reid still calls time out with 205. The real Andy Reid came back. Bill Simmons just so, you know, Andy Reid was back for a day. And, you know, and they had a chance to win the game at the end, and they couldn't do it. Pittsburgh passed rushed well. James Harrison beat Eric Fisher around

the corner for a sack. I thought it was a heck of a performance by Pittsburgh. But this is kind of Pittsburgh's typical way that you think they're down. They rally back. They're going to be a hard team to beat all year. I thought Roma made a good point during the game when he was talking about Levi-on-Bel. He was like, we don't want to acknowledge the fact that training camp matters, but for a guy like that, it's going to take him three to four weeks, and right now his legs are underneath him, and he looks like the same guy. He was really good last week against Jacksonville. If Jacksonville, if they would have done what the Rams did to Jacksonville, which is just run Gurley, if they would have just run Bell against Jacksonville and kept Ben out of the game, they would have beaten them too. But, you know, I think

that game was really the best thing that could happen to the Steelers, because it now put it into focus that we need to feature the run. Not that we're going to take Ben out of the game. Ben can still make his throws here and there. But we have to run the football effectively to be a good team. And that'll help Ben more than anything. And the game winning throw, I mean, Big Ben threw it into double coverage. And Antonio Brown made a ridiculous one-handed grab.

Unbelievable catch. I mean, it should go the other way. It's a little bit like Monday night when Trubisky was throwing interceptions that went for touchdowns. And everybody was like, oh, Mitch Mitchell's it. No, wait a timeout. Yeah, timeout. Let's talk about a team that definitely needs a timeout.

after letting Jay Cutler come into the dome and get a win. The Miami Dolphins go in. And the Atlanta Falcons, a lot of people still thought were maybe the best team of the NFC in the day. It just, that all offense is nothing right now. They come off the by week. They score 17 points in the first half. They control. They have 15 minute time of possession. They're controlling the game, completely controlling the game.

17 to nothing. All of a sudden, you give up 20 unanswered points and you can't even score a point in the second half. And then Matt Ryan throws an interception. But to me, this is exactly what we talked about on GM Street in the spring. is there's just no way. This is not a knock at Steve Sarkesian. This is just a reality. The numbers that Matt Ryan put up last year were so far out of the realm of what he typically is that he had to come back. I mean, it would be like a three-point shooter shooting 70% for an extended period. Eventually they're going to come down. Yeah, it's like Steph Curry when you had the 40-50-90 season. Last year, everyone thought he had a bad season. It's like, well, it just wasn't 40-50-90. That doesn't happen every day. It can't.

And so, like, what's happened to Atlanta, they're better on defense. Even though they don't have Vic Beasley, they're still a better defense than they were last year. They just don't have those explosive plays. I mean, Miami was able to run the ball. Miami threw for, what, 150? Cutler still threw an interception. I mean, Jarvis Landry still averaged under 10 yards a catch. I mean, there was really nothing there except that you can't get any, all those explosive plays Atlanta made last year.

They didn't make them this year. And it's just not that Ryan's playing badly, just Ryan's playing who he is. Yeah. And what happens when a guy like Sunu comes back? It sort of feels like they're missing that guy just a possession receiver, you would say, just to keep the drives going. I'm sure it probably would have helped them in the second half because they only had the ball. I think they only made five first downs in the second half. You know, when you looked up, they were, you know, Miami kept sneaking back into that game somehow, some way, and it was weird. And they started getting momentum as the game went on. And you would have thought Miami would have been the team that was tired, having played last week where Atlanta was rested. But, you know, I think Sunoo certainly will help them. we give him another weapon because I think it's Hooper at the tight end. He's their second leading receiver. To me, when he's catching passes, Atlanta's probably not getting many yards. Like you won him.

It's like a guy in the basketball. You want him to score. Say he averages six points tonight, but now he got four. Yeah, let him have this point. Yeah, we want Tony Allen to have 12 points in that. That's going to be a way for us. So that's what's happening with Atlanta's offense. And then Freeman, they can't quite get it going and the rushes and completions don't

seem to add up. They're just not the same team. Whether they have the Super Bowl hang up, look, the Patriots are the same team either. Okay, let's face it. I mean, the Jets... And we get that rematch this weekend. Right, this next Sunday night, we'll be watching it right here in the studio. Anyway, but the Patriots, you know, the Patriots struggled.

They get that fortunate call for them. But the Jets moved the ball fairly easily on the Patriots in the first half. They had the 14-0 lead. They should have... They turn it over at the end of the half, which really cost them the game. But the Jets moved the ball at will on them. I feel bad for Mickey because... Oh, Mick, we feel bad for Mick.

Yes, Mick. We're sorry, Mick. We really are. We hate to see it. It's a tough Monday. But, you know, look, the Jets aren't as bad as people think they are. They never were. I mean, I don't think they're a Super Bowl contender, but they were never just some team.

Bowles does a nice job coaching the team. I thought his line after the game was, hey, one play didn't beat us today. Even though people point to that play as a bad call, I think that's the right approach. Just keep trying to get better. Patriots, to me, just haven't, even though they're coming off the 10-day break, they really weren't that good starting out either.

They dropped 14 to nothing. They couldn't skit off the field. Let's talk about a guy that you don't think is that good, but I believe just has the qualities of a winner, and that's Mitchell Trubisky. Overtime Thriller in Baltimore, the first rookie QB to win in Baltimore since our boy, Jake Plummer. I don't know Baltimore.

Like Baltimore loses to Jacksonville. They've lost to more bad quarterbacks. Now, look, I don't know if Mitchell Trubisky's going to be a bad quarter. I know this about Mitchell Trubisky. He's not going to be a pocket passer. He's going to make his plays on the move. And they've done a good job of moving him around. I mean, he threw for, what, 112 yards today?

I mean, he threw for 112 yards. Jared Gauth threw for 124, cutler through for 150. All those teams won because they were able to run the ball, control the clock, and the Bears run for 200 plus yards. They've won two games this year when they've rushed for over 200 yards. And they go into the game. This is what drives you crazy as an executive or a coach. When you go into the game and you're playing the Bears and you're playing at home,

if we stop the run, we win this game. And yet the Ravens couldn't stop the run. to strip the ball in overtime, and they let Howard run down the sideline for 50-some yards and lose the game. I mean, you know, you deserve what you get when that happens. But look, Trubisky, I think he's going to need a lot of time. Right now, it's pretty clear, the best quarterback in that draft class by a lot. Is Tariq Cohen? Probably right. Yeah, I thought so. I think that's right. I think it was Tariot Cohen. I got to be Watson. I mean, it has to be Watson. Absolutely. I mean, it got put 33 up again. I mean,

through three touchdown pass, he threw an interception, but I mean, he gives him life. Even the team, even the opponents feel that way. So I know Chicago is happy that they got Trubisky. I think they'd be happier if they had Deshaun Watson. Absolutely. A lot of teams would be happy. I just want to talk about the MVP and just the frontrunner because going to this week, everyone thought that the guy is Alex Smith. I thought it was too. And we had said that on the podcast, but he goes in, he loses to a Steelers team that looked to be reeling at the time and now they've sort of figured it out. And Alex Smith didn't have his best game and he obviously had a chance at the end and ended up just throwing it away. But is there a guy, I mean, obviously, Carson

Wins is probably the next name that comes up now when you look at MVP. Well, they got five wins. So, you know, you got to think it's going to be Carson Wence is clear. I think if Léviob Bell keeps running the way he runs, he's going to, he could have a chance to be the MVP of the league, really, the way he's playing. But we're not seeing any of these quarterbacks that are just playing, like Brady, to me, didn't look right today. You know, Ben's kind of what Ben is. Rivers let them back to a comeback win against the Oakland Raiders, you know, on the last drive of the game. Rivers does, you know, like there hasn't been like you just say, wow. I mean, when Rogers went down today, you thought, now that changes the whole.

The whole landscape of the NFC. You don't know who, I mean. It changes everything in the league and it changes who's going to be the MVP of the league. I don't know. Like Case Keenham, I think, has really played well within himself for Sam Bratford. People say Sam Bratford may not come back this year. They say the injury may be worse than it really is. But I don't know if there is truly an MVP in the league.

I just love that you just mentioned Case Keenon when we were talking about it. No, I was done about him as MVP. I was just happy you got brought up. That was great. Like there's all sorts of these injuries going all over the league. I mean, quarterbacks are playing. I mean, like, you know, I mean, we watched the game tonight. I mean, can you imagine?

I mean, Trevor Simeon's not a starting quarterback in the NFL. We saw the heist come in. He threw a Phil Negro knuckleball on a checkdown. That was pretty, you know. And so there's so many bad quarterbacks. I mean, today, Bortles, literally, the Jaguars were doing everything in their power so Bordels wouldn't lose the game for him. And they would have won, except their special teams,

didn't show up. I mean, Jacksonville's approach is simply this. We're going to play good defense. We're going to be really good in the kicking game. We're going to run the ball. And we're going to make sure Bordels doesn't beat us, right? So they lose the kicking game. They play great defense against the Rams. The Rams throw for 150 yards today. That's all they did. You know, golf is the last three weeks. Goff has been back to be in just a below average quarterback. And then they win the game because the Rams block a punt for a touchdown return to fund for. Ferro Cooper. That was an unbelievable return from Farrow. Unbelievable. South Carolina product. Yeah, there you go. And so they make enough plays so that

the Jacksonville Jaguars formula only works if you went two of the three phases. But that was painful. But the quarterbacking in the league is like, wow, there's some bad quarterbacks in this league. And that's probably going to be a narrative for this week. Let's go ahead and try to throw out some guessing of what's going on. And one of the quarterbacks, obviously, we're going to talk about a lot about Aaron Rogers and who is going to be his replacement. I mean, I know they're going to try to do the whole Hundley treatment where he's our guy,

he's our backup. He's been in the system. But everyone is going to want to know, is Colin Kaepernick, the guy, is Tony Romo, the guy, is Brett Far of the guy? And where the hell is Matt Flynn? Can we get Matt Flynn back? Now, Matt Flynn's probably in Baton Rouge. He's probably just hanging out there. Sina-Kowalas? Like, where's everyone at?

Can we find a quarterback? I think if you know the Packers, the way Ted Thompson operates, he typically doesn't stray from his own roster. So he's never going to change that now. And especially not a quarterback. They got too short of a week. There's no way they're going to be able to do anything too quickly.

They've got to deal with the hand that's dealt with them. This is going to be the cold reality. What was that note you had before we got on? About nine games, the Packers haven't played without Rogers. Yeah, so since 1992, the Green Bay Packers have played nine games in their franchise history without Aaron Rogers or Brett Farv. And life's going to get hard. Yeah.

Brett Farv didn't miss any of those games. The Carol Ripkin of football is not missing any of the football games. Life's going to get hard. Packer fans are going to realize what life's like without a quarterback. They're going to be like Jacksonville fans. Like Jacksonville fans are sitting there saying, if we just had a quarterback, if we just, because they got a really good team. I mean, I'm telling you, Callias Campbell, he's one of the first.

few free agents that the Jacksonville Jaguars are assigned that just dominated the game today. He was unbelievable. And you would think, gosh, almighty, you know, I mean, Arizona misses him. You know, we didn't talk about that game either. I mean, the Cardinals, talk about team not showing up. James Winston gets hurt today. My man, Ryan Fitzpatrick takes over and they're down, what, 24, nothing before anybody sits down. The bucks, to me, look like they got hard knocks headache. They look like they just read their press clippings. Cousin South said that people had Hard Knocks Hard Ons. So I think that's not.

I think it's Hard Knock Headaches. Yeah. Let's talk about another one, another narrative that you had that actually I wanted to throw out there, and that's the Raiders. The Raiders are not for real. I think a lot of people are going to come back with that and talk about that this week because people wanted them to be the crown jewel of the AFC and pick up with the Patriots locked off.

Did he have any, did he have a catch today? Can you quickly look that up? I mean, like, I'm convinced the Mari Cooper's in West Cape May. Well, he had a witness protection program. They threw the flag out for. for a defensive pass interference, and then they ended up picking it up because I swear to God he didn't make enough of an effort

to sell it, you know? Sometimes he's in West Cape May. He's in West Cape May. He's over there in Witness Protection Program. I mean, the Raiders are terrible on defense. I mean, I know they held the Chargers to 17 points, but, you know, I mean, when Rivers, who's got nothing real, I mean, Rivers is fastball is hitable right now.

I mean, there's nothing on it. The Raiders just don't execute. Like, I don't know. I know they had problems this week with the smoke and the fires and all that, disturb their families and everything. But they just don't look like they execute with any precision or any, really. And then they make some strange calls.

They go for it on fourth and two with a strange call. You know, they turn the ball over in the red zone. Everybody thinks cars back. I mean, I did no BS with me this week. And my man, Joel Solomon brings in. He's got this Derek car. Have you seen this? No, I haven't.

Oh, my God. It's brutal. He's got this Derek car commercial. Oh, yeah, when he's singing in and doing the whole. In a jungle. Like, who goes to a jungle to buy cars? Like, I don't get this. Like, it was just.

weird. I like the whole car selling cars angle, you know. Yeah, I get that. But I mean, we could have done something. I mean, whoever that advertising company is, like, I'm sorry, I've got to go somewhere else. Like, I'm not buying their product. I mean, I was like weird. Like, come on, man, get something better than that. And, you know, I just think the Raiders have read their press clippings too much. They think they're great. They did nothing to help their defense. And their offense just doesn't have enough consistency, enough execution. You know, you want them to be better than they are. They don't make plays down the field.

Cooper's in West Cape May. We can't find him. Crabtree is the only guy on the outside. We're the only guy. We got Jared Cook. We signed him. We want him to be a player. We got all these guys about Cordell Patterson.

We're trying to get him involved. And you know what? They get nobody involved. When you got a lot of something, as John Madman said, when you got a lot of something, you got nothing. That's a good line. What's another narrative that you had that stuck out to you this week? I think the Falcons, you know, look, the Falcons,

Sunday night going up to New England. New England's lost two home games already. Like, that typically. kept the road record alive, though. 11 straight on the road. 11 straight on the road, which is pretty remarkable. They got a great... They got a great call.

They got a great call. I mean, they got a great call, let's be honest. This is going to be an interesting game because I didn't see the Patriots get better on defense this week, especially when they gave up 14 right away. It's going to be two teams really not playing their best. They're Super Bowl 51 recreated, but I don't think it's going to be recreated very much. I mean, both teams are not playing to the level that they need to play. It'll be interested to see how.

New England handles playing at home where those fans are so used to winning if they can get this thing turned around. And it's a good opportunity for the Falcons to kind of get, you know, back on course and maybe get a little revenge and maybe that will spark them and get them back. But the Super Bowl hangover is for real. I mean, a lot of people killed the Panthers last year for that, but it's just happens. It's for real. I mean, look, Detroit, they got crushed today.

I thought New Orleans would beat Detroit. I really did. Now, I didn't think the game was going. I've never seen a game like the Detroit, New Orleans game because every time that the opponent and had the ball on their own one or two yard line, they turned it over for a touchdown to the other team. I mean, the Saints got 14 points off of turnovers by Stafford when he was in his own end zone.

He throws an interception for a pick six, and he fumbles the ball for a touchdown. And then Drew Brees won't be denied. He throws, I mean, I'm telling you that it was a hell of a play by the, I think it was Robinson, Deshawn Robinson, I think it was, that made a hell of a catch on the pass from Brett Drew Brees. So they barely beat Detroit in that game up there by an inch, right? I mean, Atlanta just hasn't looked the same.

They really have it. They struggled to beat Chicago in the opener. Chicago, Mike Lennister on the ball in the end zone in the opener. I mean, Atlanta really hasn't played to the level. And then you can say the same thing about New England. New England has struggled. I mean, today they win. You know, they win 2417.

They beat the Jets. But that really wasn't like they never had control of that game. And if you told someone at the beginning of the season that they were going to beat the Jets, it was going to be that close of a game. I think a lot of Jets fans would have been pretty excited about that being in a close game. Yeah, I think they've proven to be a legitimate team. Like, to me, you, like the one thing I will say,

we started the podcast off with this, is I've never seen a team so far this year that have been in complete control of the game. Like you just, like Kansas City up until today, was in control of every game. I think Philadelphia has been in control of most of the games that they've played. Like, you can see they're in control of the game, but there's very few teams in the league.

that look like they're in control of the game. And let's talk about getting in control of hiring. Have you tried to hire someone lately? I know. It's hard. You post the job boards and hope you'll find the right person for your job, but think about it. How often do you check job boards? For most people, it's a pretty occasional thing.

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22 million professionals view and apply to jobs on LinkedIn every week. And because LinkedIn considers skills, experiences, location, and more to match and promote your job to potential candidates, businesses rate LinkedIn jobs 40%. That's right, 40% higher than job boards at delivering quality candidates. A business is only as strong as its people, and every higher matters. You know that, of course, with the Cleveland Browns of Archivius Mingo. So don't settle for posting and hoping.

the right person will find your role and apply. Go to LinkedIn.com slash NFL and get $50 credit toward your first job post. That's LinkedIn.com slash NFL for your $50 credit today. Terms and conditions apply. All right, Lombardi, this is one of my favorite segments. This one, I get to pick your brain a little bit and I ask you, if you were sitting in the chair of a GM, what's the move? A lot of, you know, most people we've already touched on the Packers,

what's the move? That's already been taken care of. Right now it's going to be Hunley. But let's talk about the Cleveland Browns in their quarterback situation. We've got Kevin Hogan. And that was really bad. Yeah, he threw three picks a day. It was obviously not the guy.

And he threw some balls that I swear to God, I wasn't sure he was throwing it through. Like, I really don't. I mean, I was looking around like, who was he throwing it to? I think Chris Hogan might be a better quarterback than Kevin Hogan. I think he might be. I know Tarrick Cohen's a better quarterback. I know that. I mean, Cleveland has no move.

They've got to go back to Kaiser. I mean, this is a comedy in Cleveland. I mean, then after the game, did you see where Deshawn Watson said he got a text from Hugh Jackson saying that Hugh text them saying, you know, sit tight, you know, we're interested. And then all of a sudden they trade the pick. And then Hugh says, I never text them. Like, Deshaun Watson's going to lie about it getting a text from Hugh Jackson. Come on now.

I mean, that's real – that was bad. I mean, and Kevin Hogan, look, let's just put things in perspective here. Trevor Simeon's not a starting quarterback in the NFL. I don't care if he starts for the Broncos. He typically plays bad on the road. He played bad at home tonight. He's not going to hold up all season. He doesn't have an NFL body.

Kevin Hogan is not a starting quarterback in the NFL. Cleveland, no, it ain't going to change. Like, really, one thing you've got to know, when Andy Reid, who knows something about quarterbacks, when he cuts a quarterback, you should say to yourself, wait a minute, something's wrong here. Like, just let him, he's had the kid in camp, he's evaluated the kid.

If he thought the kid had anything ability-wise, he would have kept them. Obviously, he drafted him a homes after he cut him. He drafted him in the fifth round. He liked him. He thought he could change him. He couldn't. He watched him. If you watch Kevin Hogan's throw on motion, you know he can't throw. It's like he's throwing a goddamn javelin.

And a guy that may not be watching him throw with Sachi Brown, and that is the guy that's in charge of personnel. And that leads us to our award, time to go in the lamb. And that's the Cleveland Brown's front office. Well, they should go on the lamb. I mean, it's ridiculous. I mean, it's ridiculous. I mean, I don't know how they can justify. Last week, there was a report out that, you know, they liked Wince. They're on record as saying Wince was not a top 20 quarterback in the league. Okay. That's why they traded them. All right? Everybody bought that hook line and sinker, now they got to eat it, right? They're quoted as saying it. And then this is the Sean Watson thing.

I mean, he changes the franchise. You know, it's like I used to say all the time, the NFL, the league will give you a chance to be good. You just got to take advantage of it. You've got to be smart enough to take advantage of it. They clearly weren't. I mean, they should, I mean, I don't know who's doing the analytics in Cleveland. I do know, but they shouldn't listen to them anymore because when it comes to quarterbacks, the analytics don't know. Yeah, and then they also came out.

So there was a report that leaked from, I think it was pro football. talk that came out that said the Browns were looking for a new regime in the front office. They were putting feelers out to guys. But, I mean, is that even the fix? No. Jimmy has one move to make. He has one move. He's got billions.

I mean, Berkshire Hathaway just bought pilot flying Jay from him. He's got more money than God, right? He's got one move to make. He goes and tries to get Urban Meyer from Ohio State to become the Browns head coach. He goes to North Alabama and tries to get Nick Sabin to be the Brown's head coach. He goes to Michigan and tries to get Jim Harbaugh to be the Brown. He has to go somewhere and get a marquee name. He goes down to Tampa and tries to talk John Gruden to become, he has one move and one move only.

It's to get, he's not going to be able to bring in some up inspiring general manager and say, okay, now you hire a coach and we're going to turn this around. No, no, he's going to have to hire credibility. He has to hire. He doesn't have any credibility now. He's got to go higher credibility. Okay. And that's the only chance he has is to open up his pocketbook and say, you know what,

I'm going to go down. I'm going to try to talk this guy and to becoming the head coach. That problem with that theory is. there's not a lot of guys you can go make that offer to. And who are those guys? I mean, is there even a chance where, like, how Tom Coughlin is in Jacksonville where you get a former head coach like a Bill Coward and you put him in position? That doesn't even work.

That doesn't work. I mean, that can't work. I mean, he's had Mike Holmgren there. He's had, you know, like, we've seen Phil Jackson run the Knicks and the Triangle offense from the front office. Like, it don't work, okay? Football's the same way. You got to have your boots on the ground and the coach is got to be in charge of everything.

just like when Jerry Jones took over the Cowboys, he went and gave it all to Jimmy. He said, Jimmy, you run it. That's what Haslam has to do. He's got one move and one move only. The head coach is in control of everything. Period. End of story. Don't listen to Sashi Brown, Paul DiPodesto,

nice guy, go back to baseball, whatever you want to do. It's just like absurd. So this whole thing, well, they're thinking about replacing the front office. What coach are they going to get to go there with a new front office? Yeah, and it's also illuminated when you mentioned the Hugh Jackson text. I mean, it could be true that Hugh Jackson did want to Sean Watson, but that's not what the front office wanted. So those are two different.

They laughed at DeShall Watson. Their numbers said he was terrible. They laughed at that. They thought it was a joke. They wouldn't have taken him this week when the report came out. They would have taken him at all. Speaking of not taking them, I'll take you one more. How about the 49ers?

They benched today, Brian Hoyer, who's played horribly. I've been a Brian Hoyer fan, but he deserved to get bench. Okay, when Brian Hoyer has the pressure on him, he feels that he squeezes it. It ain't good. They put C.J. Bethard in the game. Like, here's a team because John Lynch is popular with. the media. Here's a team that gets no crap for not taking to Sean Watson. Like, how do they not take Deshaun Watson? He's the perfect quarterback for what Kyle Shanahan wants to do. He's the

perfect guy to run the outside zone. He can throw the ball. He can move. He can do all the things Kyle wants them to do. And he's getting off. They pick Solomon Thomas, who I haven't seen near the quarterback. Have you seen him near the quarterback at all? Yeah, that gets back to my whole Stanford point about all these guys getting all the credit out of there. And, you know, they're smart. Yeah, exactly. We know that from the Clapper. We know that from the Clapper. It's like Trevor You're sitting me in a Northwestern. I'm not sure he's playing quarterback if didn't go to Northwestern.

Well, that's because he's smart. You know, when you go to... Or maybe like a Princeton guy. If you went to Princeton, I like the Clapper. Like the Clapper, you'd become a star. I mean, really, at the 40... If you're a 49er fan, could you imagine, like, now you have to go in there.

You're 0 and 6. Like, you need a quarterback. Like, we just... And watching this guy play, like, the 49ers, because everybody's picking on the Browns well-deserved. But nobody's picking on the 49ers for not picking Watson. Like, nobody's picking on the 49th. You're not picking Mitchell Trubiskey.

You know, they pick C.J. Bethard, who threw a couple of ducks today. But you can see he's not a starting quarterback in the NFL. Everything is all going to be on paying Kirk Cousins. That's great because now of a sudden you've got to pay him $30 million a year. You got to, you know, I know you've got a bunch of money. But to me, I think they deserve a lot of crap. Yeah, they played their future quarterback today. It was the weird thing after the game where it seemed like Shanahan and the whole 49ers' contingency,

they wanted to give all the credit to Kirk Cousins, how great of a game he played. You did so great. I'll make up my boy, Jay. Jay Gruden gets in there, and he's like, we could have been a lot better. We needed more from the quarterback position. Thought we left some things out there on the field. He's the best.

He can't give Kirk Cousins a break. It's amazing. I bet you, if we could tape record, if we could get Jay or Hoover over to Kirk Cousin's house and bug it, just to hear him talking about Jay Gruden behind the scenes. Like, can you believe that asshole ripped me again today? Can you believe what he's saying? And then when he goes and meets the media, well, you know, Jay and I are friends, you know,

like, you're just, oh, I would pay to hear that. I would pay to hear that. is Jay has no problem just putting the blame on somebody else. It's the worst lame-dust situation. We're the only people that talked about him blowing the Can City game. You and I, the only, everybody else that just goes, you know, did I mention Andy Recall time out with 205 today? I swear my next book is going to be why coaches call time out of 205.

Well, I think he tried to one-up Doug Peterson who did it with 20-3 this past weekend, or Thursday night. So it makes sense. Next up, we have the Fred Palermo Award. Not the Tony Palermo Award. We're trying to get there. No, Tony P. Not Tony P this week, but best game plan.

Pittsburgh had the best game plan. This is it. Pittsburgh, this is who they are. Like, we are back to where when Chuck Noel coached the team, when Cower coached the team, when Barry Foster was a running back, when, you know, Neil O'Donnell, like, Ben Rothesberger is Neil O'Donnell right now. That's what he is. Just don't think he's Big Ben, he's Neil O'Donnell. We're going to run the ball. We're going to play good defense.

We're going to be able to control the pace of the game, and we're going to go like that. I think Fred would be very proud of the simple game plan. They ran against Kansas City, and they ran it effectively. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Next up, we have the KGB Award. Who got cooked this week? I think Denver got cooked. I think my man, McAdoo, oh, he put one on.

Slick that hair back. When McAdo puts one on you, you're in a lot of trouble. Yeah. You're in a lot of trouble. But McAdoe put one on them today. I mean, really, they, I mean, Denver coming off a buy. Everything's good, mile high. Yeah.

You know, Marijuana. It was in the mile high club after that one. That was fun. Exactly. Marijuana is legal. You got, everything's cool in Denver, man. They got dup today. I mean, like, if you're Denver, you got Paxton Lynch sitting on the bench.

The heist makes an appearance. I mean, they got duped today. I mean, really. I didn't see Von Miller. I think I really think that, you know, I was wondering where Von Miller was today, but Justin Pugh played really good in the game. He played out the right tackle. He played really good.

So give hats off to the Giants. They finally won a game and they beat Denver, who I thought was a good team. Yeah, and Norris Jenkins. I've always loved DeNorce Jenkins, even when he was back in college. It was great to see him have that pick six. Yeah, yeah, well, what college did you like him at Northern Alabama?

How did you like him in the floor? Which one did you like him at? I liked him at both. I loved him on the Rams. It was a fun of a ride with Genoa Jenkins. Do you have his jersey for Northern... I do have a Rams to Norwich-Jingens jersey in Harlem. You should have wore it today.

Yeah, I might wear it. You should get his Northern... Did he even play at Northern All-I don't even know he was on the team? I think they just knew that he was going to come out to the NFL at some point, which is always fun. Next up time to get made. We said Melvin Gordon, right? It's got to be the guy. I mean, he was great today.

He beat the Raiders. He was really good. I mean, he was, he, at the end of the game, when they needed him to make a play, he made a play fourth down, catches a pass out in the flat. I think Melvin Gordon has helped save this franchise a little bit. They got two wins now. Hey, look, they're a little bit unlucky. Like Atlanta's been lucky. They've been a little bit unlucky. If they would have not gone with that field goal kicker in the beginning of the season, they could be three and three right now. Maybe they even could be, you know, four and two, but they're two and four. They're playing good football. They got Denver. this week. We'll see. Yeah, it was good for Nick Novak to come in and get that game winner. I mean, anybody could have made that one. I mean, that was right in front. I was a give me putt right there. They're also calling Melvin Gordon to Eric Gordon after all these like him. He's jumping over the pile. Yeah. It was a pretty impressive hour. He does it. Pretty good. And we're going to do

Can't tell my courage for my desperation. And that's in honor of Bruce, you know, who was on Broadway this week, which tickets are going for like $2,000 just in case you want to go see Bruce and Patty. So I think the Chargers had a great, I think the Chargers were courageous today. But I like what the Rams, you know, Sean McVey, I thought he did a nice job of watching Pittsburgh's game plan and not falling trap to that. And he ran the ball really effectively, got help from his kicking

game. He didn't try to force Jared Gough on him. Golf made a couple throws through for 124 yards, didn't really do much today. But Gurley did all the damage, which is how you got to play Jacksonville. If you get in a passing game against Jacksonville, they're going to beat you. But if you try to control the ball. They won't. I give a lot of courage to what the Rams did. I will say this too. Leonard Fornett. I've always been a little skeptical of him at LSU. I just

never thought he really sold out. But he has been everything that's been advertised right now. That's 75-yard run today. I mean, he's great. But, you know, they should have drafted, they should have drafted a quarterback, too, because it's really painful to watch Bortles. It's really painful to watch them. I mean, when he goes back to pass, everybody in the stadium holds their breath because they

think he's going to throw it to the other team. I mean, really, they should have him go down for an eye exam because I'm not sure he can tell the different colors from the jerseys. Like, I don't know if he knows that the Rams were in blue today. And, you know, I mean, I don't think he gets it. Like, I think I should do like one of those eye tests over his eye. It was bad. I mean, like, there was some really bad quarterbacking today.

We should get, like, some kids doing a science fair experiment. They do, like, the dogs and see if they're colorblind, we can do that with Blake Bortles, too. But there's no hope for you. If you're Jacksonville, you have no hope. Yeah. You have no hope. You have to play the perfect game. It's like you can't, you can't make a mistake with that.

And look, if they, if they're. give this guy $19 million, okay? Here's the, here's for the funny thing. Just hypothetically say they keep him on the team for $19 million. The 13 teams that need quarterbacks wouldn't be interested in him. I mean, that's a fact. I mean, but yeah, so how could you pay him $19 million? Anyway, that's, I've beaten up Blake Borders.

I can't wait for the Blake Bortles tweet. Have you seen this fake? Yeah, fake Blank Bortle's or whatever. Oh, he's the best. This guy's the best. How many touchdowns will Blake throw for today? It's great. I'm just happy for Blake Bortals.

I feel like he's made himself known. I mean, to be such a bad quarterback, at least he's not like a joke. Well, that's because he's got Caldwell defending him on every turn. Of course. Why? Why not? I mean, it's Blake Bortles. He's a lot of fun for everyone. All right, final one. If you don't know, now you know. I don't know. You don't know? I don't know. I don't know if our true enemy has yet to reveal itself.

I truly don't know who the best team in the league is. I don't want to hear, oh, it's a Philly. You know, if you want to say it's Philly, Washington beats Philly next week, then what are we going to talk about? Like, I think this is going to come down to after Thanksgiving, who's, who's, ever the healthiest, because who could have predicted Green Bay was going to lose their quarterback, especially a quarterback who can pretty much stay out of trouble with his foot quickness. I don't know. This league's upside down right now. It really is. Especially the NFC.

Going into this weekend, when you start with the Thursday night game with the Eagles and the Panthers and the Packers, there's so many teams that you thought were all at the top. And then with Aaron Rogers going down, we've seen the Cowboys are not who we thought they could be at the start of the season. It's basically the whole NFC. The Cowboys, they're not going to have, I mean, the Clapper's not going to have Zeke for six games. And he think he's going to win any of those games? He's going to go two and four. He's going to be four and seven when he comes out of that.

I mean, come on. Yeah. It's just a weird spot to be in the NFL. We're just so used to having, I think it's almost like a dynastic thing with the Patriots. We were used to having a team you can point to. Yeah, they're not any good. I mean, they'd be the first to tell you. They're not any good.

I mean, they won their four and two, but they, you know, but they can't get control of the game. They couldn't get control of the jet game. the Jets have more control that game than they did. I mean, if McCowan would have protected a ball at the end of the half and they could have gone in 14 to 7, it would have been a different story. But they didn't, you know, that's what happens. But I don't think we really know who the best teams are. I know everybody has their power rankings this week.

That's a waste of time looking at those. Really, that's no waste of time. It really is. Save your time, folks. We'll be back Wednesday with another edition of GM Street on the Ringer Podcast Network. Thank you, Mr. Michael, Brady. Thanks, Dave, Fraser. Thanks again to LinkedIn.

The best place to find great talent for your hiring. needs. Businesses rate LinkedIn 40% higher than job boards at delivering quality candidates. Go to LinkedIn.com slash NFL for a $50 credit toward your first job post. LinkedIn.com slash NFL. Terms and conditions apply.