The Ringer NFL Show - 'GM Street' — Week 9 Rapid Reactions (Ep. 176)

Episode Date: November 6, 2017

The Ringer's Michael Lombardi and Tate Frazier discuss the dominating performances by the Rams and Eagles (6:15), Kirk Cousins's upset in Seattle (12:30), Ben McAdoo's hot seat (18:45), and the Jaguars taking a stand against Leonard Fournette (32:25). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Whether you need a room for tonight tomorrow or beyond, you definitely want to download the Hotel Tonight app. So what are you waiting for? Get in on these killer last minute deals and download the hotel tonight app now. Welcome to GM Street, part of the Ringer podcast network. I'm Tate Frazier and sitting across from me on the Sunday evening, Mr. Mike Lombardi. Bombardi, how you doing? I'm good, Tate. I'm good.

We're going to talk about how bad those three teams I thought might pull out victories. You're going to give me. Like, why didn't you protect me for myself? Saturday sit down. We had been gassed up by Bill Simmons, you know, that's not his fault. I'm not going to blame so. But I'm just saying we had this week. It's my fault. It's my fault. It's all my fault. Look, I name. I'm going to take some blame too. I named the guy. I named the guy the heist because he stole.

Okay. And Simmons tried to talk me out of it right there in the courtyard, right by where they do the, how to get away with murder. Yeah. Well, I got away with a stupid decision right there, okay? You got away with the heist. I got away with a heist. He's trying to talk me out of it. He was right. I mean like, okay, I hate the heist. Like, if the heist is playing, right, I should always go against them.

I'm sorry, Mr. Ms. Osweiler. Yeah, all right. So as a football player, I love him as a person. I'll get him a Christmas. Great guy. Great guy. He'll get the Christmas car with Bella and Lana on it, you know, and Millie. Anyway, so, so that I go, so then I've told you how bad Macadoo and Eli is for how long.

Since I've known you. Since you've known me, right? And I go against them, okay? And then I go against, and then the bucks. I buy into the bucks are going to turn it around, even though they look like a disaster. And I'm going to take some blame there because I had some NFC South, you know, just a little bit of knowledge and I thought they'd go in and lose that game to the Saints for whatever reason. But then Saturday afternoon after the Saturday sit down, I hear from somebody in the league and they say, you went with the bucks, really? The bucks that everybody in the league knows they quit.

And I'm like, oh, why didn't somebody tell me that beforehand? Like, I thought they had a chance to rally. And then anyway, so. I think you knew that the bucks quit when Mike Evans came down. And the fight started and they cut the dirt cutter and cutter was basically just completely oblivious to the situation. And just like they were completely lost. Take Frasier, I have a question for you. Yeah, what's that?

We all have trouble seeing close up, right? Yes. So like, like, don't wear bifocals. I mean, Johnny Sack didn't wear bifocals in the courtroom because it thought it would make them look weak, right? Like put a pair of glasses on. You don't want to look like an old man in a lounge chair. Like he's got the bifocals sitting there. Look, we all can't see we get older.

It's going to happen to you too. It happens all of us, okay? I can already have problems with that. All right. So like, but the bifoc was a bad look. Like it's a bad, like it doesn't send a message that you're into this. I mean, I'm not the judge of the Dirkcombex. That's a good look.

It could be. Or, you know, what was the, you know, what's those goggles they wore in that, in that basketball movie, the James, Jim Carrey. Yeah, there you go, there you go. That's right. See, we're on the same page. Of course. Of course.

So anyway. That's what we do. But let's talk about two teams that actually had it together this week. And they both scored 51 points ironically enough. And that's the Los Angeles Rams and the 15. You're Philadelphia Eagles. Yeah, my Eagles. Look at the NFL right now.

Can we just talk about those two teams? They just look dominant at this point. Yeah, and I think this, you know, when we talk about those teams, they came out fast. Yes. And they put it on their team. And they sent the other team away early. I mean, I was at Tony P's and I said to Millie, we got to go. Like, it was in the midway through the second quarter.

Like, there was no good game to watch. Poor Tony, wanted some more money out of you. My bill was light this week. I mean, it was like there was no good games to watch. And Philly just came right out. and just took control of the game. It makes you wonder about Denver's defense because they were second in the league

and they were first in the league and run defense tied with Philly. They couldn't get anywhere near Carson Wentz. And then, you know, Sean McVeigh has done a great job. I know, you know, everybody thinks Doug Peterson should be coached the year. Sean McVeigh's done a great job with his team. And just the way they put it on the Giants

was really embarrassing. And I thought that they threw the ball well, they ran the ball effectively, and they just never let up. And I mean, look, they went to London, flew home to L. had the by week and then flew back to the East Coast again. And now they're 4 and 0, the Rams on the road.

And their schedule as you look at it down the stretch, it's a little bit more difficult in the second half. But the way they're playing and their defense is playing really well, I mean, that was a win. And the Eagles, look, there's nothing I could say about the Eagles that would be anything other than the fact that Wence is great. And I think their defense is unbelievable. And they got Fletcher Cox.

I mean, he's playing on another level right now. I mean, he's basically. Jernigan's playing on another level. Vinny Kerry's playing. Their whole defense is playing on another level. That front seven is serious. their front seven. And I mean, look, Denver had no chance, really. And I'm the idiot who thought they did, but they had no chance. Can I talk about after the game, a lot of the Denver Broncos

defense, a lot of the guys, they were saying that basically, they were trying to compliment the Eagles offense, but they said it's a college offense. It is. It's a read. So it's a, you know, Carson wants to decide it's a run play, he's got a pass. They were saying it's a college offense, but it came out as a slight to them. But you're saying that's a good thing. Well, but I mean, it is. I mean, I think it's where the league's going. I really do. I think because of his ability to move, they went a lot of unbalanced thing. They didn't talk about it on television, but they were in a lot of unbalanced sets. They tried to outflank the Broncos.

They did a nice job there. And they created those matchups. And when you run those plays and you're not used to it, obviously it looks to me like Denver wasn't really ready for it. I mean, it wasn't like the third, the first quarter for the Eagle game, the first third, they're in third and ten immediately, right off the bat. That's what they do. And they complete the pass. then they drive down the field and score. Then they get the turnover, the heist throws them the turnover.

They have third and ten again, and they throw a screen, they don't tackle. I mean, they're doing, that wasn't college. They're just out-executed Denver. Denver can make excuses for it, but they just out-executed them. And let's flip to the Giants, because that's a team that after the game, a lot of people were coming after, you know, Damon Harrison even put out a tweet, basically saying that they didn't give up on the game. But the Sammy Watkins route where he basically is laying in Collins and he just runs by them for a touchdown.

It looked bad. The whole game was like that. Right. And so I think this is really the part that people have to really understand. Like, I'm not ever going to accuse a team of quitting on Sunday because I think it's too hard to go out there and not give all your effort. The game's too violent. The game's too hard. But I think where the quitting occurs and you as an executive or you as an owner, when you evaluate the teams, because we're in the veterinarian business, the patient doesn't talk to us, we have to evaluate certain symptoms that occur. And when you see free access touchdowns and when you see players not paying attention to detail, Then you know Monday through Saturday that there's a disconnect. There's a disconnect going on. And as an executive or as an owner, you're like, well, wait a minute. Now, owners are different. Okay.

Owners, they don't want to get the blame for anything. So when the blame shows up for them and empty seats show up, like at the Giants game today, when all those PSL seats are empty and you're John Mara, you're getting blamed now for this team and people aren't showing up, that's a doubleheader. You're going to fire your coach. You're going to fire your general manager. There's no way around that. And I think what you see is.

is I think it's too harsh to say they quit, but football's a game of attention to details. I mean, you know, Marcus Aurelius has this great quote that the secret to all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious. What he's saying with that quote is, it's the details. It's when you line up with this split,

you're going to do this. When you do that and where the Rams are very predictable what they do, but they're very effective, if you don't pay attention during the week, they're going to catch you off guard. And they did against the Giants. And to me, if I were McAdoo and I was watching that tape,

our message isn't getting home. Like, we're just not getting home. And then add the fact that, look, at some point, this is the best thing, giant fans is the best thing that ever happened to you. It really is. Because Eli, it's over with. It's over with for Eli.

Put his name up on the Legion of, on the wall. Two Super Bowl rings. He's going to be there forever. Retire his jersey. Pay them all the respects he should get. I mean, it's tremendous. But it's over. It's done.

I mean, you're not coming back from this. You've got to rebuild your franchise. And it should start today. And they should take the same approach that, that Miami took this week. If you don't want to be here, we'll fire you. We'll get you out of here because we're going to have to fix this team. It's going to take more than just one year to do it.

I'll give you two bright spots if you're a Giants fan. One, Evan Ingram. Great. You got compared to Rainy Moss today on a fade route. That's a good place to be in. Number two, OBJ, aka Safe Ferris. It's his birthday. Just turned 25.

He was there today. Was the helmet there today? Absolutely. And he's going to get. Such a joke. It's going to be great. He's going to get his big contract. They said nothing about the injury.

He's going to hold him back. and then it's going to be OBJ, Ingram, Shepard, you build with those receivers, you see what Webb has. Right. And I got blinded by it. They went out to Denver. They played Denver really well. And now we know Denver. Such a trap game.

Such a trap game. And like, look, I'm never going against my instincts again on quarterbacks that I know. I know Flacco's bad. I know that. Okay. I know D.B. Flacco's bad. Okay.

DB. DB, I know he's bad. Okay. I know the heist is bad. And I went with him. And I know that Eli is. is not can't play anymore. I mean, I went against my instincts and it's my own fault. So, but that being said, I think that's where the Giants are. The Giants have to rebuild.

The Giants, this is the best thing that happened to the Giants. And if they don't look at it that way, they're making a mistake. Well, let's talk about a team that made a lot of mistakes today. The team that we both believed in. You know, we mentioned the Saturday sit down. We said that they could go into the Saints and maybe make some noise and try to turn the season around. But instead, James Winston doesn't even play the second half. Ryan Fitzpatrick. He should have played in the first half. He has a shoulder injury. He looks bad. I mean, like, I don't know how they watched him practice and thought, but first of all, they didn't practice because the way they executed, it was horrible. And I think the question is on James Winston is how good is he? Like, he's been inaccurate. His leadership, that whole fiasco before the game was ridiculous. The speech, yeah. The speech was like, okay, really, this is going to get us motivated to play. And meanwhile, Cotter. Look, I will say this. I mean, I'm from the country a little bit, you know, I'm outside. That's some sticks talking, you know? That's just like some old school. I get it. But it doesn't. Yeah, but it also doesn't. It was.

It wasn't relevant. You can see the whole team was very confused by the whole message. It looked like it just came out a, it came out for the TV cameras. Yeah, it was strange. It was strange. And then you get to the point now where with James, they have the fight, they have the scuffle on the sideline with Mike Evans. Mike Evans should get suspended for a week for that.

He stays in the game. I don't know how that happened. He should be suspended for a week. There's no doubt. I mean, he should be suspended for a week. I think there's no question in my mind. It was horrible. And, you know, you have all these weapons.

You're supposed to be this much better on offense. You're supposed to be this much better on defense. You're supposed to be this much better on deep. He spent all this money. And look, the glazers have fired people. They fired John Gruden and won a Super Bowl for him. They fired Tony Dungey, all right? They fired Greg Ciano after two years.

They're going to fire Dirk Conner. I mean, even a Rahim Morris who won 10 games. They're going to fire Rahim Morris. I mean, one thing you know as an executive, when it's going south, it's south. It's south in Tampa. I mean, I know they play the Jets this week, but there's no turning this thing around. Ryan Fitzpatrick facing his old team. I mean, come on.

I was going to say Fitzpatrick Revenge game. It should be fun. McCowan played for the bucks. So it's like a reunion game of two teams. I mean, but look, I thought the bucks are just horribly. And I thought they were poorly, they really were poorly coached in terms of their execution. It was bad. And so to me, you're going to hear the John Gruden talk because it's heating up.

I had two phone calls tonight on the way over here from people in the league saying you wait and see this happen. What happens if John Gruden, I'm just going to throw this, this is hypothetical. What happens if John Gruden say Cutter loses his job? Gruden gets all for the job. He takes the job. There's nobody in the booth for Monday night football. You know what we get? Rex Ryan in the boot. That would be amazing. You talk about television. That would be good TV. I'm, I, you know, the John Gruden rumors always hang around all the time.

But this one, I think he's been in rumors since he left. But I think this one's real. I think the glazers have made up with them and I think they need a coach. And I think if you look at the landscape of the NFL, there's not a lot of great coaches in the league. I mean, let's just be real honest here. And so I think he comes back. You know, if you're the glazers, they're going to do what it takes to get to get somebody in there who can take over because they have too much invested in this team. I mean, they have way too much invested and it looks to me like they are I mean the giants them they didn't quit but they're certainly not paying attention absolutely let's keep it going Kirk Cousins How you like me now? Tate Fraser. I love it

Kirk Cousins in Seattle goes in gets a big win against Russell Wilson and the Seahawks today I mean he basically just battled through it and made it happen and Blair Wash thank God for him missed his three kicks today Blair Walsh was Blair Walsh today like I think of Seattle it's like there's no way like this guy needs to be on a couch okay my question to you is

If you're in a playoff series as a franchise and a guy misses a 27-yard field goal attempt and you win, I think I'd mark that down as a guy I would never want to have on my team. Somehow he ends up on the team two years later. I think Seattle's going to try some kickers out this week. I think Blair Washer is on a short.

Because I'm going to tell you what, they scored the touchdown to go ahead, 14 to 10, and they didn't get the two-point conversion. And it was 10 to 8 when they were driving down the field and everybody in the stadium knew we need to score a touchdown. We don't need to win this game 11-10. Because we aren't going to win 11-10.

And so to me, the interesting thing about this game was, A, Kirk Cousins played really well. With a backup offensive line, the Redskins were beat up all over. The Redskins played hard the entire game. They harassed Russell Wilson. Their defensive front was after them. But the plays down the stretch, the throws that Cousin made in the two-minute drill were really remarkable against the team that's good in the two-minute drill. I mean, this is when Seattle, when that game went, when they went out 14 to 10, this is Seattle's team, right? That's what they build their win in the fourth quarter.

you know, rush the passer, cover, make plays down, and Washington beat him at their own game. It's pretty impressive. Absolutely. And I just want to say that defense between Josh Norman, DJ Sweringer and Zach Brown spying Russell Wilson all day. Well, they rush Zach Brown a little bit today, which was good. They needed them to rush around the corner. And I mean, look, we've set it here on GM Street repeatedly. Can we just please stop Eddie Lacey running?

Six carries for 20 yards. I mean, like, I'm not at practice, but I could tell you Eddie Lacey can't run the runs that Seattle wants to run. I'm just telling you that right now. I feel bad for Thomas Rawls because he comes in and he's always the backup and then he does all this great stuff, and then he has to go back and be behind Fat Eddie every week. You know, it's like at some point they need to straighten it out. And now that they're five and three, they're in second place to the Rams, I think it's time to have a truce him. Because look, they've won, usually they win at home all the time because of the crowd and all that.

But, I mean, the 49ers almost beat them up there. They had the tough game with Houston. They had to come back last week. I mean, there's three games. They're two and one in those three games, but easily could have been. 0 and 3. Yep, absolutely. And even today, if they had come down, Russell Wilson throws the hell, Mary, it almost happened. People were freaking out saying Jimmy Graham should have caught that ball and everything. But the fact that they got down there and they could

have had a kick, like Blair Wash probably wasn't going to make that kick. They weren't in position to win the game at all, even though people were trying to frame it that way now after the game. I mean, and look, even the Indianapolis game that they routed Indianapolis, that was a close game at the half. So they haven't played well at home. They've actually played better on the road than they have at home so far this year. But, you know, to me, they, they, They need to fix their offense, and they can't keep going three and a half quarters with no production from their offense or just kick field goals that they're not going to make. They need a field goal kicker, and they need to really get some kind of rhythm in their offense. What's fascinating about the Seattle Seahawks is that their offensive coordinated Darrell Bevel is always under pressure all the time.

And this year his name's not, I mean, but to me, their offense is just disconnected. Yeah, it's been pretty bad. I just will say this, Russell, that slant route, that Malcolm Butler, the original pick. Yeah. It happened to him twice today. I know it did. It seems like it's in his head almost. And that's where you know, like, that's the perfect example of a team.

The Redskins are still paying attention to their coach, okay? Because that was a split read. He broke on the ball. He understood what the play was. It was coached during the week. And it executed. Fuller the first time. Right. Practice execution becomes game reality.

That's a key thing. And that's when you know your team is following. You know your team's listening to the coach. But when you get beat 51 to whatever and you, you give up 51 points, your team isn't listening to you. You're not, practice execution isn't becoming game reality. And that's the real problem. And that's why the New York Giants are going to be looking for a coach.

That's why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to be looking for a coach. Let's talk about the Denver Broncos, the team that didn't execute either. I mean, there's a total debacle today. I mean, Vance Joseph is a guy, obviously, first year head coach trying to figure out this defense. Way penalized. They looked lost. They were undisciplined today. They had so many penalties in the first half.

And the Eagles kicked their butt up and down the field. and Vance Joseph, they weren't very impressive, but I think this is a real, this is a bigger issue in Denver. This is the aftermath of Peyton Manning. I wrote about it for the ringer in May. People ripped my ass for it, saying, you know, no, they don't have a quarterback. They don't have a quarterback with Paxton Lynch comes in.

Like, they don't have a quarterback. Their offensive line, I know they signed two guys in free agency. Both players, Leary's better than Watson. Watson isn't playing very good. The left tackle they drafted in the first round isn't playing very well. I mean, none of their draft picks, other than the Von Miller is coming through. I mean, this whole thing, I know John Elway's got an unbelievable reputation as a player

and as an executive, but when you look at the offseason that they've had and you look at what they've done since Peyton left, this is another example of Peyton carrying a team. And now that Patent's no longer there, they can't do it. Yeah, it's good for the Peyton Manning legacy at this point. No, you know, it's really a truth. I mean, like, even though Peyton won his Super Bowl when he wasn't 100%, he carried the franchise. And people forget about that 2013 team that went and lost. the Seahawks and got routed. I mean, they were an unbelievable regular season team.

They were. And I mean, they were, but now, I mean, this team's not very good. I mean, this team looked today. Now, I know the Eagles played great and give them all the respect in the world, but the reality was Denver was never in this game. I mean, Denver was never in this game. They had about three or four plays at the beginning of the game on the first drive, and then they ran out of place because they got the they got the heist back there. They have no run game. They can't block anybody up front. I mean, Demarius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders, they were trying, but there was nothing going. I mean, it was bad. I think Denver, you know, and don't look at Denver when it, say they beat, they come back and they play a great game against New England and they

upset. Don't buy in, basically. Don't buy in because that's a home game. Like Denver, you have to evaluate Denver on the road. They couldn't win in Oakland. I mean, they couldn't win in Kansas City. They got routed in Philadelphia. They got beaten Buffalo. I mean, I haven't won a road game. Yeah, it's been really tough. Let's play our favorite game, guest in narratives. For this week, heading into it, what's your number one narrative to look out for? Well, you know, I mean, look, the New York media is already on the guy. Ben McAdoo's, you know, I mean, at some point, when McAdooe sits there and says my team has acquit, you know, he's probably saying it, yeah, I don't disagree with that. He's obviously not watching the third and 33 they got converted.

He's not watching, you know, the guy, Sammy Watkins runs 17 yards behind and the closest defender. I know I brought that up earlier, but he literally looked like he was jogging and he just ran to the end zone. There was more plays than that one. I could tell you that. They look like the 2015 New York Giant defense. And it's curly in the boat, right? So Spagnola's got a big play sheet too. He's dialing up all sorts of things. And what happens is they're not paying attention to them. They're not getting it on the checks.

They're not making the adjustments. And so what happens is free access touchdowns. Like free access touchdowns drive me crazy because that's the meaning of defense is to defend the pass or defend the run. When you give up a free access touchdown from a blown coverage, people aren't paying attention. I think the narrative all week for me, I don't know about for you, is going to be, and McAdoe is going to be on the hot seat.

He better bring his toothbrush to work. In New York, in that media scene, with everything that's going on with his team, it feels like he's honestly not getting into the heat that I expected him to get at this point. It seems like I saw some people at the stadium today with the fire been McAoo, Jersey. Obviously, that stuff happens, but it isn't as riled up as you would expect. It's almost like people have given them to benefit it out because of OBJ and that whole situation. Yeah, but I mean, look, I don't think that's right. I think they are showing up.

They're not showing up to the game. This is the first time they've been one in seven since 1980. Okay? Since night, I mean, they, and they're not showing up to the game. And nothing is going to make an owner change more than people not coming in. Because the tickets are already paid for, but where they make their money is the $87 hot dog, the $42 popcorn, parking for $150. You know, I mean, all that money comes in. That goes in their pocket, and that affects them.

And they're not going to tolerate this for much longer. I mean, there's no way. Because the team, like I said, we're in the veterinarian business. The patient has to talk, doesn't talk to us. So we have to diagnose it. and clearly the symptoms of the giants are they've lost interest in their head coach. Yeah, it's really tough. My narrative, the Falcons, they're floundering.

Wow. I don't know what's going on there. Did you read today that I think Jason Lockhamforer reported this on CBS today that Gary Kubiak would like to come back and just be an offensive coordinator? If that's true, and I don't doubt Jason's report whatsoever, if that's true, if I'm Arthur Blank and Thomas Dimitrov, I fire Steve Sarkesian, nice man, and I hired Gary Kubiak tomorrow. Because the only way Matt Ryan is going to get back to Matt Ryan is to get somebody in there like Kubiak or like Kyle Shanahan that can get them back to where they are. Because I've said it at the beginning of the season and I'll say it again.

It was going to go downhill and it's going way downhill. And they just looked, I mean, he just looked lost at times. It almost feels like Matt Ryan last year had this security blanket of Shanahan where he could turn to him and say, what should we do here? and now it seems like a lot it's on his shoulders. Like he's having to make checks and decisions at the line. Once they get past the first 15, then he's on his own, right? So it's a game of adjustments, and then he couldn't really make any adjustments. So I think it's really, this is a class example of a guy who has a reputation for being this.

Now, first of all, let's be real clear here. It's amazing how guys get reputations good and bad. All right. Sarkisian's never called a play in the NFL as an office coordinator before this year, okay? Like, he's never had. Like, he was in college. He was at Jackson's USC. We can bring Jackson out here, and he can give us a rundown on all of bad calls that he had,

because Jackson lived them at SC, right? So Jackson's one of our producers of the show. So, you know, I mean, that's clearly, you know, everybody's seen how bad he is. So, like, if I'm Atlanta and Gary Kubiak's out there, that's the first thing I would do. Is there another narrative that you have this week that you're looking forward to? Yeah, the other one is, you know, look, we didn't talk about the Cowboys' Great win against Kansas City, which was an impressive win. I mean, I thought the Cowboys, from start to finish, with the exception of the last minute of the first half, played really well.

I mean, their defense is playing better, but everything's tied to Zique. And the narrative for me is, is Zieg going to play able to play against Atlanta this week, your team? Because if he can, you know, they're going to be a tough team to beat. If he can't, they become more beatable. But I thought Dallas was really impressive. We learned a lot today from Dallas. Did you listen to that broadcast at all? Tony Romo.

They opened the broadcast, right? and they do the Tommy Romo 9, he's our guy. Nine is fine. We love him to death. They cut to Jerry Jones, and I hope you saw this. Jerry Jones clapping, his left hand over his right hand. I think I know why he likes Jason Garrett now. Because his clapper.

His perfect form with his clapping. Jerry Jones does not have that, and he admires that in Jason Garrett, and now we've all figured it out. I've always wondered what Jerry saw on him, and he saw the perfect form with his claps, and it all makes sense now. So we got released of the JFK documents, you know, recently, and we just found,

getting more information on Jason Garrett. Just leaking out day by day. On Jason Garrett. Now, Tony said on the broadcast, what Jason does, he doesn't get involved in X's and O's. That's not him. That's not him. He is in charge of motivation, which explains the clapping. Of course. And he's in charge of the game day. He calls timeout when the play clock gets down to one or two. He'll call a time out there. So, you know, for five or six million a year, I think that's a bargain for Jerry. I think it is, too. And I will say this. In that game, Jerry had a, Jerry had a good game today, you know? He did. He had a lot of fun. He got to watch. Tony, call the game. He's got a good team. He's got a good team. I can make fun of Jason Garrett all I want, but he's

got a good team. He's got a team that, especially when David Irving's in there playing inside with how about this? Taco Troughton, first second of the season. I know, I know. Show some signs of life. I know. Their defensive front play really well. I think Romo said something that was absolutely correct. Their front seven is way faster than their secondary. But this is one of the one of the few games I got right on Saturday Sitdown, their defense was perfect to play against Kansas City because they weren't going to be out of position other than the Hail Mary, which wasn't a Hail Mary,

it was the checkdown to Tyreek Hill. They played really good the entire game. And Romo also brought up this great point. I mean, a lot of people, they mis-evaluate how important Sean Lee is to that defense a lot of the times. Yeah, no doubt. And he said he used to have meetings with Sean Lee, and he's like, we talk about offense, defense.

The guy knows football more than anyone. He's like a freaking quarterback. If they would have had him against. Rams, they were dominating the Rams in that game. If they would have had him in the game, we talked about Jalen Smith not being 100%, which he's not. Yes, absolutely. We know that, but we like him and we love his story. Yeah, it's a great story. It's great. Romantic as much as possible. Like Steve Sarkeesian, right? Jackson's a great story. So anyway, so redemption. Redemption. People love redemption. Yeah, redemption. So, you know, I think had they had

Sean Lee in those games, that's when they didn't play well. I think that's clearly. But they're getting the feel for it. It'll be a big week because they come back after Atlanta, than they got to play Philly at home on Sunday night. And let's flip it on the other side. The Chiefs, this is my other narrative. Andy Reid, we saw him take the spill today. Oh, man, he took one down. All the people that did not help Andy Reed and catch him,

let me just tell you that. A trust fall is a trust fall for a reason. You're not always ready for him, but you got to make a play for your head coach. I'm very upset that they didn't make the play for him. But the Chiefs, they've now lost three straight at this point. Or not three straight, but three or four. And they could have lost four of straight. I mean, Denver had a chance.

They did everything in their power to keep Denver in the game. Yeah. I mean, I think what you're seeing with the Chiefs, their defense isn't very good. And I think people understand how to attack their defense. If you stay away from Marcus Peters. Well, you go to the other side. They're throwing to Acker the entire game.

And even if they put Stevie Thomas over there, whoever they put over there, they're going to be able to make plays. And so. Terrence Williams tore him up today. Terrence Williams was really good today. Absolutely. After the catch, he was great. I mean, they were good. I mean, I thought DAC was excellent. Yes.

I mean, I think clearly when Philly plays Dallas, that'll be a really, really, two really good games. We have that to look forward to in two weeks. But the key is going to get by Atlanta. I mean, Atlanta will be a hard game for Dallas to play because Atlanta can move the ball on you. If once you get past the first drive, I don't know if they'd do it after that. And that's the hard thing about the NFC East

because you have the Cowboys and the Eagles who are both undefeated in the NFC East as it stands now until they obviously take on each other later in the season. So it's a weird spot because you don't know if Zieg's going to be there when they play each other. Yeah, I mean, they're really in a dangerous area here. And look, the Redskins, if they ever could get healthy, I mean, they're four and four.

If they could get healthy, the defense is. The defense, they play hard, they tackle. you know, and they usually collapsed in the fourth quarter, and they did today, but then their offense, Kirk came back and made some plays. I mean, this whole idea that Kirk isn't going to get paid. I mean, I'm telling you, Washington Redskin fans, Andy Dalton will be your quarterback next year. Mark, you heard it here. We talked about it before on GM Street. It's coming. The Washington Redheads. We didn't talk about Andy. We didn't talk about Andy Dalton today about what he threw for what, buck 50 today. They ran for no yards. And poor AJ Green. I just want to say this. I mean, he gets in that fight today. It was ugly with Jalen Ramsey. And I like both those players. individually. I think AJ Green's frustrations in Cincinnati are finally starting to bubble up. This is a guy that never showed that ever. He's always been pretty straight lace. But today was not a

not a good performance for him at the deadline. I wish someone would have made a trade for him at the deadline. I mean, I don't know. To me, if I was Cincinnati, I think I would have, I know they had a two and a three from Cleveland for for AJ McCarran. I think I would have traded. If I had got that for Andy Dalton, I would have done it. Now remember this, Andy Dalton has no acceleration after this year, so he can easily be traded. Wait and see. You wait and see. I can't wait for their watching. A great win for Jacksonville, though. Look, Jacksonville.

That's what we should say, the AFC South, it looks like it's Jacksonville's division at this point. Yeah, Jacksonville, I mean, Tennessee beat Baltimore today, which we haven't chance to start. Baltimore was terrible. Baltimore stopped. What drives me crazy is when you stop a team from doing what you knew they had to do, Baltimore stopped the run game of Tennessee. And yet, Joe Flacco was just horrendous. I mean, I know I thought they could win the game and they did cover. But DB Flacco was bad.

I mean, just all over the place. He can't, I mean, Baltimore needs a quarterback. There's so many teams need quarterbacks. I mean, Tony Pee's. It's a total changing of the guard at this point. Tony P's going to go out of business if they don't get quarterbacks in this league. There wasn't a lot of people. It wasn't crowded today, Tate Prasia.

You think Tony Piz is losing business over this? He's got to start calling Flackville. Today's cards were just talking. Today's games were very good. I mean, you didn't have the Patriots. Like, really, when you make the schedule, you don't have the Patriots and the Steelers, two fan bases that are going to come out. That's a problem.

Yeah, and the Raiders were, you know, Sunday night game. Yeah. Let's do some awards, your favorite segment of the week. First up, time to go on the lamb. Is there anyone that needs to go on the lamb this week? I think the guy needs to bring his toothbrushes, Dirk Cotter and Ben McAdoo. I think those guys need to go like a little buddy cop movie together. I mean, it's bad.

I mean, they need to go on the lamb bad because that's, and I think Steve Sarkacian's probably going to get close to going on the lamb here fairly quickly. Because that Atlanta offenses used to be in high octane. Three's company, there you go. And so you just got to wonder about that. But look, Tampa Bay, both sides of the ball, they get a pump locked. So don't forget that their special teams are bad today, too. I mean, there's just a lot of breakdowns. Same thing with the Giants.

I mean, the Giants are just, like, Macadoo doesn't even call plays anymore. He's taking all the fun out of it for me. He changed his play sheet. He changed his hair. And everyone was saying today, like, in the broadcast, when they were talking about Macadry, they were like, you know, he did this, you know, great thing by giving up the play calling rights. Like, he acknowledged the fact that he shouldn't be calling the game.

It's like, no, they're losing. He just made a decision to try to get it off in. They should be better in some other area, right? They shouldn't have as many penalties. They should be able to do some other things. They're not. I mean. Call Jason Garrett.

Find out some of those motivational quotes he's using. Look, he's in Jersey. He can use the boss for motivational quotes. Absolutely. Next up, we have the Fred Palermo Award. Yeah, that's, man, my uncle Fred, you know, I think the Redskins, the Redskins get the break. They get the three turnovers on the miss field goals, which are their turnovers. They don't make mistakes.

They executed down the stretch. Seattle moved, had 400 and plus yards against them. Washington just had 200 pedestrian type, but it was a great win for Washington. I think their game plan was perfect. They didn't turn the ball over. They didn't make mistakes. They were able to make plays when they needed to make plays. That last driver down the field, Kirk Cousins was great, and I think they deserve an award.

I think, you know, I'd like this Redskinned team. I wish they were better with the details. I really do. I wish they had more attention to detail. But they're playing with a bunch of backup offensive linemen in there, and they did a nice job. Bill Callahan is a great coach. So I think they deserve it. They really had a good game plan for what they were doing.

Yeah, and I don't want to do. I know we don't gush over the Jay Gruden or the John Gruden's in this podcast very much, but Jay Gruden was great today. I felt like he had everything under control. And even that last drive, the decision to put a spy on Russell Wilson, it drives me crazy because like that's what he does. You have to have someone looking at him at all the time. And they put Zach Brown, they spied him the whole way down the field.

I know they had a hellmary that almost worked, but still at the same time just to do that was just smart. I mean, that's when Russell's at his best is when he can make losing. place. Yep, absolutely. Next up we have the KGB Award. Well, I mean, Denver got themselves. I mean, Denver was bluffed the whole way. I mean, Denver, let's be honest. Denver got bluffed. I think Denver thought

they were going to go into Philadelphia and get it nice of the win. I thought they were too. They didn't listen to us on Saturday. I mean, they got bluffed. I mean, they just made no adjustments in the game. The Eagles did whatever they wanted to do against them. They went on balance. They didn't adjust the unbalanced. They didn't handle anything. I think Denver

was really poorly coached today. I think they got got bluffed out of this one big time. I think they thought they were going to just roll it out there. I mean, there's problems in Denver. There's problems that are not just like a quarterback. They're big problems in Denver in terms of where are they in the offensive line, where are they at running back. Demarius Thomas isn't the same player he once was where you paid him.

I mean, this is not a very talented team. Kubiak might have been smart to get out of there. Yeah, exactly. And who knows if he ends up with the Falcons, he's going to be really smart. Yeah, it'd be really smart. Falcons will be smart to hire them. Absolutely. Next up we have Can't Tell My Courage from my Desperation.

I love Jacksonville. I love what Doug Marone did. I don't know what Fornett did to break the team rule, but I love the fact that he put the team first. And I think this wins teams over. And then they went out and kicked Cincinnati's ass, okay, without them, all right? And that just proves to everybody. In special teams, like in all different facets. Nobody's bigger than the team. Nobody's bigger than the team. You want to act like a – especially not a rookie. That was the thing in the broadcast. They kept talking about it. But he hasn't acted like a – you know, he told the NFL's easy. You know, he's kind of had this, no disrespect. to millennials, but he kind of had this millennial approach to everything. But, I mean, I really like that Jacksonville did that. And look, they're not letting Bortles beat him. Bordles. Played really well today. Didn't have thrown interception. He threw a lot of throws underneath. He played well. And they ran the football. Chris Ivery's a good back. I mean,

Jacksonville is getting their stride. And I think that they have exactly, they know who they are as a football team. They're very, they're going to play their way, and they're going to keep playing their style. They're going to be a hard out. I just will say this too. We had this one moment. Did you see the Doug Marone and Blake Bortle's argument on the sideline?

No. So I think what happened was they called a run play on a third down and Bordos was obviously upset because he's got such a cannon. He wants to make the throw on third down. Of course. So he comes over to Marone pretty, you know, ready to say something, have some hash it out. And Maron was right there.

He was right back at him in his face. And then they both just, you know, kind of squashed it and moved along. And I was like, that's good for Doug Maron. I like you can't be a good head coach if you don't like confrontation. If you don't, if you're just going to stand like a zombie like Mac, McAdoe does just stand there.

Like, I mean, you've got to have confrontation. Like, at some point, aren't you getting pissed off at this? I mean, like, I was watching McAdo today. Like, aren't you going to get pissed off at this? Like, call the team together. Like, okay, guys, look, I'm going to start firing some people here, you know, because it's the only way you're going to get their attention. Remember, fear does the work of reason in these situations.

You can't. If people aren't fearful or they're going to lose their jobs, you can't reason with them. The season's over. Guys, I've seen it too often when teams, when you play teams like, like San Francisco 0 and 9, like Cleveland 0 and 8, like the Giants with one win, they'll give it a good

effort for 20 minutes. But once you take the game over in those 20 minutes... It's a slippery slope. Right. They're done. Okay, it's on the next week. We gave it our shot. We can't win this week. We'll go to next week. Okay, we're going to save ourselves. It's not quitting, but they have had no attention to detail during the week. And

to me, you've got to do something to correct it. Yep. And our final one of the night, if you don't know now, you know. I think the Saints are, you know, Saints six wins in a row. I doubted them. They play good defense today. They won in the dome. Their offense is effective. Camaro's got to be into consideration for the rookie of the year. That's what I was going to say. Hunt got shut down today by Sean Lee pretty much. We don't have Deshawn Watson anymore. It's basically the whole Four Nett misses the game. The whole rookie of the year race is open basically at this

point. And Camara, every single game, he seems to be in there. He gives him an explosiveness to their offense. I mean, he really is good. And they were effective today. And Breeze, trust them. Breeze, yeah, that's a key. And look, let's not, Adrian Peterson had 36 carries for 150. He way better than I ever thought he could run the ball at this point. You know, but so getting him out of there was a blessings for Camaro. Which is a different kind of back. Exactly.

And it helped their team. And it helped, obviously, it's helped Arizona because they won another game with him being able to at least give him the ball and take some of the pressure off of Drew Stanton. So it was a win-win, but Camaro's a really good player. These backs have been, these rookie running backs in this draft class have been really impressive. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I mean, even, I'm going to throw this out there, Christian McCaffrey today, his first rushing touchdown, even though it was an eight-yard pitch from Cam Newton. He got his first rushing touchdown. They actually had some numbers today, but Cam was still their leading rusher.

Cam is their best rusher. Cam is one of the best running backs in football and also a pretty good quarterback. And I think, look, when Kukle is on the field, they're a better defense. I mean, that's the reality. It's the same thing with Sean Lee. Sean Lee and Luke Lee. They know the, like what Romo was talking about today with Sean Lee. They know the splits.

They know when the line splits are a little wider. They know when an offensive lineman's hands are too hard in their stance. They know by formation what people are going to do. We're in week nine of the season. You can watch a tape and you can call pretty much every play. If you watch Buffalo play or you watch the Eagles, you can call what they're going to run by what they're in. You've got to stop it. It's hard.

But if you're a really study tape by their splits and everything, you know what they're going to do. Same thing with Kansas City. You kind of know what they're going to do. You know when they're going to run the bubble. But if you don't study the tape and you don't have somebody on your defense that can communicate, to somebody like Kikley can, like Sean Lee can, then all of a sudden you're just out there hoping. Yeah, well, you have the Matt Ryan's pointing out the mic,

and then Kikley's pointing out exactly what they're going to run back at him. It's like two quarterbacks going face-to-face. Once you tell who he's the mic, then you declare the prediction. And then what he does is when he gets pointed out as the mic, then he looks at the back, okay? All right, because he wants to know, does the back have the mic or does the line have the mic? If the back has the mic, the back's eyes will go directly to him.

I got him. If the back is looking away when he points out the mic because he's looking for where the will is because he has the will, then Kekly knows the protection. Then Kikley knows the protection. So it's everything about the eyes of the runnerback and it's pointing out. So he says here, Kikley's the mic, Kikley doesn't care that he's the mic. He wants to know who's got the will. Okay. If the line has the will, then the center's going to slide to Shaq. If the line has the Mike, he knows the back is going to the will. You got me? Yep. So that's what he's trying to do. So then he'll say he'll change, he'll change the blitz. He'll change the blitz. He might bring Will Sam. He might bring the mic and the will. Okay. And he keeps, and now all of a sudden the back's got to stay in and he drops somebody up and it's a four-man rush. But it's a, so it's kind of like he's playing around with them. That's the advantage you have. He's smart enough. He can see guys' eyes. And he knows that when an offensive lineman's on the line of scrimmage and his eyes are inside, looking inside. eye. You see it all the time. The announcers never talk about it. When his eyes are inside,

that means he's blocking down that way. Okay? All right. So he means he goes where his eyes go. Keeckley has that ability to see it all. And that really pays dividends. And like most things in sports, anticipation is very, very vital. And if you have the clues beforehand, if you know, if you're not too lazy, I mean, sometimes I was too lazy in college. That's why I went to Valley Ford's Military Academy. Because I, even if I had the answers, I was too lazy to study the test. You know, so when you're, if you're not too lazy to study. It's a nice shout out for Valley Forge. They deserve it. Romans down. We need to get a little bit of things.

I'll lose to school. Yeah. I like it. Valley Forge military. You know, I could story my... I'll have to do this on one of my... On Noble. I'll read the creed of the Alamara. Hail Alamada dear. I'll get it to Joel Solomon. He'll fight. Yeah, we should do a little pledge to Valley Forge.

Anyway, that's a shout-out. I will say this. New Jersey shout-up for you. Mike Adams had a great game for the Panthers today. I think he's from Patterson, New Jersey. Yeah, and he's been around the league. He really... Now, he's another guy's a smart player. When he was in Indianapolis, He can play around with a quarterback.

He likes quarterbacks. He know he's not going to fall for the guys. He's not as talented as he used to be in terms of what he can do. He's been with a lot of teams, but he's a smart player. Nice pick today. Forty-yard return. You can't really compromise when you get smart players. Because remember this.

I'll say it again. Practice execution becomes game reality. So when you have good practices against the plays that they're going to run, smart players know they're coming, right? And they can anticipate and they make plays. and Mike Adams is a smart player. Absolutely. Let's wrap this thing up. We got Monday night football tomorrow night.

What's one thing you're looking forward to? You know, I mean, look, the lions have a hard time protecting. They're on the road in Green Bay. I hope they wear the right shoes. Everybody slips up there in Green Bay. You know, Hunley, I like Mike McCarthy when he said they were not interested in Brian Hoyer. Yeah, they weren't. I mean, you watched the last game, but it'll be interesting to see.

I'm looking interested to see what Hunley's development is. I mean, Detroit's a tough-minded, mentally tough team. They couldn't convert in the red zone last week. So I think that's almost see where Hunley's development is. Because right now, we didn't talk about this Tate Frazier. Yeah, let's talk about the playoff picture a little bit. Right. Like you could just scratch out.

Like last year, right, we had in the NFC, we had, let's see, we got it right here. Well, basically we have three teams that weren't in last year that are already in, right? Well, they're going to get in. They're going to get in. They got, unless barry, I mean, look, you can scratch out, you can basically, maybe you could scratch out the Packers. You can scratch out the Giants. and you can scratch out the lions, right?

So those three teams. And then you look at the AFC, Houston ain't going. The Raiders in Miami, Miami's four and four. They might be the worst four and four team I've seen. They don't tackle. Tonight we watched them play. It's bad. I mean, they don't have a running back.

Jay Cutler's throwing checkdowns. I mean, Parker's a great receiver. God forbid if we said a bad thing about Jarvis Landry, because he's the most important player in history of the franchise. So anyway, but anyway, every year there's six new playoff teams, typically. and in the NFC you can see it. So this game has... You've got Eagles, Rams, and Saints

that are all going to probably be in the playoffs at this point. It seems like that after the halfway point. I mean, the schedules are pretty tough. We are literally at the halfway point of the season. The schedules will get a little tougher, so it'll be good to see. But I know this. I'm not falling for the Giants anymore.

I'm not falling for Baltimore anymore. And I'm definitely not falling for Tampa anymore. I'm sorry, James. I'm sorry, Dirk. It's tough. Hard Knock's got a lot of people buying into it, but maybe just not this year. And I'm not falling for the heist either.

Yeah. That's a good lesson for this podcast. Simmons should have got a baseball bat out and hit me over the head with it. If you learn anything from GM Street is don't buy into the heist ever. This has been another edition of GM Street, part of the Ring of Podcast Network, Mr. Michaelombardi. Great stuff. Thanks, Dave Fraser. Thanks again to Hotel Tonight.

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