The Ringer NFL Show - Jets Win Despite Aaron Rodgers' Injury, Kellen Moore's Amazing Offense Loses, and More Big Takeaways from Week 1 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Sheil and Ben get together to share their reactions to the Jets' wild and weird win over the Bills, and ponder if this may be the last time we see Aaron Rodgers in a football uniform. Then, they put some respect on Matt LaFleur’s name before debating the effectiveness of Kellen Moore’s offensive scheme in the Chargers' loss to the Dolphins (25:51). Sheil then explains why Seahawks fans should already be panicking, while Ben refuses to place the entirety of the Steelers' loss to the 49ers at OC Matt Canada’s feet (41:45). They end the pod by attempting to take back some of their preseason takes (1:02:12). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Additional Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody? It's Brian Barrett from Off the Pipe, where we're gearing up for another exciting NFL season. We'll be with you every Sunday after the Pats with three-time Super Bowl champion James White to recap the game and break down the biggest moments. Plus, episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays to cover all things Patriots with your favorite Boston sports guests, as well as familiar voices from the Ringer Podcast Network. So follow Off the Pike with me, Brian Barrett, on Spotify. Welcome to Extra Point Taking, Sheila Kepadia. Joined by Ben Solac, week one is in the books. Monday night football. Aaron Rogers plays four snaps.

I'm thinking, all right, we're going to be taught. It's going to be all Aaron Rogers. There's going to be no game to talk about. Aaron Rogers was not on the cart. And Sheal was hitting up the slack like, hey, we can go like middle of the fourth quarter. Like, if this game is a plot, they just let you get an early sleep in Monday night, get my sleep schedule correct. She was ready. I thought we were.

We're not going to have a competitive game once Aaron Rogers went down. I don't think anyone thought we're going to have a competitive game. Maybe some of you did. But you know what? We got a classic JETS Jets, Jets, Jets. A memorable win if you are a Jets fan on what had to be a roller coaster night. In terms of your emotions, Xavier Gibson comes through with the 65-yard punt return for the touchdown in overtime for what can only be described as a highly, highly, highly improbable jet swim. 22 to 16,

Benny Souls football is back, baby. Zach Wilson, week one win, not on the bingo card. I'll tell you that right now. Holy Moses. What a weird game to end week one on. What a,

on a list of like challenging games and weird results and bad performances and what does all this mean? Bill's absolute face plant against the Zach Wilson and Jess is off there, man. I tell you, what a weekend. Well, listen, you always make fun of me for, I don't know if it's pandering or what, but for trying to relate to the fan experience and to say it's not all about Super Bowls and all that. Sometimes you just want to have fun

watching a game. And if you're a Jets fan, you were miserable at the start of this game. You were miserable for two and a half, three quarters. But guess what? If you stuck with it and you were either in the stands at MetLife Stadium or watching on TV or at a bar or at your friend's house or whatever, you're going to remember where you were when this team won this game 22 to 16 in week one of the 2023 season. So, Jets fans, we feel for you. It's been 12 years, the playoffs, not making the playoffs. And so you've got to take the minor victories. And right now you're feeling good when you go to work, when you're listening to this on Tuesday morning, you're feeling good because you started off your season with a victory. All right. So.

Let's set up the show, Benjamin. So for those of you who are new to the Monday night show, you know, maybe you join in the off season. Maybe you join this season, whatever. Here's what we do. We don't tell each other what our takes are from the week that was. We each have three. We come into the show.

We come in blind. We fire them off. We go back and forth. We record this show every week after Monday night football. And so we always lead the show with a Monday night football take. And this game and what happened in the last three to four hours was so incredible that we're each going to have a Monday night football take this week. So here's my take.

Then take number one as we get the show started. The Jets cannot waste this season on Zach Wilson. And I'm looking at that team and I really like this team. Garrett Wilson. Incredible touchdown catch. Breeze Hall. Look, I don't know what, who did that surgery on the man's knee? But listen, come do some work on me because the guy looked absolutely incredible.

looked great. Offensive line held up well enough, I thought. Defense, incredible. CJ, Mosley, everywhere. You got Soss Gardner. Jordan White had the safety with three interceptions. Quinn and Williams doing Quinn and Williams things.

If Aaron Rogers is out for this season, and let's be clear here, I probably should have said this at the top. We don't know. So do you have new information? Okay. So as we've been recording, you asked me in the pre-record, you were like, do we know anything yet?

I was like, absolutely not. And then about five seconds after the pod started, Rapp tweeted, Jets believe it's an Achilles injury for quarterback Aaron Rogers. Source says MRI tomorrow. There's no Achilles injury that has come back from this in the middle of the season. If it's an Achilles, it's ball game for the 2023 season for Rogers.

So we'll see what the MRI says, but that's right right now with Raps reporting. So we can thank you for, see, this is the first time you checking Twitter, not listening to me, has actually benefited. There are several times.

There are several times. I don't know. about that. So let's, we'll go through the scenarios, but I think we can operate under that assumption that it's believed to be an Achilles injury. And like you said, if it's an Achilles injury, we may have seen the last of Aaron Rogers playing football. I mean, that is a, that is a very arduous rehab. He'll have to decide whether he wants to come back from that and put in the work and get back on the field. He's going to turn 40 years old this season or not. So that's obviously going to be a huge story this week and we'll have it updated on the ringer.

and on the Ringer NFL feed. But for our purposes, if we operate under the assumption that, you know what, Aaron Rogers is not going to be playing football for this team, the Jets have to figure out something at quarterback. They cannot play the next 17 weeks with Zach Wilson. Their team is too good. They're too talented. They have too many good young players.

They were too all in on this season to just say, roll with Zach Wilson. We were seven and ten last year. Maybe we win another game or two. I don't think he's ready. I don't think you think he's ready. up and down tonight, you know, 14 for 21. I think he was. He made a couple, but he made a few plays here and there.

But listen, I think we saw from what the Jets did in the off season that they did not have a belief that Zach Wilson could be the guy. That was the whole point of doing something and going after Aaron Rogers. So I can throw some names out to you here in a minute, Ben. And I don't know if you like any of them or want any of them or what. But that was just like my big takeaway is that I can't, if I'm a jet, fan. I cannot just play the rest of the season with Zach Wilson and cross my fingers. She even saw it on that last drive, you know, at the end of regulation where I thought they were fine being conservative.

I would not have put the ball in the air with Zach Wilson. But if you have a quarterback you trust, I mean, those are the little things. Then you could throw the ball maybe on second down, try to pick up a first down and really put the game away. So that's where I'm at with this Jets team. I just don't want to see their season wasted with bad quarterback play because they're too good for that. And another thing about, like, Zach Wilson specifically and what this jet season can become, you just kind of burned the bridge with Zach, right? Like, you could argue that a quarterback of Zach Wilson's talent, because Wilson has some talent, on a team of the great defense, on a team of the great running game, can do X, Y, and Z.

And, like, that all might be true. But Zach just been in the building. Like, it was not a well-kept secret last year that the defense was exhausted and frustrated with the caliber of Zach Wilson's play. So right now, like, vibes are immaculate. Xavier Gibson has saved the New York Jets general locker room experience for the week. But that's not going to continue because Wilson's not going to be able to sustain a level of play that pays the Jets defense off for these great performances.

They're not going to win games. And you've already kind of, like I said, you've already burned the bridge with him. You've kind of expended all that capital. And so even if, like, some of the options that you've got listed, shield aren't like that much more likely to make the Jets win games with their quarterbacking ability. You still, I think, really need to get a different face in the building because of just what Zach represents the franchise represents to those dudes in the locker room.

You have to call Tom Brady, right? At least call him and Judge Check, that's the first call. Right, Tom. I'm not kidding. Tom, do you know what would really get Belichick's goat the day after you were honored in New England and placed in the Patriots, Ring of Fame, X. York Jets head coach, Phil Velichick, that is. Absolutely, you call Brady.

You call Brady, you call Rivers, you call Ryan, you call Fitz, you call Chase Daniel. You call anybody, you don't call Fitz and Chase Daniel. I was just going off and meet you guys off the day with that point. But you call anybody who you feel like, hey, like, we have a great defense. We're going to be able to run the ball really well. Like, do you want to come and just plug and chug and not take some hits and throw it to Garrett Wilson and keep this thing going?

and after you expend that, you pinch your nose, you hold your breath, and you dial the Fargo, North Dakota zip code. You get Carson Wentz on the line. I mean, Tom Brady joining the New York Jets

would be the biggest sports story of the year. For as long as we've been doing Pots together, you've been trying to get Tom Brady somewhere. This would be your Christmas, dude. Well, well, no. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, like I'm a big, like, no, I thought he was never sold on retiring.

That was why, and I was right the first time. Then he did the whole Raiders' own. ownership thing and I was like, all right, maybe he's serious about retiring. You know what? We saw him in the box with Robert Kraft on Sunday. Did that look like a man who was just divorcing himself from football or did that look like a man? Interesting verb choice there divorcing himself from football. I did that accidentally. Or did that look like a man with an intensity on his face? He looked like he was in shape where this is like a good, it's actually a good sell. Like what you were saying is not a lie. You have Garrett Wilson. You have a good run game. You have a good run game. You have

a great defense. By the way, Tom Brady last year, we know Tom Brady wasn't great last year. The man threw for nearly 4,700 yards last year and completed 67% of his passes. Like, this is not, you know, like you said, you're establishing kind of a floor of competency. You're putting nice pieces around him and you call him and you say, you know what, we don't know what our cap situation is. We'll throw 17 void years on the end of your contract. Don't worry. You'll get paid. You don't want to do TV yet anyway. So that is absolutely my first. first call. Now, the other guys, yeah, it's not, I mean, Philip Rivers. We know there was a story about maybe he was coming back to play for the Niners if they made the Super Bowl last year.

Carson Wentz, I mean, Carson Wentz and Zach, well, I get Carson Wentz is better, I think, than Zach Wilson, but no, I don't, I don't think I would want to do that. No, you didn't mention Ben, Nick Foles doesn't have a job right now. Joe Douglas, Jets GM, Joe Douglas in Philadelphia Yeah, when Nick Falls rallied the troops. Matt Ryan's the other one. And then the other ones would be trades. I mean, if you, you know, you give up some type of pick for like an Andy Dalton. Is that worth doing or not?

I don't even know. I just want them to do something. And I want it to work out because seeing the faces of those Jets fans in the first quarter and then at the end. And this is a fun team. I mean, that was a fun team that was on the field tonight to take the Rogers news out of it and still battle and still capitalize on those turnovers. I just feel like they got to do something. Connor J. Hughes. This is a Jets beat reporter for at SNY TV.

Zach Wilson will be the Jets start of the rest of the season, Robert Sala said. Well, what else is you going to say? I'm not putting anything into that. What's you going to say? No, we're benching it. I'm going to go call Tom Brady right now. So I don't believe. I mean, I'm not totally buying that.

But we'll see. Maybe by the end of this, it could be. Yeah, that's actually what they're doing. That would be a bummer for me. would be, I think, a bummer if you are a Jets fan. But listen, there is that small possibility. I don't want to shut the door on it. I don't think it's going to happen.

You don't think it's going to happen that Zach Wilson shows improvement and plays better and is actually, you know, able to establish that floor of competency. My issue is that, like, his style of play, like, I almost wish it was just like a not talented guy who was kind of a dink and dunker, but like it's his style of play. It doesn't fit with everything else. You know what I'm saying? Like it's not, the ball's not going where it's supposed to. You're turning the ball over.

You're taking risk. Scambling, running around. Yeah, that is it. Throwing directly to Matt Milano. Yeah, exactly. So that's my issue with that line of thinking. I don't know. You are.

Again, if we're just talking phone calls at this point, you got to do the legwork on. Okay. Just how soon could Kyler Murray be ready? Because we can, we can keep this thing afloat in November, and we can beat some bad teams and be around 500. great, if we, is he going to be healthy? Is he going to be fully recovered?

And like, that's obviously the big thing is there's been conflicting reports and a variety of reports over time about Murray can be back in the middle of the season. He's going to take an entire year off. No one really knows if the Cardinals actually want him to be back because I don't know if they want to win games. And so, I like just, you know, like call, just do work around the league, call some doctors,

and how we think Kyler's doing. That's one more that I think makes sense in terms of the trade perspective. I can't believe you said Nick Foles. You said Tom Brady threw her four thousand, 700 yards last season. Nick Falls was 25 for 42 for no touchdowns and four picks.

I don't know. I don't know if Nick's got the goods anymore. Is there a trade where the Broncos would unload Russell Wilson and like a pick to take on his contract or something? I'm trying to think outside the box. Russ and Nate Hackett back together again

in the city of New York. Are you outside of your God-given mind? Oh my God. You can't introduce things like this a new even a hypothetical world. I forgot about Nate Hackett. All right.

We'll scratch that one. All right. Let's keep thinking on it. Maybe by the end of the show, I'll have another name for you. We'll see what the Jets do. But seriously, I was going to say congratulations,

Jets fans. You're probably totally bummed about the way this season went. Just enjoy the night, enjoy the week, and then take what comes starting next week, even if you're not enthused about the season

because that was a fun win, and this is a fun team that just doesn't have a quarterback. All right, Ben, hit me with, your first take of the night. Yeah, my first take is about the bills. And my take is, what the heck, man, team, Tiger? Listen, this is as embarrassing of a loss as I can remember for the Josh Allen, Sean McDermott bills. I remember when this team was coming up and was developing Alan and

was figuring out what they were going to be. And the line in the book was well coached. The line in the book was discipline. The line in the book was Sean McDermott runs a good system. He runs a tight ship. right? They're going to be an organized team. The moment Rogers goes down and you get Zach Wilson on the field, you put the coaches on the head say, but the captain's in a huddle and you say, listen, we're going to play mistake-free football. We are not going to lose this game.

We know that cat. We know Zach Wilson. We know we know we can beat this team. We know we're out of talented. We also know that defense is extremely talented. We know they're opportunistic. We know they'll kill us if we give them an inch, if we give them an opportunity. We are going to play mistake-free football.

We don't need to drop 35 on them. We don't need a style on them, spin around 360 dunk. Look at the bills on Monday night football. Let's move the football down the field incrementally. Let's play safe. Let's play secure. Let's walk out of here with the W and go into week two. This was an astonishing play from Josh Allen.

I saw a common voice as the bills imploded that was like, Josh Allen paid really badly, but actually the bills played good. I'm not sure I fully agree with that. There were like procedural penalties. I thought like James Cook wasn't what they necessarily build him to be defensively. I mean, Shaw McDermott takes over for Leslie Frazier

and Zach Wilson comes into the game. The only thing the Jets are going to do on first and 10 for the rest of the night is run the football and Bruce Hall rips off an 80-yarder. What do we do? How are we losing to the running game right now with the backup? And we know who the backup is. I thought that defensively

they had some substantial issues. But the buck stops with Josh Allen, who through three dumb interceptions. Pressure, arm hit on the throw. Oh, there's a tip drill. Oh, the receiver move? No, stupid.

Just didn't, on the first one, didn't check the middle of the field. Threw it right into a safety. Okay, it's a punt. It's 50 yards down the field. On the second one did the exact same thing. Just didn't check his work. The rookie stuff. Embarrassingly short-sighted and lazy stuff.

for a quarterback who is supposed to be for the third year in a row, the leader of a contender, the guy who can push them through the AFC, the prince that was promised. Just look at the safety on the other side. Just make sure he's where you think he is. And if he isn't,

don't think, okay, but I'm a mortal, think, all right, but I just need to be the Zach Wilson Jets. The third and two one, the third one. They're in quarters. The safety is sitting on top of Gabriel Davis, the entire route. The corner,

like every other player, to that side of the field was open for a first down. Josh Allen just decided he wanted to throw the ball as far as possible. It's very, very disappointing, especially because last season, Alan started to do this. He started just like javelin launched the thing. Alan had a stretch last season

where his yards, as air yards per attempt, his depth of target, had never been higher in his entire career. Good Allen or bad Allen, Brian Dable Allen, never been higher than it was at the end of last season. He was just long.

launching the sucker. There was the game against the dolphins of the regular season where it was just nine ball, nine ball, post, try to get all back in one play. You're a veteran at this point. You're your second contract, dude. You cannot be behaving like this. And it's a one thing to be like,

okay, we kind of attributed to the elbow injury. We kind of attributed to defense or playing you throughout the season. This was week one, man. This was week one against a backup quarterback. You have to be able to sit back and let the team work for you. You have to be able to sit back, play mistake-free football, and out-talent the other guys. Josh Allen lost this game for the Buffalo Bills.

There were other bills that had problems. It's not like he was the only guy, but Josh Allen lost this game for the bills. Now, I have good news. This could really nicely and easily serve as a wake-up call. It absolutely can. Week one, we just lost to a divisional opponent in embarrassing fashion on primetime.

But guess what? There's 17 weeks left. Oh, and one is far from a death now, man. Like, we're going to be okay. We know we're a better football team than this. We're going to do X, Y, and Z. So there's a very easy way this becomes a wake-up call. It happened early. It happened in such embarrassing fashion.

But that doesn't change the long and the short of it right now. That doesn't change the reality of us as we sit here on Monday night. This was a very, very silly and very disappointing loss for a Bill's team that is remarkably better football team than this. I've said it before. His gift is his curse. He plays every snap. Like, it's the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl.

And you need a touchdown to win the game. And, like, was that ever on display more than in this game? Like, it's week one. The man is jumping into the air, diving. He's like seven yards short of the first down marker just to take a hit. I mean, you could hear it in Troy Aikman's voice. Now, Troy Aikman was never, you know, the type of athlete that Josh Allen is or the physical specimen that he is.

But you can just hear him going, what is he doing? I mean, Josh Allen goes from how did he do that to what are you doing 20 times during the course of a game? I mean, you watch one snap and you go, this is the guy. Like other than Mahomes, absolutely no one else I'd rather have in the league. And then you go to the next nap, wait, how many starts does he have now? What year is he in? And he's just, the four turnovers aside, just subjecting his body to such punishment,

it's week one. I mean, I know it's hard to turn off. I love the competitiveness. I like watching it from an entertainment standpoint. But if I'm the bill's organization, a coach, a GF, front office, a teammate, whatever, I'm going, dude, what are you doing right now? And you mentioned it. Yeah, I mean, this is a, they gave this game away.

I mean, they really didn't need to, like, they didn't need to do much here, except for not give the game away. And they have four turnovers in the game, three interceptions and a fumble. You know, I remember watching them last year. And I couldn't believe the stats at the end of the season that they were the second ranked offense because I said it, it didn't seem easy. I know you were, you know, making the argument that until the elbow injury, no, they were, it did kind of look easy at times.

But certainly in the second half of the season, Everything felt hard for this offense. It didn't seem settled. It didn't feel like there was a rhythm. Now, he's so talented that there are games where he'll just account for, you know, 300 yards passing, 85 yards rushing, put the team on his back. The numbers look good on at the end. They win 70% of their games more than that the last three years when he's the starter.

But I'm with you. I mean, if you're a Bill's fan and you went into the season with Super Bowl expectations and you're kind of like, hey, people are picking the Bengals, people are picking the Chiefs. fly under the radar a little bit here and we can still compete for a Super Bowl. You just have to be so frustrated with the way this game played out that you lost to Zach Wilson when you had a 10-point lead because your quarterback gave the game away. So he's the type of player that we could be on here next Monday night going,

holy cow, MVP of the week, Josh Allen. He was incredible. But when you're looking at the whole season, those ups and downs, you would want to feel like at this point in his career, there would be a little bit more of a rhythm to it. a little less variance game to game with Josh Allen. I absolutely agree with you there. Yeah, I would say, like, you've always had that line on Josh Allen.

It is a good line. He plays every single play. Like, it's the fourth quarter and he's down by six. It's that 36 to 42 game, right? The 2021 season, they play that insane, just heavyweight slover knocker with the chiefs. And Alan ends up losing it. Ever since then, it's kind of felt like he's just trying to play that game over and over again. Yeah, you're right.

I would argue that this tonight was different. Where, like, in terms of playing, like, the hero stuff, like this isn't... You think these were just bad decisions, not trying to... Right. I would say, like, if he launches that double-cover deep post to Stipon Diggs and Diggs comes down with it, and it's not an interception,

I wouldn't come to the sideline and be like, Josh, you're a hero. Like, Josh, that was dumb. Like, don't do... Like, like, usually what Josh's bad decisions and crazy interceptions, or still impressive. There's still like, holy smokes,

like he actually got that ball somewhere it was a catchable or holy smokes, like that receiver was single covered and there was kind of a window to put it in, but no other quarterback would have tried it. This is not the correct decision. You're wrong. And even if you did it right,

it wouldn't be justified. Like this felt a lot more like, hey, this is black and white. Like, this is the wrong decision. You shouldn't be doing this. But, you know, last time I watched Josh Allen, week 14 was week 14 last season.

You know what I'm saying? Like maybe it's a different perspective now that I've got some space from last season. The bills could just be totally fine We've seen Josh Allen be way too good at this position For way too long to be like This is who he is Like you know he's never going to do this

It's just This is why I always wonder and worry When a player is surrounded by his friends At the coaching positions right Like when Dable left They promoted Ken Dorsey to OC And a huge part of why it was like Because he and Josh are tight

And it's like okay well shouldn't then we not be having issues like this exact one where Josh is just like ignoring the offense, just doing what he wants. Like this is where like, I don't know if it's McDermott, if it's Bean, if it's Dorsey, if it's a captain, another offensive captain and Mitch Morris or whoever it is,

but somebody's got to like, kind of grab Josh by the scruff of the neck, they're like, dude, just play football. Enough of this. Yeah, Diggs. I don't know what that relationship is like now. I didn't mention Diggs because I don't think that would go well. In the past, I mean, we have seen that on the sideline for better words.

I'm with you. If you're a Bill's fan, you're frustrated today. Maybe they slump a little bit. I would still pick them to win the AFC East. And I would still say, you know what, by the time we get to November, December, this is still going to be one of the better teams in the AFC. But, yeah, that is, you mentioned it, an embarrassing loss for the bills to blow that game to Zach Wilson. All right.

Let's take a break. We'll get back to some of our other takes from week one. Get ready for the NFL season with incredible offers from Fandle, America's number one sportsbook. Right now, new customers can bet $200 and bonus bets guaranteed plus all customers who bet $5 will get $100 off NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Week two, I'm looking at lines. I like The Vikings plus seven on Thursday night football against the Eagles. And on Sunday, give me the Texans money line plus 106 against the Colts and the Rams plus eight against the 49ers. Now is the best time to join Fandall.

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Terms and embargo supply, $100 off NFL Sunday ticket, not YouTube TV, YouTube TV, base plan required to watch YouTube TV. Redemption requires Google account and current form of payment, commercial use excluded. All right, we are back on extra point taking, talked about bills, jets, Aaron Rogers, all that stuff at the top of the show. Let's get to some other stuff here. My next take, Ben Solac, is let's put some respect. on Matt LaFleur's name for that week one coaching performance.

I mean, I just feel, you know, I feel like I have a good sense of what people are, you know, talking about in the football worlds. And I don't know if I'm, I don't know Matt LaFleur. I feel like sometimes I talk about him. And it's like, are you his agent? Is he a, no, I've literally never met the man or talked to him in my life. I just looked at that coaching performance. And regular listeners know I hate when coaches make excuses.

Yes, I understand their jobs are not easy. guess what? As Don Draper would say, that's what the money's for. Figure it out. That's why you get paid, problem solve, do more with less, all those things. And I feel like too many coaches don't understand that. They get mad at everyone else. They make excuses, whether it's personnel, injuries, field can do, whatever, whatever, whatever. I think Lafleur, I'm putting him in the category of coaches who understand what their jobs are. I mean, you go into that game Sunday, the first game of the post Aaron Rogers era. You don't have Christian Watson. You're on the road. You're an underdog. You don't know what you're going to get from Jordan Love. It's 10-6 at halftime. The Packers come out in the second half and score touchdowns on three of their next four drives. And what I liked about it is that these were schemed

up plays. I was like, yeah. This wasn't like, you know, I thought Jordan Love was up and down, which you would expect him to be in his, you know, first start of the season in this role. And they did things to help him. They dialed up a beautiful throwback screen to Aaron Jones

that goes for 51 yards. That says, up a touchdown. They have a fourth and three. They get Aaron Jones matched up on your boy, T.J. Edwards, one-on-one little option route. That goes for a 35-yard touchdown. They run the play that I feel like it wasn't run as much last year. I feel like two years ago, all the Shanahan guys were just running leak. Like anytime they needed to play, leak, and they run that Jordan Love fumbles the snap, but it doesn't matter. Luke Musgrave is wide open for 37 yards there downfield. Those were the three big plays that gave them control of the game.

These are all schemed up, play calls, practice it during the week, call it at the right time, and give our quarterback something easy. And I thought he did that brilliantly in this game. And I thought it really stood out, honestly, compared to what the bears were doing with Justin Fields when you just looked at their lack of execution

and how hard everything was for them and how bad they looked in that game. So I just feel like Lefleur deserves a shout out. Like, listen, we both, we got the Packers as the extra point taking team. We wore the cheese heads on the Friday show there. You've got yours there.

Want to know, baby. Under the TV. Who knows? It could go south for them. Like I said, it wasn't like the cleanest performance at all, but I do like, and I trust them that the coaching staff is going to put Jordan Love in positions to succeed. He's going to make some mistakes. There's going to be ups and downs.

But I thought Lefleur deserved a shout out for that. And Ben, how about this? The Packers have now won 71. point six percent of their regular season games with Matt LaFleur. 48 and 19, baby. It's the fourth highest winning percentage in NFL history among coaches who have coached at least 60 games. Like, the guy has to be doing something right. I know he had Aaron Rogers, but again, we've talked about it before.

Aaron Rogers has been on teams that haven't won a lot of games. They won a lot of games with Rogers and LaFleur, and now they get off to a good start with Jordan Love. So that was, as we search our brains for something new to bring to the table on the Monday Night Show, that hasn't been said yet, I thought Matt LaFleur deserved a shout-out. And a shout-out, and appropriately so,

but also, like, a huge part of, of, like, it's easy to forget this because they're, like,

their wider receiver one was out. Like, Christian Watson's supposed to be a wide receiver one. He's not in that game, right? They're, like,

starting star left tackle is supposed to be David Bactiari. Bogiari hasn't been healthy for a long time, right? And, like, they've been struggling to get him on the field

and have him played consistently for, legitimate stretches. Usually, when a team is without wide receiver one and without LT1, you expect a big drop off on the offense. It works. And they have the ability to get catches and production out of Aaron Jones out of the backfield and rookie tight end and Luke Musgrave and get Jane and Reed on the field

and get a second round rookie and get stuff out of him. Their ability to, your thing is always do you do more with less, right? like with LaFleur, there's been so much of visibility on quarterback, even like when it was Adams and Rogers, and then it was Rogers, no Adams, and now it's, you know, no Rogers, no Adams. But even back then, he was still getting a lot out of, you know, some, some, some, the stars, yeah, some places of less, right?

Exactly, the stars, then some spots where they were weak. And now, like, all right, we're kind of in the Scrubs era, we're in the no stars era, and lo and behold, still getting a lot out of it, right? He's a very, very legitimate, more out of less coach. I would like to see this happen against the not bears, but I'm buying what the backers are selling that's far. Well, they just have to be better than the terrible teams, really,

for our to make the playoffs. I mean, I think that's the class that they're really looked at this year. No one's looking at them as a Super Bowl contender, but can you be better than those mediocre to bad teams and put yourself in positions maybe win a wild card, maybe win the NFC North? So they're off to a good start there. All right, hit me with your,

Second take, what do you got? A, top grades, high marks for the Kellynne Moore experience with the Chargers on offense. This, Dolphins, offensive performance, ludicrous. Unbelievable. So stinking cool. Doing the play shoot on it, subscribe during her YouTube. Come out Wednesday. Everybody's going to be writing about it.

Everybody is talking about it. We're all currently talking about it. It's amazing. Stephen and Nora covered it very well on the, Sunday night recap show on this video, you should listen to that. In its shadow, and very easily what could have not been in its shadow, if you know, just the last few coin flips have gone differently, is this Chargers offensive performance in which the Chargers, man,

had one of the best days rushing the football you've ever seen in your entire life. The Chargers' seventh best rushing day by Success rate. They were successful in 66%, two out of every three of their rushes in this game. the seventh best in the last decade in terms of rushing success rate for games in which there have been at least 30 carries for the team. Now, I posted the screenshot of this. The Chargers are the only team in the top 10 to have lost a game in which they were successful.

Classic Chargers. Now, that's because usually when a team runs the ball 30 times and a super successful, they're usually salt in a way a lead there at the end of the game. When you go and you look at games where like, okay, there were 15 carries, there's a lot more losses. but still to have ran the ball this volume this successfully is not a common thing to do. Overall, the Chargers had one of the best days offensively of any team in terms of expected points added in terms of points per drive. They were unbelievably efficient.

They stayed out of third and long situations when they were in third and long situations. Justin Herbert was able to get them out of those situations. It worked wonderfully. Now, Justin Herbert didn't throw the ball 90 yards down the field on every other possession. And that had some people surprised and some people frustrated. But overall, like the thing about being able to throw the ball down field is not that you do it every play. We just had this conversation about Josh Allen. The thing about throwing the ball down the field is now your offense has some more balance to it.

It has the ability to stretch. It has the ability to attack where the coverage isn't. And they were up against the Miami Dolphins defense in week one, a Vic Fangio defense, that wants to put a roof over you, that wants to take away the deep pass. Justin Herbert average 7.4 air yards per attempt, which was above his average. for last season, he objectively did throw the ball deeper this game than he did on average last season. And everybody was like, wow, Herbert's not really throwing it deep. And it's like, yeah, that's what, do you remember last year? It was somehow worse than this. So they were made,

they absolutely remained methodical. Quinn Johnson, their first round receiver at a TCU, did not get on the field a lot. And he was targeted. What's that? That's got to hurt, though. I mean, I feel, I understand the offense worked. But my goodness, if you are a charge of, fan and you're like, yes, we spend a first round pick on this wide receiver. And he doesn't get on the, I mean, I don't know. They like Josh Palmer a lot. And when you're going to hand the football off as much as you do, you need a guy who can block and that's him. Okay.

Josh Palmer is the best blocking receiver or tight end on this team. I'm looking at you, Gerald Everett, had a rough one. Train McCabe is pretty good. But yeah, so they have their personnel and they use it well. thing is that motion-wise, the charges nearly doubled the rate of motion in this game. Then they saw it as an average over the course of last season. This being a big part of

the Kellynmore offense in Dallas that he brought with him, variety in the running game and using precent motion to get good angles. They were very packaged play heavy. I'm not saying RPO's. I'm saying packaged plays where they would have a run call and then just have like a bubble screen happening over there.

And Herbert has the ability to take that if he likes the number count to it. He threw it several times and they had good success with it. They were very audible heavy at the line more so than more was with Prescott. Herbert had a beautiful 40-yard throw early in the drive. Keenan Allen matched up with a linebacker. Came as the result of a huge pre-snap shift. They go to empty.

Herbert sees David Long lined up over Keenan Allen, gives Keen a little hand signal. I was trying to figure out what it was. Couldn't figure out what it was. And all of a sudden, Keenan is running out and up. Beautiful ball over the top shoulder. And hey, there's your explosive pass.

There's something that Herbert created for himself on the field. So I thought extremely positive signs for a charger's office. offense that Daniel Popper of the athletic notes had over 200 rushing yards, won the turnover battle by at least two turnovers, and did not turn over the ball themselves. Teams with that offensive production rushing for over 200, did not come in a turnover, won the turnover margin by at least two, and held their opponents under 100 rushing yards,

were 110 and 0 up until this game. And now, ladies and gentlemen, something like that. That's always laughing. They're since 2000. They're now 110 and 1. And so an excellent full marks performance I thought from the debut of Kellynmore, the Chargers offense.

I loved what I saw. Don't worry. I fully believe the deep passing will come. It wasn't even the best Herbert day either. Like, he left some meat on the bone too. This is going to be a good offense. This is going to be a good team. They played a nail-biter with the dolphins.

They walked out with the loss. But overall, arrow pointing up for me on the Chargers. Okay. First of all, I agree with you. If you look at it overall, be objective. zoom out, body of work. They had the highest success rate of any team in week one. We just look at every offensive play.

Was it a positive? Or was it not a positive? They were better than even the dolphins. The dolphins had the explosive element. So obviously that's going to be different. But if you're just looking down to down, yes, very efficient and very methodical. 30 first downs, 433 yards. The O line was dominating.

But Benjamin, people are yelling at their phones or their Apple car play or whatever going, okay, when the game's on the line, and it's, all right, you can zoom out and tell me all about the film and the motions, the games on the line, the last four plays, they take two sacks and an intentional grounding. How can I, you know, if you're a Chargers fan, how can you say, be happy, all right, it was great. I understand. It wasn't the offense's fault that they lost. A manual, Acho, let me respond to this, Acho, okay. Firstly, I found the grounding call very surprising. I think Mike McDaniel did a great job working the refs on that one. High EPA on the sideline work. Usually when you do the whole like,

the back was trying to release for a screen and I threw it past him, you usually get that. Like that is very irregularly called a grounding. So great work by McDaniel on that one. I was surprised with that call. Secondly, they have a right tackle problem. I know that Trey Pipkins had a better season last season. I know they feel great about him. I know he won the job in camp and he got better week over week. And he was impactful in the running game, no doubt. They cannot leave on an island. Jalen Phillips took his lunch money. Took it right out of his pockets. Turned him up his ankles and shook him for a little bit more. I mean, it's nasty work.

They cannot leave the right tackle on the island. For what's now like the fourth season in a row with Justin Herbert, that's such a prohibited problem. And that's why they were on the third and goal in which they had to kick a field goal to go up by four instead of potentially score a touchdown and go up by seven, if not eight, if not nine, if they chose to go for two. I mean, Herbert's going to have Mike Williams open on the back side line of the end zone if he has another half second.

and Pipkins can't hold his water. They have a right tackle issue. And that pass protection problem is what gets you when all of a sudden you're in a clear pass situation. Herbert, by the way, on pace with some of the best of them in terms of fourth quarter comebacks in terms of game winning drives in his career,

that he can't win narrative is... I've been saying anything about that. I'm just saying, like, if you're talking about burying the lead, like the offense played great, except when they had the ball with the game on the line, 1,45 left in a shootout, and they had a net gain of minus 1 yards. I mean, that does matter.

I'm not, this isn't like a hot take. See, this is why the hipsters try to put reasonable people like me into the hot take box when this is a reasonable take. Like, if you're a normal person watching the football game and you're looking at it, you're going, shoot, well, with like the game on the line there, they absolutely did come up short. Now, once you get to Tuesday and Wednesday, you can zoom out and say, well, overall, the offense played really well and it was all on the defense. And that is true.

But at the same time, when you get in a shoot, like, I think it's worth pointing that out. I mean, you look mad that I'm even pointing that out. Well, Herbert's reasonable. Herbert's playing in 50 regular season games as 13 game winning drives and 10 fourth quarter comebacks. I'm not saying Herbert can't do it. I'm best.

I know that's in Herbert can't do it. Yeah. I'm pro-herbert. The point is what? The point is when you talk about how well their offense played in week one, you have to point out that with the game on the line, the offense came up short and looked terrible and couldn't even pick up a first down. They needed a field goal to win the game.

That's a four-play sample, one of which was a penalty. That was a 10-year- 15-10-year-most lost a day. It was on the possession that determines whether you win the game or lose the game. In week zero, I don't know how the new look Chargers offense is going to look. After the first week of the season, they have a overall wonderful and excellent performance. They fall a little bit short. All right, so projection-wise. Okay, that's fine.

Overall, the note coming out is the Chargers' offense looks great. They look awesome. They have the best success rate of anybody. Would this have been an easier take if they won the game? Absolutely. But I wouldn't have been standing here saying the Chargers' offense looks great. I've been standing here saying the Dolphins office looks great because they lost the game of the great offense.

The win-loss records don't interest me. I don't care about the results of games. The Hipster society, go with Ben. The wind loss doesn't matter. I agree with the take that the encouraging signs, the projection is good if you were a Chargers fan and wanted to know what's it going to look like, should I feel good. The result is good.

The offense was good. What are we talking about? I mean, the offense wasn't good when they had the ball and had to win the game. I understand that, but you have to at least mention that. I don't understand how you can't mention that when you're talking about the Chargers offensive performance on Sunday. All right.

Let's get the Panthers, Falcons, and Steelers. I'm ready to punch back. I'm not talking about the. All right. Let's take a break and we'll come back with our final takes. All right. We're back here. That was good.

Good juice. Week one. I was so confused. I was like, what is he talking about? We got it already. That was worth a mention. Win or loss. All right.

Take three. I think there's one fan base bin that is probably justified to panic after one week. You know how all the analysts are, oh, don't worry, it's only one week. Weird things happen in one week. There's one fan base and one team that you and I were pretty high on coming into the season. Oh, yeah. I'm not going to say I'm fully level 10, but I got these little weird feelings, you know. I don't know.

I'm pointing to my arms. I don't know why. You don't get feelings in your arms. Yeah, goosebumps, maybe. And I'm talking about the Seattle Seahawks. So I actually want to hear your take on this, because I don't know how you feel about their week one performance. You and I both pick the Seahawks to win the NFC West.

I love them over eight and a half wins. Week one, they lose 30 to 13 to the Los Angeles Rams. The offense runs 46 plays for 180 yards. In the second half, they run 40. 14 plays for 12 yards and have one first down. Defensively, Matthew Stafford, granted, might have been the best quarterback I watched today doing all my rewatches. He was fantastic, probably the best week one quarterback performance.

At the same time, he still gave up 27 first downs, 426 yards. They don't have a sack. They don't have a turnover. They forced a punt once on nine possessions to that Rams offense. And listen, it could have been even worse. The Rams had a field goal blocked. They missed a field goal. Van Jefferson dropped the pass downfield, and they still scored 30 points.

So normally in this situation, I would say it's weird. It's a division game. They play each other tough. We mentioned it on the Friday show, actually. When one team's good and the other team's bad, it doesn't seem to matter. They still play these games. However, the Seahawks also got dinged with some pretty what seemed like they could be serious injuries. Now, Pete Carroll, I feel like over two years, I kind of got the language.

down a little bit and when he felt like someone was going to be good, you usually knew he felt like someone was going to be good. That was not the language he used during his press conference. And I'm talking about both offensive tackles, Charles Cross and Abe Lucas, left and right tackle. Both were rookies last year. One of the reasons I was bullish on the team was I thought those guys are going to improve in year two. Well, now it's unclear whether those guys are going to be on the field in week two or when they're going to be on the field. And I don't know many offenses. maybe Patrick Mahomes, maybe Josh Allen Joe, I don't know, you could probably name maybe five quarterbacks

who could survive without both of their starting tackles. I don't think the Seahawks and Gino Smith are an offense. I'm not sure there's that many. That's a tough ass. Yeah. Yeah, we survive without both of their starting tackles. So I'm getting a little bit nervous about the Seattle Seahawks. They go to Detroit in week two.

Last I checked, they're five and a half point underdogs. Maybe there's a scenario where the rookie Devon Witherspoon gets on the field in week two, maybe one of the tackles plays, maybe they go there and pull off the upset. But when I was looking at these losses in week one, I said, which is the fan base that right now probably is warranted if they're going, oh, this isn't going the way we wanted it to go. I have the Seahawks.

What do you think? Am I right or wrong with that assessment? Yeah, my policy is always just a zero panic after week one, right? Like there's been so many week one performances in the last few years, especially with like preseason reps going down, practice reps going down, where like a team walks out and you're just like, what?

And watching the Seahawks defense especially was like, have we seen, have we seen a bunch before, fellas? Have we seen? Like, they, they could not communicate. The secondary really, really struggle to take away like common McVeigh stuff,

like the usual. And that's, that's worrisome, but that also feels like week one nonsense. You know what I'm saying? That's the sort of thing that usually gets cleaned up. With a spoon returning will be a big help. I will say they play Bobby Wagner for 100% of the snaps defensively.

Bobby don't have the legs. Bobby didn't have the legs last year. He's such a good player. He's such a smart player and you can still see it. He's just not the same athlete he was. And to ask him to stay out there for 100% of the snaps when Jordan Brooks can run around and fly around and it's been an improving player for you year over year.

I don't. There's nostalgia. There's respect for a guy who's, done so much for your, for your, uh, your team. But like that to me was the thing there they were able to get after Bobby in the running game and the passing game. You know, they, they, they, they, they, the Rams knew they had a guy they could, they could target. Sure they did. They had them in the building last year. And so there's, there's like personnel changes to make. I think there's a lot to clean up schematically defensively. That,

to me, like that felt like a lot of week one stuff. That felt like, all right, like this stuff got cleaned up. Offensively, didn't love what we were seeing. I think that the, uh, the great play of the tackles, Cross and Lucas, who you brought up, did a good job, like, wow, like such positive signs,

such good youth, did a good job of hiding the fact that this interior is still a little up and down. They had some nice ups last season. This was a down. This was a down game for sure. And Gino is just getting constant pressure up the middle. And that's going to be a problem for a player like Gino.

Gino's not really a high scramble rate guy. He seems like he is, but he isn't. He prefers to throw it. But he's a big, like, escape up the middle dude, right? Because he's strong and he's big and he's got some explosiveness to it. He's not much one of like, I'm going to bail out the back of the pocket.

So when he's dealing with interior pressure, he's having a tough game. There's a great clip of him standing in the pocket like third and five in the third quarter. Aaron Donald wins on a stunt, wins on a twist. What does he say? He say, oh, my God. Or did he say what the end? I can't remember what he says. Oh, my God.

Yeah, oh, my God. Yeah, you just hear over the boom mic, the Fox got over the play. You just hear like, oh, pro, like, football sounds. All of a year. Oh, my God. Gio just whips that thing at the nearest receiver 4 and 5. And that was kind of the day for them, right? And everybody could get it once those tackles went down.

Like there were Rams, rookies, Kobe Turner and Byron Young who like, I didn't remember who they were when I saw them getting a sack. I was like, oh, it's right. They're on the Rams. It was just kind of like a buffet there. That and then like not really getting the deep passing game activated. The running back rotation didn't land in a good spot. Like that was more so.

It was like, okay, this offense was very disjointed and the trench issues with the primary culprit there with those two injuries. That's not going away anytime soon. Yeah. So we'll see. By the time we do our Friday show, who knows? I might have Seahawks plus five and a half as one of my picks. But right now... Do you remember the Seahawks Lions game from last year? I don't. Was it a shootout? Was it a while? 48 to 45 that game ended. Kenneth Walker had 100 rushing yards. Rashad Penny had 100 rushing yards. Jamal Williams had 100 rushing yards. T.J. Hawkinson at like 200 yards and two scores. It was an absolute Barnbirder. Such a fun game.

I want to know one of those. There you go. That would be nice. All right. Hit me with your third take. What do you got? Man, I got so many. So I didn't know I was going to do a Bill's take. Well, listen, I told you, this is why we have a Friday show now. You just pocket one of these bad boys.

You plug them into a category on Friday. Everyone hears the take later in the week. You got extra time. Okay, well, I said I wanted to get after you on Steelers here a little bit. So I got a follow up on that. The take is this. Matt Canada's bad, but we can't blame this whole thing on Matt. Listen, there were, you know, when you have a...

Maybe we can. You might want to. I'm willing not to. My line on Kenny Pickett for the entire offseason was, I didn't love him as a prospect coming out. He improved over the course of his rookie season, and he got to a better level than I thought he would get to. The way he was playing at the end of the last year,

I was like, all right, this is better from Kenny and I thought it would be. But as I've always said with him, it is a square peg in a round hole. He is a guy who plays like a Josh Allen, plays like a Patrick Mahomes, plays like a Kyler Murray, plays like a Lamar Jackson,

wants to be athletic, wants his feet to be erratic, wants to be throwing from weird platforms, wants to create and be this physical presence on the field, and does not do the rhythm from the pocket, accuracy from the pocket, discipline of my progressions, move coverage defenders with my eyes.

He doesn't play the way that his physical attributes would indicate he plays. So it's a square fit, and it's tricky. That was extremely apparent against this Niners team where Pickett was just like loose in the dropbacks, like landing at different spots in the pocket, trying to rip throws over the middle of the field, and it was just inaccurate, right?

And small hands, as we all know about Kenny Pickett when he came out, some bad weather, there's a chance that Pickett walks out week two, week 18, and just as sharp as attack, just hitting all of his throws gorgeously super on target. but this style of play is not conducive

to pick its physical tool set where he doesn't have the arm talent to be throwing the ball like this, nor is it conducive to this offense where like, you really can't mess around as a quarterback because Matt Canada's not actually helping you out as much as it would seem.

On the Canada side of things, yeah, it's so stark to watch a Niners offense where every single motion is to get an angle on a defender to make a block a little bit easier is to get a release for a receiver that allows them to get to the first level untouched just to move a linebacker

so you can throw him behind him and then to watch a Canada offense where every single motion just like kind of happens and then the play happens. Yeah, the defense doesn't even react. They're just like we've seen this before. You're not doing anything.

Yeah. Yeah. There was a lot of very successful calling out of and jumping plays from Fred Warner who seemed entirely like he was just kind of running his paces, just warming up for week two, just, you know, playing against a scout team offense.

Like, yep, you go here, I go here, I slip this block, I make this tackle. And so the Niners defense played extremely fast against this Steelers offense. Then the last thing for the Steelers offense

that I'll bring up is that we waved away this offensive line pretty quickly. We said, Isaac Sam Malo, you know, James Daniels had a nice bounce back year. Here we go, baby.

And she makes a cold a nice bounce back year. Here we go. No. Broderick Jones, who was their first round picket, left tackle out of Georgia, did not win the starting job in camp over Dan Moore, who the Steelers said, hey, Dan Moore improved. Dan Moore had a rough go of it.

Isaac Samalo had multiple mental errors in this game, lost multiple times to Javon Kinlaw, which is, like, Kinlo is a talented player, but he's not the sort of guy who, like, dominates the game the way you'd expect. Eric Armis had his way with everybody who was lined up across from him. Nick Bosa was fine. I thought like POSA was incredible. He kind of looked like he was out of shape.

Not out of shape, but just like, yeah, yeah, he'd need some type of you back. All together, though, the Niners dominated up front. And they typically do. Like, I understand that it's the Niners Front and they're notorious and they're dangerous. But, like, Drake Jackson had three sacks. It's not like Drake Jackson was out here, you know, doing the thing last season. Like, Jabon Kinlo lived in the backfield. That was not something Jabon Kinlo was doing last season.

I don't think this is totally a Niners front is incredible. What are we going to do? Like, there were some guys who have struggled against other teams who really had a nice say against the Steelers. So I'm sitting here with a quarterback who, I can't fully trust yet. Again, like, a picket's played better as a pro than I thought he would,

but I can't fully get on the ship. A coordinator that certainly has not earned my trust an offensive line that I can't trust. And now D'A Johnson's injured. I, I, I, the issue with the Steelers for me, all this offseason, like a lot of Steelers hype, you're a big believer. I'm curious here what you think.

I couldn't get someone to hang my hat on. I like, all right, T.J. Watts, great. Like, the pastor's going to be good, but Cam Hayward's out with an injury, now groin injury. So Paschers are going to be good, but I can't hang my hat in this second day. I can't hang my hat in this offense. This is not enough for me to believe in.

It's not enough for me to see how it powers the engine. And after week one, I'm feeling no differently where I don't understand how this offense is supposed to work. It's supposed to continually punch it to the best in the AFC. I feel worried about the Steelers. Yeah, I had him at 10 and 7. My thought was give me a mediocre offense, a top 10 defense, a great coach and a not-so-hard schedule. and you can get to 10 wins. And that was when I was looking at which teams that weren't in last year that I want to put in this year, can they do that?

And that's why I had them in there. I never thought Kenny Pickett was like an all-pro. Again, I thought their formula was going to be a competent, mediocre offense. And that's kind of what they were last year. I think they were 18th in offensive DVOA. So I thought, all right, a little bump up from that. So maybe you get to 15th. And maybe that will be good enough to get a little bit over 500 and make the plight.

playoffs. But man, that was a tough week one game. What was your line in your Ringer column? You weren't even done your breakfast sandwich and the game was over. Was that about this game or no? Yeah, it was. I was munching away and I was like, I really

want to catch the Steelers offense, but every time I look at the screen, it's the Niners offense. And then I was thought it was 20 to nothing. And I was like, well, that's why I haven't called the Stelis offense. They're not staying on the field. Yeah, I'm enjoying. And I can say this because they're a ringer sponsor. YouTube direct TV.

This is the first time in my life. I've had the YouTube, the direct TV experience. So it's amazing. So that was my main, you know, I got the TV set up here. The main TV, I'm like, I want to watch this. What's the TV set up? Walk us through. Walk us through.

I got three TVs on the wall that I'm pointing to right here. He's got three TVs. TV uncle came and hooked it up. Yeah. When you've been writing as well, she'll has, potting as well as she'll has for as many years, you've come a three TV guy. I'm a one TV guy. I'm working my way up the ladder.

I got it in the office. I got the big gaming piece. and I got the four boxes up. That's nice. Had the second screen with the laptop. You know, I'm doing my thing. I'm getting there.

There you go. You're in a good spot. Let me, this was, this was like many years in. I mean, this, you don't,

you're not just born with the three. You don't get your first job and get the three, you got it like you said. I floated a little test balloon this summer with my wife. I said, hey, like second TV in the living room.

And she was like, why? I was like, because the second football game. And she was like, that doesn't make any sense. So I was like, no,

it does. I was like other people do it. She was like, not us. I was all right, coffee. Not us. That's good to know. Yeah, well, I have an office, so I'm watching it here, but it is becoming an issue because my daughter did post the idea just this morning that, you know, in the living room, we probably

could use another one here. I mean, in case you watch Phillies and something else, like, you know. She gets it. It's honestly a good move. I would recommend anyone do it here. So I had Steelers 49ers on the main one. I'm like, all right, it's the game I want to watch. I turned it off by the second half.

I mean, once McCaffrey had that touchdown running the third quarter, there was no reason to watch that game. Honestly, I could have turned it off earlier there. I mean, that's Steelers' offense. First five drives minus nine yards, zero first downs, four punts, and an interception. Yikes. And then the stat that I came across last week that I'm now just going to be obsessed with every week, the Steelers' offense has now gone 36 straight games under Matt Canada

without gaining at least 400 yards of offense. again, this isn't the easiest thing to do. It's not the hardest thing to do. There have been 269 examples of an offense gaining 400 yards since 2021. The Steelers have zero during that span. So as I've said before, every smart football person, I have not found a Matt Canada defender. Like your take there, and that wasn't even defending Matt Canada,

is as close as I've heard to anyone saying, no, this guy isn't so bad. I mean, think about the whole flirt conversation we were having earlier. Like, can we just sprinkle a little bit of something in there for your quarterback to help him out a little bit? Because I really don't see it with this offense. And I wish I would have kind of slapped myself a little bit before the season and reminded myself of that. Bill Barnwell, ESPN, has a good thread of a few of Kenny Pickett's plays for just, they're open receivers, right? And, like, I'm not going to attribute those receivers openness to Matt Canada. But it is to say that there are open receivers.

and they're in picket's progression, right? And I don't like his feet. I don't like the way he works the pocket. He bounces around. He puts his office of lime in a bad spots. He felt very uncomfortable, which is not like so much of last season was him getting comfortable.

It was weird. Maybe it's a knock-the-rust-off thing. You know, I'm in no way, shape, or form ruling that out. I will say, though, now, if we don't know what Deonté Johnson's status is. He had a hamstring issue. He went into the locker room. I haven't seen like a long-term update on him.

We have seen a long-term update on Cam Hayward, who like I said, as a groin injuries out for multiple weeks. Surgery. Yeah, I saw surgery earlier. If I made you a list at the beginning of the season, players to the Steelers can't lose to long-term injury, one would have been T.J. Watt.

Two probably would have been Kenny Pickett. Maybe you flip one and two. Once we get to three, we're in Cam Hayward, D'A Johnson, Minka Fitzpatrick territory. Like we're getting there. Yeah. These are, these are,

these are two of the more important players. And like, you know, obviously there's a lot of George Pickens hype. But right now this COS wide receiver room is George Pickens. Alan Robinson, who they went and like acquired this year. He was their leading receiver. He was literally their leading receiver in that game. And Calvin Austin. And then they got Pat Fryermuth.

Like this, um, is that, I don't know. I don't know. Some worrying, we're in clouds on the horizon. Well, listen, it's a good segue to my extra point taken here. Benjamin. Well, first hold, I need to clarify my trick because I don't need the Solac heads coming after me. So I do want to clarify the Chargers thing. I'm not saying, I'm not a QB wins. Oh, I thought you were going to clarify the Steelers thing. I'm going all the way back.

No, I'm going all the way back because I know how this is going to play on. I agree with the take that the offense, your good performance, encourage you. I just feel like it's worth mentioning. It's reasonable to mention that while the offense was good for most of the game on the last drive with the game on the line, the offense with the bet. That is not me being sports talk radio host or hot take artist. That's me being reasonable media analyst fan type person. Okay, there we go. Ben didn't know, doesn't, you don't even notice if the team wins or loss. It loses, as you said, and we call. I really like, as the score could be anything. You know, it absolutely, it absolutely is

reasonable. It's, um, yeah, I mean, like, as you very well know, the amount of people, Dolphins fans, just football people on the internet who don't like other people just being like hey Herbert lost 201 we always knew all along and it's like guys the Chargers offense was great they were so good today and that's the thing is like the Chargers

offense had the two best offensive performances of the week probably like offenses have great days and sometimes teams win sometimes teams lose like that's always the important thing is just being like there's so much that goes into a win loss column it'd be nice it was like best quarterback

best offense wins next week but it never is that neat. So that's why, like, if not for the Bills, Jets game becoming what I did, my first take would have been Chargers offense because the number one thing I wanted to get off my chest is like, hey, this group was great. And in that Chargers building, though, this year, the wins and losses, they would say, no, no, these matter a lot to your first rule of coaching and GMing in the NFL there.

So we will see what, again, that was their defense had no answers. I mean, they could not get a stop. That was the reason they lost that game. All right. To get back to the Steelers' stake. I know I'm jumping all over the place. That's okay. Sometimes you got to circle back.

I'm not afraid to circle back. I cannot believe when you're like, I just want to clarify. I was like, this is going to be like, he's Steelers off season. He's going to be like, I never said this. I said that. You're like, what the Chargers thing? Whoa, I forgot about that. You know what this really is?

The Capadias, we don't really communicate, express emotions. So you let stuff stew and then you circle back. So that actually wasn't that bad. There will probably come a time this season where I go, so like, you know, in week six, you said something. It really irked me. I've been holding it. but let me unleash it here.

I do not have that issue. My mother was live texting me every thought she had during that jet game. We do not pause in my family. There you go. All right. So here's the extra point taken. So this morning I'm sitting around

and the take guides, they flew in to the Kapati household. They approached me. They said, Sheal, it's only been one week. Guess what we can do for you? We can go back. Some of those takes you had on your podcast,

the extra point taken, and some of the stuff you wrote on the ringer.com, we are going to grant you one. We can go back, we can delete it, we can edit it on the site, we can do whatever you want, but it's only one. So you have to choose just based on this one week,

one take that you had, that you want back, that you want to change right now. And I said, okay, that sounds interesting. And of course, me being a team player, I said, well, is it just for me? And they said, no, no, no. Tell your buddy, the one who gets really excited

on those podcasts. the one who makes those strange noises, you know, into the mic, that guy. Tell him we're willing to do the same for him. Just let me know what you guys choose. So I didn't give you a heads up. I thought I would let you know this good news on the pot. So I'll go first here, you know,

and you can kind of think about it. So here are some of the takes I had going into the season. And then I'm going to choose one of these that I want to take back. Panthers win the NFC South. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. If you made me guess which one, you were taken back, though, my guess.

Steelers make the playoffs. Okay, not looking great. Broncos make the playoffs. I have one point loss. All right. Seahawks win the NFC West. Trevor Lawrence wins MVP. Brown's the top five defense.

Hey, I might have got one out of 40. I mean, they were looking good. Rain and all that, sure, but they look good. And the Bengals winning the Super Bowl. So those were some of the ones I thought off the top of my head that I thought, all right, these aren't maybe normal takes. I think the one, if I could change one of those right now, I think it would probably be the Seahawks

winning the NFC West. And it's not just what I said about the Seahawks, it's how good the Niners looked. I mean, Brock Purdy looked exactly like he looked last year. The offenses was working. They can win in different ways. They were clicking on. They looked like a well-oiled machine.

They looked like one of the best teams in the NFL that's on the road against the Steelers team that I don't think is going to be a complete disaster. So if you asked me one, take gods that I want back, I took a swing. You know, sometimes you try to zag. you want to be the one who says, no one else said this.

I said it. And I went with the Seahawks to win the NFC West. I would already like to take that back and say, no, no, no, she'll, don't overthink it. 49ers win the NFC West.

They're one of the best teams in football. So I'll stick with the others. That's the one I'm changing. All right. Have you had time to think about yours? Are you surprised with my selection? No, that's fair because especially knowing the tackle injuries.

I'm a big Seahawks, like, you know, get hurt. Two, immediately jumped to mind. One, you didn't like your Panthers win in the NFC South. Can't say I feel great about my Falcons win in the NFC South.

Won the game, which was great. Thank you, Jesse Bates, for generating three turnovers by yourself. Doing your best Jordan Whitehead impersonation. Ritter, like, Ritter looks like the water was over his head, right? What Ritter looks at the game was

he could not figure out the pace of the game, right? He throws he was way too late, you throws he was way too He looked like a mess back there. And I mean, that's one thing. The other thing was how fast the Shepherds' crook was. I mean, they yanked this offense out of Ritter's hands as fast as you possibly could.

As that, all right, a couple bad throws, took a bad sack. We're going to throw the ball behind the line of the rest of the game. Third and eight tosses. Mario, all over again. I mean, they... Marioita game plan. I just don't understand what that is from, like, a development.

Like, if that's how you're going to treat your quarterback, then why did you do third round rookie and Taylor Heineke? Go get a guy. This is not, it's, I don't love what I saw in week one, but hey,

we're one and oh. So, you know, we got a little insurance here. But you wouldn't change that because if you changed that, you would have to pick someone else. Like,

did you like what you saw from the Saints and up or somebody else? And oh, buddy, Saints fans are taking a walk this week. Saints fans are like, who we did it.

Here we go. Derek Carr's good. You beat the Titans by less than a touch. down. I don't know. We got a, let's get a couple of games under our belt before we know that like a turnover riddled mistake-addled, you know, whiz-bang of a game is not actually like something that's really too pretendable. The other thing, which I think I would, that would be the thing I would change. These Eagles top five defense. I believe they would be so on the back of their pass rush and their

corner and their outside corners. I'm pleased to report all of those look great. I got Howie Rose been pills and I just thought linebackers and safetys don't matter at all. And it turns out, turns out, man, those four players can be pretty easily picked on by Bill O'Brien and Mack Jones, can't they? Eagles play on Thursday night against Kurt Cousins and the Vikings.

James Rabber in the Concussion Protocol. I tell you, this line is seven and a half points. Eagles are the favorite. I don't know about that. That's a hefty line for the defensive performance that I just saw against the Patriots. I am worried about the Seagulls defense. Yeah, that'll be an interesting one because the Vikings

has some injuries on their offensive line as well. And like you mentioned, the bright spot for the Eagles was that those young T-tackles, Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, and then even Josh Sweat on the edge all looked great in week one. So it has to be one of those old-school Eagles games where it's like nothing else matters except these guys are going to hit the quarterback a lot and that's going to be enough for a double-digit victory. Kirk Cousins, time to throw of 1.3 seconds.

inbound. Yeah, he used to do that when he was with Washington to the. It was pretty consistently there. So we'll see what happens in that Thursday night game. All right. Do we have any how? I feel like we had some housekeeping. Now, those who listen to the Friday show, Ben, you need to still pick a, we've gotten a lot of listeners for those wondering, a lot of expats. Thank you to everyone who sent in a spreadsheet to keep track of our Friday show wagers. Solac will now get a chance to catch his breath, hopefully in the next two days after writing 400 things and doing 700 podcasts. And you will get a chance to look at those spreadsheets and you'll pick a winner, correct? Yeah, I figured I would announce the winner on Friday when we go. We update, see how we did it on the Friday episode with our predictions. We make our predictions for week two. We did have a listener, by the way, send in a spreadsheet, say they wanted to track it, and then also go, I don't know what an expat is. So as a reminder, that's what we call people who listen to this show.

We decided that one episode, and we haven't updated it since. No, reminders. So expats are listeners. No, and then our root and team, Green Bay Packers are, want to know, baby. Go Pack, Go. Ben, good about the North. Obviously, bears are posers. Vikings lost without blocks.

We're doing great. We're doing good with the Packers. And then there was one more question about whether there's a video version of the show. There's not. But you know what? We're posting a lot of video clips. So we've got... On the talk, baby.

Yeah, we got Ringer NFL on Instagram and it's TikTok, right? Ben, I've heard you are a rising TikTok star. That was my fellow check. That was my dollar check. I know what TikTok is. It is pronounced as it spelled, my friend. You can't pull that one. So did you get, what's your handle?

There's handles, I presume. At Benjamin Solek, baby. There you go. On all the socials. This is where the kids are, doing the kid thing and then dance and stuff. It's going to be great. Can't wait.

There you go. Ben had a great video from the Thursday night game that I enjoyed the Lions, Jared Gough, Matthews. Would have had a nice video off of Jets bills if ESPN would show any alternative camera angles. Well, producers, broadcasters, help a guy out. There you go.

Solex just taking chats at everyone here. And I post the video clips on, I still do Instagram. I don't know if that's cool, old, young, or whatever. But at Shield Capadia, we'll post those also. So there you go. And that's all the housekeeping. We will have Stephen Ruiz and Nora Pinciotti on the next episode on this feed. And then Solac and I will be back on Friday with our picks, predictions, props, all that for

week too. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Ben Solek. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal. We will talk to everyone later this week. Must be 21 plus and president slash states. Fandwell is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem. Call 100 gambler or visit fandle.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia. Call 100 next step or text next step to 5-3-3-3-3. 4-2 in Arizona. 1-88-78-9-7-7-7-7 or visit ccpgagg.org slash chat in Connecticut.

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