The Ringer NFL Show - Kenny Pickett Stays Afloat, New England Is the Worst-Coached Team In the AFC East, the Ravens Are Fine, and More Big Takeaways from Week 12 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: November 29, 2022

Ben and Sheil get together to share their reactions to the Steelers' gritty win over the Colts on 'Monday Night Football.' They then take a close look at the fraudulent Bucs and throw some cold water on the Seahawks' fluctuating success story (8:46). Next, Sheil shows us how Bill Belichick is leading the Patriots astray, and Ben lets us know that the Ravens and Lamar Jackson are going to be great going forward despite their stumble versus the Jaguars on Sunday (30:08). Finally, they debate their top seven playoff contenders, and Ben gives us the weekly extra point (57:07). Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mac Jones is ripped. Matt Patricia's calling plays. The Celtics are title favorites. And The Ringer has a new Boston show. I'm Brian Barrett, host of Off the Pike, the show covering all things Boston sports. I'll have shows multiple times a week covering your favorite teams and with your favorite ringer and local guests. Plus, maybe Bill will stop by to rant about the socks. Follow off the pike with me, Brian Barrett, now on Spotify.

To Extra Point Taken, I'm Shield Capade. As always, joined by Ben Solac on the Ringer NFL feed. every week after Monday night football where we watched the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin as an underdog, never bet against Mike Tomlin as an underdog. Steelers beat the Colts 24 to 17 in a game that made Troy Aikman just. I mean, he looked like he was sick to his stomach watching that Colts passing offense. I don't know that I've ever heard him that harsh. I feel I'm so sad.

I had no audio on for this fun. I was working. I was catching up on stuff. so I had the TV on mute. Apparently, I got on Twitter after I was, I finished prepping for the pond. I was like, man, it seems like I missed a legendary Aikman performance.

Yeah, he was disgusted. He called the Colts passing offense dreadful. At one point, he just couldn't fathom how they did not push the ball down field. He was pretty harsh on Matt Ryan. But listen, they have not been a fun team to watch. The Jeff Saturday experiment here. They're one and two now have lost in back-to-back weeks.

The offense hasn't really looked. Much better. So we'll get to that more, more on that game here in a second. If you don't know the drill, here's what we do. We each offer three takes. We don't tell each other what the takes are. Before the show, we surprise each other. And then one of us, it'll be Ben, finishes us off with the extra point taking. Ben, start us off with your take on the game. We just watch Steelers beat the Colts. If I'm the Steelers, I'm feeling pretty good about Kenny Pickett right now. I think that's my main takeaway. Anybody who followed the draft show last year or is a Steelers fan, and as listening to me, knows I wasn't the biggest fan of Kenny coming out of Pitt when the Steelers drafted him. I thought that that was an overuse of a first-round pick,

especially relative to some of the alternatives, I would have taken a bigger swing at the plate. And then early on, when Kenny first started playing, that started against the Eagles, right? Like, you got the sense that this wasn't going to work. And the reason why that was my immediate sentence was because there was a myth around Kenny that Kenny was a older, experienced pocket passer,

dicing up teams with progressions and reads and recognition and changing plays at the line and ball placement, just managing the pocket, going through his progressions, just all the stuff that we typically hear for like cerebral, tall, white quarterbacks. And that's not how Kenny won at Pitt. It isn't. I mean, that's not to say he didn't win.

Like, Kenny was a very solid college player by the end of his career. He was a great college player. He was a Heisman finalist. But when you watch the way he wins, he won with arm talent. He's good at throwing off structure. He had that little sidearm throw to Anthony McFarland on the screen. So he's got arm talent. He's not like a huge long arm.

He's not like a Justin Herbert Cannon or, you know, the zip of a DAC Prescott or whatever. But he has armed talent. And then athleticism. He was able to get outside of the pocket. He would make guys miss, you know, make guys miss you in the pocket, break the pocket, and then be able to break the first angle, you know, Turner scrambled eight yards. Like, that's how he won at Pitt.

And yet because of how he looks and kind of the way that we want pit football to work, the way that we want our pocket passes to work, he kind of got this billing of like this elite processor. And in those early days, and in the first starts that he got and replaced him Mitchell Tribesky, he was trying to do a lot of that.

He was trying to process from the pocket. And he was trying to read stuff out. And they were giving him five in the concept and asking him to kind of work the whole field and just NFL speed was too fast for him. And so he would devolve back into, revert back into that with which he won at Pitt, which is his athleticism, his creation ability. And that is just so much harder than NFL level than the ACC level, right?

If you're just going to, you've got to be a really, really good athlete to win that way in the NFL. You've got to be Justin Fields. You can't be Kenny Pickett. Well, over the course of the last few weeks, they've gotten better at finding passes that he likes. He's got a ton of trust in George Pickens, right? go look at Kenny Pickett's passing charts. You don't see a lot of 20 plus yard, 15 plus yard throws. Now take out all the George Pickens targets.

There are no 15 plus yard throws, right? He knows his guy. He knows where his bread's buttered on that one. He has a lot of trust in him. And then he's more willing to break the bucket. He's more willing to scramble. He's kind of got a little bit more of a green light to go and just say, hey, like right now with where we're at,

you've got to rely on this a little bit. Hopefully over time, over reps, over experience, NFL game slows down. And we want to have to rely on. this as much because a world in which they're calling second and goal from the 10 quarterback draws to Kenny Pickett, which happened in this Colts game.

That's not a world you want to live in. That's a temporary world. That is a bridge world to the world of which Kenny's like dicing it up from the pocket on second and goal from the 10. But they're not there yet. They're not there yet. Pass protection wise.

I don't know if they're there yet as office coordinator wise. But Kenny is very much so keeping his shoulders above water. He is very much keeping himself afloat, doing what he does well, also like challenging himself. and like trying to run the offense the way it needs to be run.

You see some limitations to ball placement. A lot of throws below the waist, below the knees. Like that's someone's got to get cleaned up. There's open receivers that he's a little bit late to see. Like the pass break up to Stephen Sims, slant flat, ball's got to be out. He's a little bit late.

So there's stuff that, you know, if you're watching him, you're not like blown away with him as a rookie, but it's also easy stuff. It's something that's clean up a ball. And so tonight was a good Kenny Pickett. Check in for me,

that Bengals game I thought was really impressive in the first half and the second half he tailed off. In this game, much more solid for, four quarters. Again, I don't think he's, he's blowing the world away. But I think right now you feel good about the fact that, all right, our rookies under control. He's not a liability to us, not killing himself. He doesn't have terrible bad habits. We can continue to build on this. I'm with you. Yeah, he looks competent. And sometimes there are rookies that just look completely

lost, and especially he's so early in his NFL career. And, you know, you're not sure what to expect and you almost don't want to read too much into it when a rookie does look completely lost because it's really hard to play quarterback in the NFL. He looks. like somebody who at least knows what he wants to do on most naps. He's willing to try some difficult throws like you mentioned. He's willing to try to create a little bit out of structure. And, you know, the way he does it, he doesn't have a lot of those plays where, you know, he spins around and it's indecisive and gets crushed. It's sort of like, all right, he decides he's going to break out of the pocket or scramble or whatever. And he goes ahead and he does it.

So the stuff he's missing. And like you said, it's not like, I don't think anyone would argue that this scheme is doing him a bunch of favors where this is like the ideal scenario for a rookie quarterback to come into, even though he's got receiving talent. You know, there are offensive line issues. There's a schematic, offensive coordinator issues. And he looks fine. He looks competent. He looks sort of like he's establishing a high floor. We'll see what his ceiling is in the years ahead. But I'm with you. If I were a Steelers fan, I'd be pretty encouraged by what I've seen so far. It kind of gives you a reason to watch. You know, this is not going to be a playoff team this year, but it's always fun when you're rooting for a team that has a rookie quarterback or a young quarterback.

It allows you to have some hope. And the result here, I know the result of the game is secondary, but I was looking at like just the draft order before this game. And, you know, if the Steelers lost this game where they would be. And, you know, they had a chance to kind of move up there in the draft order. They would have still had, what, three wins. And there are only four teams with three wins or fewer. They were potentially looking at a top five pick. And then I was going, well, if they fall in love with one of those guys. I mean, you know, then you get into all those discussions, but we'll see where they end up.

They obviously like picket enough to use a first round pick on him last year. And the best case scenarios, you just stick with him. He's your guy. And he's kind of not giving you any reason to second guess your decision right now. So I'm with you. Encouraging stuff. If you're a Steelers fan, you still have Tomlin, you have a young quarterback, you have pickings, you have Watt, you have Minka Fitzpatrick.

You know you're going to add some talented pieces. in the offseason. So, hey, it could be the first losing season of the Mike Tomlin era, but there are some things to build on and some reasons to watch here. They're four and seven, so it certainly could be a lot worse. All right, I will get to my first take, Benjamin. I'm going back to Sunday. My take is that the Tampa Bay Bucks are complete frauds. It's over. Don't, don't get I tried. I tried. You know I tried. You did. You did. I'll speak for myself. I'm speaking to myself and maybe to some of you out there, don't get suckered into thinking the NFC is wide open at any point in the next month and don't get suckered into thinking,

well, they still have Tom Brady, they still have some talented pieces, yada, yada, yeah, anybody can make a run. You only have to win a few games. No, that game on Sunday was a pathetic performance by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on so many levels. They had about 400 opportunities to put that game away against the Browns. They failed to score, produce a single point on their final seven possessions against a defense that ranks 30th in DVOA. So that's one thing. The offense, listen, we've had 12 weeks of the offense.

They're 22nd in EPA per drive. They're below average by any metric you want to look out. Now they lose Tristan Wirth, their right tackle to a high ankle sprain. for at least a month or so, it looks like that offense is not getting fixed. That's number one. But what really got to me, irked me about this game was some of the worst clock management you will see in an NFL game. Okay. I've mentioned this before on the show. I feel like I've done a good job, but I've taken a break from going down this path for like a month or so. But when I see something so egregious, I can't help myself. I just got to let it out.

So here's the deal. I don't understand why coaches they sleep in their offices. They don't see their families. Exactly. They neglect everybody in their lives. What are you spending time doing, man? To put together game plans. And if we watch one more, one more reel of film here, maybe we'll pick up on a tendency

that'll help us in a key spot. But you know what? Then it gets to clock management. And some of these coaches, they don't prepare it all. They pay no attention. What am I talking about if you missed the game? The Tampa Bay Bucks get the ball. at their own 25 with 32 seconds left and three timeouts in a tie game.

The game is tied at 17. They throw a screen on first down. They gain a yard. They don't call timeout. The announcers are saying, why aren't they calling timeout? You're sitting on your couch saying, why don't they call timeout? You're watching the game. You're watching Red Zone.

What is going on? Why are they not calling time out? They just call another play. Guess what? Tom Brady finds Julio Jones for 26 yards. Oh, that's good. Maybe you can get into field goal range. Wait, what?

you didn't call time out. There's only eight seconds left. You only have time to run one more play to get into field goal range to potentially kick the game winning field goal. They throw in complete. You go to overtime and you lose the game. I mean, that in and of itself is an absolute disaster, whether it's Tom Brady, whether it's Todd Bowles, whether it's Byron Leftwich, whether it's the combination of the three. I mean, I don't understand how Tom Brady could have played this many games and doesn't just take control in his own hands. I mean, I always refer to the Kansas City Chiefs, people ask, oh, Andy Reid's gotten better in game management. I go, I don't know if that's the case. I know Patrick Mahomes in those situations just takes over and kind of is in full

control of what's happening. So that didn't happen with Tom Brady. And remember, we just saw three weeks ago, this team went 60 yards in 35 seconds with no timeouts and scored a game winning touchdown against the Rams. They literally just had to do something like this three weeks ago. But in that situation, they needed to score a touchdown. There was no overtime. Here, they claim up. They play conservative because they want to play for like a 50-50 chance. In overtime, Todd Boles gets asked about it today. He says, well, we could have thrown an interception. Tom Brady has thrown two interceptions on 470 pass attempts this year. 0.4%. Yes. Hat tip to Greg Alman, who was I first saw mentioned that on Twitter. A 0.4%

risk. You're taking the ball out of the hands of the greatest quarterback we have ever seen play. And you feel better about going to overtime. So that annoyed me. They punted on fourth and two from the Cleveland 37. They punted on fourth and three from midfield. I hated everything about what I saw from the box. It was a performance that made me say, I'm not even thinking about this team in terms of a sleeper in teams of a team that can even win a couple games in the playoffs. They'll probably get in because the NFC South stings. But I am done with this team. The Tampa Bay Bucks are complete frauds. If next week we want to talk about whether Tom Brady's going to play elsewhere next year, whether he's going to retire or what they're going to do, I'm happy to do that because I have

no more time for the 2022 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Frauds. Did you bring up the fact that before they even had that drive, they get the fourth down stop against the Browns and don't take the time out. and let the Browns take 40 more seconds off the clock, right? Like, they just, the word that comes to mind when I think of this Bucks coaching staff, it's after the game I said that I can't recall a time which a coaching staff collectively did more to ensure their team didn't win the game than the Buccaneers did against the Browns, which like, that sounds dramatic. But in games in which a coaching staff actively makes the team lose,

like we tend to think of the Mike McCarthy against the 49ers quarterback draw thing, where it's like one play, I could very clearly see how this lost the game bang. cumulative over the course of 60 minutes, the way they weren't able to run the football, after running it wonderfully on the first drive against the Brown's defense on whom everybody has run the football, unacceptable.

The way that they continue to live on just, okay, Mike Evans' verticals, Mike Evans' verticals, and there's no variety in their passing game. It, where we 12, right? Like the broadcast was giving Byron Leftwich Flowers for being like, well, we looked at our team and realized we're a little bit better

with our gap runs than we are with our zone runs. We're going to call a little more gap. it's late November, Chief. You don't get flowers for this. Clock's been ticking. You've got to figure this stuff out much faster. The word that comes to mind is calcified. Todd Bowles and Byron Lefich are positive that they understand football.

And they've been positive since 2008. And they haven't updated, right? It's it's floppy disk mentality, right? Like Todd Bowles with the interception, like, oh, Tom might have thrown a pick, is such classic when you pass the football. football, three things can happen and two of them can be bad, right? That old coaching adage. Anytime you make any decision on a football field, a good or a bad thing can happen.

There is not a single victory formation. And even then, you've got to get the snap right. It's the only play where there's no alternative. So the unwillingness to update approaches to the game relative to the talent you have, the talent you don't have, the talent you're missing, Tristan Worf's goes out and you leave the stone cold left tackle on an island against Miles Garrett on the ensuing play. The unwillingness to update and to change the approach relative to talent you have,

talent you don't, and to a changing league where, sure, Tom could throw a pick, but every other team in this context from, you know, freaking Aaron Rogers and Patrick Mahomes down to like Mike White are letting their quarterbacks throw in this context, we are in a different era. You have to decide to update the way you think about ball.

Like the first and 10 runs into play action pass. Perfect example. Somebody like football coaches decided in the 2000s you had to run to set up the play action. And then over the course of the last 10 years of football,

we've seen everybody just run more play action year after year and find success with it when the running game is good, when it's bad, when they establish it, when they don't establish it. And Byron Lefich, every single week, sits at the pressuring and goes,

EPA, and they ain't never heard of EPA, you have to run the ball to run play action, and then they just bang their head into the same wall. They're calcified. They've decided how football works, and then they put on blinders for the last 15 years. And it's very disappointing because both of them,

left which on offense and bowls on defense, do really cool things. They're good coaches. Their players are well coached. They understand their scheme. They execute well. It's just if you just updated the software, you'd be in the modern era,

and you'd win a lot more football games. Very, very disappointing. coaching tab. Bruce Ariens stepped away and so many of the holes that he was covering up in this coach and in this in this coaching room in Tampa Bay became exposed to the sunlight. And it's very sad to see. And Bruce Ariens was not a good, it was not good with clock management and game management. I mean, he famously, you know, once I believe through the challenge flag, even though he knew it was the wrong call just because he felt like he needed to, you know, it was like an irrational, angry thing to do. I mean, that's why I thought moving to Bowles, I thought could be an upgrade because that was one area where they weren't very good.

And Brady's got to take some responsibility too. I mean, Brady didn't play well in this game. And for a guy, he's, what, 45 years old, you would think in those situations, he would just be able to take over. It's just a matter of giving all the things you do to put yourself in a position to win a football game and then to do make decisions that are this egregious in the heat of the moment. And then to give bad explanations afterwards, you're not helping your players. you're not helping your team. You're not helping yourself win these games. And again, that was just one game and that was just one aspect of it.

Everything about this team pretty much annoys me at this point. But this was the week where I felt like I really had to get it off my chest. A take I almost have it. I didn't have because I've already harped on them too much is that I'm officially ready to give out the medal for missed opportunity. Most missed opportunity team of 2022. I don't know how to grammar it, but whatever. It belongs to the Atlanta.

Falcons. The division was sitting there, man. All you had to do was either A, in the offseason, choose to get a real quarterback, or B, use the players, Kyle Pitts, Drake, London, that you have selected in lieu of getting a real quarterback.

All you had to do was handle your business against the Saints. Handle your business against the Bucks, which like Grady, Jared roughly in the past or notwithstanding. All you had to do was just be a regular freaking football team. But they're the Atlanta Falcons and they couldn't do it. The talent that they have, how well coached they are, like the young players that have excelled for them.

Man, like Tampa, weak. The Saints, weak. Like, Panthers not real. The NFC South was winnable. Justin Fields in Atlanta is a pretty good, pretty good what if, right? I mean, in that scheme, look at what. Look at how they performed with Mario da quarterback. You look at that run game and how they've schemed it up.

Oh, that hometown kid. Right. Like, he didn't just play the best game, but 2022. Matt Ryan in this offense? The Falcons are winning the South. I don't know if I agree with that. Just don't openly court to Sean Watson and kick your 15-year franchise quarterback out the door on the process.

How much better are you trying to tell me right now Marcus Marriota is than Matt Ryan in this era? No, you're telling me Matt Ryan is significantly better. Yes. I don't know that he's significantly better than Marcus Mariotta. This version of Ryan? This version of Mariotta? Yeah, they both stink.

That's what I'm saying. Eight accurate passes a game. All right. All right. What is your good detour there? What's your second take? So Tampa Bay, as you brought up officially out, the totally frauds. One of the reasons why I think some people were back on the wagon was because of the

win against the Seahawks. And I'm here to say with Seattle, it was fun. It's still going on. It's still great vibes. We might need to pump the brakes just a little bit. This is not a genot tape. Gino is, in my opinion, playing as well as he was when he kind of took a league by storm. They're having success throwing the football.

They throw the ball on key third and ones on key fourth and twos. Like, like, they trust him so much with the offense. He makes plays out of structure. He makes plays while he's getting hit. He's got arm telling. He trusts his receivers. The offense passing game, those weapons, Kenneth Walker, all that's still working. Defensively, there was that lovely little stretch there where it felt like the Seahawks had solved defense, right?

They talked a lot about this. There was coverage on this. It was really interesting in terms of they're walking out and they're playing more of the Fangio fronts. That's what Clint hurt. Their new defensive coordinator has been their defensive line coach. It's what he majored in. That's what he came up in.

And so he's going to kind of know that a little bit better. And they're trying to get that to work. And they just couldn't get the plane off the ground. They're constantly getting gashed in the running games. They said, you know what? We're going to switch up the fronts. Week 5, we're going to start changing the way we play. And they started to have success on defense.

And it was just the final cherry on top of what all of a sudden was a competitive team, right? So they lose that Saints game 39, 32 in week five, and then week six, hold the Cardinals to nine points, win. Week seven, hold the charges, 23 points, win. Week eight, hold the Giants to 13 points, win. Week nine, hold the Cardinals to 21 points, win. The last two weeks, they've lost to Tampa,

21 to 16, in a game where 21 doesn't seem like a lot, but the Bucks were having a lot of success moving the football, add the bi-week, and then they lost this game 40 to 34 to the Las Vegas Raiders, most notably on a massive Josh Jacobs, carry in overtime. Over those three weeks, it's two weeks for the Seahawks, but over those three weeks,

they're the worst defense by EPA for play surrendered. Overall in the season right now, they are 19th in defense of DVOA. They're just the deficit in talent is just a little bit too much, right? I think that, I think the Niners are seven and four. They've established themselves at the top of the division.

The Seahawks are six and five. They're still very much in the wildcard hunt. But as you pointed out this week, on Twitter, four divisional winners, and then whoever from Dallas and Philadelphia doesn't win the division, those five playoff spots are pretty much set. It's Seattle, it's the Giants,

and it's Washington, weirdly, who are just sitting around enough, three teams left for these two final wildcard spots. And we kind of had all decided when the Seahawks were sitting pretty there at six and three, like, yeah, Seahawks are going to make it. This defense is a bit of a problem. This is a very,

weak unit in terms of they have issues fit in the run with their linebackers. They miss Jamal Adams, who is such an important player for them stepping down into the box and being that extra player. Kobe Bryant's playing the nickel for them. I like Kobe Bryant. He's just clearly learning on his feet.

He's a rookie. Defensive line, they have a great rotation. They've got depth and they have good role players. They don't really have that one takeover player in the middle. Quinn Jefferson has been that, but he's not been that recently. Puna forward.

I wish was that more consistent. I love Puna, but he's not. Shelby Harris, like good pass breakup guy. They're all kind of like really nice role players. There's no one really hang your hat on. And they just are starting to be weak up the middle. The bucks killed them with play action passes. The Raiders just killed them with running game and quick game.

Just like classic Derek cards, like easy pitch and catch game for them. They face the Rams and they face the Panthers in the upcoming weeks. Handle your business. You should beat the Rams. The Rams are going to be playing me at three different positions like this. The injuries here are unbelievable. And then the Panthers who like, got the Sam Donald bump,

but they can't keep doing this thing where they just put in a new quarterback and get a bump from him. It'd be amazing, but I don't think they will. Maybe they could. That would be fun. A new quarterback every week, the rest of the season. Handle your business, and you're sitting there at 8 and 5,

and you should be okay. But San Francisco, Kansas City, New York Jets, weeks 15, 16, and 17, there are some losses left on Seattle's schedule. And Washington and the commanders, or excuse me, Washington and the Giants are both nothing to sneeze at.

You look at those schedules, they're going to win some. some games too. So for as fun as the Seattle, honeymoon was, and for as certain as we were, that this team was going to be a wildcar team. And for how surprising and exciting as that was, yeah, it's still a young roster. They still are kind of like Jerry Riggin this defense together live in person, you know, in living color, week in and week out. And you're seeing kind of the lulls and the swells of that. It's even offensive tackles in other spot. Like Abe Lucas and Charles Cross have played outside of their minds. Abe Lucas has been incredible. Third round pick out of

Washington State. Max Crosby took his lunch money for four quarters. It's still a rookie tackle. For as good as he's been, it's still got that. And that, I think, puts Seattle in a vulnerable spot relative to this really, really deep NFC wildcard race.

So love Seattle, love Gino. All that's great. And doesn't take away anything. Pete's the man. The overachieving of the Seattle Seahawks feels like it might be kind of settling to more so where we expected it to be. I think that's fair.

I'm still in on them. I still, the Giants of Commanders are not making the playoffs. over this Seahawks team. This Seahawks team is better than both those teams. They're going to have some ups and downs. They have young players.

It was ugly. 576 yards of offense. Yikes! And it felt every bit of that, by the way, as you were watching the game, you're just like, they have no chance of getting a stop. Anywhere here,

Raiders run for 283 on them. Jacobs has 229. And I think the big concern here is up front for the Seahawks. When you look at the last two games specifically, you mentioned it. The pass rush has been non-existent. I mean, that's why I got duped in a little bit with the bucks in that Germany game. I'm going, oh, look, Brady's got some time.

They're moving the ball very consistently. Maybe they can come back. Well, that turned out that had more to do with the Seahawks lack of pass rush than anything the Bucks were doing. And that was the case in this game, too. I mean, they got gashed in the run, and then they had no pass rush to get to Derek Carson. So that's my concern. Yeah, I don't think it's a great defense. You're right. They had that stretch there where you felt like, ooh, they've got these young players and they figured some things out and their defense is playing way better than it did the first few weeks of the season. And now it's kind of back to where it was the first few weeks of the season. So I think they're going to be ups and downs there. The offense shows up pretty much every week. I mean, even when they have turnovers, even when they have bad games, they're not like these horrible games that you see some of these offenses have. Like I just mentioned with the bucks where you're punting six times in a row or seven times in a row like you

can kind of only hold them back for so long with those negative plays. So I still think they're in pretty good shape. You know, there are two and four in one score games, even the last two losses. Those have been both been one score games. They've only had one loss that's been by more than seven points all season long. And that was in week two against the 49ers. They only tie break against the Giants. Don't forget about that. So if they tie with the Giants, they're going to be in on account of head-to-head record. And as you said, they get the Rams twice and the Panthers the rest of the way.

So even if they were to lose to the Niners, the Chiefs and the Jets, they still get to 9 and 8. If they can win one of those games, that gets them to 10 and 7. So they just have to beat out one of those NFCE teams, the Giants or the commander.

So listen, I agree with what you're saying. I think they do. Yeah. It's hard when you have so many young players. When you're relying on so many rookies, you're right. We probably should, you know, maybe we did see it coming,

but the Seahawks were really fun. So who wants to put rain on the parade and be like, well, this isn't going to last. They're playing. No, it's fun. They were a fun team. They're going to have ups and downs. They'll probably lose one of these games they're supposed to win.

I still believe in them. I still think they're making the playoffs. And what was true about the Seahawks at the beginning of the season is even more true now, despite the fact that they've kind of crashed earth in terms of the quality of their play, which is they're an extremely young team that's like getting better and coalescing week over week, and they're going to have one of the most valuable traffics available because the Broncos won't stop losing football games, right? And so, yeah, like the, I'll put it to you this way.

I did, like, I did the work. I watched the film. I did the numbers. I was like, man, the Seahawks might be in trouble. And then I saw it they still get to play the Rams two times. I was like, ah, it'll probably be okay. Like, you get those two games, Bill Bryce Perkinsel, John Wolfer, no Aaron Donald, no Cooper Cup.

you're probably going to be all right. So I think, yeah, there's enough wins here that they're like clearly still a playoff team. Then they kind of enter like, you got to win shootouts with Gino mode, which I mean, I'd love to see it. Seahawks win a playoff game over like Tampa or something, right? Kind of the Germany revenge game where Gino poor's 30 on them. It'd be sick to sick. We got to talk about that quarterback situation in one of the weeks ahead because, yeah, oh my gosh, they're going to end the fourth overall pick if the season ended today.

Gino's a free agent. Gino's 33 years old. Oh, baby, some off-season quarterback dominoes. You know, that's my favorite topic to talk about once we get there. But we're not going to rush it right now. We still got games to talk about. I know where I land, but I will say nothing. I want to save a little tease for a future extra points.

Just good podcasting. All right. My second take. I was debating on how to say this one. So maybe I come in a little too strong here. Those are always the toughest ones for the shows. And you know what you have. but like the one-liner is really tough to land.

I decided to just come in hot and let it rip here. So my take is that the Patriots are the worst coach team in the AFC East right now. I don't know if that's controversial or not. The dolphins, they're in first place. Yeah. Might be the coach of the year. I mean, he's done one of the best coaching jobs all season. The bills, they've outscored their opponents by a league best 110 points.

They're among the Super Bowl favorites. They had a new offensive coordinator. They've had injuries and they're still right there. the Jets, they're 7 and 4, and they've had one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL for much of the season. They've still produced the top five defense. They make the sort of hard, controversial quarterbacks, which they've already exceeded expectations here at 7 and 4. I think they're over under coming into the season was what, like 5 and a half or something. And then I look at the Patriots right now, and I look at that game on Thanksgiving. And maybe it was Thanksgiving.

I don't know if everyone was falling asleep by that point in the night. or, you know, Friday, you're watching that, watching the U.S. in the World Cup. But, I mean, they botched that game so, so badly. And some of the clock management stuff I just talked about with the Bucks, that applies to the Patriots. End of the first half. Vikings have a second in goal from the one-yard line. They don't get in.

Bill Belichick has three timeouts. He doesn't use any of them. The whistle blows at 154. He lets the clock tick down to one. 129 before calling timeout, wasting roughly 35 seconds. So now the Vikings score a touchdown on third down. You have two timeouts in the ball at your own 25-yard line. Hunter Henry makes a catch, rumbles down the right sideline, doesn't go out of bounds.

He couldn't have had an easier path to get out of balance. He doesn't go out of balance. And you might be yelling at me. Shield, that's Hunter Henry. That's not Bill Belichick. Well, guess what? If we're going to give, as you mentioned, as you give Bill Belichick flowers when, you know, these other teams have, you know, anytime somebody reaches the ball over the goal line and it gets knocked out and you're, oh, you know, Bill Belichick, he, oh, he doesn't let his players do that. His teams never do that. Okay. Well, you're responsible for your players execution. That's the fundamentals of coaching. So they have Henry do that. Then Mack Jones moves them right down the field, but he slides down and he takes a sack instead of throwing the ball away. So now you have to use a another timeout. So now you use your last timeout. You have no timeouts. You get a completion

in the middle of the field, but you can only take one shot at the end zone after spiking the football and you have to settle for a field goal. Ideally, if you wouldn't have screwed up those three things called timeout earlier when the Vikings had the ball, gotten Hunter Henry out of bounds, Mac Jones throwing the ball away, you would have had two more shots at the end zone. And by the way, what ended up being a one possession game. So that is something. I don't think it's just typical. I don't think it's just this one game. I don't think it's the exception.

I think they've had sloppy moments throughout this season. They allowed a kickoff return for a touchdown in that game. They had the running into the kicker penalty that led to the game winning touchdown. They had three personal fouls on defense. They wasted a down in the red zone because the play clock was winding down and Mack Jones kind of just threw it away because they rushed to play. I mean, that was a huge game for their playoff chances. Now, were they on the wrong end of some calls?

I know if you're a Patriots fan listening to this, you're saying, hey, what about? Yes, absolutely. But you know what? They're not talented enough to, like, overcome those issues. Like, their edge has always been, hey, they're going to be the better coach team, the more disciplined team. They're not going to beat themselves. They're going to let the opponent beat themselves. And that's not what happened in that game.

I mean, Vikings certainly deserve some credit there, but the Patriots did a lot in that game to beat themselves. So, listen, there were some positives to take out of it. I thought Mack Jones and the offensive line looked pretty much better than they've looked all season long. But they've got the bills on Thursday night here. And the Patriots are not slated to make the playoffs right now. If you look at kind of the betting odds, they're around 40%. They've got the bills. If they lose that game, they fall to 23 and 22 in the post-Tom Brady era.

And they're potentially looking at a situation where they're not even making the playoffs this season. So, again, it's not all on the coaching. Part of it's on the way the roster's been built. That's always tricky in New England because the same guy is making all those decisions. But they need coaching to give them an edge. And I don't feel like that's really happened in a lot of games this year, except for when they're basically playing the Jets. And it certainly didn't happen last week.

And they're kind of the worst position team in that division, both in the short term and the long term. I get where you're at with this one. I struggle with it. That Vikings game was poor execution. poor coaching across the board. But it was very notable because it was a Belichick coach team, right? Like, they had multiple in sports like conduct penalties, they had procedural penalties. They had bust and coverage.

They had dudes like falling over, like running into each other. It was just like this looks like a very sloppy football team. That matters less to me when it's not Bill Belichick coaching it. When it was Bill Belichick coaching, I was like, oh, this is really notable, right? It still feels like a one-off. So that aspect of it, execution, you know, like sloppiness, miscommunication, bad penalties. That to me is like surprising.

That feels more like, wow, that happened for the Vikings game. Like when they were playing the Jets two weeks ago, that game was on razor margins, right? It was a one score game the whole time. None of the offenses were moving. And the Patriots out executed, right? Like, you know, they're generating turnovers and they're winning in special teams, the third phase. Like, all that's like, oh, co-drink.

Then there's the second half of it, which is like the schematic aspect. And that's where definitely offensively, they're falling behind, right? The bills are great schematic offensively. The dolphins are literally the king, the gods of all men, schematically right now. And then the Jets, Michael has been doing an awesome job with that offense.

Yeah. During Zach Wilson and now without Zach Wilson. The Patricia thing was always a joke and remains a joke, right? Especially like watching the offense, they called for Bailey Zappy, and then they don't really call that offense for Mack. Like Mac before the Vikings game was like two for 11, throwing the ball more than 10 yards down the field,

my thought like ludicrously terrible numbers. Then he exploded during the Vikings game. Like, where has this been? Like, why was this so difficult to unlock? So I, the schematic aspect of it, absolutely. Like, offensively, I think they're deficient there. Defensively, I think they're still really well coached. Personnel-wise, and this is always the issue with Belichick,

they're kind of a weird bunch. But that's been the case for Bill. You know what I mean? Like, it's a difficult thing to parse. Do you put that on coaching because Belichick is the coach, or do you put that on roster management because Belichick also wears the hat of the general manager?

I don't know. If they play two more games over the next three weeks like that Vikings game where they're just like constantly shooting themselves in the foot and looking uncharacteristically patriots, then to me I'm in more of a spot. I'm like, why?

Like, what's going on in New England? Like, why is this such a mess? That Thursday game, I'm willing to say, is a blip on a radar given just what Belichick's put together over the course of his career. I think they've been a little sloppier

overall. You're right. That, all of that, compounding in one game that really stood out. I think they've had some issues throughout the year. I struggle with their defense and this is with a lot of defenses knowing how much is it a good defense? How much is it the opponents that you're facing? I mean, they face Zach Wilson twice and Sam Ellinger once. Those were three standout performances. Now they had good performances against the Browns, the Lions earlier this year so you can't discount those. So we'll see here down the stretch, they've got the bills, they've got the Raiders who have been a pretty good

offensive team recently. They've got the dolphins. They've got the bills again. They've got the bangles. So listen, they've got one, two, three, four, five, six games left. And I would say five of those offenses are, you know, strong to very strong starting with Thursday night. That's a huge game for the Patriots on Thursday night and really could have sort of ripple effects in terms of what direction they're going to go in in the off season based on how competitive they are, whether if they can pull off the upset against the Buffalo bills. I didn't know this was going to be a take. I thought this was like a funny thing,

and then it turns out it's not a funny thing, so now I've got to make it a take. The Ravens are fine. The Ravens are not, not fine. There's things that are bad with the Ravens, but the Ravens are fine. This has been my favorite game over the course of the season, and we got to play it again with the Ravens' loss to the Jaguars.

So here's some win probability stats from the Ravens' four losses this year. They're seven and four. Lost to the Dolphins with eight minutes left, the Ravens were a 98% chance by ESPN's win probability to win the game. In other words, the Dolphins had a 2% chance to win. Later, they would go on to lose to the bills. Six and a half minutes left at the fourth quarter, first and goal from the 10, 9-yard game from the Ravens,

73% chance to win the game. Bills have a 27% chance to win that football game. Third loss to the Giants. Three minutes left in the fourth quarter, Baltimore's up. third and one. 85% chance for the Ravens to win the game. And then last and certainly not least, two minutes left, second and 10,

Trevor Lawrence, strip sack loss of 11 yards. The Baltimore Ravens have a 99% chance, according to ESPN win probability, to win this game against the Jaguars. I ran the numbers with a 2% chance for the dolphins to win, 27% chance for the bills to win, 15% chance for the Giants to win, and then that 1% chance for the Jaguars to win,

the likelihood of all four of those events happening is 0.00081% so long as I did the multiplication correct. The likelihood of just one happening, of those four events, of just one happening, just one loss in those four, is only 45% less than a coin flip. When we talk about wins and losses

are decided by like the thinnest of margins in the NFL, The ball bounces your way, wrong way one time you lose a game. The 2022 Baltimore Ravens are the poster child for this phenomenon. Now, the scary and difficult reality of the Ravens is that 7-4-7-4, you're not tied with the Bengals. You might not get a home playoff game. Eventually the things matter. It makes it more difficult to win.

So the Ravens are fine in the sense that they're not getting blown out. They're not, you know, like losing huge games to extremely bad teams. they should be beating, so on and so forth. It's just their suffering coin flips. But the later we get in the season, the more, if you have a loss in your loss column, you have a loss in your loss column. That's going to matter for seeding.

It's going to matter for the team you play in the playoffs. It's going to make your path to the Super Bowl harder or easier. The other thing about the Ravens is that in this game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, in which they had a 99% chance to win the game, third and 21 and they don't get the stop. Well, the Ravens had six targets to Josh Oliver. They had five targets to Devin, Uvernay, three targets to Deshaun Jackson, three targets to Patrick Ricard, and four targets

to DeMarcus Robinson. Josh Oliver and DeMarcus Robinson both dropped touchdowns in this game. The Josh Oliver won, you can like, if you really try, convince yourself it's not a drop, but it's a drop. Mark Andrews also who like Mark Andrews has at least one unbelievably boneheaded drop per game for such a talented player. He can't stop doing this. Also dropped the ball in the end zone.

They have opportunities to win these games that they aren't able to think. finish. And it's a lot because they are deficient in the passing game. They have poor goal goal line designs. They don't trust their running game as much in the red zone as they should. This is the same skeletons in the closet, the same issues for the Ravens that we've seen under Greg Roman in the past with the way they've decided to build this team. So it's not to say the Ravens don't have warts. They do. The Ravens' warts, however, would be exactly the same if they were seven and four versus eight and three versus nine and two versus 10 and one. And I'm here to tell you, like over the course of the games the Ravens have played,

outcomes like eight and three and nine and two are more likely than an outcome of seven and four where the Ravens have found these creative ways to lose these games. Also, again, like, I don't think it's coaching, because I think we know John Harbaugh is a really good coach. Like, yeah, he, you know, went for the fourth goal against the bills and didn't get it and they won on a field goal, but that decision over time is going to bear out win probability.

It's going to be a positive decision. So it's not a coaching issue. It's not like, like, you know, like, all Lamar is not clutch issue. Like, inevitably, those sorts of things happen. it's just an issue of winning in the NFL is really hard. And it just takes one bad balance for you to all of a sudden fumble a game that you'd a good chance of winning. Baltimore is a very good team.

Baltimore is a contending team in the AFC. Baltimore is a Super Bowl caliber team on the back of their quarterback alone, let alone an approving defense and a quality head coach. They have their warts. Same warts they've always freaking had that they can't freaking figure out, but they're fine. And just because they're losing some knucklehead games doesn't mean they're not. You're making your,

I disagree. face. Well, no, I think because I think those who listen to the show regularly or who have read my work in the past would probably expect Shield to come in and say, yeah, of course. They're getting it's bad luck. They're second in DVOA. I mean, you know, every metric you look at tells you this is a good, exactly what you just said. They're on the wrong end of some luck in a bunch of these games. They've happened four times this season and it's going to turn. They're still a very good team. My eyes tell me that I don't, I'm not in on this Ravens team. I watch this Ravens team and I say, what do they do that I trust? What do they do that I really, all right, that's, yeah,

okay, but you just, okay, that's fine, but you literally, and this, this, I'm so like this discussion, it feels like it's been going to go on for 10 years. laid out the reasoning for why you're not going to get like the best version that max or like the pieces the scheme the play calling the surrounding talent i mean they're they're relying on a 62-yard bomb to deshawn jackson to win the game in the fourth quarter you just mentioned the other names there are no reinforcements coming in like there aren't there aren't great players who are going to be healthy down the stretch for this offense we're going to be having the same conversation about this offense in weeks 13 14 15 16 16

17, 18, playoffs. Whenever, every time we talk about the Ravens, we're having the same conversations about why, sort of this version of the team with whether it's the, you know, you mentioned Greg Roman or the surrounding cast is not going to be good enough where you can really trust this offense. I mean, I don't trust, you trust this offense? I mean, what they did against the Panthers,

I do not. I absolutely do not trust this offense. I don't see how you can watch that game against the Panthers two weeks ago and say, you trust this offense. I don't think, see how you could lay out the issues, you just lay it out and then say you could trust this offense. So that's one side of the ball. And then defensively, I mean, they just got cooked for two 75-yard drives in the fourth quarter by the Jacksonville Jackuars. And they've got some good pieces and they have stretches where they look really good.

But I'm not putting them their defense on the same level as some of like the elite defenses that we've seen in the NFL that can really carry you far. So any given week, the Ravens can win a game and a bunch. bunch of different ways. It can be Lamar taking over. It can be the defense having a great performance. It can be special teams. It can be John Harbaugh, giving them an edge with his in-game coaching decisions. But there is like a panic and a stress and an anxiety to this team. And that might be the result of all those losses. You just mentioned that when I watched them, I say, you remember when Lamar was having the MVP season? This was such a fun team. And I guess it's the ringers. I guess they fought the vibes were off the charts. I mean, they were released.

video is every week and everybody. Now it almost feels like, and again, this is probably sounds like a non-analytical answer, but in these high-stress situations, I don't trust them. And then you have like, this has nothing to do with the on-field performance, but Lamar's contract has sort of hung over this entire season. And that can be a real thing where he's got a lot on the line one way or another, where he's trying to convince the team, this is what I'm worth. And the team is saying, well, we love you, but we don't think that's what you're worth. And then there's the, you know, he's getting, now he's answering questions about a Twitter feud. He's getting into, like, I know all this. That was hilarious. That was the funniest thing I've ever seen. That,

to me, that increases the vibes. That's good news. I don't know about that. So you have all these different, I don't know. I don't, I don't see this team and look at them on the same level as you do. I understand the analytical argument for it. But I feel like there's a lot of stuff that just sort of feels like it's going on there that can go wrong and does go wrong any given week for them. Have they put together a complete game? Like what's been their best game this season where you just looked at them and go, all right, that's a performance where you look like a Super Bowl contender. I mean, I don't think they've had a game like that yet this season. Like, I mean, I would say their Buffalo game was that. And like, they lose the game. But the point is like,

the lot of these losses are noisy. I would say that is emphatic. I would say their Saints game, but was a demonstration of that. The Dolpherson. game with what we know about the dolphins now. I mean, they're the, they're the only team to, to touch the two of dolphins. They absolutely 100% unequivocally,

whatever it was, 15%, or 98%. I mean, for three quarters, and then it ended up being like the best offensive performance in the NFL all four quarters, they busted multiple coverages with a rookie safety starting 100% of the snacks.

What? That doesn't count. Yeah, that counts. Those things count. They give up 547 yards that game. They count. Once it's single elimination, once they're in playoff times,

when it's like, all right, like, you know, if only is unjust for candies and nuts. In terms of establishing a team as a contender, absolutely, I rate that game against the dolphins extremely highly. They more than any team this year, by a mile more than any team this year, showed answers to the Tua lead dolphins for a substantial period of time. And then they busted two coverages that became 14 points on third downs.

It's, it, that stuff is, is noisy. I don't know. When your defense is their defense in week two in a game, they allowed 547 yards and 42 points. That is not strong enough of a defense for me. Three quarters, I mean, fourth quarter, they got cooked. Okay, so let's do this. You brought up the Panthers game, right? They win that game 13 to 3.

They were 1 and 4 in Red Zone trips. They were very solid defensively. They struggled to move the football offensively at a ton of three-outs. The Chiefs against the Rams this past week, Bryce Perkins led Rams without Cooper Cup, 26 total points. They were 1 in 6 in their Red Zone attempts. They only had scoring drives late in the game

because Bryce Perkins went interception into interception to set up two more field goals. This game was 20 to 10 in the fourth quarter. That sort of a game to me would be like, all right, I rate that game the same way I rate that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is a terrible argument. The Chief's resume has a 20-point win

over the 49ers. It has, I mean, they're blowing, they have the best offense in the leagues. I mean, I have no questions about their offense at all. They have a pedigree. They have a Super Bowl under their belt. They've gotten to, I mean, like, come on, the history is completely different for that team than the Ravens. If they have a sleepy game against the Rams that they still win by 16 points, like, I don't put any stock into that. I think it's different for the Ravens. So if you, if you won a Super Bowl in 2020, then a sleepy game in 2022 doesn't matter. No, you add it all up. I mean, come on. It's the last four years of stuff since like both guys have got. And if you just isolate this year. I mean, I'm telling you're putting that we disagree on what that dolphins game meant. I mean, they played the bills tight. That's your like most complete performance of the season. That was in week four. I mean, I don't know. I just beat the bagels. I watch them every week. I watch them every week. And and I haven't seen it from them that they put together a complete game where I say I have no questions about the offense, defense and their super bowl contend. I have. I have, I have. I have. I have. I have. I have. I have. I. I have. I. I have. I. I. I I disagree that they're Super Bowl contender.

I have questions about the offense. I do. Again, I can't establish enough that the way that they have arrived to the offense with, like I know Rashad Bateman injury, like, oh, shucks, that stinks. The way they've arrived to this offense is unacceptable and disgusting. How do you just, like, sweep that under the rug? Like, that's a big thing. Because I'm about to tell you why.

Okay. Because the reason I brought up that Chiefs Rams game is because over the course of his career, Mahomes has won enough games, big, high-profile games. that we have decided that this guy is of a different caliber, right? I came and I said it on the pod like two weeks ago. It's not Mahomes among the elite quarterbacks. It's the elite quarterbacks and then one more step up the latter, it's Mahomes. Because Lamar hasn't won those high-profile games and high-profile, high-visible moments in the playoffs,

we mentally, initially, instinctively, system one, fast thinking, say, okay, well, Lamar's not in that caliber. he absolutely 100% is an elite quarterback in this league. Like the list of guys right now that if I was down six with two minutes left in the game, that I would prefer to have over Lamar is Patrick Mahomes. That's it? Lamar is playing better right now than he was playing in his MVP season by a country mile. And yes, the receiving core is in dire straits. It is absolutely an issue.

I'm not telling you the Ravens are going to beat the bills. I'm not telling you the Ravens are going to beat the Chiefs. I'm saying that they are a 7 and 4 team and they've lost in the playoffs. And we're just taking those lost numbers. We're taking those losses from three seasons ago to the Dean P's Titans are going, yeah, well, the same old Ravens, they're not legit. The defense is improving. Lamar's playing as well as good of football as any quarterback is,

playing as well as he's played over the course of his entire career. He's elite quarterback who can win a game for you, period. This caliber of quarterbacking play in another jersey with another name, with a second contract already signed, we would all be very comfortably saying, yeah, but they have Lamar, they could win anytime, they could always make a run.

How many people say that about Joe Burrow? Like, oh, they have Burrow, Burrow can win them any game at any moment. Lamar's playing better than Burrow is. Has it been playing better than Burroughs the whole season. I don't know, I would not, I would not agree with that. Oh, Shia, you're killing me.

Yes, he has. I would disagree with that. No, I would disagree with that. I can't believe that the only guy you would take over him with the game on the line in two minutes is Patrick Mahomes, that's crazy to me, that not Josh Allen. I mean, how do you, how would you say Lamar Jackson over Josh Allen? With what?

With Alan's elbow in the last two weeks? Yeah, even with his elbow over the last two weeks. Alan's in that tier, right? There's that elite tier. And the point is to say that we, there are certain quarterbacks that we have just decided because of their career achievement and because of the quality of their peak play, especially in the playoffs, that yeah, those guys are the, can always in a game guy. And I think the average person and like certainly like you know, among sports

writers is clearly a divided thing because you're among you're among them says yeah, Lamar's not in that group. To me, Lamar's not. No, no, no, no, don't put words in my mouth. That's what you said. I said I would take Burrow over Lamar. I'd like Lamar read anything I've written or said over like the course of my career. I have been pro Lamar Jackson. I think when you look at the Ravens as a team and you look at the situation he's in with the supporting cast and the coach, I don't know. I don't look at it and say, oh, he's going to be able to overcome that. And there's Super Bowl contenders. I can disagree with that. You can tell me if you put him in a different situation like with one of these other teams, he would be performing just as well as, say,

a Joe Burrow or whatever. I think that's a fair argument to have. But I didn't say anything about Lamar Jackson isn't elite. Don't try to get me on like a social media clip or something. This goes back. This goes back to the meaning of the word. What are you talking about? Because how many elite quarterbacks are there? Okay. How many are there? What's your rule? Two, three? Yeah. I think elite is top 10%. Okay, then I, okay, so that's what, the top three? That's three. In terms of how well guys are playing right now.

Okay, so who are your three? So you have. With Josh Allen hurt in terms of how well guys are playing right now at the quarterback position, it goes Mahomes, Lamar, Herbert. Those are your top three. Mahomes. No, I still am putting Josh Allen in there with the elbow. I would go Mahomes, Allen, and then I think you could go, I think you could make the case for Lamar. I would not go Lamar.

I would probably go burrow. If we're talking like, before this elbow injury, it's absolutely, it's Mahomes Allen for sure. But this means more three. Tony Romo Kool-Aid on Thanksgiving. All right,

his elbow's not that bad. He's doing okay. He's sailing throws. It'll be fine. There's ups and downs in the kid. And all right. So spirit is. So let me,

so you're on record. So your take. Now you got me all discombobobulated. I don't even know what. So your take is that they're okay and that they're going to be in the playoffs and they're a Super Bowl contender. I just,

yeah, yeah. The take was they're fine, right? They've lost four games. And like, I said they were fine. I re-bumped my list from the trade deadline where I listed the teams I think are the Super Bowl contenders. The Ravens were on that list. And a bunch of people responded with like, well, the Ravens have to be off the list now, right?

And I was like, no. Like what? Like, because they were beating the Jaguars by nine in the fourth quarter and then they once again fumbled the bag? No, that doesn't worry me too much. It bothers me. It doesn't worry me too much. This, I just let's just put. a pin on this and say, I made the list of seven teams that I thought could make the Super Bowl.

And I said it to you and Bill on Bill's podcast at the deadline. And both you and Bill were like, the Dolphins, how can you have the Dolphins? And now, lo and behold, the Dolphins have won like three straight games. Everybody's fine with the Dolph's Super Bowl contenders. And now it's the Ravens. How can you have Ravens? My list is good. They got good teams on it.

That list is unassailable. You didn't send me any list. You said the list on the podcast. I didn't get any pre-pre-work there. just for the record. We want to be factually accurate here. All right. So just to be clarify my stance,

since you were, you know, throw, I don't know what you're trying to. I did not mean to throw words in your mouth. I apologize. I think the, I think there's a lot of evidence

that the Ravens are much better than their record indicates that they are a Super Bowl contender. I view them as a playoff team, a good team that my eyes have looked at this year and say, I don't really trust them and the things that they have issues with.

I don't know that they'll be able to over, overcome. And so this leads us right into my third take, which is exactly what we're. So wait, you said Ravens are and contender. Well, my third take. The following teams can win the Super Bowl. I got seven teams on here. The first three, I don't think anybody would have an argument with. The Chiefs, the Bills and the Eagles, do we really, we don't need to spend any time on those three teams, right? Yeah. It's pretty evident. Forty-niners and Cowboys, if you've listened to the show, we've talked about them at length. I think we both think they are Super Bowl contenders and you know the reasons why. I think you were ahead of the curve on the dolphins. I'm

putting the dolphins on there for now. I mean, if every week you're going to come out and score 30 plus and no defense looks like it has any chance to stop you, then I'm going to put you on there as a team that can win the Super Bowl. And then my seventh team is going to be the Cincinnati Bengal. So I do not have the Ravens on there. I could look stupid for this. You're right. Again, there is evidence that suggests they actually. absolutely should be on there. I got to trust the eyes a little bit. You don't get that LASIC surgery, you know, for no reason. You got to trust the eyes. So I'm trusting my eyes with the Ravens. I don't see it yet. Maybe a week from now, two weeks from now, you'll be on here saying, see, I'll have a

take that the Ravens are Super Bowl contenders and you'll go, Chris, play the clip back from week 12, school him here. And we'll add a little bit to it. But I don't see it right now for them. So let me make the case for the Bengals here. The Bengals offense is playing better. than it played last year. The offensive line is better. They run the ball better. And the defense, I mean, the defense just, you guys talked about this on the Sunday night show, they just consistently find answers.

I mean, for a defense to like, in a one year span to be able to deliver that performance against the chiefs in the playoffs, and then a totally different team, the Titans on Sunday, where they out physical the Titans, which is something like just nobody does. And that's exactly what they did. They've done it without Jamar Chase here for the last three. four weeks. They're going to get chased back. I'm a big believer in Joe Burroughs and Joe Burrow with this supporting cast, these wide receivers, an improved offensive line that hopefully can get to just competent average. He was only sacked once in that game. I think they have absolutely have a

Super Bowl upside. I think they're a pretty complete team that can win on offense, can win on defense, can win with ball control, can win by being explosive, can win with athleticism and speed, can win with physicality. And so those are all the things I like about the Bengals and why I have them on my list. Yeah. So my 17 list from the deadline was Eagles, Bulls Chiefs, Niners Cowboys, Ravens Dolphins. That was my seven. The reason that list came back up today and why people, I had people commenting on I was

talking about it was because I responded to the tweet in which I wrote that list like four weeks ago with just Bengals. A little quick addendum there at the end of a few weeks later. Yeah, no. This Bengals team is awesome in terms of serving as an example of like, all right, like all last season we preached, there's a regression heavy team, like the way they're winning isn't sustainable. And then lo and behold, they fixed some of the stuff that was unsustainable.

They figured out some of the issues, right? Let's get the running game a little bit better. Let's improve the offensive line. We don't have to live on just all deep shots against single high. Like, we're going to become a more balanced team. And it's growing pains. It was hard. It wasn't working.

They were bad early. And then their first kind of solution was, okay, like gone R&Os. And that was like a little bit better, but not really. And then they just kind of started throwing it to Jabbar Chase all the time, asking them to solve problems for them. And it's like, okay, well, that feels better, but this is what you were doing last year. It's kind of herky jerky.

They elected as a coaching staff, as a team, you know, top down, right? Zach Taylor to Louana Ruma, to Brian Callahan, to Joe Burrow, who Joe Burrow, like, anybody who listens to the pod knows I say, Tiger doesn't change the stripes, you don't change playstyle. Joe Burroughs change your playstyle a little bit. Ball's coming out quicker, not taking as many sacks. Like, you know, he's working to kind of adjust the way he sees and thinks about playing the quarterback position, which is very hard to do.

From the top down, they said, listen, we could go and try to do everything we did last year, exactly the same. We're probably not going to make the Super Bowl again if we do. Like, we know we got hot. We know we won one score games. Like, that's not a sustainable, of the models we could achieve. So they've made adjustments.

They've been a little bit of a different team. Every single week they've come out. They get DJ Reader back on defense. They're getting Jamar Chase back. They're opening up T. Higgins. And lo and behold, man, this is a very complete team. There are teams in the playoff pictures that are dominant at certain things, right? Like 49ers, play action pass, four men pass rush, dominant.

If they beat you, that's how they're going to beat you. Cowboys, four men pass rush, Jack Prescott. They're dominant. If they're being you, that's how they're going to beat you. Then there are teams, if the Eagles are one of these teams, teams where they can be in a multitude of ways. They feel flexible. They're like water.

They can kind of bend around what you do. And they're always going to present issues. They're always going to be close in these games because they have this, this versatility to them. Bengals are becoming that. Last year, the Bengals were a, well, if Burrow and Jamar Chase pop off, your screwed team. Now the Bengals are like, well, if you can handle Jamar Chase, like, T can beat you. And if you can handle the receivers, like Samacham Beirin and Joe Mixed out of the backfield

can beat you. And if you're covering everybody, Joe Burrow can tuck and run. And he can throw third and twill. back shoulder balls with Trent Irwin and defensively. Like, okay, no Chinovio Woosier. Doesn't matter. DJ Green was gone for weeks. Doesn't matter.

Sam Hubbard was dominant. Logan Wilson was dominant. Does anybody know these people's names? Like, it's just they've got so many different pitches. Lou Aniromu, especially on defense. They have just like a huge control panel with 10,000 buttons. And they feel so much more fluid than they did last year. They've grown up.

And yeah, this Bengals team is for real. Last week, my take was Joe Barrow is an elevator. And then someone's in a clip. I think it was Colin Coward saying someone was an elevator. So Colin, thank you for listening. Then we can continue to spread the elevator lexicon as my first sort of staple phrase. Maybe I read a column, the elevators, you know, something like that. Sound effects, right?

We're like, just be like, all right, the official take, you know. Ding. Derek Henry. And they just here, ding, and just like doors over and light moosezac playing in the background. Yeah, that's the move. We'll work on it. So thank you to the millions who reached out. and said they love the use of elevate.

All right. So those are your, so you've got eight teams, you're including the Ravens. I've got seven teams, right? I like you slipping in millions there. That was nice. This is weird.

I'm never on like the anti, I swear I've been on like the pro Ravens thing for years. So this is good. A little switch up. Maybe I'll be proven wrong. All right. Finish us out, Benjamin,

with the extra point taken. All right. Extra point this week. I refuse. to only discuss analytics when it's because people are angry that a decision went badly and lost a game. And accordingly, I'm using my space in the national media, which Adam Lefco, lovely of Bleacher Report and Turner Sports, reminded me I'm a member of the national media this week. I was complaining about the national media not talking about things. He was like, Ben, that's you.

And I was like, okay, that's fair. I'm using my place in the national football media to discuss Doug Peterson, 26, 27, game winning, game tying touchdown, send us to overtime. 14 seconds left. Marvin Jones touchdown passed. And we're down by one. And the Jaguars are pulling it together. We're going to beat a good team.

Decided to go for two. The Jags were 0 and 138 in games which they were losing by at least seven with a minute left. And Doug says, I'm not doing overtime. I'm going for two. And they get it. Touchdown two-point conversion to Zay Jones. Jaguars win 28, 27. In the late window.

Mr. Analytics himself. The just the litmus test, just the thermometer for what are the analytics vibes in the NFL right now? Brandon Staley. 15 seconds left. Justin Herbert, touchdown pass to Austin Echler. 23 to 24.

They elect to go for two. Win in regulation against the Cardinals. Two-point conversion successful. These decisions are extremely important to understanding how analytics affects the game and the discourse around analytics. And there's multiple layers to it. Because, firstly,

both of the decisions were made. Before they knew the result, they said, does he maximize our win chances? We'll ask us a win probability. And in this case, they hit. John Harbaugh has made this exact same decision in other games,

Ravens against the Packers last year, and it missed. We spent all of Monday asking if John Harbaugh hates the Ravens, hates his jobs, hates football, hates love, hates America, hates his family,

because he made a number of choice and it didn't work. Doug and Brandon said they make these choices, and you don't really hear anybody talk about it. It's important to, note that these decisions are analytics, you know, they have analytics background to them, they have analytics supporting those decisions, and they were made, and they helped the teams win. The second player, and this is really important, is that these are not decisions where the model

says you have to go for two, that's how you're going to win the game. These are decisions in which there is a coin flip. These are decisions in which the model is telling you, go for two or go for one, you're about as likely to win the game in either outcome. And this is critical because everybody told me, well, no, this is not about analytics. This is about gut feel and this is about whether or not you want to be aggressive. It's not about analytics. It's about if you have a certain play call you like on on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on the two-yard line, you know, coming in.

And it's not about the, the Jaguars, knowing that they weren't as good as the Ravens and needing to get that last plane. It's not about analytics. It's about how much you trust your quarterback and so on and so forth. it is about analytics. It's just been integrated into the regular, usual, typical decision-making process of coaches. This is the whole kid and caboodle. This is the whole goal is to say, hey, we have win probability models now that help us understand how to best make decisions. And accordingly, if we just do this and do it enough and do it regularly and make the best decision, eventually over time, you know what the average NFL fan is going to say?

He's going to say, oh, no, that's not analytics. That's just what you should do. should just be aggressive. Of this situation, down by one, two-point conversion attempt in the fourth quarter, 26 of the 35 total play since 1994 in-game play finder from Stadhead had been since 2016 or later. This decision has become normalized. It has become regular. It's because win-probability model showed us, hey, guess what?

You can go for two here. You're not screwing your team. You're not hurting your chances. You can kick the field goal if you, or kick the next point if you want, go to overtime. But also, go for two is available to you. Like your chances in this spot? Go for it. You feel like you want to be aggressive?

You feel like you want to win in regulation? It's up to you. And over the course of the last six seasons of football, because all of these attempts have come in the last six seasons, we've gone from, wow, that's surprising to. No, actually, it's not surprising. That makes sense. That's the arc for analytics discourse.

Everybody gets up in arms about a fourth and three attempt from the 50 in seven years from now is going to see a fourth and three attempt from the 50 and go, yeah, well, you should do that in this context because of vibes, because of aggressiveness, because of momentum. And the reason they'll say that is because models have been accepted enough and have been used enough to integrate this decision into usual coaching approach. So, hugely important plays to winning the games. Hugely important plays to reminding us how analytics works,

but also signals of the fact that win probability models and the decisions that they support and inform are becoming integrated into the NFL. So if you're like, I hate analytics and they're all the worst and all these coaches are losing games because of analytics, I know I like that Doug went for two because it shows he's a great. we got you. We fooled you. That was us. That was the numbers. You lose. We win. Yeah, because the traditional decisions have always been so conservative, the aggressive decisions we always assume are, oh, these are analytically supported. And when coaches have failed,

like you mentioned, I think it was a key point you made that I want to make sure everyone understands. Those decisions at the end of game, when you're down by one to go for two, I mean, you laid out why they do have to do with analytics, but you can, could just say, you could just have the person in your ear saying, this is a coin flip, do what you want. I mean, that, that really is, nobody was going for two. It was a coin flip then, it's a coin flip now, but 10 years ago, no one was going for two. Why?

Because win probability models, aka analytics, hadn't yet told us it was a coin flip. And now you had opened the doors for coaches to do this. Coaches start to do it. Fans start to accept it. And all of a sudden, it's not about analytics when why did this idea even get introduced? Right. Okay. The win probability model showed it to us.

And that's a lot of the. decisions, honestly, that are just, you know, a lot of times, like coaches will have the guy in their ear and they'll say, you know, green means go, red means punt, and yellow means, do what you want. That's why you get paid $6 million a year and you're going to have to answer to the media one way or another. And it's going to be on your win-loss record page on pro football reference. And I think those are a lot of the decisions that coaches have to make. But I'm with you. I mean, I remember that covering that Eagles 2017 Super Bowl team and having a conversation with Zach

Kurtz about like, hey, do you, you know, like, did, do they share? Like, hey, this was an analytically supported thing after the case or do you ask questions? And he's just like, I just, I think it's cool that, you know, Doug believes in us that we're going to get a fourth and one. Yeah. I'm like, that was the, uh, Ravens game, right? That was the 2016 team that had the, the, the, they faced the Ravens and they went through to Jordan Matthews. Now I'm just nerding out on the Eagles. Right. Yeah. No, that's a, yeah. No, this was more with like the fourth down calls and so, but that was a theme in the locker room. And it helps when the team is winning and they're working out, then all the players say, heck, yeah, we want to go for it every time.

It's great that we have a coach who believes in us. And when it's not working, you know, that that's when it gets a little trickier there. But it is funny how, yeah, those two plays did not get brought up at nearly the volume they would have. If just either of them failed, it would have been a talking point nonstop. Analytics is a boogeyman. When a decision is evident that feels like it loses the game, I brought up the Mike McCarthy quarterback draw against the 49ers, all we do is we hammer it,

we autops it, we dissect it, try to, why would you do this? Why would you do that? What does this mean? What does that mean? When a decision wins, we say, great Trevor Lawrence game, which it was, by the way.

This podcast said that they would have liked more from the Trevor Lawrence experience like three or four weeks ago. Boy, have we gotten it. That was awesome. But that's what we end up talking about, right? Oh, quarterback played well. That decision was part of the reason

why they won the game. And the reason it was made, is because win probability models have been introduced to NFL front offices. Analytics time in the league, baby. Suck it. I did not get to have Josh McDaniels in my takes, but he would disagree with everything you said

because my God, when you have an offense that produces 576 yards and are still coaching that conservatively, I was about to fire off seven different tweets, but I'm like, she'll just wait and see what happens in the game, and then they win the game. So you're like, all right, I really don't want me to mix it up with Raiders fans right now.

But don't worry, I feel like there's going to be more opportunities to get at Josh McDaniels because his decision making in that game some of it was ridiculous. All right, sorry, Josh McDaniels. That was kind of mean. I just had to get a jab into you at the end there. All right. Thanks to everybody for listening. Oh, by the way, apologize. You know, we have to apologize last week. The low moment for extra point taken. Stan, thank to everybody. People just signed up for Twitter. Oh, shoot. To, yeah, to let us know. No, it is from the M&M song, Stan, which you did not know, which I knew, but I didn't know that's what Stan was from, because you, the young person on the podcast told me it was from something else. So Ben takes 100% responsibility for this,

is to blame for the mishap. We'll do better in the future. Anybody who knows me knows I'm not equipped to be quote the young person on a podcast, end quote. It's not a good role for Ben. Ben has not consumed enough pop culture to fill those shoes. Number one. Number two, this is like classic example of where like somebody told you something when you were 12 and you're like, that's gospel and you just never questioned it again. And so we're like, we're a standard. I was like, I know this from like some other child who probably told it to me in Strausburg junior high school at some point. And now, yes, you Google it and you learn the notes in Eminem song. So I will take responsibility. I would not like to be the source of further pop culture

questions in the remaining episodes. We'll let our listeners decide whether that's going to be the case or not. All right. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal. We will be back next Monday on Extra Point Taken.