The Ringer NFL Show - Lamar Jackson and Other Young Quarterbacks With Mallory Rubin, Plus: Joe Buck on Tom Brady’s Debut and Empty Stadiums | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: September 17, 2020

Kevin Clark is joined by Mallory Rubin and Nora Princiotti to discuss Lamar Jackson and his upcoming matchup against Deshaun Watson and the Houston Texans (5:47). They then discuss other young quarterbacks like Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield (32:59). Then Nora and Kevin talk about some key info heading into Week 2 (48:51). Kevin then speaks with Fox broadcaster Joe Buck in an extended version of The Ringer’s video series ‘Slow News Day’ (01:11:47). Host: Kevin Clark Guests: Mallory Rubin, Nora Princiotti, and Joe Buck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm and a surprisingly great rate, that's like drafting a player that becomes an all pro, the real deal. State Farm agents provide personalized service so you can customize your insurance to fit your needs, like a GM putting together their very own roster. You need a team that supports you, and State Farm's got a great one. In addition to agents, the award-winning mobile app helps manage coverage, pay bills, file claims, and more. With a great price and even greater service, State Farm goes from strength to strength.

Choose insurance. It always brings its A game. When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Today's episode is brought to you by Heineken. Heineken original logger is made with pure mold and their famous A-East, which makes Heineken an all-season all-the-time kind of beer. Been a lot of sports on the past couple months. I've loved watching it and drinking Heineken. Had some folks over in the backyard,

socially distant NBA game watching parties. we've been drinking Heineken the entire time. Pick up a pack or have it delivered today and drink responsibly. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, great show today. Two different segments. First of all, we have Malay Rubin, Norr, Preciati, and I with Ravens and Texans coming up this week,

talking about Lamar Jackson, young quarterbacks in the NFL, talk about the Sean Watson, obviously, where he fits, Tyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, just a good fun discussion about not only the Ravens, but just sort of the state of the young quarterbacks in a year where that seems to be more important, maybe than any time ever, if you look at some of the staff,

but we'll get to in a second. And then Joe Buck, Fox broadcaster, joins us for an extended version of the conversation I had with him on Slow Newsday, the video series we do. You can find the entire episode on YouTube on the Ringers YouTube channel with got some really good NBA content this month and every month

and movie stuff and obviously football stuff. So watch Slow Newsday on YouTube. subscribe to the Ringer YouTube channel. And, yeah, listen to Joe Buck at the end of this show. All right, let's get to it. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined you today by an all-star cast, Nora Prince Yati. How are we doing?

Doing great. Our other, the other person who's joining us is really pumping me up right now. She's like raising her arms. Mother of Dragons, Mother of Ravens, Mallory Rubin. It is her birthday. Any good gifts? Wow, Kev. Any good gifts.

The gift of being here was. both of you today. Yep. For starters. That's why we did it. We wouldn't. This is not a normal. This will not be regular thing.

Have you ever watched the, the legends of Cora? The legend of Cora? No. I got a plush, a plush, a plush, pabu from Adam,

my husband. And that was a great birthday gift. Yeah, it was a lovely. Can you explain that to me? Hypothetically, if someone had no idea what you were talking about.

Sure. So as if you would explain it to a third grader. Yeah. Yes. Thank you, this will be quick. You should watch Avatar the Last Arabender. You should watch Cora.

And in the process of watching those two wonderful shows, you'll meet some great creatures like Momo and Pabu. Pabu is a fire ferret. And now he's with me always. Pabu is also the name of a sushi restaurant in my neighborhood. So I'm with you is what we're saying. of the NFL season. Let's go.

You're missing out, Kemp. Week two. You're missing out. Sushi or whatever you're talking about. Legend of Kora, check it out. All right. We're talking football. We're talking young quarterbacks.

Here's the thing. So week one, the NFL season, 87 offensive touchdowns most in history. That is linked to another statistic, which is there were 14 starters under the age of 27, the second most in history behind 2013. A group that we know included stars like Andrew Luck, RG3, Colin Kaepern, and Russell Wilson.

But I also looked it up. Terrell prior started that week. Oh, yeah. I just do not remember much of that experience. And then Gino Smith, E.J. Manuel. So it was a mixed bag, to be sure. But the fact that there is, and I know that every year we do this thing, you're the young quarterback, you're the quarterback.

I mean, since 2011, when passing numbers started to tick up, that seems to be the general theme. But this is real. This is a bunch of young quarterbacks who, are better than any group of young quarterbacks, maybe ever. And I wanted to unpack that with you, Mallory Rubin, and you, Nora, because this is an interesting stretch next couple weeks. Can I ask you a question?

This is important. When did you make the transition to holding your podcast mic in your hand? Thank you. Someone needed to say it. My wife is recording a video two rooms over in the room I normally do it in. And so I am sitting in a bed. Okay. All right.

So this is me not having a table in front of me. What about a pillow desk? This is not how I saw myself, how my career ending up. You don't have a pillow desk? What's a, do you have a pillow desk? Of course. I mean, I spend most of my time in bed or on the couch. So, of course I have a pillow desk.

This is new for me. I don't think I've ever done a podcast from a bed. Remember those commercials for, you know, a temper repeating mattress where they would have the wine glass on the mattress. it would not spill over. Vividly. You could have one of those setups going, Kevin, if you want to make this a recurring thing.

I'll look into it after this episode. We'll see how the setup works. It's so far so good. I feel like we're getting somewhere. All right. So from a narrative perspective and from an entertainment perspective, it's really great for Deshaun Watson

and Lamar Jackson to be in the same stadium. And next week, Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes in the same stadium. This stuff should excite you as a football fan and we'll probably be seen the ratings it does. Lamar Jackson. Mark Andrews called him the best player in the world this week. There's a really good case to be made that there's, there are two best players in the world, and then there's a huge gap to number three. I think we know that Mahomes is probably the other one. I think there's, you know, listen, once you're getting a positional value with Aaron Donnell,

let's, let's do that another podcast. But right now, there's a real case that Lamar Jackson is by some special football. He was the highest graded passer according to positive graded throws by PFF last week. He completed 90% of his throws, 10 yards down the field. He completed about 50% of such passes last year. He looks damn good. And he looks like the guy that John Harbaugh said he would be in the summer, which is taking the next step and taking advantage of those stretched out defenses by going with deep passes.

And I'm intrigued by it now. Again, he did this last year in his first game. And that led to the not bad for running back thing. So we can't overreact. Part of this is that he played the Cleveland Browns. We can't overreact. We'll get to there a second. But Mallory,

When you watched this game Sunday, you thought what about Lamar Jackson and his improvement over the offseason? Well, Kev, first of all, thank you for having me today. It's great to be here with you both to talk about Lamar Jackson, of whom I'm a big fan. I enjoy watching The Ravens. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. It was a fun game. Fun game. I'm glad you mentioned week one last year and the not bad for a running back quote, absolutely iconic moment,

launched a Legion of merch from that quote alone. And John Eisenberg wrote about this in his column this week, the contrast in the press conference from Not Bad for a Running Back last year to this year after week one against the Browns, the questions, do you think you've improved it as a passer? And his answer was, I do. And I think things like that are pretty telling. You know, there's less of the, I mean, I personally as a Ravens fan,

really enjoyed the chip on the shoulder energy all of last season, certainly. It was very fun and very validating. But the confidence is, I think, pretty palpable right now. And, you know, the first couple drives, certainly, I think for not just Lamar, but everybody, there was a little bit of, you know, you could see the nerves, you could feel the nerves. And then as soon as he settled in, it was just, it just looked easy. It just looked easy. And watching, him with the poise and the confidence, the read option, when he's rolling out. That, for me, like one of the quintessential things that I just love about watching Lamar is those little sidearm darts.

And the chemistry, the chemistry with Mark Andrews was there. The chemistry with Hollywood Brown was there. I mean, obviously, it was fun to see Willie Sneed and DuVernay get in the mix. Obviously, great to see the two touchdown debut for J.K. Dobbins on a defense. Patrick Queen had just a marvelous debut. Lamar just looked completely and totally in command. You know, that 47-yard crossing route to Hollywood, I think maybe was more emblematic even than the two Mark Andrews touchdowns of just how completely in command he seemed

the entire game once again, the entire team kind of got its feet under it after the first couple drives. It was a blast. It was a blast just like week one last year. Nora, I want to ask you about defenses and specifically the Brown's performance last week, what we can take from that. but I do want to ask Mallory because we're going to ask about defenses catching up to Lamar. Danny Kelly wrote a piece last week called Ken Defenses Catch Up with Lamar.

Did you assign that piece, Mallory, just to have something to dunk on the entire year? As I think you know, I support creative exploration here at the Ringer. And as I think you also know, because I shared this with the. NFL crew and I tweeted this. The only line of that piece that I took the heart was the last one, which was Jackson has a chance to cement himself as the outlier of all outliers. It was a great 1500 words that preceded it. A lot of, you know, very hard work and thorough research from Danny Kelly, who I admire and respect. And the last, the last line of the piece was the one that stuck with me. Danny Kelly, other outlier of all outliers.

Absolutely. Nora, when you're looking at this Browns team, is this going to be every defense? Is it just going to be the Browns defense? And do you think there's, I don't know, we've talked about it all offseason about just the inability for teams to get better at anything over the course of this season. And catching up with Lamar Jackson over Zoom seems really bad. And I just wonder how much of an opportunity you think defenses will have this year to do such a thing. So do I think there was a little bit of brownsiness going on? Sure. They lost Grant Delpit. I mean, they, this is a team that is, is a work in progress. And Grant Elpit, I think, was going to be really important to that secondary, which is

up a creek a little bit without him. But in general, I think it's going to be every defense, or a lot of defenses at least. And the thing that I think is so cool about watching the Ravens is you can go back two years. They lose to the Chargers. Chargers play seven defensive backs in the playoffs. And everybody says, oh, they figured them out. This is how you beat the Ravens. And that, they react, they sign Mark Ingram, they have all those tight ends, great offensive line, they say we can go big and we can block so well. I dare you, anyone, go that small against us ever again. Yeah. And there's something so simple about that that I, that I always really enjoyed watching on the field last season. And it's kind of like it's happening again, right?

because they have another disappointing playoff performance and what was perceived as the key, the thing that the Titans figured out there was, oh, they got up on them and made their offense one-dimensional. So then you have

a quote that I thought was really interesting from Hollywood saying that Jackson is not throwing to targets as much as he was. He's throwing to spots. and that kind of subtlety, that kind of nuance, Brown said he's a lot more pinpoint with it. Now it's our job to get to that spot

because that's where he's putting it. You see that, you know, you saw that on that deep bomb. You also saw it. I thought the early touchdown to Andrews was incredible because it's off play action. You just, you one see, he does this little step to the right to, I don't know if it was a sightline thing

to be able to see into the end zone better. But it's just this little move that to me, in some ways it looked like watching Tom Brady in the way that he could move around and control the pocket. But then he throws it pretty high. And Andrews makes an incredible play. But that's the kind of sophistication

that I don't know how to tell you how to defend that. There's just no answer for it. So if you add that, it's this new iteration of three, Ravens kind of looking at the thing that that is allegedly their kryptonite and going, okay, well, we'll add this other element and be able to beat that now. But the difference is instead of just like bulking up a little bit more, you know, that's on Lamar to develop in this off season that we've talked about how hard it is to do that.

So one, just props to him. But yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't want to be playing defense against the Ravens. Yeah, no. And one of the things is that. It's not about, Lamar Jackson was an awesome passer last year. This is about very incremental progress and just taking advantage of things that he just forces defenses into. And it's a very, very, very fine line here between what he was doing last year and this year. It's not a huge difference, just a little bit.

And he was one of the most efficient passes in football last year. Okay. This just might be something different. He told reporters this week the game has slowed down a lot for him. He said that going against intricate Baltimore defense, basically all training camp with no preseason games and just getting to see that over and over again helped him as far as reading defenses go. And you know, you heard comments similarly from, from Holmes as well this off season where they feel like their ability to read defenses has gotten better after they won the MVP in both cases. And that should be terrifying for every single defense. Malar, I want to ask you, there was a great, I don't know if you saw it.

There was a write up that I found really fascinating about a reporter. asked John Harbaugh if there was a play against the Browns and they said that, you know, do you want Lamar Jackson to run out of bounds instead of taking a hit like this? John Harbaugh says, who took the hit on that play that you're talking about?

And so the clip, if you look, is two Browns players collided on top of Lamar, and Lamar fell to the ground, never took a hit. Okay? So he was running down the field, did not run out of bounds. Two Browns players hurt each other. Lamar never touched anything.

or he touched somebody very minimal. And eventually the, you know, it looks like it's, it looks like a pile up, but it really wasn't Lamar doesn't take any, any damage, right? That's emblematic of Lamar and his ability to evade the big hit. We had something we talked about on his day a couple of weeks ago, actually, when he was on. If you look at this offensive style,

where do you see it progressing? What do you want to see from them? Do you want to see more passing? Do you want to see passing only to the point that it takes advantage of defenses? is how much running do you want to see over the next 15 weeks of Ravens football? That's an easy one. I want to see whatever is going to lead to a W at the end of the game. And that's honestly, like, that's one of the things that makes the team special is they're

talented enough, deep enough, and varied enough to survive one aspect of the gameplay, not being there on a given week. And I would like to go back for a second to what both of you were saying, you know, a few minutes ago because I just feel compelled as the resident Ravens fan to echo something that we have all said, I think, quite often. You know, it was the idea that Lamar had to prove that he could throw the football last year was like moronic, right? And the idea that he still has something to prove entering this season is maybe exponentially absurd. It's not necessarily a straw man. It's just the argument of weird Twitter eggs.

Or people who probably, or people who should be. No, not, I'm not like last week. I'm just saying, during the draft process. Yeah. And last year and this year, there's a reason the not bad for running back thing. Of course.

Happened last year. And the criticism was real. But I'm saying that if you're, at this point, if you were coming into week one of this season. Right. And being like, wow, this Lamar guy can pass. Right. And this is the first time that you've watched.

football and you should be judged accordingly. It's not a revelation that Lamar Jackson can can play every single aspect of the quarterback position at an exceptionally high level. He won the MVP last year. And by the way, he's still only 23 years old. So I think the way you're younger than Joe Burrow, like considerably younger than Joey Burrow. The way you put it about the incremental progress, when you're playing at that high of a level, there's of course always still progress to make because you're aiming to win a Super Bowl. That's the goal, right? So the run game actually was not really there in week one in the opener. You know, Lamar had 45 rushing yards, seven carries.

The team overall did not run particularly well. And at the end of the day, it didn't matter. And I thought that was ultimately quite heartening. I do think, you know, obviously that the chance that the run game opens up quite a bit against the Texans. I know you want to talk about the Texans matchup a little bit. more. CEH shredded them in week one for

Kansas City and the Thursday night opener and I think it would be reasonable to assume that Ingram, Dobbins, Gus Bus, Lamar, etc. can all get going on the grounds. Gus Bus! Love the Gus Bus. I want to see them win however we can. I do think it's important to get back to the hardier question to

establish more depth of the receiver position. So Hollywood's health, Hollywood Brown's health is the single most important thing in that respect. I mean, obviously the connection that Mark Andrews and Lamar Jackson have is supreme and he in essence serves as the number one receiver for the team. Whether Hollywood Brown can stay healthy, whether Mark Andrews can stay healthy. That's the single most important thing. And then depth beyond that, I, you know, it was good to see Miles Boy can catch a couple balls. I was glad to see DuVernay, who the Ravens drafted in the third round out of Texas out there.

Would love to see Sneed continue to get more involved, see if we can, get James Proche out there. Proche has sixth round pick out of SMU and just continue to build depth because there's so much depth in the running game and there hasn't been depth in the receiving game. So that's that's the next step. One quick one for you. Do you see this season and there are certain teams who when they have a playoff failure, it's not the regular season doesn't matter because obviously there's only so many playoff spots and all that stuff, but just emotionally things matter less because there's only one thing you need to do. I remember talking to actually Jim Harbaugh about this during that 49.

run years ago. He compared it to being Sisyphus, right? Like just rolling the rock up, rock rolls down. And I found that kind of profound. I missed Jim Harbaugh in the NFL. But when I think about this Ravens team, and almost every level of

praise we give the Ravens, and every time we talk about how Lamar makes everybody look like high scores or whatever, like, oh, wait, they kind of laid night against the Titans. So just emotionally as just a fan, as someone who just knows the team really well, do you think there's feeling that's kind of like,

we'll see what happens in January? Yes and no. I think that anytime you have a difficult playoff loss, as you know, I refuse to acknowledge last year's playoffs in really any capacity. Yeah, I know. That kind of,

the, the tenor around the team coming out of that loss was so, so dark that that kind of toxicity, I think, can seep into the next season and derail the entire thing. And I think it's important that that obviously hasn't been the case.

You know, you think back to something like one of my favorite ravens, Marlon Humphrey, one of my favorite ravens, fellow cat lovers, you know, shouts to Snowflake. I did not know that, actually. I'm glad you're here. Shows to Snowflake. I didn't know that, no. I didn't know that.

Oh, my God. Kevin, you have to go to Instagram after you finish recording this podcast and check out Snowflakes Instagram. Oh, I'm following right now. You're actually, this is like a Ryan Fitzpatrick went to Harvard thing, and they say it 20 times a game. I didn't know this. To me, this is more.

They should. They should, yes. A lot of people go to Harvard. Great cat, great Instagram. How many truly love cats? Well, we don't have to get into that now. A lot of people love cats. Cats are great.

No, I'm saying, no, I'm saying it's easy to go to Harvard. It's harder to love a cat. It's easy to love cats. Open your heart, Kev. That's my advice to you. Anyway, you know, if you think back to like Marlon Humphrey's comments after that loss, you know, this team's identity right now is to get to the playoffs and choke.

That was rough stuff. And I think that everybody who was a part of the organization really felt that. way. So there's no doubt that that will be, I think, persistent narrative around the team the entire season. And obviously, if and when they are in the playoffs, it will be the narrative. But I don't focus on that. I focus on how well coached they are and how talented they are. And I trust Harbaugh and DeCasta and the analytically inclined coaching staff and scouting division to the, you know, get them ready to play and to get better every week. I don't think they're complacent.

And I think ultimately that's the one good thing about playoff losses like that is they keep you frosty. You know, there's not a lot of hubris with this team right now. They have simultaneously the knowledge that they're an excellent football team and the need to prove themselves. And I think that that's actually that that latter camp is actually where the Ravens have always been a little more, a little bit more comfortable, that underdog energy. And so being a team that's capable of going 14 and 2 and still being able to

channel that we have something to prove and fuck everybody else mindset. I'm into that. So when Lamar was on Slow Newsday, a couple of weeks ago or months ago, he said that he talked, thinks about the tennis thing. Was Lamar? Was Lamar on Slow Newsday? You haven't, I missed that. A couple weeks or months ago, I don't remember. It was during the news. We'll have to go check it out. It was, uh, so it was still a news day, which is a video series we do on the ringer. Um, it's available on YouTube and Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. So Lamar Jackson was actually on it. and when we were talking, him and I, because I'm the host of Slow Newsday, so him and I a couple weeks ago on Slow Newsday, were talking,

I actually don't think this made the cut, and we were going to make it a second thing and whatever. There's so much good content that gets left on the cutting room floor for Slowno's. No, it was audio problem. And Jason and I had a real long talk about it. Jason Gallagher and I had a real long talk about it. It's because you don't have a pillow desk. It's because I don't have a pillow desk.

See, that was filmed in the living room where I can't be right now. now. So there's your problem. Okay. So Lamar basically said anytime he posts anything online or does anything that involves the general public, he just gets bombarded with with Titans memes. And he would think about it every day if he didn't get that, but that also kind of, that also kind of just shaded his offseason. It's just like anytime it was just like, hey, look, I'm at my house. people will just be like, hey, nice playoff game, bro, that kind of thing. And I think that motivated them. And I think that there's a thing, again, it's the Sisyphus thing, right?

Where I think that there's a way to look at this and you can become a little broken because you start convincing yourself that you are a loser, right? Or you become you're a hard worker and you use it as fuel. And when in talking to not just Lamar, but a number of ravens, I kind of feel like that it almost in a weird is going to help them in the long run to have lost the Titans and use it. You know, I remember, I was listening to a podcast a month ago, Michael Lewis was on and he was talking about how just basically the stories you tell yourself about yourself are what you end up being.

Like the narratives become your identity essentially. And I think that that's really true of sports teams. And so I think that oftentimes we overrate one loss or, you know, right now we're doing that with the clippers, right? Across all media and just kind of overstating what it might mean. but there's also the chance that some things are just so sports traumatizing that they can derail everything. And with Baltimore, I think, it's a really interesting test case. And it doesn't look like they've lost anything.

If anything, they're significantly better. Nora, the Ravens have the Texans this week. Bill O'Brien said, quote, it didn't go very well for us last time. They lost 41 to 7. I'm kind of coming around on Bill O'Brien. I think he's deadpan. He's trading away guys as bits. Like, I just think this is a very funny, a very funny situation.

Yeah. Love to trade DeAndre Hopkins as a bit. This is a Texan's question, but also just a general NFL question. When a team like the Ravens goes up against a pretty good team like Houston, um, is there, is there, Nora? What are you expecting out of this game in Houston, by the way? I am not optimistic for the Houston Texans, unfortunately. I would love it if this were, I mean, you know, we all want competitive games, right?

The ultimate bit is the NFL. putting Houston against Mahomes and Lamar back to back to start the season and a season where Bill O'Brien has so much at stake. Well, and then we get, we get Lamar Mahomes in week three, so we're getting the whole rotation. That's part of them. Yeah, but they'll both be 2 and O'No by that. No one's getting fired in those cities.

Bill O'Brien's going to be coaching Miami next year. The hurricanes, not the dolphins. The thing that can be frustrating about the Texans is that we've talked about, you know, when you're good, breaks go your way because you're already good because people are in a good mood, because free agents want to come to you, whatever. And it seems like what we're watching is two teams that have really taken advantage of that. And then another team that has an incredible young quarterback that just hasn't. And the thing that stood out to me watching the Texans in week one was just they had no chemistry.

And once they got off their scripted plays, I mean, that was their only good drive until garbage time, basically. and if it gets disjointed once you're off the script, that to me just says that they're working with some new players that aren't up to speed with Watson yet. And that's really to be expected in some ways because of the way that this offseason went. But it's also a product of the fact that they haven't had a lot of stability there and that they've had to go through all of these motions

and they've had to end up with Brandon Cooks and not DeAndre Hopkins, or I guess they didn't have to, but they did somehow. And we've talked about that at nauseam, so we don't need to get into it again. Classic mix up. Entering an offseason without DeAndre Hopkins. Through an unfortunate sequence of events. Yeah. Yeah. Oops.

And so it just seems like there's this road not traveled for Houston where I'm so sort of sad that we don't get to see it because I love Deshaun Watson's so much. But they just looked like they'd never played with each other before a lot of the time. And it was seven net yards per play in the first quarter. And then 4.5 in the second and third. And the fourth was weird because they were behind and just throwing it. But that's a bummer. And it's a bummer in the same way that when we look at, you know, Kansas City adding Clyde Edward Tiller and going, holy smokes, this incredible offense just got another playmaker. This is freaking awesome. And Raven's adding Patrick Queen.

Right. And like the chiefs can have an average depth of target of like five and they still crush and they look so competent and so crisp and they've got it all together. And Andy Reid's like encompassed in fog. He is not by the way, he has not announced what his shield will look like this week. Andy Reid was he's keeping that in house. I'm glad we're talking about that. And while I'm sure he probably wants to come up with a different. something beyond the steam room. Good for Andy Reid. Like the league had to reprimand a few of these coaches for playing it fast and loose with the face covering. So just, you know,

Andy Reid's one of the older coaches in the league. And he's taking it seriously. And he's taking it seriously. So, you know, shout out to my guy who also, I have to imagine, has a very, like, nice skin situation going on because he got all that moisture. The Ringar NFL show is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. By now you probably

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So let's switch gears to another year on quarterback, Kyle Murray, but I do want to share two more notes, which just blew me away. Number one, Lamar Jackson, last eight regular season games, according to Andrew Silliano. Do you know what his touchdown interception ratio is, Mallory? Pretty good, Jeff. It's got to be pretty good. 27 to 1. Yeah. It's good.

It's pretty good. So this kind of goes, again, this goes to our argument that this is not an overnight thing. Oh, whoa, look at this guy passing. Like, Lamar Jackson is amazing. Watch some Louisville tape, man. This is via PFF. This is via PFF. So when he's pressured under two seconds,

it basically means it's a blown play and it's over. non-Lamar quarterbacks have a 42% completion percentage in that spot. Lamar completed all four of his passes in that spot on Sunday. This is just, he's just doing stuff. That's the thing that's funny about this conversation is that we're sort of going through the motions of making sure that we're talking about Lamar being an improved passer without making it sound like he wasn't already an incredible passer, which is a little bit more of a thing that you have to dance around when he's going

nine of ten on passes, ten yards or more, 10 of 10 on play action. Like, these are not normal numbers for an NFL court. Right. Exactly. But both of these guys are on the same plane, which is just you can't say they're amazing. You just have to keep saying they're more amazing. Like, oh, they got, he got, he got,

at some point, their stuff's being words for them. And so we just say, oh, wow, this guy got better. I sort of think he is more amazing now, though. Yeah. No, he is. That's what I'm saying. Mallory. Mauer's saying it. All right, let's do Kyler a quick. Malory Rubin, you're a college football fan. What's up, man? Sure do. Big baseball fan, you know. Love, love, love thinking about that alternate future.

Could you imagine him playing in a canceled minor league ballpark this year? That would be, that would be terrible. That would be terrible. What was that? What was that with that year where he was like, I was going to go play for the A's. The A's didn't even pay their minor leaguers for a couple months? Yeah, if baseball's a mess. I'm not sure if you know this. You briefly said that you were going to become a baseball fan this year. I think it was the same moment that they announced 16 playoff teams. I briefly said a lot of things in the last eight months.

Our colleague Ryan Chazier, who put, he and Cole Wright had a very good podcast on Tuesday. I'm really excited to have that on the feed. Cole, Ryan and producer Isaiah, who's also producing this show, Jaguar Superfan, Isaiah Blakely. Just an awesome show. But he said he, Ryan Chazier said he would not be surprised if Kyloor won the MVP. This is something Nora, you and I have talked about, where I thought he'd be in the mix to play like an MVP, but that team wouldn't be good enough. I don't know after one week, let's not overreact again. But damn, Kyler Murray looks really good.

And Mallory, I'll start you off here. Surprised at the level of play week one for him this year. And do you think that we're looking at somebody who can be an elite quarterback in 2020? First of all, I'm sorry to have to tell you and Nora both that Isaiah has informed me. He is not going to edit and post this episode in protest because when he heard we were talking about young quarterbacks, he thought it was a Minshu Mania episode. And he's just, he's very mad at you. We talked about Minchu on Sunday night. Every podcast where Kevin has the mustache is a Minchu Mania podcast.

That's true. It's a great point. That's a great point. You're right. Great, great, great point. Just a consistent way of honoring you. Mentionuania. I love Kyler. Big fan, Kev, have been really back since he was in high school and was originally recruited, you know, back in the old A&M days that everybody. And we should note with the Washington football team coming up on the schedule this week for the Cardinals, that's right. Kyle Allen, who beat him out at A&M is playing. playing the role of Kyler Murray. If you would stop time,

you've done the Zach Morris thing, come up to Kyle Allen after he wins a quarterback competition against Kyler Murray and said in a few years, you're going to be a backup on a team without a name, and you're going to be playing the role of the guy

who you just beat out, who went on to be the number one overall pick, he'd have some follow-up questions. Yeah, that's a rough one. That's a rough one. Less rough for Kyler, obviously. I mean, great opening.

I know I'm not surprised to answer your question. I think that the surprising element of the week one performance came on the San Francisco side, not on the not on the Arizona side. You know, I think that the the Cliff Kingsbury, Kyler Murray pairing is one of the single most exciting things in the NFL right now. And you add DeAndre Hopkins to that mix. The instantaneous chemistry and football harmony. that developed between Kyler and Hopkins was pretty remarkable to see. I think the question of how Larry Fitz and Christian Kirk and other members of that offense become more fully incorporated and involved moving forward will be interesting to track.

But I think that the single most important and impressive thing with Kyler in week one, because obviously, you know, if you're just thinking about like the excitement index and football and one of the single most thrilling things that you can watch is that moment when Kyler just decides to take off and make something happen. I mean, he's so dynamic. He's so inventive. Danny Kelly said he runs like an RC car. It's just thrilling. It's just thrilling to watch.

But the single most impressive thing in week one was the fourth quarter, the end of the game, knowing that the win was on the line and he made it happen. I mean, he was seven for nine for 80 yards. And then 46 rushing yards and a touchdown on top of that. are two fourth quarter scoring drives. I mean, that's a level of maturation and evolution in his game that helps solidify and validate the possibility of the conversation around, can he continue the trend of the second year quarterback winning MVP?

Can we go Mahomes, Lamar, Kyler Murray? I mean, obviously, I'm still going to, I'm still going to say Lamar for MVP, but it's not at all a ridiculous thing to me to consider Kyler a part of that conversation if this is what the Cardinals are going to play like. And premature overreactions are part of the fun. of this part of the season. Let's lean in. Why not? Absolutely. Nor, you were on, you were on a Cardinal Zoom call this morning

with Cliff Kingsbury's press conference. What were the expectations that, like, what was the vibe? I guess. We know the vibe generally Cliff is giving up. But specifically in regards to last Sunday's game and this Sunday's game, how are the Cardinals feeling? Oh, I thought you meant the vibe of Cliff Kingsbury on Zoom. Yeah, how was that? I will say, me at,

So me at 10 a.m. My time, because I'm Eastern time. And Cliff at seven, Cliff was more put together. He was ready to go about his day in a way that I probably hadn't achieved at that point. Sometimes you log on to these zooms with coaches and like, no one's there or you're looking at a oddly angled video camera or whatever. I click into that thing.

And Cliff Kingsbury is sitting in front of a Cardinals backdrop. like that man has, we were talking about posture. That man has posture like you would not believe. It was like, it was, it was really something to behold. The vibe, the vibe was good. He was pretty calm. It was that one of the more interesting things that came up was about that moment, Mallory, that you're bringing up when Kyler decides, you know what, it's time to go.

And we were talking about the best. balance between the touchdown run and all the good stuff that can come of that and the not getting hurt question that for better or you know for fair or not fair has dogged Kyler and Cliff just sort of matter of fact like goes he's learned a self-preservation on a level I've never seen on a football that was the book coming out of college too that no no there's a reason he can be that small relative to other. quarterbacks, never take any damage and be the first overall pick. He is incredible at it. And it made me think, uh, because the reason that I was a little skeptical, more skeptical than

you are certainly about his chances for MVP, even as, you know, kind of a dark horse MVP candidate was that I was worried about their offensive line. And I like to look at the lines as an indicator of who the hype might be coming a little early on. And I thought the Cardinals were a good candidate for that. I was looking at it through the lens of the line and I think there's still certainly something to that. But when you look at it through the lens of Kyler,

he only got, he got hit four times against the 49ers. He was getting the ball out really quickly in general. So that combination of the quick passes, I mean, you see I'm sure there will be down the line some temptation

to use DeAndre Hopkins to make incredible downfield plays and they should absolutely do that and be electric and exciting. But the discipline and the understanding of what an exceptional player's best skills are to just kind of use him as this amazing chain mover, I thought was really cool and really interesting and really smart, especially for week one. And so that combination with his skill of self-preservation, it did make me rethink that a little bit just in terms of thinking about it

from Kyler's perspective, not from the perspective of, can this offensive line do it? And Cliff Kingsbury certainly seemed to be on board with that to an extent. To connect all of the players we're talking about here for a second, this is of course still one of the things that Deshaun Watson has to contend with in Houston is the protection. He's still getting hit him and he got sacked four times.

He got hit seven times in the opener. And you know, you're mentioning Kyle. his ability to preserve his health, Lamar's ability under pressure. I mean, Deshawn Watson has every single skill that you would possibly want in a quarterback, and they can't,

they can't build the right team around him to protect him and to fully enable his success. Yes, and I think quarterback sacks can be a quarterback stat as well. I mean, that PFS has done some really, really good studies on that. And I think sometimes with Watson, who I love very much, they are on him occasionally, not the bulk of them, but sometimes he has a tendency to do that.

But it's also true his offensive line just hasn't been good. And they've thrown a lot of resources at it. And Bill O'Brien seems to, I mean, the biggest frustration that I have with Bill O'Brien is he throws resources at stuff and doesn't fix problems. Right? And like that's the sign of someone who maybe should not be building teams. That's all. Last thing on young quarterbacks for let you go, Maori.

Do you still believe in Baker Mayfield? It's getting harder. It's getting harder. I do. I have the same reaction that, honestly, that Nora had when you asked Nora this on Sunday, you know, the question about who would you choose? Like, my gut response to any Baker question has, I'm now on the other side of the seesaw than I was before, but I'm not quite ready to walk away.

I don't know, though. I mean, the week one was not encouraging, not encouraging. I just watched too many Texas Tech and Oklahoma games to say that I'm out on Baker yet. It's the college football fan in me, but getting harder, man. What about you? I'm going to be the last Baker fan. It's going to be me and Baker Mayfield together. I still believe.

It's not going to be good. Didn't you say that you would take Minshew? Yeah, but that doesn't, I'm a Minschu fan too. I'm not out on any of these guys. I think that, you know, I was on, I was listening to NFL network thing earlier. They did a press conference. And Joe Thomas saying he still believes Baker Macfield's a franchise quarterback. And Steve Smith talked.

And, you know, I think that Steve Smith kind of went on. kind of an amazing rant. I wish I'd actually clipped it about basically how just giving Baker-Mayfield power was the biggest problem that the Browns had. And so I talked to their GM, Andrew Barry for a piece around on the ringer today. And the biggest thing right now is building around the quarterback and giving him every chance to succeed. And, you know, Barry's point was he said any front office, their number one job, is to find a quarterback. Their number two job is to do everything that they can to support him.

And obviously, they're in mode number two right now. And I'm intrigued to see how Barry does that. I'm intrigued to see what that looks like. I'm intrigued to see over 16 games what a good offensive line looks like. And Kevin Stefansky, who's just a better coach, there's almost no way he can't be than Freddie Kitchen. So I'm not ready to throw it out. He's definitely on a watch list for guys that I'm going to pretend I never liked, but I'm not there yet. Does supporting Baker May field involve O'Dell Beckham Jr.? I mean, I would hope so, but I at this point, at this, the problem

is that they keep giving them three receptions. They keep giving them three receptions for 22 yards. At some point, Beckham is just going to be like, what the hell is this and become a net negative? O'Dell Beckham is an amazing player. I think that point, and I, you know, he's an incredible player and I don't

begrudge him speaking his mind about it, but he, I believe today said something along the lines of, you know, wanting more snap so you could get into a rhythm. So we might be fast approaching that point. If you have Odell Beckham on your team, you should throw on the football. Having Odell Beckham on the team is better than not having O'Dell Beckham on the team. And from my perspective, it takes a lot, a lot, a lot for that does not be true. Like, it takes everything off the field for that not to be true. So I'm going to wait in C mode on Baker. I don't know. I just, my general feeling on something

is that if you're so good one year and you set the rookie touchdown record, you have the capability to do that, right? Like, I was reading some golf book like three months ago. I remember what book it was. And they said, if you've ever hit a good golf shot, you're a good golfer. And if you hit a bad golf shot,

something is getting in the way of that good shot, right? That's it, right? You have the capability. If you have the capability to do it, if there's a proof of concept, that's all you need. And Baker Mayfield has done what very, very, very few rookies have done.

and in fact no rookies have done from a volume standpoint. And so you have to believe somewhere in Baker Mayfield is the capability to do it again. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the ability is not the question.

The ability to do it in the NFL is not the question. The ability to do it in the NFL with the Browns, amazingly is not the question. It's just about, I guess, sustainability and rediscovering that spark and that confidence and the ability to mesh with his offense. I mean, you know, a lot of change, a lot of change in the organization as there so often is,

in Cleveland. I'd still be more surprised if he ended up not being good than if he ended up being good. Mallory, I'm so glad you jumped in and made a smart point there because I zone out when men talk about golf. So Kevin, I miss that. That was a good point. I'm sorry. Love golf. Just it's like a total, you know, just take a little nap. I'll come back when you're done. Golf nap. That was a golf nap. A literal golf nap. Yeah, that's my golf nap. Malie Rubin. Kevin Clark. We've gone over because we got too into football. This happens sometimes. I love to chat football with you both. Nora, who's our first podcast together, it was a joy.

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That's get roman.com slash ring around NFL. Eligibility requirements and additional terms of law. Today's episode is brought to you by Heineken. Heineken would like to remind you that it's time for seasonal beers again. That's right. If you thought a cold, crisp summer Heineken with something, just wait until you taste the Heineken fall lineup. Is it a new product?

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So pick up a pack and get it delivered, whatever your style, and drink responsibly. All right, Nora, we're going to do the most important things of the week. This will be a midweek regular occurrence, just catching everybody up on the things we find to be the most important developments. What's your first one? Okay, hold on. We have to call these midweek nuggets. I liked it when you did that in Slack.

This can be live. We can just use this. But I want to be on record as being very pro midweek nuggets as what we call this. Midweek nugs? My first midweek nugs. Wow. That made me really happy. Anyway.

We're keeping this in. Isaiah has to keep this in because we're also going to say that Gardner Venture is a very good quarterback just to let him keep it in. All right. First midweek nug. The 49ers are kind of running out of cornerbacks. Yes. Mike Garofolo from NFL Network.

He reported. on Wednesday that Richard Sherman's going on IR with a calf strain, not expected to be a super long-term injury, but Jason Fred is already dealing with a hamstring. He didn't practice Wednesday. Akella Witherspoon is also in the concussion protocol. So right now, they have two healthy cornerbacks. Tim Harris, Jr. has a hamstring injury.

Right. So they're down to Emmanuel Mosley and Kwan Williams. and... And Dante Johnson, who's on the practice squad. And then they signed Ken Webster from the Dolphins practice squad. Oh, Ken Webster, a former Patriots practice squad member as well.

But... You could... It is my job to know football. I feel like I know football very well. You could have given me anything and Ken Webster there. And I've been like, absolutely. Sure thing.

We used to do a practice squad quiz at the end of the season in New England where you would just write as many players who had come and go on the practice squad as you could remember. And it was hard. But if you could get up to like 20 or so, usually you had a good chance of being one of the winners. Anyway, back to the Niners. They managed to make the Super Bowl last year with very bad injury luck. So it's not as if they're not capable of overcoming some challenges like this. But one thing that I think is interesting about them is that that's a smart team run by smart people really well-constructed roster, but they're

one of those test cases right now for what happens if you build your defense in the more sort of traditional through the defensive line kind of way. And the strength of their D-line made life a lot easier on their secondary last year. But at a certain point, if you're putting most of the resources into the front seven and you don't either through luck or just exceptional players having extra exceptional years, that starts to get tested. And I think the 49ers are obviously one of the contenders in the NFC. And I don't think that some week one injuries that are probably mostly going to last for

just a few weeks when they play the Jets and Giants in the next two weeks, you know, that's not going to sink anybody's season. But it's the type of thing just because it's hitting a place on their roster that doesn't have a lot of depth to begin with. That gives me a little bit of pause, I would say. George Kittle is also not practicing this week due to a knee injury. San Francisco, according to Adam Schaefter, is hopeful he will play Sunday against the Jets. So Danny Hyphitz actually had a great point in slack.

He said all of this and none of this sounds good. and the Niners are still a touchdown favorite over the New York Jets, which tells you a lot of things. We'll get to the Jets in a second. A lot of things about the New York Jets. I don't want to do a Jets rant again. Yeah, and the Niners. Just the fact that people just believe in the franchise generally,

even though you and I might be playing cornerback for them. Yeah, I mean, this is not going to be a good cornerback situation. I would say playing Sam Donald and Adam Gase is a good time to have them on the schedule. but I'd also say that Richard Sherman going on short-term IR, I don't know. I mean, it's a flare-up of an old injury. There was some optimism from the insiders who were reporting it, but I just, I don't know. I'm getting real worried.

After seeing them Sunday when they played a very strange game against the Cardinals, now they're dealing with injuries. I had this team going to the Super Bowl. I still hadn't going to the Super Bowl. but this is the kind of bad luck that starts piling up that turns great teams into teams that are struggling a little bit. Well, and with Sherman, he played out of his mind last year. So if we're talking about defense that has a great front and had guys on the back end who

weren't being asked to do a ton, that's more so because they had at least one corner who was having a fantastic season. Now, he's still on the quote unquote wrong side of 30. And if you're having an old flare up of an old injury, that's not a great combination. And there is the thing that's concerning about it to me is, you know, it's, I'm not worried they're going to lose to the Jets. It's just the potential for a domino effect. Yeah, that's it. First of all, at some point, the injuries become so bad that you are worried about them losing to the Jets.

I don't think we're there yet. I also think that generally their schedule is pretty easy. So they have the Jets, they have the Giants. They have the Eagles who are, they had a similarly strange week one loss. We'll just put a pin in that franchise for a second and just see what they are by October 4th. Then they have the dolphins. Okay. Then they get things get a little hairy in October, Rams, Patriots, Seahawks.

But if you were to draw up a schedule to start having some bad injury luck, it would be Jets, Giants, Dolphins in a four-game span. And so the flip side of that is if they lose some of these games, we sort of know what they are. But I don't know. I mean, it seems like they're getting some bad luck that's mixed with a nice time to have bad luck. That's all. All right. Speaking of injury news,

Michael Thomas is going to be out several weeks. The high ankle injury is considered worse than initially thought. Michael Thomas last year had the highest percentage of team targets, receptions, and receiving yards in 2019. He is a beast. He is one of the reasons, one of the many reasons,

including Sean Payton and Breeze himself, that Drew Breeze is still as efficient as he is. He's the reason that the Drew Breeze looks downfield very rarely and yet is still a top-tier quarterback. And I think that this is a big deal. Now, Sean Payton is on my list with Bill Belichick as you're almost intrigued to see what happens when someone misses, when there's an injury that might be a month

because they're going to come up with some stuff that you're not anticipating. And I think, you know, you got Alvin Kamar. give him that big contract. His hold in is obviously over. I liked what I saw on Sunday against Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They have Emmanuel Sanders. They have Tassan Hill, maybe give Tassan Hill a little more work. I think this is a big deal from a roster construction standpoint to have Michael Thomas out a matter of weeks or maybe a month, whatever.

But I also think that when a coach like Sean Payton changes the way a team has to play, that can sometimes be not a good thing, but an intriguing thing. One of the things that was sort of a cool outside possibility this season, I thought was, you know, does Michael Thomas have a chance to get to 2,000 yards in the last season before they go to 17 games? And that's just a fun thing to think about. But it's also he's really good and they use him a lot. So it's hard to overstate.

just how much, how much volume, how much in terms of how they've built, you're taking away without him like you. I trust Peyton in, in that spot. And I'm sure maybe this is when we're going to find out what Tays and Hill is really all about. This is it. This was the long game. This is why you give him 21 million bucks. Everyone, all these, all these coaches are just playing incredibly long, long as Pete Carroll. It's 47 yard, 47 year established the run career. The entire career devoted to establishing the run before they let Russ Cook. Yeah, but Sean Payton's just slightly just a couple of years with the with the Taysom Hill along game. But maybe we'll see a payoff.

I think their defense, you know, they kind of went, they went through this last year when Breeze was out of having a stretch where they needed their defense to keep them in games. And I would default to trusting that they will be able to do that. but that's if you made a list of players who taking them away for a stretch like that would be an issue, Michael Thomas would be on that list. I agree with you. All right. What's your number two? So I don't, you probably saw analytics, Twitter eating itself alive a couple weeks ago.

I don't know what you're about to say, but the answer is I've seen a number of things that can be described that way. So ESPN, Seth Walder and Brian Burke came up with a new metric called Run Stop Win Rate. Seth Walter and Brian Burke can both be described as my guys. Heck yeah. And it's really cool. It's really cool stuff. It's like pass rush win rate, but it's for the running game. And their findings had Aaron Donald as a slightly below average run defender.

And people weren't happy. They were not. And again, we can talk. about people being mad online until the cows come home and I don't think that we really need to do that. But what I do want to talk about is that the Rams seem to have noticed this. And I was just reading some tweets and some quotes from Brandon Staley, their DC. This is from Jordan Roderick of the athletic. And she's paraphrasing Staley here, but she said another friend of the pod, just everybody. We're a big tent here. We are a big tent here at the ringer NFL show.

Go ahead. So Staley said, and again, Jordan's paraphrasing, but she has him saying, I thought Aaron was also excellent against the run. Some of the things he did against the run helped us contain one of the best facts in the league. And Sean McVeigh also said that the run defense thing had no merit to him and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But it's just fun to me to see a team kind of acknowledge an outside, quote unquote, outside story and be making little passive aggressive comments about that. I don't think it has anything to do with what Aaron Donald is going to do against the run. I mean, they played the Cowboys. Ezekiel Elliott had 96 yards. Like, that's not spectacular by his standards, but it was fine. But I just like, I like that vibe a little bit. I like that they're sort of needling guys about stuff. So I'm always there for a little,

little passive aggression. And Brandon Staley, come on down in the name of Aaron Donald. Absolutely. I like the fact. So I feel like NFL players were the last group to get really connected on social media.

And I feel like you know this from covering the league. There's this feeling that like, oh, whatever happens outside this locker room doesn't matter or whatever. Whereas other sports, whether that's the NBA, whether that's soccer,

or global soccer, whatever, I feel like there was much more of a reaction. If something was big on social media, you know, an NBA player, we've seen this many, we're seeing it right now with the playoffs where literally in Instagram comments, players are going at each other.

And I feel like that hasn't happened until the last couple of years with the NFL. And I kind of like it. I kind of like the idea that Brian Berger come up with something about Aaron Donald and the players themselves are responding to it, whether that's in actual interviews or online. So I think it's cool.

to see. I think it's going to help fans to have that be more reactive because I feel like, again, I think five, 10 years ago when the NBA was setting social media on fire, I think the NFL, they just weren't, they just didn't want that. Coaches didn't want that. Coaches, you know, there's a reason that college football coaches tried to ban all social media, right? No distractions, which means anything they don't like, right? And so I think that I'm in agreement with you. anytime we this is a pro shade podcast love it pettiness what's your next one all right um i my matchup of the week here and this is not this is not a midweek nugget sort of this will not be a recurring theme but i really want to see sunday night football pete carroll making adjustments

against cam newton now that we've seen what amounts to i saw in pro football talk this morning Essentially, they said that there were 13 opportunities for Cam Newton to run the ball from a design standpoint, so an option or an actual design run. And I'm intrigued to see Pete Carroll making adjustments, how he reckons with that, now that we know what this looks like, now that we know what the blocking schemes are going to look like. And, you know, I think without preseason, there were probably not the Belchuk would ever show anything in preseason, but there was just no anything. there was no evidence, no proof of concept on what Cam was going to look like in a Patriots uniform. Now we know. And that's when you have Jamal Adams in the field, when you have, and again, this is not the Legion and Boom out there. But I dislike seeing good defensive minds go against innovative offenses. And that's what you're going to get on Sunday night.

It's interesting that you say that because I was, I've been in the process of reporting a story that I think will come out on Friday, just about looking at the quality of play in week one. Sure. what might have been different or not different. Holding calls way down. Way down. That's in the piece, Kevin. But one of the things that I learned in reporting it that I thought was most interesting

was that there were a lot of people, and I don't want to spoil everything because then people can read it. But the idea that advanced scouting was really, really impacted because there was nothing to advance scout, right? So one of the first things that you do, if you're doing an advanced scouting report, is you look for certain roles. So you look for who's the third downback, who are the situational pass rushers.

And now we might know that in certain situations. Like you don't really need a preseason to know that James White is the Patriots third down back. But in a lot of cases, that was something that coaches, personnel guys, actually felt was different this year because of the lack of preseason and because they had less,

they had fewer opportunities to get to know other teams. And a lot of people used that as a reason that they were thinking week two is going to look different from week one. And the quality of playing in week one was pretty good. You know, the football looks like football. But that, you know, the 200 level of that is getting more into the schematic decisions that Pete Carroll is going to get to do with the Patriots.

Now, the Patriots, of course, are on their usual tack of saying, well, no, this isn't a, this isn't a, we haven't ripped up the playbook. I think Josh McDaniels said something about the way that we played against the dolphins was just because of the dolphins and we're going to change based on opponent. I would, I would say, having watched that team for many years and then watching them on Sunday, it was too different. If anyone tells you that one, wasn't a wholesale shift in how they played offensive football. They are lying to you, no offense, Josh McDaniels, who I think is wonderful. So, yeah, what the Seahawks do, I mean, Pete Carroll knows that team super well. He knows Bill Belichick super well. It'll be a really cool game. I think, you know, there's a lot of Patriots optimism. It's going to be different playing Seattle than it is Miami, but that's a cool meeting in the minds that we're talking about. Yep. Can't wait to see it. Do you have a third one? Yeah. Well, wow, we're kind of still in, in Patriotsland-ish, or former Patriots land. But so Matt Patricia, the Lions have blown 11 fourth quarter lead

since Matt Patricia became their head coach. Fantastic. And I don't want to make this the like Kevin and Nora dunk on Matt Patricia happy hour. Like that's not. We're an hour into this podcast. We can, we can do whatever we have. We have full creative control. It can just take, take it towards, do 45 minutes. I'm at Patricia. It's a hard thing to become an NFL head coach. I have seen first person players talking about, you know, enjoying learning from him. But he just, he makes it hard sometimes. And he made it pretty hard on Sunday because they blow another fourth quarter lead. And he's asked after that lost the Bears if there's something that's happening in his coaching that isn't happening enough in the fourth quarter is affecting the fourth quarter. And he said,

this is the quote, yeah, I don't think so. I think I got probably one of the biggest plays in the fourth quarter in the history of the NFL. And that's a reference to the Malcolm Butler interception against the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Congratulations. Which was five years ago. And crucially, there was a documentary made about it

that pretty clearly showed. Brian Flores. Pretty clearly showed that he was not responsible for it. Or if he was, it was just sort of incidental. So, yeah, I mean, one, Malcolm Butler was responsible for it, but there's also you see in that clip that we're talking about Brian Flores shouting Malcolm go. Well, also the no time out thing with Bill Belichick. There's like that the do your job thing shows how, you know, kind of the victory as many fathers thing shows a lot of people responsible for that particular play. And by the way, one of them is Pete Carroll.

but anyway, Matt Patricia is not high on this list of contributors to this particular play. And even if he was, even if he was, it was one play five years ago and you were a bad to fits coordinator. And he's 933 as the coach of the Lions and I just... 23, I think. Don't don't add 10 losses to Matt Patricia's record. 9 of 33. Oh, I'm sorry. He's making it harder than it has to be is what I'm saying here. And I think I'm still sort of mourning a little bit of the lion's optimism that we had going. It wasn't mine. It wasn't my optimism.

It's Matthew Stafford wishful and thinking. Well, isn't that the same thing? I don't know. Matt Patricia's a bad coach, man. And, you know, I was, you almost want to laugh. When I looked out the most positive graded throws to look at Lamar Jackson being number one, Mitchell Chubisky was number two. And if you're the defensive mind head coach,

coach and you let Mitchell Chubisky do that. It's time to get back in the lab, man. I just don't know what he does. And, you know, again, I said it when, when Chukapati was on this show, and all three of us talking about it, I just hate watching this team. There's just nothing, nothing to recommend them. So it's a bad, it's not a good, like, team building. It's not a good locker room strategy to be, like, talking about what you did five years ago. That's so great. But it's also with another team that a player did. Like, that's not a great. That's not a great way to, you know, get players to respect coaching. But he also, he made bad in-game decisions in this game, too. They kicked a field goal. They tried to kick a 55-yard field goal up 10. Bears end

getting great field position when that's no good. And they use it to score. Sure, like DeAndre Swift dropped the pass, but there were things in that game that were Matt Patricia decisions that didn't go well. So double whammy. She's just a bad coach. Um, I, I will say this. You said it's a harder, it's a hard job to have, obviously. I think about Patricia in the same way, I think about someone like Nathan Perman, which is they're both just got off with their jobs, but it's actually kind of incredible how good they had to be to get to be the worst at their jobs, right? Like, Nathan Peterman torched Clemson in college. Right. And like probably looks pretty good in a practice. But then he gets to the NFL and he looks like maybe the worst

quarterback I've ever seen play. And Matt Patricia is not the worst coach you ever see. I'm not going to say that. I'm just saying it really is amazing. One thing that's amazing professional football is just that little zone where you're good enough to be the defensive coordinator of the Patriots to win a Super Bowl, even if you weren't even that good. But once you just start coaching a team, it's just not there. Again, huge differences between where Peterman ranks among quarterbacks and where Patricia for my response coaches all time. But I'm just saying both bad at their jobs. But being bad in the NFL is,

is all relative. Now Patricia would torch like Texas high school football. Totally. He would just scheme them out of their 40,000 seat stadiums. He'd probably be really like, he'd enjoy that. He probably enjoys coaching the Lions more. College is a different deal. But I think Texas High School football,

now Patricia would just dunk on everything. It'd be like when Brian Scalabryan did play to pick up ball. All right. Exactly like that. Yep. All right. My last one, Frank Gore,

not much to say, starting on Sunday against the 49ers. The one good thing Adam Gase does well is employ Frank Gore. Took a year off last year when Gore was in Buffalo.

Adam Gase wasn't able to bring him in. But I love Frank Gore. Did a piece on him last year. Got to know him a little bit. Got to know people around him. This is a guy who's just, you know,

his son now plays for Southern Miss. He said he cried watching it. Obviously, can't really get down there. on regular basis because of all the travel restrictions and all that stuff. But he's 37 years old at a position where everyone thinks you're done at 30. He's starting on Sunday. He's not particularly good as a running back right now.

Six attempts for 24 yards last week. But if I can have Frank Gore on my roster, I'm going to do it. It's cool that he's getting to start. The Jets are a tire fire. But, again, they do one thing well right now. And it's have Frank Gore on the team. All right, Nora, this has been fun. Midweek Nugs.

Joe Buck is now. next. Joe Buck, Fox, Fox football, Fox baseball, formerly Fox golf. I was a big fan of Fox Golf. Justice for Fox Golf. How you doing? Welcome to Slow Newsday, Joe. Thank you so much. To hear justice for Fox Golf really warms my heart. It was a five-year learning curve for me that I think ended on a high note. And have had it, NBC. I'll be watching because I'm off that weekend. So all's good. All right. So you were in an empty stadium yesterday for, I don't know, you did minor league baseball. Was that the first time in your career you've been in empty stadium or have you

been to empty-ish stadiums before? Ish, but not like that. I mean, you could hear things happening that you really didn't want to hear happening. And it was kind of funny. During all the breaks, when we were in commercial break, the Saints sideline was in front of. us, so kind of below us. And the seats behind their bench, their practice squad players were sitting in. And so they would play whatever music was being played in the stadium. And the actual on-field players, even some out in the middle of the field, were saluting and making the practice squad guys sing along with the song. It was just surreal. And by the way, you've got two of the most

decorated quarterbacks and two quarterbacks who have basically all the records in the history books playing on the opening weekend. And if you could hear a pin drop in the place, it was just, it was surreal. During the Champions League final in soccer, Paris played Munich. And in the second half, Munich had, Bayern Munich had its players start cheering. And it was like five guys, like waving towels. And they announced, like, this is the momentum is shifting. It's like it's five guys waving towels. Like that's where we're at now with empty stadiums. Like this is the guy like banging on the chair in front of him.

They're like, this is incredible. And it's like, you know, we used to have full stadiums, guys. Yeah, no, I did not take debate on that one. Although I'm just so dumb that at the end and I caught myself. But I don't know what happened. Maybe it was a call that went against the Saints and the crowd food when they didn't give Cameras their touchdown. And I'm like, you know, in the crowd.

You know, the crowd does, and then the thing went off in my head. I'm like, shit, there's no crowd here, even though there is no crowd. And, I mean, I took the bait like the moron than I am. But, you know, I think, as I said months ago, good smart crowd noise is a necessity under these broadcasts. And people, you know, well, I'm a tradition, there is no traditionalist for how to broadcast sports during a pandemic. So, you know, it is what it is.

It needs to be there and it needs to be done well. Yeah. I was fascinated. The Panthers got booed at home by fake fans yesterday. And it's like I just would love to know the thought. I heard that. I was like, this seems a little aggressive. So I want to see sort of the evolution of how this goes.

All right. First impressions about Tom Brady yesterday. Because I've been under theory of the last couple of months that this is going to be a worst team in September and October than it will be in November to December because nobody likes precision more than Tom Brady. No one likes being able to. I've heard stories about him working out in June, UCLA five years ago. And if a throw is half an inch off the line, he's pissed off at himself.

I mean, this is a guy who needs every step of the way in the off season. He goes to a place where not only do you not have off season, you don't have a real padded practice training camp until late August. You just feel like it's a tough time to try anything new. When you see Brady yesterday, do you think this is Brady in 2020? Or do you think this team is going to get better as the year goes on? Yeah, I really do. believe that they'll get better. I don't, I don't imagine he could have started with more things

stacked against him. The only break he got was playing at New Orleans with no crowd. And he didn't have to deal with that. But other than that, I mean, no preseason training camp was weird. You know, you're going through all these, jumping through all these hoops for COVID. And it looked like a team that needs work. And we've said it before. It's almost like in New England, and I know the Patriot started with a win. Bill Belichick would take September as kind of training camp preseason extended, and then they would start to hit their stride defensively, offensively. I think they've got a long way to go, but I think they've got plenty to play with there and get a lot better. I think pretty fast. But yeah, it looked disjointed. It looked

off. He and Mike Evans weren't on the same page. Godwin's a stud. He loves it. He loves it. He Scotty Miller. Brankowski didn't look very quick at all. And I know that he's, you know, not a quick guy, but he wasn't a factor. I think he has to get back into football shape, but I think the offense has to gel. But I think they'll get better. When you look at the next 16 weeks, 17 weeks, I feel like, as it started last night, they were only doing, was Brady or Belichick responsible for the 2007 Patriots or the 207 Patriots or the 20s? 13 pages, the 2014 pages. I thought it was funny yesterday. Every time Brady has lost a game in week one, he's made the Super Bowl. Okay. And so that's not just a Brady take. That's a Belichick take. It's what you're talking about where they start slow in September. Do you think there's anything to learn this year when you look at Tom Brady in Tampa Bay, Bill Belichick with Cam Newton, about their past success? Or do you see that as sort of divorced from what we see going forward? And you're just going to, how do you view that, I guess? Yeah, I think there's so many factors involved that it's almost ridiculous to try to, you know, base what happens in 2020 during the conditions that we're all under in our own worlds.

And go back in time and start looking at year by year and saying, well, obviously this was all Brady or obviously this was all Belichick. It makes for interesting call-in show conversation, but I mean, it's impossible to compare what's happening right now in 2020 to 2001. You know, I mean, I would say this. I think Brady did more with less on offense around him than really for a 12-win team last year than any quarterback has in a long time. And like Troy said yesterday, he is smart enough to know. know that he can ride the defense, not for stuff and win games. I think he wants to prove now that he can still light up a scoreboard. I don't know that he can, but we're going to find out here in 2020. But I just think every season, hell, every week is kind of a chapter into itself.

Let's get at your horoscope. You said you're a tourist. We've already looked it up here. Here's the, here's the horoscope. You're looking forward to an event yet dreading it. You're better for having such milestone markers embrace the awful excitement. That's amazing. That is speaking directly to me being on this podcast. Yeah, I was going to say that. That is, that is, embrace the awful excitement is probably the tagline. I would do this.

I would do this with you every day. I enjoy talking to you. Looking forward to an event yet dreading it. Well, let's see. I'm going to Cleveland. on Thursday. Oh, wow. Bangles. Bangles Browns. Cincinnati, the battle for Ohio. Uh-huh. Is that the awful excitement? That's the awful excitement, the Battle of Ohio. Yeah, I don't know. I am excited actually to watch Borough play. Me too. I think I saw him for maybe

five minutes play in college. And from everything I read about his debut, that was good. And I think the grounds are interesting and hopefully you can get it going. I don't know what that would be referencing as I think, as I look ahead in my life, the Super Bowl is behind me. Yes. That would always be definitely, that would describe the Super Bowl to me. I love it. It's intense.

I'm glad it's only every three years. maybe the idea of going into a bubble for the baseball post season if they're going to do that. Sounds like they are, yeah. Do you feel like the Super Bowl this year, though, was a little better because you saw Brian Curtis and I when you're walking around? It did give me quite a lift going into the booth that day.

And Brian just wrote a piece, not to cross-promote here, but Brian just wrote a piece on kind of one of the, of the brains behind my brand. So about the spotters and the people that make us on TV look smarter than we actually are and did a hell of a job. So Brian, when he came here to my house and interviewed my wife and me, and this was a few years ago, was taken by the fact that all I do is curse. That's what stuck with me from the piece. I don't remember anything else except that he said my wife and I say the word fuck a lot. That's access.

That is how you use access in journalism. Brian Curtis is a master. Just boil it down. Boil it down to the essence of Joe Buck, which is the F word. Yeah. I've played in the Tahoe event with Carson Palmer, the first time and his brother Jordan. We got off the course and he's like, how do you not curse in the booth? Because I don't have a golf club, a golf club in my hand.

There you go. Yeah, no, I am. You have it much worse than I am because you're talking constantly. I am so shocked I've never cursed in any sort of. like live radio, hey, you know, you're just kind of, you're on the phone with some guy in San Diego for 10 minutes, and you're just like, oh, the Browns. And the fact that I've never said the F word is, is a minor miracle for me. And I couldn't imagine what it's like for you. I just feel like, you know, once you walk in that booth, and maybe it's from having grown up in a broadcast booth with my dad, being two seats over and maybe in a little kid

knowing that I can't really talk when I was a little boy and not wanting to get kicked out of the room by my dad. Once I walk in the booth, I'm a different human being. But when I, I'm away, I curse like a, you know, I guess sailors curse a lot. Saylor's curse a lot. I don't know. I have not met a sailor in a very long time. So I don't know if that stereotype is true. All right.

I think they get a bad route. I agree with that. Joe Buck, you are one of my favorite people in media. I cannot thank you enough for coming on Slow Newsday. I'm honored and I'll talk to you any time. I think you look better without the mustache. No, no. Well, okay, I will say this is two weeks in a row.

last week, Jeff Fisher nailed me to the wall in the mustache thing, and he's a mustache officianto. Well, he is. And now you're saying, and I have a tremendous respect for you, and I think my wife hates it. So I'm really up against it here. I was going to hate it. I mean, look, let's celebrate that here. I need to grow a mustache.

It's white from time to time, and this was part of the thing in the, in the Curtis piece, I will grow a beard or a mustache or whatever to try to take focus off my hair line. You, on the other hand, are flowing. So I would not, if I'm you and I'm your stylist, I say, look, I like the no structured jacket. I like the undone tie. Everything's going good there. Let's not take the focus off the fact that everybody like me who's balding or should be bald without augmentation. I don't want to look at your upper lip.

I want to gaze your golden locks. Have you thought about going into being a stylist? This has been pretty good. better about this whole thing now. It's a backup plan of mine that I'm just waiting for my personal cancellation and then I'm going to go into that. Joe Buck, Justice for Fox Golf, buddy. Yeah, I like it. I'm going to get T-shirts made up and buttons. Do they still do buttons? I'm going to pass those out. There's a button guy who's dying for work somewhere. I'd love to make justice for Fox Golf. Yes, Justice for Fox Golf. Here, Justin, will you wear this? What? Yeah,

okay Joe thank you so much man this is amazing all right that was fun thank you awesome