The Ringer NFL Show - Lessons From the Deshaun Watson–Lamar Jackson QB Clash, a Sunday Night Snoozefest, and the Flailing Eagles | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

The guys discuss how the most anticipated quarterback matchup of Week 11 turned one-sided as Lamar Jackson and the Ravens proved they’re as complete as any team in the NFL (0:29). Plus, a Stock Up led by the Vikings’ incredible comeback and an impressive division win for the Colts (12:16), before a Stock Down headlined by the Bears’ struggles, the Eagles’ waning playoff chances, and how Tua Tagovailoa’s injury affects the tanking race (23:11). Finally, they throw a pair of challenge flags on the NFL’s pass interference rule and the Washington football franchise (47:07). Hosts: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the NFL show is brought to you by State Farm. When you need a game plan for protection, state farm agents are here to help. With personalized service, agents are available to talk in person, over text, or through the State Farm app. So go with the one with coverage and agents you can count on. Find an agent in your neighborhood today. State Farm. Talk to an agent today. To the Ringer NFL show, I'm Robert Mays. Join, as always, by Kevin Clark. Kevin, how you doing, buddy?

Is there a mechanism, Robert Mays, in which we can somehow flex Sunday night's game, like out of our minds? I wish I could flex this bear's season out of my mind. So if we're going that far, if we're trying to kind of play this revisionist history game, why not just do this whole year for me? Like Eternal Sunshine, but for specific games and for you, you would just take out the entire season?

If there was a way I could go have some sort of procedure or take some sort of pill and I would just forget everything that happened over the last three weeks, I would consider it. Or over the last three months, excuse me. I would consider it. Oh my gosh.

Okay. That got progressively grimmer as the sentence went along. It's just been brutal. We'll talk about the Bears. Tommy Alter said there was a Jake, bring back Jay Cutler, Shan at the game tonight. Jay Cutler is the best Bears quarterback of my lifetime.

So that's totally understandable and I don't blame people. We'll talk about the Bears and we get to stock down. Let's talk about some good quarterbacks. Yeah, we'll talk about that later. But let's talk about the biggest quarterback matchup of the week. It's the quarterback matchup we were looking most forward to. And that is Sean Watson against Lamar Jackson. And it was a very one-sided effect.

fair. Yeah, first time in his NFL or college career, the Deshaun Watson shut out in the first half. We learned a lot about Lamar Jackson the past month, six weeks. I don't know. I mean, everything we saw from Lamar Jackson today, we'd already seen. Okay. There was a stat out there, next gen stats had this. He leads the NFL when in runs where there was a defender at one point within one yard. Okay. He's doubling up the next closest quarterback, which Josh town hit 86 yards again today and basically what that stat means is guys get close to him and they can't get him that's what that means okay and so we saw the same stuff you know more run of the year candidates stuff like that and guys spinning around we've seen all of that i think the biggest step today was

learning that against another performance against a really good quarterback for that raven's defense i mean this is a complete team this is what i learned today from sunday is that i felt like even after the new England game, that Baltimore was not at New England's level. And I'm ready to put Baltimore at the tippy top top NFL contenders. I'm not qualifying this anymore. From what we've seen, Marcus Peters looks elite. He's the top rated cornerback by PFF since he became a Baltimore Raven. I saw us to Eric Eager had this. He's allowing 0.7 routes run per coverage snap. I mean, this is the defense that Lamar Jackson deserves, and it's what's going to vault them into real, real contention.

What I like about their defense, I think Marcus Peters plays a big part in this, is that they have a clearly defined identity. They know what they have to be with the personnel that they have. They don't have an elite pass rush. They don't have elite players up front for the most part. So they know they have to bring a ton of heat, and that's what they did today.

They're bringing consistent five, six-man pressures and trusting the guys on the people. back end. And for the most part, today, against what is typically a pretty lead pass offense, those guys held up. You know, I know Will Fuller, everything else, but this is still a group that pretty consistently is able to burn people down the field, deep, everything else. And when you play man coverage against that, it leaves you pretty vulnerable.

And the Baltimore Ravens were more than up to the task today. I was very impressed. I did not expect their defense to bring it like they did. Neither did Earl Thomas, who said after the game. I saw that. He did not expect them to do them like that, which neither did I. So it was a very convincing performance. And three of the last four quarterbacks they faced at this point,

Russell Wilson, Tom Brady, Deshawn Watson, three pretty good quarterbacks. No one scored more than 20 points. And they've beaten all of those guys by at least two touchdowns. So when I'm talking about the Ravens defense, no, they're not New England. They're not San Francisco. But they're enough when you consider what the Ravens doing on offense, which is at this point changing the game, that defense is enough to get them where they need to go

as long as this continues. And look, who knows, we've talked about it so much, who knows what these teams look like in late December or early January, but right now this Ravens team is really scary. Yeah. And again, I think on both sides of the ball, it's just a well-defined identity. They know exactly what they want to do

and they know exactly how to get there. And when you watch some of these teams, it just seem to be kind of fumbling around in the dark for any sort of consistent. consistency on either side, and then you have a team that's just completely locked in to their plan. It's so obvious. We've been talking about it with the Ravens for weeks, and I think today was another example of that. I want to talk about the Texans very briefly here because it seems like, so with this game, they more or less are, I'm not saying out of the two seed in the AFC,

but it's going to be a very difficult road to get there because they now don't have the tiebreaker with Baltimore. And so the Ravens are now effectively two games up on them, three games up, on them to get the buy in the AFC. I think the Texans, the way they're currently constructed, are going to have a very hard time doing much in the playoffs. Their defense is suspect at best. They're hurt. They don't have much talent on that side of the ball right now.

Watt gone, everything else. And the offense for all the stuff that Tashon Watson can do, I don't know if it can carry them. What do you think about the Houston Texans right now as a franchise? What do you think that needs to happen for them? It's a big question. So the Laramie Tonsal trade, they went all done in 2019. I actually thought they'd maybe be better than six and four at this point.

I mean, look, there's not a lot you can do right now playing the Baltimore Ravens. Everybody looks pretty bad. Not this bad, but everybody looks pretty bad to play in Baltimore Ravens right now, okay? But right now, they're six and four, and so are the Indianapolis Colts. And the Annapolis Colts lost a quarterback at one point. They got him back today, but he got under 200 yards passing. he's not necessarily where it needs to be just yet, but the Colts looked really good today. And so I think two weeks ago, I was thinking, okay, Texans are gearing up for a little mini run.

At this point, like you said, 538 has a 6% chance for the Texans to get our first round by. They have a 49% chance to win the division. It's not where I thought they'd be. I think that Deshaun Watson is one of the best quarterbacks to football. He was somebody we've discussed as an MVP candidate. I don't know. The JJ Watt thing is still weighing on them. think that we probably kind of moved on quite quickly from the fact that he's out for the season

and he's still one of the elite defensive linemen in the NFL. And so I just, I don't know. This was, I did not expect them to lose by 34 points. I'll say that. I expected them to lose, but not like this. This was a disappointing performance. I will say that the passenger call and the lack of passing interference call, then the review, the Marlon Humphrey, kind of almost blatant pass interference. That was amazing. I think it changed the early course of the game, but it definitely not, does not come with 34 points of difference. I do, I do enjoy Bill O'Brien saying he doesn't know what past interference is anymore, because I don't think, I think that's very relatable for all of us. We'll get to that. But yeah, but that was, this was not something

I expected from a, from a team I thought that was on the fringe of contention in the AFC. Yeah, I mean, that play definitely swung in the early part of the game. It was a massive swing in that moment, but I still think that they got outclassed today. Oh, for sure. And we'll see what happens. with them. This is a team that we've talked so much about the fact that they don't have a general manager, that there is a little bit of unrest with the direction that they're going on the personnel side. If they bring in someone next year, let's say for argument's sake, it's Nick Casario, someone like that, they have $55 million in cap space as it currently stands. They can get a lot more of it. They have Vernon Hargreaves on his unguaranteed fifth-year adoption.

That's $9 million there. There's a couple other, you know, reasonable cuts they can make to save a ton more money. And this is a team that still is going to have Deshaun Watson, Laramie Tunsell, Will Fuller, DeAndre Hopkins. And so that core is going to be in place with those rookie offensive linemen as well. And then you see what they can do on defense. So it is kind of a blank slate without the first round pick. That's the problem, is that you don't have a lot of draft capital, but you do have some flexibility. They're not in as bad a spot as some other teams. I'll be curious to see what this offseason looks like for them. I know that seems like a quick jump to go from maybe they can get the buy to let's look toward the spring, but I do think

that as currently constructed, they're going to have a very hard time. I will say that Houston really got out in front of something here by not having a GM and thus not being caught up in the massive scandals of the other Houston GMs. Scandals is the wrong word, but the Astros are a tire fire in the front office at this point. Darry started a news cycle dominating couple of weeks there in the NBA and Houston just said, you know what? We're not going to have a GM.

Yeah, but they still had to operate as a franchise, which was unfortunate. Find someone to talk about there. I still think that Darrell Morris should run the Texans. Yeah. It would take him like six weeks to figure it out and start finding value. I'm sure he'd be good at it,

but I'm assuming that's not going to happen. Or they could hire Nick area or somebody knows football. Either way, that's probably going to be the answer. Okay. So I think that, again, six and four, we're not, this is not in, you know, the obituary for them. They can still turn this around. They still have Deshaun Watson. They still have a lot of talent. But right now, I think that the AFC is so top heavy. You're going to have Baltimore. You're going to have New England. And, you know, we'll see about Kansas City. But it's a,

it's a bad year to be pretty good in the AFC. It's a real bad year. And right now, the Houston, are yeah and i think that's what i'm saying i mean even if they could you know get hot catch a couple breaks here down the stretch whatever i still think it's going to be really difficult for them to win a championship this year and when you consider some of the moves they made this off season those are probably the designs that they had so now if we're not in that class what are we and where do we go from here and i think that that's probably the answer you look at the amount of cap space you're going to have you look at the core and the nucleus you're bringing back let's say what comes back healthy then you go from there.

And for the most part on defense next season, they've got a blank slate. You're looking at Mercilus is a free agent. I believe that Jonathan Joseph is going to be a free agent. So, I mean, it's really Bradley Robey was on a one-year contract. Tashon Gibson is on, I believe, a short-term deal. Now, he's decided for a couple more years. So for the most part, though, this is a team where you're going to have Watt,

and you're going to have a couple young guys on defense, and that's really it. Outside of that, you're going to be able to kind of remake this defense the way that you want to, and I think that is going to be the task for them this offseason. Because even though the offensive line isn't great, it still has the pieces in place. The guys are young. You just re-sign Nick Martin to that deal. You probably go get another guard.

But for the most part, your personnel on that side of the ball is going to be solidified. It's about rebuilding that defense this off season. And even though they don't have that pick, they do have some financial resources to make that happen. If you woke up tomorrow and were a member of Texan's ownership, what do we do with Bill O'Brien? I think you keep him for next year. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. I think he's coached well enough.

He gets a lot of heat, and I understand a lot of that heat, and I understand some of the moves he's made of him head scratching, but I still think, I don't think you get rid of him. I think part of the reason that you want to bring him back is because if you really do want Casario, they have a relationship. And even if it's, that's his value is getting Casario in the building, that's valuable to me. Yeah, I guess.

All right, let's go with stock up. These are going to be, we're going to run through these pretty quickly because no one really showered themselves in glory this week in the NFL. Our first stock up almost lost to the Broncos. Yeah, exactly. That's a bad sign. I mean, we can breeze through the Vikings here. I tweeted this, and I firmly believe it.

I think there are days where you just don't have it in the NFL, and you're just laying an egg, and things are going wrong left and right, and Brandon Allen's making plays on you, and Xavier Rhodes can't cover anybody. And those are games that you often lose, because these teams, for the most part, are all bunched together to a certain degree. We have a few at the bottom. We have a few at the top and most of them in the middle. If you have a game where you come out flat

and you clearly just don't have whatever you need that week, a lot of the time, that's going to go poorly. And Minnesota, it seemed like they were going that way. They're down 20 to nothing at halftime, and they really dug down and came up with enough plays in the second half where I was impressed by the fact that they could come back and win that game. Yeah, I mean, this looked like a classic Vikings' letdown game.

Yep, the whole way. And I thought at some point it just becomes a math problem, but they've become the first team in the last five years to overcome a 20-point halftime deficit. I guess that must be regular season because I remember, well, I guess, were the Falcons up 28 to 3? No, it was 21 to 3, right, on the Patriots? I think so.

Yeah, it was 283 late in the third quarter. Yeah, I don't know, let's not do this. We're going to praise the Falcons later. Let's not do this to Falcons fans. Yeah, I mean, this was a really impressive comeback. The key is to not be almost losing to the Broncos, but the second best thing is to come back from that. Stefan Diggs is really freaking good.

Kirk Cousins is still a good quarterback. I saw Chase Stewart had this, and I think it's really interesting because I don't think we talk about this kind of stuff enough. The Vikings have thrown 320 passes this season, but Diggs has 888 yards this season. He's been a point. The point he was making was, as we get smarter about football stats,

we need to sort of contextualize that what Diggs is doing is different from, say, what Michael Thomas is doing. This is a run-heavy team, and the fact that Diggs and, you know, to a lesser extent, Cousins is putting up these sort of numbers is really impressive. I believe that Diggs had 121 yards in the second half. Yep. I mean, he had five targets, five catches, 121 yards and a touchdown in the second half. That's nuts.

And they needed him desperately. And they score touchdown every possession in the second half, right? They were just moving the ball. They were marching the ball. I mean, it's, and I love watching the ball. I mean, it's, and I love watching that offense, and it's so cool. I mean, the one they scored on that deep post, it was like a variation of what you would see from that Chanahan or from that Kubiak offense where they're running zone, but they were doing it

out a shotgun. So the rollout happened the other boot happened the other way. It's just, it's gorgeous. I mean, it's a variation of the type of football. I love this. I love to watch the most. They've run it really well for most of the year. They were off in the first half and they were just clicking nonstop in the second half.

And I, it's kind of the conversation. we had about them earlier this week. When they're working, when they're at their best, they are truly terrified. And I know they have holes and faults on the defense that they haven't had in recent years, but I still think that when this offense is going well, that they can move the ball and they could just crush people with big plays and then crush anybody with big plays. The Broncos have been a good team this year, but they've been a good defense. Okay, so one thing, we talked about what the vikes was like at their best.

they were at their worst today. Yes. And that's what's impressive. Yeah, but that's what's impressive is the ability to limit how bad these days can be. The loss to Matt Moore is still head scratching. But really, I mean, they're coming on in a really exciting way. Be the Cowboys last week. The couple of the wins have been a little bit, you know, cheap.

They have done the Redskins thing. They beat the Lions, all that. They'd be the Giants. But I just think that they are a competent, team right now that is probably a notch below Green Bay in that division, but absolutely a team that could make some noise in the playoffs. Absolutely. And let's say Green Bay beats San Francisco next week. And the Niners almost lost today. And let's say the Vikings knock off the Packers next time they play. And the buy is still in play for that. It absolutely is. I think that's why this was such a huge win

because they're going to have so many crucial games down the stretch here, not losing a game you shouldn't to Denver puts you in position to get where you want to go in terms of playoff seating. 538, I'm not sure they have this, has basically says Green Bay is going to win the division, but then has Minnesota with a higher percentage chance to win the Super Bowl than Green Bay, which is very strange. I wonder how that works. I don't know.

I'm not a math guy. That's hard for me to get to. I'm sure it's a 15%-esque rule of somehow. I'm going to figure that out. Yeah, so people were sending me 15%, there's no 15% Super Bowl teams now. So we're keeping an eye on it. But the committee, the committee's meeting every week just to just to keep an eye on it. Let's get to our next stock up.

Let's do the Colts here very quickly. 20 point win. Just an impressive win. I mean, Foles looked a little out of sorts. That offense looked a little bit rusty with him in there. I also thought the Colts defense played well. Justin had a really big game. He was really disruptive.

And they were just playing fast again. I mean, the Colts defense, no matter who's out there is always playing fast. And they were just better today. And they were better on both sides of the ball. They really pushed Jacksonville. round up front on the other side. Marlon Mack had a huge day before going out. This is the type of win we expect from them when Brissette's in the game.

It's not always the prettiest type of football, but they just seem to get it done enough. How excited were you before you found out in the moments between Quinn Nelson scoring that touchdown and it getting called back him doing the keg stand celebration? Where does that rank on your top 2019 moments? Just not even in football, but all of life. Oh, it's in the top 10 probably. Yeah. He liked my tweet about it today.

which made me very happy. That's great stuff. I didn't understand. I wouldn't figure Quentin Nelson to be a social media person, but apparently he has one. He logged on just for you, buddy. That's what it was.

I still believe it should have counted. Just out of pure principle, let's just allow the touchdown to count. Yeah, so Roger Sherman tweeted this, and I agree with it, that if the touchdown celebration is really good, they just get to keep it. Yeah.

I think that there should be some sort of mechanism in place that allows that to happen. There's a famous story when Diego Maradona scored a goal in a World Cup, he hit it with his hand and it's called the hand of God and everyone knows it shouldn't have counted. But there's a really funny story

about how Maradona basically his teammates come up to him. I'm like, did you do that with your hand? And he said, if you guys don't celebrate wildly, they're going to call this back. And they're not going to call it back if you start celebrating like crazy people. And so they just all like started celebrating really, really crazily. And the goal stood.

How are you going to say it's not a goal when Al of Argentina is all excited. Come on. And how are you going to say it's not a touchdown when the offensive line did a fake cake stand and the offensive line

been scored? And it's Quentin Nelson. Yes. It should have counted. I firmly believe this. It's not Jacoby Brissette or Marlon Mack in the end zone. It's Quentin Nelson.

And that matters. And we have to cherish moments like that. He's never going to score again. He's never going to score you. Oh, don't say that. Come on. He absolutely could. Don't take this away from me.

Okay. We're on the watch for Quentin Nelson's next touchdown. You can start him in fantasy. All right. Last stock up here, the Atlanta Falcons apparently are the best team in the NFL, or at least have the best defense in the NFL. I have no idea what's going on. What is, I brought this up because I thought maybe you would know.

What's going on with the Atlanta Falcons? I have no idea. I really don't. It just seems like they're a different team defensively. I mean, for the most part, this season. So, Rahim Morris. Yes. I mean, I think that the biggest answer right now is them moving Rahim Morris back over to the other side of the ball.

Morris, baby. Rahim Morris. Wins above Rahim Morris. And him dialing up their passing down calls as the defense backs coach. I mean, it seems to be, have made a big difference. And if that was what they needed to do all year, then I'm not sure why Dan Quinn was the defensive coordinator because they looked lost for the first five to six weeks of the season. They were on par with the Bengals just in terms of the defenses that seem to have no idea what

was going on. And now they've looked totally locked in. I mean, Adrian Claiborne was a monster today. Their pass rush has been so much better than it has been in recent weeks. I just, it's really hard to reconcile and figure out. Have you ever seen a performance like this where a team looked like it was never going to win another game and then became a competent team that rattled off, was able to beat a team like the Saints and then a team like the Panthers? In this convincing of a fashion, no. I mean, it's one week scattered here and there.

We see it all the time, but I think for them to look at this good over the last two weeks, I mean, the offense always had this gear. That was never a surprise just because the talent is such that even if I don't love Dirk Cutter, I still think the offense had this in their back pocket every once in a while. The defense is shocking, though. Yeah, I mean, that's the strange thing because, you know, I think that the biggest, I think that one of the biggest upsets by spread in history was the bills beating the Vikings last year, but we found out the Vikings had some, you know, things they were working through

at that point. It was, that game was mostly on the Vikings, even though Josh. showing how to performance for the ages. This is the opposite of that. I mean, this is the Falcons just figuring out how to play football at the bye in week eight. I just don't remember a team flipping a switch like this. It's very strange. Kyle Allen, by the way, not a good quarterback, and he should not be relied upon going

forward. I was going to say that that probably contributed to this is that Kyle Allen is a backup quarterback, and he's playing like a backup quarterback. The Kyle Allen thing, when we were kind of having this calculus of, does he stay in, does he not? It was always more in relation to this season. and whether Cam Newton was healthy. That was always my stance on it, is that I felt like if Cam wasn't healthy,

Kyle Allen was playing well enough to be somewhat of an answer. But I never saw him as the long-term plan. I think that the move always was to look elsewhere for your 2020 quarterback if it wasn't going to beat Cam Newton. And that's what I see them doing. Remember when everybody was like, it's Kyle Allen's team now? What the hell was that?

I never really understood that. It's like, yeah, he's playing well enough if you're going to get behind the guy this year because you don't really have any other options. But if you're the Panthers, I think you need to understand. He's probably not your long-term starting quarterback. Committing to those guys is rarely a good idea. It rarely turns out well. It's the same as the interim coach.

Committing to the interim quarterback long-term typically does not go very well. That was very, very, very strange. Anyway, Kyle Allen, it is not Kyle Allen's team. Or if it is, that's bad news. Yeah, it should be Kyle Allen's team here for the next month and a half. and then it should no longer be Kyle Allen's team. All right, let's get to stock down. Let's start with everyone involved in the Sunday night football game.

It was as bad as I thought it was going to be. I figured it would be unwatchable because I didn't expect the bears to be able to move the ball and the Rams had some offense late, but for the most part, they couldn't move the ball. It was brutal. And nothing about that game surprised me. Nothing about that game was like, oh, man, I feel differently about the bears now than I did at the start of the day. That's who the bears are this year. That's the long and the short of it.

And the only thing I feel like is worth talking about in regard to them is what Nagy did at the end with Trubisky. Right. So Nagy said that he thought Trubisky, this is what he said. Well, we can unpack the conspiracy theories if we want, but he said he thought that Trubisky or he said Trubisky was hurt earlier in the game and he didn't look right. And then he was pulling him because of that. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true either. There was no one around him.

he was standing alone on the sideline. I'm not sure Nagy gives him that weird speech. It's just because he has a kind of minor hip injury. Yeah. The lost in translation speech at the end? Yeah, I just, strange times. I wanted him out. I've said that.

I've wanted him out of the line. I feel like the best way, all that matters right now, if the Bears win or lose every game for the rest of the season, it doesn't matter, really. It's all about preserving what the Roth's, is next year and whether or not it still has full faith in this coaching staff moving forward because I don't think the coaching staff will be fired. I think the best way to have done that was to take Chubisky out earlier because the locker

room knows they know he's not the guy and the longer you ride with that and you put this sort of pressure on the defense, the less, the more trust you lose in that defense, the majority of which is coming back next season. So to do that was the answer. I don't understand the timing of it because now you're just going to bring on that. so many questions that wouldn't have happened if you had just kept him in the game. If he's hurt, that's fine, but then he probably should have been in there anyway. There's so many frustrating parts of this.

Like the third down option call, I don't hate the call necessarily. I don't love it. But your quarterback pitched the ball three yards away from the guy he was supposed to be reading because he clearly doesn't want to get hit. All these people talking about trying to get him on the move more and using more design runs and everything else, he clearly doesn't want to run. He clearly doesn't want to get hit. So that's not an answer either.

There is just no good way to do this right now. And that's been the most frustrating part about watching this for the last month is that I think that there's such a lack of faith in the quarterback's ability to one-play quarterback and two, be his mobile self that he was last year, that it has short-circuited the entire offense and its ability to function. And I just think that the best way to get past whatever muck they're stuck in right now is to put in a quarterback that can at least run a functional offense, even if he's not good.

That's it. Can at least run a functional offense even if he's not good? That's the standard now, but that's enough for me. Okay, a couple of things. First of all, if you were to explain football to somebody

and then you show them that game, and then after the game, you told them that both quarterbacks were taken in the first two picks, that they were each the top quarterback off the board in their respective years, and that one of those quarterbacks making over $100 million,

in guaranteed money, I think the person you taught football to previously would be very confused about what football is. I 100% agree. I did like what the Rams did late in the game, though. It reminded me of what they used to look like. I agree. I saw the playoffish shots.

12 personnel. It's back, baby. I mean, because they were doing a lot of kind of heavier protections out of those play action looks. And that's why the bears weren't getting much of a pass rush. I mean, they had golf was pressured once in this game. I mean, the problem, the bear is just their talent up front is such that Mac is getting double-teamed on virtually every single play. And when he's not, they have a tight end there just to widen him out, get the real of the ball quick.

Again, those play action looks, it's a little bit harder to do much. And he also was in coverage a lot today. He hasn't been himself over the last month or so, but it's not just him. I mean, not having Hicks, everything else. So it was a concern. And I just liked the way they were playing late in the game. I don't know if this is sustainable for them against defenses. that haven't been on the field for however long

and have some sort of will to live left, which I don't know if the bears do. But it was a nice kind of reminder of what this offense can be when they're running those sorts of sets. Well, the good news is Trubisky, the next-gen stats is only pressured on 11% of his dropbacks, 5 of 44. The bad news is that he did nothing with that pocket.

Watching him get rid of the ball on those just zero-yard gains, just the no gains, just to the sideline when he's flipping the ball, out for no reason. It's just, they are just so defeated. They just have absolutely no juice whatsoever anymore. When he threw the ball to his left,

he had a 20 pass rating, which, hey, it could be worse. The only thing I feel confident in him doing right now, essentially is those hard play actions where they run that kind of fade stop to Gabriel because he's actually pretty good at throwing that ball to his right on the move.

Outside of that, I don't really feel good about any ball he lets go. Even the back shoulder touchdown to Cohen, I don't know if he was doing that on purpose. So the two things that have aged strangely, the last 12 months. Number one is the fact that the Chiefs and Rams played at the most exciting game in football, like ever a year ago this month. It's a year ago today. A year ago today, okay.

And the Rams look incapable of playing another exciting game ever for the rest of time at the moment. That could change at any moment. And number two is that these two teams played last year and the Bears will have Super Bowl contenders. Yeah. It's been a strange year for everybody. There are a lot of factors. I think that the Bears defense was transcendent last year.

It's far from that this year. It's merely good. And I always had a suspicion that was going to happen. And it did. They're merely good. And that's not good enough when your offense is doing absolutely nothing. The offensive line has regressed immensely. They, even like, little tiny things.

We can start to stop talking about the bears here in a second. But it's the, no, let's keep going. The flip of, when they've flipped a white, Heron Daniels. And they did it before the year. They put Daniels in its center. And they eventually had to flip it back because Daniels wasn't good enough at identifying protections on the mic point.

And Trubisky isn't able to do it either. For your quarterback to not be able to do that in his second season and for that to disallow you from playing the lineup you want to because you can't trust your first year center to make that call is embarrassing. And that's the type of stuff that's happened all year. It's just been little thing after little thing after little thing. piling up combined with a broken quarterback with broken confidence, and everything has just become short-circuited.

It's not one thing. This is not all Mitchell-Tribisky, but I also think that Matt Nagy can still do something with competent talent and with a certain baseline of talent, especially at that position. And we'll see if I'm right or wrong about that, but I just think that it is so broken at its core right now with the actual players that something needs to change on that side,

and then we'll get to see what Matt Nagy really is again. I hope we get a chance to. Do we bring Ryan Pace back 2020? If you didn't, I wouldn't be upset about it. Okay. That's what I would say. Their offseason was an absolute disaster. And I thought that going in.

I mean, every single move they made for the most part, I did not like in free agency. The Mike Davis move was insane. They let him go now to get their comp back. The Buster screen contract still sucks. It sucked at the time. The Hawke-Clin-Dix deal was actually pretty solid. It's a one-year deal, low risk,

and he's been good for them. outside of that, but they've done nothing. And the trade-up from Montgomery to give up another pick is just, he treats draft picks in the mid-arounds like tick-tacks. And I just, that's not the way to build a football team.

And I think that last year, I don't back off of anything I said about him being an executive-the-year candidate because of what they did from one, to do it in a year. How much better he made that team last season, I thought it was impressive. But he always made some moves

that were going to mortgage the future. They did. They have not worked out. He seems to hate having draft picks. Hates having them. And with the Mac trade, again, I'd do it 100 times out of 100. I'd still do it. Every single move he's made up for players is indefensible.

Let's move on. You're getting upset. I'm not upset at all. Trust me. It's like 20 minutes ago you said you would take a pill to erase last three months of your life. I'm mostly exaggerating. I just, I'm resign to it at this point. Honestly, it's one of those things where last season was such a strange feeling

because games like tonight where you're watching everyone. every single running play being like, get it, get it out, get it out. Because that's the only way to score. That's my mindset right now. The Kyle Fuller play is the only way the bears were going to score a touchdown today. That was in my mind because I'm so used to that feeling.

Every time there's a kick return or a defender around a ball or whatever, there's this hunger for the touchdown because you know it's the only way. So that's a familiar place for me. This is not something we're like, oh, man, the bears suck. I can't believe it. It's like, oh, I can absolutely believe it. With two-thirds of guys experiencing noticeable hair loss by age 35, most guys assume losing their hair is inevitable as they age.

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teams in football for a long time. At the beginning of this season, you and I both picked them to win the Super Bowl. So now we're sitting here. The Eagles are five and five. The Cowboys' offense still looks very good. And they look like the better team. that division right now. What are the Eagles? That's my question that I have right now. So if Nelson Aguilor brings that ball in and they tie the game up, that is we're having a completely different conversation. And the problem is a handful of times in this podcast, I have mentioned that Carson Wentz and the conversation around him would be completely different if there wasn't for a drop here, a drop there. This just keeps happening. Now, what? What?

What's frustrating about the situation is that in the three plays before the Agalor, you should call it a drop, I mean, to hit him on the hands in the back of the end zone, Wens had three inaccurate throws, like bad throws to open people. So Wens got himself in a fourth down, a bad fourth down, and then he made an incredible throw that, like, people will be talking about for years had Agaulor not just let it bounce off his hands. So this is not Wence, you know, putting the team on his back. This is a loss that sort of encapsulates what the Eagles have been this season.

Listen, again, there's no shame it was in the Patriots. Almost everybody's done it except Baltimore. But they had this game if they wanted it. And, you know, Tom Brady was really upset after the game, really upset. I don't know if you saw his comments. I saw. The Patriots did not feel good about this win. And this was, you know, the defense was excited.

I saw Kyle Van Nuoy, chirping and Tony Romo a little bit. which is interesting. But from an offensive standpoint, they left some meat on the bone in Philadelphia. It's not a drop to me, but it is exactly like you said. It's indicative of what they've been this season because no receiver has helped out Carson West at any point.

It's not a blatant drop. It's not a ball that you should come down with 100% of the time. It reminds me a little bit of the Welker, quote unquote, drop in the Super Bowl, or it was a really hard ball to get to and it hit him on the hands and everyone called that a drop. Do you remember what I'm talking about?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The one where you're like, technically it's a drop, but also it would have been an incredible catch had he made it. It's a catch that you can make. And it's a catch that a lot of receivers

would have had a better chance in making. Because he didn't, the adjustment was such that it was so late that it looked like it was just glancing off his hands. In reality, if he had tracked that ball a little bit better, he probably could have had a chance to come down with it.

A receiver that's, he's not that type of receiver really, right? I mean, if you have a ball, a guy that's a little bit more of a deep ball threat, like Deshawn Jackson, for example. I think Deshaun Jackson has a better chance of coming down with that ball just because he's much better at tracking balls over his shoulder in that manner. It's been such a theme of their season,

where their receivers just have not helped him. He's had a pretty good year, but there's been so much left on the table because there are no catches that are made that shouldn't be made. You do know that the most famous back of the end zone pass in Eagle's history was caught by Alshon. Jeffrey. Sure.

From Nick Foles. I'm just saying, I mean, those, these types of catches have been made in Philadelphia before. It's not unprecedented. It's just, that was such a weird drive at the end there. Yes. And I think that it was a very frustrating game for Philadelphia. And we keep looking for reasons to justify the fact that we picked the Eagles to win the Super Bowl. And I just, you know, look, they're five and five right now.

Dallas wins. They're six and four. And at some point it becomes a math problem. 5.30, it's got a 46% chance to make the playoffs. I don't know where that goes. right now. Obviously, you have Seattle and one wildcard spot, and then we'll see what happens with the others.

We'll see if the Rams are any good. The Rams, listen, the Rams are a better record than the Eagles right now. And I don't consider the Rams a better team than the Eagles right now, but at some point, again, it becomes a math problem. Yeah, it does. I agree. We can make excuses. I don't want to make excuses because everyone has

injuries, but that's really been the story of their season, right? I mean, if the Sean Jackson's playing for most of this year, we saw what their passing offense was, we saw a glimpse of it with Jackson in week one. Obviously, they're playing Washington, but they desperately miss that speed element, and they desperately miss a receiver that can help out Carson Wentz more than just a replacement level receiver should. And they don't really have that right now. They have the two tight ends, but we've seen the geometry of offenses change with the Eagles

in years past when they have at least some speed on the outside. And they've been desperately missing it. And I think it's really started, it's really hurt everything they can be offensively. I still thought if they won this game, if they managed to pull this out. And even, there's still only one game back at the Cowboys, by the way. But there is a version of this team still that's possible to me because I think they're getting better on defense. With Darby back, with Mills back,

they're healthier on that side of the ball. I have more faith in their ability to stop people. The offense, I still think that I don't know how much better it can get. Well, I mean, listen, Al-Shan Jeffrey did not play on Sunday. They can get a little healthier. A little bit, but I still think. I think they're missing that other outside element that can, again, change the shape of how defenses have to defend you because right now that you just don't have to worry about it.

So they have the Seahawks next. Okay. Then they go dolphins, giants, redskins. So that's three wins. And there's a massive game against the Cowboys in Week 16. And then the Cowboys. Yeah. So basically,

they don't have to run the table, but they got to get pretty close to that. Yeah. They got to go on a little run here. Pretty close. I mean, If they lose to Seattle, I think they'd have to win out. Right?

I agree. Yep, I agree. And they'd be 10 and 6. So they wouldn't shock me. The Cowboys have the Patriots next week. So that's going to help them a little bit. All right. Let's get to a couple more stock downs here.

Let's talk about James Winston, who it's amazing watching this team turn the ball over. It's constantly entertaining to me because they always find new ways to do it. The pick to O.J. Howard that he tried to wrap around his back as he was catching it, that popped up into the air. It's unbelievable. It's like artistry. There's no team that is more creative and how it gives the ball to the other team

than the Buccaneers. Bull Wolf had this about Carson Wentz. He had 36 thundled today, 50 career games. One person has fumbled more since Wentz entered the league. Guess who it is? I assume it's Jamis Winston. Oh, it's James Winston.

It is James Winston. So 18 interceptions in the first 10 games of the season, which doesn't seem possible. Cutler has put up similar numbers in his career through 10 games. That's 2019 season, baby. It was magical. Just an incredible, incredible run from Jay Cutler. We talked earlier on this podcast earlier in the season,

and we debated what was going to happen to James Winston. Both of us had higher expectations than what happened here for what's going to happen for 2020, James Winston. You were a little higher on him than I was. But at this point, James Winston is not even going to get a starting. job in 2020. Probably not. I thought that if he kept playing... I think he's going to compete some. I think he'll compete against some high draft pick some more. Yeah, I think that's probably true. I mean, I do believe he should be on the move.

I think if the bucks were to retain him even on some sort of bridge deal, it would be a mistake. I thought the way he was playing for certain stretches, we've seen teams talk themselves into quarterbacks for less. I always was of the opinion that he's not somebody you wanted to hit your wagon to because this is who he is. even if the highs are high, these games are always waiting. These games are always coming around the corner. And I just wouldn't want to exist with that. No matter how good the offense looked when it was clicking,

I just wouldn't want this waiting for me every three or four weeks. And it always is. This is the quarterback that he is. And they've been really good in stretches. They've moved the ball efficiently in stretches. Godwin and Evans have been awesome. But it's just not worth it to me to have to deal with these games so often. It's terrible.

I just, you got to get them out. There's nothing else to say. The Bucks have to, I guess, draft a quarterback. So that brings us to our next point, our next top down, because this stuff tells nicely. And that is the tanking race and everyone who had been planning for years, or at least the last six months, that they wanted to, and now he had seasoned hip surgery. So what the hell is going to happen in the top 10 and in the first half of the first round this year with all of these teams that are actively trying to be bad? Well, so Joe Burrow emerges last week as a potential number one pick. There was a Justin Herbert hype cycle, which I found interesting.

We've talked about Justin Herbert on this podcast. Do you believe him to be too tall? Still believe it. Too tall. I have not done enough research on him. But Tua obviously was supposed to be an elite, elite quarterback and a high pick. And now he's been removed from that conversation, at least for now. We'll see how this develops. see what his future lies. We'll see, you know, there's a lot more questions and answers.

But what I will say is that if you're the dolphins or the Bengals or the, I wouldn't even know who else, the Bucks, who would potentially try to get into that top 10 or even have the pick or trade up, whatever it is, two is no longer available for you. And that changes a lot of things. If you're the Bengals and you get Joe Burrow, this doesn't change a lot. But if you have the second overall pick and you want to trade out of it, well, the price just went down. If you have the second pick and you want a quarterback. Well, the quarterback pool just got smaller. This is a massive ripple effect for the draft.

I will say that, you know, that is extremely secondary to just, you know, when you talk about a dislocated hip, there's just a lot of just life questions for Tua. And so hopefully he recovers. And I would want nothing more than him to be healthy playing in the NFL and thriving. And, you know, I think that whether or not the dolphins can get him is probably the furthest should be the furthest thing from all of our minds. But from football, respective, yeah, this is

the fact that we're being robbed a little bit of a potential rookie sensation next year is a blow to the sport. Yeah, it sucks. And the first thing, you're completely right. I mean, the first thing is just him and how things go from here and hopefully he can play again. I mean, this is the type of thing where, you know, that seems serious.

Maybe we're exaggerating a little bit. But, I mean, hip injuries and how is significant they can be, it really calls that stuff into question. So hopefully he just gets healthy, first and foremost. After that, though, I wrote about this a couple weeks ago in regard to the 2020 quarterback carousel. And the reason I thought there'd be so much movement is because there were so many options. There were available quarterbacks, both in the draft and in free agency.

But now when you take one of those really high-level quarterbacks off the board, how does it change what teams want to do with their quarterback? do you give somebody a bridge deal for a year because you don't think you have as good a chance at finding one in the draft? The draft's in April. Freation season March. These are decisions they're going to have to be made before you know how the draft shakes out. And if you take out that huge domino from likely the top five, whether that's trades, whether that's how many quarterbacks are going to go, how many get pushed up, all of that stuff, it is a huge wrench in this. It's not just about the team that ends up with Tua.

it's about what too it takes off the board for other teams and how that affects their risk-taking and their decision-making as we get to the off-season. Strong agree here. All right. Let's get to our challenge flags for the week. I'm throwing my challenge flag on the idea of throwing challenge flags for past interference.

What the hell are we doing? Is there a reason to still have the rule? I guess it happened in the Niners game. But outside of that, it just seems like the bar is so high right now. I just don't understand why they even have it anymore. It just makes more sense, and I think it would be safer for the league if they just got rid of it. Because right now, I think you're just inviting criticism.

You're inviting scrutiny for a huge moment in your sport. In the race to make everything perfect, you have screwed up a massive part of the game. Yes. Marlon Humphrey, as we discussed earlier, Marlon Humphrey committed as, you know, this was not sort of Saints, Rams, you know, let's nail the guy and hope he doesn't throw the flag kind of thing. But that was pretty blatant today.

That was pretty blatant. And if you're not going to turn that, overturn that. And by the way, some calls do good overturn. It's not like, you know, they went to that streak of like six weeks, but they didn't overturn calls. There was an Opie overturned today. So it is so inconsistent that at this point, like, the NFL just has to get rid of the rule. I just don't understand how you can keep it. the only two solutions are to start calling it almost ticketack

and every time there's a challenge flag thrown to actually just apply the letter of the law and overturn stuff or get rid of it completely because the gray area right now makes no sense it is inconsistent, it's terrible, it's hurting the sport. And I don't think there's any way to go back to the first option now after the way they've called it all season. So if that's off the table,

then I do think that you should just get rid of it. I don't understand why we just can't have a rule where just like in the last two minutes how you can't challenge, why is past interference not something that the booth can overturn in the last two minutes then? If there's a, just put something in place to disallow the Saints Rams game from happening again, but don't open the can of worms that you have all season. I do think there's somewhere that that middle ground exists. I do think that solution is out there if they actually want to try to find it. But what they're doing right now is just untenable.

Yeah, it's really bad. And what's amazing is how often I don't think we've gone two weeks on this podcast without making the refs a challenge flag. No, it's been a rough year. And I think this was the most egregious week for the passenger calls. I think this is the week where it was most obvious. The Marlon Humphrey one is the worst one I can remember. That's the worst one I've seen this season.

And I just think that that's the tipping point to me. Yep, totally agree. Okay, mine is the Washington Rescans franchise. So they get pasted. by the New York Jets. First of all, it cost like $19 to get in the lower bowl of this game. Is that true? Yeah.

You can't go to a movie for $19 anymore. No, you can't. And so my parents from Washington, I see my family still lives there. And, you know, you and I grew up at a time in the 90s in particular when we were very young, where the Redskins were like a marquee franchise. And they were, the reason that the Cowboys and the Redskins were rivals is because the Redskins were really freaking popular

and seen as, you know, they won two Super Bowl. Seen as sort of a model franchise. And the fact that you can just sort of walk in to that stadium now and get a ticket for 20 bucks and just sit down close, whatever you want to do, it is really sad what's happened to that franchise. And this is not new news.

There was a sell-the-team chant today, and I wondered which fan base was doing that, but it turns out it was the Redskins. It was not the Jess. The Jets were in a celebratory mood. Jamal Adams is still elite. We know that that much. But if you're the Redskins, and look,

I can't, at this point, I can't believe the Redskins beat the Dolphins. But if you're the Redskins right now and you can't keep up with the freaking Jets, I just don't even know why you're fielding a team. What is the point of this franchise? I've been asking that question the entire season. I just, I think that they're the biggest mess in the league,

and I don't even think it's close. I have no idea where things go from here. I have absolutely no idea. As long as Bruce Allen is in charge and as long as the power structure there is in place, I just don't know what sort of light there is at the end of the tunnel. I'm with you on that. I don't know why there's any reason to be...

Listen, I'm a fan of Orlando Magic, okay? And there was some crappy magic years. The year we fired Doc Grover. We started like 1 and 20. Everybody sucked. And I just remember going to those games because it's like, yeah, whatever. Like, you know, this is just a blip on the radar.

It will be good in a few years, whatever. Like, I just couldn't imagine rooting for a team where not only is the present hopeless, but the future is hopeless. The long term of 20, 30 is hopeless. Like, how is there any evidence that is ever going to turn itself around? I think that being bad and being incompetent is okay when you don't openly antagonize your fans and openly insult their intelligence when you try to talk about the state of the franchise.

guys. It's not that hard to have a tiny bit of self-awareness about what it takes to win in the league and what you're not doing. And it just feels like every single statement they make, every single move they make is in direct contrast with having any sort of sense of what you should be doing to build a good football team. Totally agree. All right. What's the, what's tomorrow's headlines? I think it's going to be more Lamar, right? I don't know what else it would be. It's going to be more Lamar. I actually will say this. I think there's going to be some media. Eagles talk after that loss. Yeah, that's probably true. So, you know, is Lane Johnson out long term? And that's a huge injury if he's out. We've seen the, you know, Barnwell's talked with us a lot, the splits between whether or not when, when, when Johnson in the field versus not, they play the Seahawks this weekend.

This is a make or break game for that team this year. As we said, if they don't, if they don't win this game, not only do they have to win out, but they have to get some help because 10 and 6 and a year like this year might not get it done. So I don't know. Packers versus Niners, I think there's going to be a lot. lot of Garoppolo. We didn't talk enough about it. Maybe we'll talk on Thursday about it, about both Kyler's emergence and Jimmy Garoppolo's struggles. I think that's definitely worth unpacking. It's a bizarre game for Garoppolo today. It's a great Sunday night game. Yeah, it's really fun. I'm looking forward to that one a lot. It's a bizarre Garoppolo game, though. He threw four touchdowns, but he also had just two terrible picks. I mean, he has been so all over the place

this year. I just, it's really hard to get a read on him. Again, we talked about it after the Seahawks game. He's not as bad as he was in that game. He's not as good as he was in the first Cardinals game. He's somewhere in the middle. And in this game, he was on both ends in one 60-minute stretch. He is very strange this year. Here's what we have next week. Colts Titans.

Panther Saints. Good game. Seahawks, Eagles. Cowboys Patriots. Niners, Packers. And then Monday Night Ravens Ramps. That's a good slate. Yeah, it really is.

You meant Colts Texans on Thursday. What did I say? Colts Titans. Oh, I meant Colts Texans. Sorry. Colts Texans is very good. Definitely would not have meant Colts Titans. We have two late games next week.

Essentially one late game because one of them is Jaguar's Titans. Cowboys Patriots is the only one. I meant nine early games. Thank you very much NFL. I really appreciate it. That is great stuff. Awesome. That is excellent stuff.

It's essentially like two primetime games, more or less. Well, yeah, it sure is. It's going to be great. That's all we got, guys. As always, thank you. much for listening to the ringer NFL show on the ringer podcast network we'll be back on thursday