The Ringer NFL Show - Lions Beat the Rams in an OT Thriller, Cowboys Dominate the Browns, the Patriots Upset the Bengals, and More Big Takeaways From Week 1

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Sheil, Steven, and Diante get together to discuss the Detroit Lions' exciting win over the L.A. Rams on ‘Sunday Night Football.’ They then break down the Cowboys-Browns (10:21), Texans-Colts (21:12), and Patriots-Bengals (31:14) games before examining their favorite story lines from the first Sunday of the season. The crew ends the pod with its quick takes on the rest of the Week 1 NFL slate (52:56). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee Producers: Chris Sutton and Tucker Tashjian Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Kiera Givens and Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Brian Curtis from The Ringer, and I want to tell you about the Press Box podcast. The Press Box is a podcast for anybody who likes news, whether it's about sports or politics or pop culture, and wants to understand how that news really gets made. We have news shows every Monday and Thursday. We have long interviews with everyone from John Crackhour to Joe Buck. Your social media feeds are bursting with information every day. Let us help you sort it out. Join us.

on the press box. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Welcome if you're watching on Fandual TV. If you're listening on Spotify, we have a fun recap show for you this year. I am Shield Capadia. Join by my friends, Deonté Lee and Stephen Ruiz. Guys, week one of the NFL season,

Deonti, you look refreshed. You're ready to go. I'm always ready to go. It was exactly what I wanted out of week one, which is very overstimulating. It took me a little while to get my screen set up. the way that I needed them to be to not be overwhelmed by the amount of games that we're on. But I'm glad to be here, man.

This is a great week of football and probably best week for content purposes, because there's a lot that we can work with coming out of this week. And Ruiz just got to watch Matthew Stafford ball out, so I know he's going to be in a good mood for this show. Yeah, we are so bad. We've never been more back. Like all the quarterbacks I wanted to ball out today, they did. So, yeah, I'm very happy about what happened today.

There you go, rooting for our takes. All right, so here's what we're doing. We're starting the show with one big takeaway. It can be anything. What did you see on Sunday that you're saying, I got to talk about this on the Ringer NFL show. Ruiz, you're starting us off. What do you got?

I'm starting us off with Lions and the Rams. Lines beat them 26 to 20 in overtime. To me, it felt like a replay of the playoff game. Like it felt like for both teams, not much had changed. We went into this game talking about the Rams offensive line and hoping it would unlock some new layer to the Rams offense, but it was more of the same. Matthew Stafford was so impressive because of how he dealt with pressure.

he was under pressure the entire night. The run game didn't really work. It was all Cooper Cup after Pooka Nakua goes down with an injury. And then on the other side, I talked about the lions playing man coverage and having to evolve in their secondary. Matthew Saffert against man coverage, 11 for 16 for 134 yards in a touchdown. So it wasn't any better there either. So for me, both of these teams feel a lot like the 2023 versions of them.

Yeah, I think that's fair. When you look at it, my big question was the Rams defense coming in? I thought they played really well. I mean, you give up, obviously, a couple of drives there at the end, but they played better than I expected them to play. And then Deonti, this Rams team, like I'm surprised Ruiz didn't even go more overboard with Stafford because I know Stafford is his point. In this game, they come in with two backup tackles. They lose their backup left tackle. So now you're on your third string left tackle.

They lose their starting left guard in this game. Puka Nakua goes out in the first half. and for the most part, they're just going up and down the field with Matthew Stafford. I mean, you can't be surprised by this anymore, but still, it's like another notch in his belt, these performances that we've gotten used to over the last two seasons. 100%. And it's funny when I was at their training camp, I think, was when Rob Haventine had his first kind of bout with this ankle injury that's been bugging them for the last few weeks. And as it happened in front of me, I was like, oh, man, things are going to get really tenuous if

a Laran Jackson can't play and having scenes out. And then at practice, you just see Matt Stafford go into creation mode, you know, oh, if I've got to fix all these problems myself, I've got Cooper Cup, I've got Pooka to Kua, we can figure that out. They do lose his Pooka tonight and still just totally unbothered in the pocket. No real run game to support them in the way they needed them to in the second half, and they were still able to convert on third down. And that was the story of last year, right, was that the run game got a little bit better,

but at the heart of this offense, it was Matt Stafford, getting them out of bad situations anytime they were in them. And that's why they were able to hang so long before, you know, their front seven just kind of got caved in in the overtime period. And the thing that was so impressive about Stafford's performances, like he was solving problems before and after the snap. Like some of the throws to throw around pressure, the throw in the fourth quarter that made Chris Collinsworth say the word redonculus,

which I never want to hear again from Chris Collinsworth, was just vintage Stafford. And that's what makes him such a good quarterback. I kind of catch some heat for ranking them so high. I rank them fifth in my rankings, but you just got to watch them play. like this is quarterbacking at its highest levels. He's not Patrick Mahomes where he can like extend plays and do all that and buy time and

scramble for first downs. But as a thrower, like if you just made both players stationary, him and Patrick Mahomes are on the same level in terms of passing the football. Yeah, I mean, we talk so much and you'll hear coaches this week. The coaches are the teams who lost or the players, well, we had this guy was injured and this guy went down. I mean, think of the circumstances. He was under in this game and it didn't matter.

They were winning 2017 with two minutes to go and then the Lions come down, tie the game, get the ball first in overtime, and he doesn't get the ball in overtime. I got to say, when I was watching this, my big takeaway for the Rams is like, I need to make them an infrastructure team. Like there are some teams where I'm just like, don't even question it. It's August you're thinking about, is this team going to be good or not? And just you trust it. They have the coach.

They have the quarterback. And I haven't put the Rams in that bucket. Like I was fading the Rams a little bit compared to you guys coming into the season because of some of the stuff we saw today. I'm just like, are they going to get the same injury luck as last year? Matthew Stafford's 36 years old. They lost Aaron Donald. They lost Rahim Morris.

I just think they're going to be good. Like, I had them as a nine-win team, not as a bad team. But I'm like, I don't think they're going to be in the playoffs. And then I watch that game. And it's not only Stafford. It's McVeigh, scheming stuff up. I mean, then you have guys like Tyler Johnson. I was like, wait, that's not the Tyler Johnson.

I kind of liked in the draft from four years ago. Is it, yes, he's having a moment. And all draft take comes through for me. So you have stuff like that. DeMarcus. Robinson. It's just like they have guys who they just plug in there and they get the most out of them and they're so competitive. They're a consistently competitive team as long as Matthew Stafford's healthy. So I'm putting them in that bucket of those teams now where I can't doubt him. I do have one

concern. 21 targets for Cooper Cup is too many targets. Is that what it was? 21 targets. It did feel like that actually. He looked good. He did look good. 14 catches for only 7.9 yards per catch, which is a little concerning. But that was the role he had to play in this office. He was the chain mover. He was the guy that was the reliable source of targets. I do want to point out one thing that I thought was another silver lining for the Rams in this loss. And that's Sean McVeigh going for it on fourth and four. I know they didn't get it.

Carlton Davis makes the big breakup. But it's a big deal because Sean McVeigh used to not go for it on fourth down, but he hired a game management coordinator this off season. And I think you saw the benefits of that with that little risk there. I know it didn't pay off, but hopefully down the line it will pay off for this team. Antonio Pierce needs to double that guy's salary and bring him to Vegas. But we'll get to that later in the show. Deonti, what about the Lions?

What are your takeaways from them in this game? Like Ruiz said, it was very similar. It felt like to last year's playoff game and they come out on top once again. I have all the same concerns that I did at the end of last season because the defense isn't as fixed as I think that we would have wanted to give it credit for coming into the year. And that's not to say that every quarterback they see is going to be as effective against man coverage. as Matthew Stafford was today and has been throughout his career. But I was looking to just see a little bit more competitiveness at the catch point.

And they were still, you know, the Rams were still able to throw into open air pretty often. They weren't able to fool Matt Stafford very often. And some of that comes with the style of play, right? Like Aaron Glenn doesn't hide his intentions at all. He wants to play, you know, bump and run physical man coverage, send pressure when he can or really just try to play the physical game with you. And there's a lot of value in that. But if teams are still able to find explosive offense in the passing game,

when they know that they can't run the ball on you because you're selling off to stop the run. And, you know, they might be missing a receiver in the way that the Rams were. I'm not sure if I feel as strongly about their contention odds right now as I did coming into the year. So they definitely still have a little bit more to answer in my opinion. You agree with that, Ruiz? Yeah, I would say there was one key change. I still can't believe my eyes when I saw Jared Dolf scramble for that first down. Like, that wasn't even an easy, wide open scramble.

He kind of had to run around a defender or two and makes some guys kind of. kind of missed. So I do think he played better under pressure, and that was a big thing with them throughout the playoffs. He didn't face a lot of pressure, but he averaged under two yards per play when he was pressured during the playoff run. And that was some of his best football that we saw last year. So I think if he can improve a little bit in that area, that will make a big difference for this team. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to say this team, looks a lot like it did last year, especially on the offensive side of the ball. That ability to just lean on you. And you saw how it played out in the overtime. The Rams defense was

just done physically. They were done. And the lines just leaned on them and went right down the field and scored. Everybody knew that Montgomery touchdown was coming when it happened. It was first down. They might as well have just gone to the locker room at that point. Yeah, it was like their identity in overtime just overtook the game. Where eight play drive, they run the ball seven times. And like you mentioned, and David Montgomery was running hard. You couldn't stop them. So I think you feel good if you're both of these teams. Honestly, if you're the Rams, you're saying, hey, if we have Stafford, even if he's on one foot, one arm, doesn't matter. And we have McVeigh, like, we're going to be in these games. And again, I think their defensive performance was encouraging.

And then the Lions, I'm watching that game. And to your guy's point, like, I'm like, oh, this Lions offense isn't exactly, you know, dominating this game. They had the highest success rate for any offense in week one. So I think it does say something about the bar when we're just used to it happening a lot easier for them, where maybe that didn't happen so much in this game, but two drives when they needed it. Jameson Williams is another big change from last year. Now, it was one game, but five for 121. He looked really good in this game as well. So yeah, we'll see with their defense with upcoming opponents and as young guys, Terry and Arnold, as they get acclimated there. Marcus

Davenport had some moments there opposite Aidan Hutchinson. But they look like two of the better teams in the NFC. My big takeaway, I think I underestimated the Cowboys. I think I, You've heard me ranting on this show all off season. What is Jerry doing? Why do they wait so long to pay their stars? They could have more salary cap flexibility. They could have upgraded the roster. I don't back down from any of that.

I think all of that is still true. But I think that influenced how I view just this version of the team going into the 2024 season because they go into Cleveland and had one of the most dominant performances of week one. Dak Prescott early on, he's cooking, their defense looked fantastic. The Browns could not block them. Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence, C.D. Lamb was tremendous. Even their game plan, I thought, to be like, we're not letting Miles Garrett wreck this game against our rookie left tackle. They're running jet sweeps to get, you know,

hey, keep your eyes back there. They're moving Dak Prescott out of the pocket. They're getting the ball out quickly. They're doing all those things to not let Garrett wreck the game. So you have that special teams. They were fan. I mean, this kicker, like, I don't know. If you don't watch that game, he made a 66-yard field goal that got wiped off the board because there was a penalty before and then they had a 71-yarder and they didn't let him kick it. I'm like, let him kick it. He just made the 66-yarder. What are we doing here? But that guy, Brandon Arbery, looks like a weapon as well. So as I'm watching that game, I'm in like the second quarter and I'm going, this looks like one of the best teams in the NFC. And I know if you're a fan of a rival of the Cowboys,

you're saying, give me a break. Let's see him do it in the playoffs. And that's true. That's an easy comeback. The Cowboys had that over everyone else for years. Hey, we've won Super Bowls. And now you can say, well, your guy hasn't won anything in the playoffs. But if we're looking at this season and this conference, my week one overreaction, I'm leaning into it is that the Cowboys look like one of the better teams in the NFC, whereas, again, I had them like nine and eight maybe missing the playoffs. Deontay, what do you think? Did I miss the boat on Dallas? I don't think so at all. I think to the point that you were making, like it's so easy to get lost. in the Jerry Jones of everything and the contract disputes and where do things stand with DAC, where do things stand with CD? Are they going to be prepared to pay Michael Parsons in the future, the health of this team, and, you know, their lack of depth. And then they're out on the field. And you understand, like, this is not a very deep team because their top five guys are better than almost anybody else's collection of top five guys. And that's what we saw on display,

right? And it all starts with Dak Prescott. And I think that this was a perfect kind of game for him to have coming out of the way that people might have felt about them at the end of last year. Very effective with the ball, solving problems. You kind of noted some of the ways that this offense prepared itself to take away or try to mitigate the effect of Miles Garrett. And I thought they did a really good job of that. And then on the other side of the ball, the first thing I wanted to see is, could they affect the pocket enough both on early and late down?

What would the defensive interior look like? What would these edge rushers look like? Are we going to see the same thing that we saw under Dan Quinn under Mike Zimmer? and to your reaction shield, like it was all that and more, right? Like, there was just nothing that Cleveland could do with this, with this Cowboys pass rush. And I don't know, I don't know yet what I'm going to do with Cleveland as a team, right? Like, that's something I'm really considering because I don't want to eliminate them too early. And I don't want to, you know, ding them a little too hard for playing up against what I think is probably a top five team in the NFL in Dallas right now.

Wow. But you look at that game. And I think maybe my bigger takeaway outside of Dallas looking so. stable was maybe Cleveland is not the team that they hoped to be in 2024. No, they gave up 17 hits on Deshaun Watson. 17 hits, six sacks. It felt like at least three times that. And about half of those, I'm like, I think he's getting knocked out of the game.

Like, these were not, you know, sometimes the QB hits that guys get credited for. No, these were not cheapies. These were like, he's being planted into the ground. And a normal human being is not getting up from that. And that happened like 10 times today. I'm so surprised we didn't see James Winston in the, in this game. Like you said, every hit, it seemed like he was going to leave the game. And what stands out to me for Dallas, from Dallas's perspective, this is the type of offense

that would give them problems during the Dan Quinn era. It gave them no problems under Mike Zimmer. And I think he's the biggest winner of the day out of this game, especially. Well, maybe not, because Dak Prescott just made 240 million in one day with 231 of it, guaranteed. I should have led with that, I guess. I forgot that when I even injured. Listen, it's our first post-game show of the year. What do you want for me? And a lot happened during that hour. I think there was so much happening. But, yeah, I was very impressed by Zimmer's plan.

I was impressed by the Blitz plan, the packages they did, how they used Michael Parsons, how they dropped them in the coverage sometimes, and how did they kind of put him on one side of the formation and blitz from the other. And I thought Tom Brady did a pretty good job, like, breaking down why Zimmer was giving Cleveland so many problems and why Zimmer gave him so many problems during his career. But I wanted to ask, what did you guys feel about Tom Brady's broadcast debut? It's a little mixed. He was getting crushed in my group chats.

Same. And I just feel like I am not known as like the Tom Brady defender. Let me be clear. But I'm like, it's his first time doing it. I thought he passed the threshold of like, this isn't going to be a Jason Whitten, Drew Breeze type situation. Like if he just wants to collect that,

whatever it is, 37 million a year for the next 10 years and call games, he's not going to annoy me. He's fine. He was a little uncomfortable at first. I thought he settled in as the game went on. I'm like, again, I don't want to like cut Tom Brady and he's slack. He doesn't need me some weird podcaster in his room, you know, after midnight in suburban Philadelphia, just defending him. But I feel like I want to hear a little bit more of him and like, you know, I'll get back to you in a month. What did you think, Deante? Did you have the sound up on that game or no?

I rarely have the sound up. I did want to listen to at least a little bit of his commentary just to kind of get a feel for how, you know, how he handles the boost. And to Steven's point, to your point, there were some times early in the game where it was a little clunky. You could definitely tell, like, all right, the lack of the preparation that he's not really allowed to do, given his position with the Raiders, I felt like you could feel a little bit of that, right? Like there's some details that I think he probably couldn't really get into until he saw how the flow of the game went, right? And I think that as he caught the flow of the game, you know, like Stephen was saying, he was able to explain some things, especially like with how the defensive looks were affecting the quarterback and what he would expect playing the position. And, you know, to Stephen's point, how Mike Zimmer can affect quarterbacks. And I think that the more time he gets to spend in the booth and the more he spends time talking about that, the better he'll do. Outside of that, man, I just want to hear a guy be interesting. You know, just like you said, She'll, I don't really kid.

You don't have to predict plays like Romo did his first year. And you don't have to be like on top of everything from a data and film perspective the way that Greg Olson is. I just want you to be compelling a little bit. And I think that as the game went on, you kind of started to hear a little bit of personality. And I would like to hear more of that as a season goes on. So I would say the jury's still out as well. He had that one moment where he explained how getting 10 yards is hard, but getting 15 yards is harder. And then getting 20 yards is even harder than that.

Like, that's the type of analysis you gave for 37 million a year. Listen, you could pick out, yeah, you could pick out a lot of clips like that. You know, going backwards is hard. Going forwards is hard, but it's harder after you've already gone backwards. Yeah, yeah, we get it. But again, it's his first time calling a game here. So I want to see it as the season goes. I did miss Greg.

Like, until someone said he's no Greg Olson in a group. chat, I'm like, oh, okay, now I do miss Greg Olson because, I mean, he's just the top of the announcer tier. To finish up on this game, though, you mentioned the Browns. Like, that offense, that could be a bad, bad, now they were down two tackles, but I don't know when those guys are getting healthy and going to be on the field. Deshawn Watson does not look comfortable. And I've crushed Deshawn Watson a lot in this game. Like, I think most quarterbacks would have had a tough time in this game, given the pressure. Now, he was terrible under pressure. There's no doubt about it.

But that was like the defining aspect of the game. It's just the cowboys are getting after him over and over again. But it's just another game in kind of this three season. It's not a huge sample. But when he's been on the Browns where you just don't see him comfortable, you don't see the offense play well. And I think the defense is going to still be pretty good. They had some bad moments in the first half.

But then they battled back and held the Cowboys in check when game was out of hand. But I don't know, Ruiz. What do you think about like how this is going to go for the next two, three, four, eight, ten weeks with Deshaun Watson. Are they going to bounce back or are they're going to be more games like this? I have no reason to think they're going to bounce back other than the fact that we've seen this offense succeed before, but the quarterback position doesn't look any better. And that's the concern.

Like it doesn't matter how good this offense performs this year. They can make the playoffs like they did last year. They could perform like they did last year on the offensive side. Deshaun Watson doesn't look like, forget about a $230 million quarterback because we're never seeing that guy again, in my opinion. can he look like a $100 million quarterback? He doesn't even look like that right now. I wouldn't be surprised if he see James Winston play

and start a game within the next two months because that's how bad it looked. And I liked the idea of bringing in Ken Dorsey, who's outside of your coaching tree. I like when coaches do that, but I didn't see the benefits of it on Sunday. I thought the offense kind of leaned into the worst parts of Deshaun's game a little bit too much,

too much empty for me, I don't think it's going to work. I wasn't high on them coming into the season, and this game gave me no reason to adjust my take on them. Yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, they can't run the ball with who they have back there now, and they've had elite offensive lines in the past, and they just don't have that right now, and they lost Bill Callahan, their offensive line coach.

Like, it looked really, 17 quarterback hits. I mean, that is an alarming number for the first game of the season here. They had 54 yards and one first down at half. time. Some graphic came, you know, when the graphics come up and it's like, a few was first down since like 2005. I'm like, man, 2005, the Browns have had some really, really bad teams since 2005. Like that is, you know, even if it's not going to look perfect, that's pretty bad. So yeah, we'll see. I think I would be a little bit alarmed if I were a Browns fan with that offensive performance. And if you're a Cowboys fan, today was a good day. Your quarterback got locked up for four, four seasons here. And then your defense played tremendous. And you dominate. on the road against a team that was in the playoffs last year. So again, I know, stop yelling at me if you're listening to this. They got to do it in the playoffs. I understand.

I'm with you. They do have to do it in the playoffs. But we're just not going to be like, we're not talking about the Cowboys until the playoffs. We can't do that either. We've got content to produce here. If you couldn't tell, Sheila is from Philadelphia. That's right. You know what's on my group chat.

She was trying to avoid uncomfortable conversation in the coffee spot. That's all that is. Yeah. When I go outside, take out the trash time. I heard you. Well, are you defending? All right, everybody settled down. Deontay, what do you got? What stood out for you in week one? Well, it's almost like a two-parter, right? I think first of all, we got confirmation that C.J. Stroud is a kind of quarterback that we thought he was last year, right? I thought that he did a lot to solve problems within this offense. I think we got an early and strong look at what Stefan Diggs brings this offense as a third down target, red zone target. thinking converted about half of his catches in the first downs on third downs,

third and fourth downs. So you see the effectiveness of that. But I think bigger than that, and I think this was evidenced by the clips that were on social media and the conversation that was happening as the game was on, which is that Anthony Richardson is a ceiling razor in a way where if this small sample size is real, we should probably start having a conversation about where he lands

in the hierarchy of the young quarterbacks that are trying to contend in this conference. Whoa. It's not just the 60-yard bomb, right? I think that my favorite throw of his was in the second half, he extends and then throws this dig to Ashton Doolin late in the progression. And at first, I'm like, what would even make you make this throw? And then you get to see it from an end zone angle. And it's like the degree of difficulty not only was high, but it's high. It's high.

And he was aggressive in a way that made sense, despite, you know, bailing out of a pocket, you know, moving away from pressure and still understanding that he can attack the middle of the field. And if that's the kind of player that we're getting, I think that Indianapolis's the ceiling is a lot. higher than I thought it was because I've been kind of trying to throw cold water on this situation because the AFC because AFC is so deep because their division is so deep because there are so many good quarterbacks. But that guy is a walking five yards anytime they have a design run for them and in the passing game and you see that explosive potential that they did not have with Gardner Minshu. It just kind of lets you know that this offense has a gear that maybe we might have underappreciated before the season started.

He had nine completions. That's what I was going to say. So I didn't watch this game. So I'm I'm hearing you guys talk about. I'm like, you had nine completions. What did I miss here? Those nine completions were that impressive, I guess. We like quality over quantity here. There was nine completions for 212 yards. It was 19 passes, right?

It's not like he had like a 30% completion rate. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that's the thing with him. Like, to Deiante's point is people always describe him as like this raw quarterback. And I think there are raw parts of his game. Like, for instance, the accuracy. There are accuracy issues. You see it when you watch and play.

but I feel like there's more substance to his game. Like I feel like he gets football. He understands that. You talk to their coaches. I talked to their offensive coordinator, Jim Bob Hooter, and their quarterback's coach a couple weeks ago. And that's the messaging. They're giving me, they're like, this guy gets the game.

He understands football. You can see it in his preparation. You can see it in the meeting room. And then you just talk about those throws, those jaw-dropping throws. Like, we get giddy about them. The Colts coaches were telling me, they send in throws to each other,

clips to each other, and just laughing their asses off in the meeting room. Because it's crazy. Like, this is unique armstrong. I don't think it's exaggerating to put it on par with, like, a Josh Allen. I've never seen Josh Allen make a throw like that 60-yard bomb he made. With pressure on his lap, just a quick twitch throw, flick of the wrist, hits Alec Pierce in stride for the touch. It's just, what a throw.

What a talent. Like, I don't know how everyone isn't rooting for this kind of hit. Because if he hits, I don't know what the ceiling is. Yeah, it's the Kim Newton, Josh Allen type prototype, but where in that range does he fall? Is there a better version of that? Is it, you know, as good? If it's as good, that's pretty impressive as well. Yeah, his numbers, 9 for 19, had a 60-yarder, had a 54-yarder.

I didn't have eyes on this game, so I'm looking forward to watch it, especially now. I guess I can knock out those nine, I could have knocked out those nine completions before the pod started bad job out of me. but it was so funny. I like to look at the expected completion percentage numbers from next-gen stats. He was attempting very difficult throws. His expected completion percentage, which for those who don't know is just they look at all the tracking data and like how often is a throw like this completed. His expected completion percentage was 51.7%. So it's like I'm glad you pointed out, Deonti, nine for 19.

That's like right around what you would expect him. His average pass went 16 and a half yards downfield. That was five more yards than any other quarterback in the entire NFL in week one. So yes, I am looking forward to rewatching this guy who is just throwing bombs downfield. But Deontay, to your point, because you came in with a strong take there about the hierarchy of AFC quarterbacks, explain to me the version of Anthony Richardson that like gets him to the point you're talking about. Like, does he need to be more consistent down to down? Can he be like Cam Newton had years where his completion percentage wasn't that high and he was still awesome because if you're hitting on the high leverage plays and awesome as a runner, just like the version of Anthony Richardson you hope develops over the course of the season.

I would say Cam Newton's probably the right comp, right? Like I actually, I don't know if I see a lot of Josh Allen in Anthony Richardson when I watch him. I do see Cam Newton, right? And to the point of like contextualizing stat lines, it would be different if he were nine for 19 and then you turn on the tape and he was a mess in the pocket. and that's the reason why he completed less than half his passes. But you see, I mean, outside of like some busted protections on stunts and twists on passing downs, for the most part, he was navigating the pocket really well. I do think, to Stephen's point, there are just going to be certain accuracy issues underneath,

which is why I think that the best version of him is Cam Newton-esque because you're not going to see him be an RPO guy. I think that the real effectiveness in this offense is that he can go get you four to six yards as a runner whenever you need him to, right? Like Houston is about as an aggressive and tackling team as you'll see in the NFL, and guys are just falling off of them, whether it's, you know, in the pocket, getting away from pressure on a keeper, you know, in his own read game, on a designed run. It's really difficult for first contact to get that guy down, and then you get all the downfield passes. And this isn't just, oh, I'm throwing up a 50-50 ball and hoping that the percentages are in my favor. It's the dig route that I was talking about.

That post, the 60-yarder, I mean, you look at him slip, but you can tell that he had eyes on that. And that was a throw he wanted the entire way, right? Very early in the progression, he knew he had that available. And because he has an armed talent, there is no part of the field that's not available to him. And that's the thing I think that makes him most dangerous as a quarterback prospect. And if they can really lean into what he is as a runner to force defenses to walk closer and closer to the line of scrimmage, this chemistry that it looks like he has with Alec Pierce, if he can build some of that with AD Mitchell.

And Mike Pittman, I think that you have a really well-balanced wide receiver group around him. So I think the ceiling is a lot higher, like I said, than I thought coming into the year. And while I don't think he's like in the Buffalo, I don't think Andy's in the Buffalo tier, or even in the Bengals here, I don't know it's a team that we're going to get to because that defense is limited. But this is a dude that clearly like you roll the balls out there on Sunday. He can beat just about anybody if he's on fire. And it looked like he was just going to drag that team to a win late into that game against Houston today. Yeah, it sounds like he's in just must-see TV.

First game you rewatch on Monday if you didn't watch it. on Sunday tier already. I mean, I can't wait to watch it. Just real quick on the Texans here, Deonti, I know you were, you and I were both really high on them coming into the season. Like you said, it's just, all right, they won 29, 27. So it was a close game. But as expected, feel as good as you did before the week about them or anything kind of stand out that might have you a little concerned. I said that they looked about as good as I hope they did. I did get a good chuckle. Like, in college football, sometimes you hire the opposite of what you want, right? And then there's like this performative moment where this coach wants to come out and send a message that he's not

like the last guy. I think the like Bobby Sloak is trying to prove that he's not 2023 Bobby Sloak anymore because I don't think we got a first down handoff until like the fourth or fifth possession from Houston. Like we were deep. We were in the second quarter and the first handoff was like a jet sweep to Stefan Dix. So I was like, okay, I see what you're doing here. He listens to a lot of play action. Exactly. He doesn't want me yelling at him. A lot of play actions. A lot of throws on early down. He's fighting the allegations. Yeah. 100%. And then it's funny, right, because you look at the way the flow of the game went and it just became clear that Indianapolis could not match up with them up front. So then it's

like, you actually used to be handing the ball off on first downs, you know, and then as soon as they really started leaning in the run game, you saw Joe Mix and started break runs. So I think that they are about as good offensively as I hope they would be. I don't think that you're going to get a 160 plus yard team rushing performance like they got today. I think that was a little particular to just their matchup with Indianapolis. But like I said, Stefan Diggs, Nico Collins being healthy, tank Dell is a field stretcher. You just look at what they have available. That complement a skill position talent and a healthy offensive line, which is something that we've been hitting on all offseason. It's just clear that like they can put up points with everybody.

It's very similar to like watching the Rams on Sunday night. And it's like when they want to get down the field, if they need to get 12 yards, they can go get you 12 yards. And I think that that was very much evident watching them play today. I feel like everything you would have hoped as a Texans fan during the offseason for this offense to be, it was on Sunday. Now, it's one game, but they ran for 213 yards, 40 carries. Like, that's the running game that they lacked last year. Nico College is making monster catches all over the field.

He was just a beast that the Colt secondary couldn't handle. Stefan Diggs, being that chain mover that he needed to beat, being that underneath the option, Tank Dell is still making place. And then, of course, C.J. Stroud, who's living up to the hundred, hype and maybe he'll exceed it by the end of this year, I would be hyped if I was a Texans fan. I think they might be the second or third best team in this conference right now. All right. Another game where fan bases should both be pretty excited after week one performances, even though Texans get the win, Colts get the loss.

All right. Those are our big takeaways from week one. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back. We're going to get to some other storylines that caught our attention. What a great NFL weekend that was. is giving you another chance to start the season with a big return on America's number one sports book. You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when you placed your first

$5 bet on tonight's game. You know what I? Like, Breeze Hall over rushing yards, I think he's going to have a nice game against that 49ers defense. You can do that. You can do whatever you want. Just visit fanduel.com slash ringer NFL to make every moment more this season. Fanduel, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-mustrawable bonus bets, which expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandul.com. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. All right. So storylines that cause

our attention. You can go anywhere you want with these. It wasn't your main takeaway from week one, but something else that has your attention. Ruiz, start us off. What do you got? I'm going to go to Cincinnati where the Bengals, somehow as the heaviest favorite coming into the week, lost to the Patriots, the Jacoby-Berset-led Patriots. But I wanted to focus on Joe Burrough in this offense and how the problems that plagued offense today are the problems that have plagued this offense in the past, where no run game, a siloed offense, where the quarterback wants to be in the gun, and the running game really only works when you're under center. They were in the gun 91% of the time to think.

Joe Burrow only used play action on 17% of his passes. It's not like this was a negative game script. They were in the game the whole time. They were within a possession, the whole game. And they called plays as if they were coming back from 20 points. It's just like, Joe, get in the gun and read things out. And without T. Higgins and without Jamar Chase, having a full pitch count, that's not sustainable.

And that makes me lose faith in this coaching staff, which I thought earned a little faith last year after Burrow went out. Like Zach Taylor, I thought coached his ass off after Burroughs injury. The offense got better under Jake Brown. And we saw more of that skiing stuff that we're used to seeing from a McVeigh-style offense. But now I'm worried that Brian Callahan took that with him to Tennessee. Because Tennessee's offense looked more like what I would expect Cincinnati's offense to look like this year. And Burroughs at the heart of the concerns. And I know he's

supposedly healthy this year and the wrist isn't a problem anymore. But he played like he did at the beginning of last year when he had that calf injury. Adda was like five yards today. He had a 72% completion percentage. Guess what his expected completion percentage was. 68%. It was 72% because he was only threw more than 10 yards three times. He only completed one pass over 10 yards. It was a just a punchless performance from this passing game. The running game actually was way better than it has been in the past. They average over four yards per attempt. But I still think that this passing game is too Burroughs-centric,

and it's built around his preferences as a pastor. And I understand wanting to do that. We celebrate teams for building around the quarterback, but there are no easy buttons in this offense. There are no easy production for Joe Burry. It has to earn every big play. There's no play action, turn my back to the defense. I turn around, and there's a deep crosser wide open.

And until they figure out the offense and how to mesh it, that's not going to be the case. That's not going to happen. All right. I'll be the Cincinnati defender and tell you you're completely overreacting to one game against the Patriots in week one. I mean, I think the last thing you said sticks with me. The quarterback wants to play a certain way. And two years ago, they had a top five offense with the quarterback in large part playing that way. So I don't think they're going to change.

Like, if you look at them in the first three years of Joe Burrow, play action versus nonplay action, they're like one of the few teams in the NFL that has been worse with play action than without play action. So he wants to play a certain way and that's the way they're probably going to play. Now I hear you. You want to add some layers to it and make life easier for him, but he's kind of like that old school. Let me get to the line of scrimmage. Look at this. Look at that.

And we'll play that way. And again, when he was healthy, they had a lot of success doing that just two years ago. So I understand them coming into this season saying it's going to look like that version from 2022. It's not going to look like last year's version. with Jake Browning. This was a bad loss for the Bengals. It was ugly. They were the biggest favorites of the week. To me, this was not an overreaction week where I actually thought Burrow looked healthy. I thought the arm looked fine. He was scrambling more than he did last year. So I thought he looked relatively healthy. There were four fumbles in this game. The Patriots recovered three of them.

The Bengals had a touchdown to Mike Gisicki get called back because it just hit the ground. They had a passed to Tanner Hudson where he's like two yards away from the goal line. And Kyle Dugger makes a great play and punches it out. They had a fumble on special teams in this game. So the things I agree with with the concerns about the Bengals are lack of an explosive passing game. But I'm willing to give it more than this one game sample before I say that's going to be a big issue for me. And then the other thing is their run defense. I mean, a big issue in this game was they only had eight possessions in this game.

They ran 48 plays. Like, if you look at it, the Bengals had the 10th best success rate of any offense in the NFL, which isn't like amazing. But again, above average, they were moving the ball and they were kind of shooting themselves in the foot. So now they do play the Chiefs next week. So we're going to have a conversation about the Bengals, maybe a similar one next week. But I'm not over in the same overreaction spot that you are Ruiz. I just want one layer. I just want one layer added to the offense.

You said layers. Just give me one extra layer. Okay. There you go. One extra layer. Deontae, where are you with this conversation? station. I didn't get to watch this game closely. This was one of those, like, the group chat kind of told me how the flow of the game went and I had to go back and look at the highlights. But it was a lot of text messages in the group chat. Like, what is this Bengals offense doing? Why does it look like this? What's wrong with Joe Burrow? Why can't they push the ball down the field? And to your point, when I turn on the highlights and I'm looking at Burrow, move around, I'm like, okay, he looks nimble. The arm looks okay. It looks like you're able to throw the ball off platform. It doesn't look like you're skittish about pressure in the same way that he clearly was. When you're he was coming back from the CAF issue early last year, right?

So I thought that there were some things to be encouraged about. To your point, though, they didn't have a run game to lean on. And I just don't know that this Bengals offense can continue to pretend like it can be sustainable year over year without having anything other to lean on than its explosive offense. It's really just not putting Joe Burrow in a fair position, especially if this defense of theirs can't force turnovers the way that it did three years ago. And it's not rushing the pay. It doesn't get as many opportunities to rush your passer.

right now as it did three years ago because this offense is not just winning the very you know the variables of pushing a ball down the field all the time so that is something that was kind of concerning to me but i am on your side a little bit shield i think this game was ultimately won and lost on the opening script new england got to march right down the field they get a touchdown and they basically just held cincinnati at arm's distance the rest of the way i don't know if things bode well for cinti because to your point they have to go see kansas city so this wasn't a game they could afford to lose you come out of the first two weeks oh and two you've basically got to play, you know, top five ball the rest of the way to feel comfortable about your playoff odds.

So I am a little bit concerned just in terms of like the timing of this loss. But I think that this just speaks to where the Bengals are at right now, which is that if they don't have any other leverage to bowl, and this is something I said when we were talking about AFC predictions, they've got one way to win. And that one way to win just kind of crapped out today from what I can tell. And I'll go back and rewatch just to see what, if anything, Joe Burrow was missing in the passing game, especially in the second half. But I just don't know what is going to take for Sinty to get back over the hump if this defense is just never going to be what it was a few years ago. I honestly don't put this performance on Burrow.

I think his numbers, like having the low A dot, averaging only 4.7 yards per dropback, not completing passes over 10 yards. I think that's a product of what their offense has become. And the box you can kind of put them in if you're a good defensive staff, which I think New England has. Like you guys said, Burrow looks healthy. He was moving. I think he scrambled over 10% of his dropbacks,

which is a big departure from last year. Too high. Yeah. Yeah. He was holding the ball on a lot of those. You're right. And the Patriots do. I'm glad you said that about the Patriot staff because if I'm a Patriots fan,

I'm going, hey, what about that? You're talking about the Bengals. Gerard Mayo, listen, he came under a lot of heat in August for the way they're handling neck. That team was ready to play. Last year, you watched the Belichick teams. The defense was good. The Belichick teams last year were not well coached.

They were making miscues after it was a dumb football team. last year. This was a well-coached team that was squeezing every ounce out of the talent it had at their disposal. DeMarcus Covington, a defensive coordinator who I knew very little about, I mean, to that number, when you're having Joe Burrough scramble 10% of the time and taking sacks, he was definitely holding onto the football, confused, no explosive plays. The Patriots definitely deserve credit for that for sure. Yeah, and that was a quick game. It was the first game that ended on the day. It was like a two-and-a-half-hour game, and it's because the Patriots wanted that game to play out like that.

So for me, it was like a vintage Patriots performance. And I don't even mean like 2010 Patriots. I mean like 2005 Patriots back of the day when the like the first part of the dynasty where they would just smother teams like this. Yeah, no, no doubt about it. All right. I was watching Bill's Cardinals in the early window. We got the full Josh Allen experience.

Josh Allen can still play football without Stefan Diggs, even though Diggs had a nice day there for Houston. You look at this Buffalo offense. and they didn't get many opportunities in the first half because their defense couldn't get off the field. I think Allen had six pass attempts in the first half. But then they get going. And I swear it just has looked like it's looked the past few years when they get going. They score four touchdowns on five drives.

He's spreading the football around nine different players had a catch. Keon Coleman had a great explosive down the right sideline. Khalil Shakir. Well, I don't know. Kalil Shakir might have to be like the official wide receiver of the ringer NFL show. We're all on board with him, right? Yeah, I'm there. Okay. Yeah, we should all wear Shakir jerseys next to that summer.

Yeah, no, he, he looks electric with the ball in his hands. James Cook had over 100 yards from scrimmage. And Josh Allen looked like Josh Allen, two passing touchdowns, two rushing touchdowns. I think they had the second highest offensive success rate for any team in week one. But then you had a little too much of the Josh Allen experience where he's going to the end zone and he's trying to fly over Buda Baker and he's torpedoing. and you're going, this is awesome. I've said it a million times.

What I love about the guy, he plays every snap. Like his life is on the line. It's the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. And if they don't win, he's just going to disappear from the earth. That's why I like watching him. So he does that in week one. But then he starts grabbing at the left hand and the wrist. And he's holding the tablet on the sideline.

But he's only holding it with one hand. And people are coming over to daff him up. But he's only using his right hand. And so as we record this, we don't know what's up with Josh Allen's. now it is his left hand, his left wrist. So he continued to play. Mitchell Trabisky was warming up the hammies there, but he didn't have to go in the football game. So kind of a mixed bag, I think, for the bills in week one. You're happy that the offense still looks good. You rallied. You won 34 to 28 against a feisty Cardinals team, but now these quarterback injuries,

which you never know when something's going to affect a guy or when it's going to linger. That's kind of going to be a story for the rest of the week. So I don't know how many eyes you guys, if you guys had eyes on this game or not, or if you were watching other ones, but what did you make of the Josh Allen experience here? I was kind of peeking in and out. So I can't, I won't pretend to say that like I saw it in depth,

but like I will say, Shield, the thought I had was like, the Josh Allen experience is not a la carte, right? Like, this is chef selection. You're getting everything that he puts on the table. You don't get much of a say in the matter. Because on one hand, you'll get that, you know,

third and long in the third quarter, but like he matrix bends around a guy. out of a way from a free rusher rolls out and then throws a dart, you know, and it's like, wow, that's a Josh Allen I like to have. And then on the other hand, that means that you're going to have a guy who, you know, baby being a little bit too competitive. We talked about this with Lamar Jackson on Thursday. He decides, I'm getting to the end zone by hook or by crook. I'm going to jump over this guy to get there. And hey, amazing play. And then instantly it's like, oh, yeah, now your hands hurt. And, you know, your status is a little bit up in the air.

Thankfully, it's his non-throwing hand, you know, and you hope, you know, obviously, you know, X-rays or MRIs and all that is done. There's no ligament or bone damage, so he can continue to be the quarterback that he needs to be because this was an impressive performance. You know, Arizona was in, you know, total control of the game in the first quarter in a way where I was kind of concerned

whether or not Josh Allen would have an opportunity to bring his team back. And you just got to see high leverage play after high leverage play where this guy is making these great, you know, high degree of difficulty throws in the middle of the field, in and out of structure. You know, he's probably like one of my favorites,

if not my favorite quarterback to watch in the red zone. because he can just drill, you can just pull the ball right on the guy's numbers in a way that maybe only two other guys in the league can. So it's just so much fun to watch him play. But to the point I made earlier, this is not an alacart experience. I don't get to just have the fun. Josh Allen Red Zone, third and 12. He's just throwing darts to guys, you know,

or Keon Coleman making a play after Josh Allen creates something. That's not the only Josh Allen I get to have. I got to deal with the fact that he might do something that is going to jeopardize his health for the near future. I feel like Josh Allen is the one quarterback in the league that could play with one of those clubs. Like the cast, the big clubs that the old defenders used to wear. But I don't know if that's a good idea to give Josh Allen a weapon on the field. He would use that club. 100% he would use that club to bash someone on the head.

But no, it was the full experience. Even like his first strip sack. He has a guy wide open over the middle, but it's a short throw. And he's like, no, I'm going to extend the play and try to make something happen. Then he gets stripped from behind. but it's always a net positive, his playmaking. And that's the thing. Like you look at his, even when you account for the turnover numbers,

he's still one of the most productive and efficient quarterbacks in the NFL. And it's not just like the Anthony Richardson thing where it's boom or bust, high success rate, high down to down. It's just every once in a while he loses his mind. He goes bozo mode every once in a while. There's nothing you can do about it. Yeah, it's a good point for even when you're watching it going, how could he do that at the end of the game, like almost every time?

It's like, oh, he performed like one of the best quarter. Rebacks in the NFL this week. And again, that was the case here as well. One thing on the, I just got to rip the Cardinals real quick for, they might have had the worst play call or the week here. I don't know if this caught your guy's attention. 36 seconds left. They're driving. They need a touchdown to win the game. Third and 10. Again, 36 seconds left. You're at the Bill's 32-yard line and they hand the ball off to James Connor for a three-yard run. It's like, you have five plays total at the most to get in the end zone here. What do you do? You have Kyler Murray, who he was scrambling around.

He had like a 29-yard scramble on that play. So listen, I like petzing, my fellow bald. I don't like ripping the fellow balds. But come on, Drew. Let's get that out of there. And let's be buttoned up a little bit on that two-minute drill. All right. That was Bill's Cardinals.

Deontay. What do you got? What was the storyline that caught your attention this week? So I was watching, I was watching Steelers Falcons, right? And I was watching Kirk Cousins pretty closely. This is something we spend a lot of time talking about. What's this offense going to be like was Zach Robbins? You've got an adult in the room at quarterback in Kirk Cousins.

And like just watching that game, you know, there are certain guys who come back from injury and you hear like, oh, man, I'm stronger than ever. My confidence is higher than ever. I feel better. I've actually been strengthening muscles that I've been neglecting in my offseason training. And I feel as explosive as surprise can be. And I was just watching that game. And I'm like, this Kurt Cousins reminds me of the old Washington, Kirk Cousins, the one who never wanted to get hit. The one who was just going to get rid of the ball at this first sign of discomfort.

And it concerns me because this offense is not built to sustain itself with Kurt Cousins being skittish about pressure or being unsure of the coverage windows he's looking into. Because this office is a little bit limited in terms of a skill position talent as true like separator types. We have big bodies here, right? There are guys who can make some acrobatic catches. I think that Drake London is somebody who can be a better receiver than we've seen based on the statistics. And that obviously applies to Kyle Pitts as well. But so much of this was going to hinge on Kirk Cousin, being the guy who had mastered this offensive system and can put the ball on a guy's chest as he's

coming out of his breaks. And you just saw a double clutching on one play or, you know, forcing the ball out early on others, taking a check down when he could have held the ball a little bit longer. And it's just like all these issues that just remind you that this is an aging guy coming off into Achilles' injury. This is somebody who has had issues with dealing with pressure throughout his career. And I thought that maybe he had turned a corner with that under Kevin O'Connell, especially like last year in the year before late in that year. I thought that he was pretty brave in the pocket. But watching him now and seeing that kind of loss of mobility,

he doesn't even feel like he can escape pressure. And if that's the case, this is going to be a lot of trouble behind this offensive line because I don't know if they can hold up. And not every edge rusher is T.J. Watt, but it's not going to take just T.J. Watt to give these guys some trouble up front. And I just don't know what else this offense is going to do

if Kirk Cousins is not at his best. I made the joke in the quarterback rankings that Kirk Cousin's game was like to only, It's like it was going through a midlife crisis where he was trying to fit in with the young guys and he was kind of pulling it off. His motorcycle era in Minnesota? He's not pulling off anymore.

He's wearing the chains, he's doing the dances. He wasn't pulling it off on Sunday. Like my one thing that I could hold on to if I was a Falcons fan would be that we played a defense that makes offenses uncomfortable. Like that's their ammo. Making offenses uncomfortable. But I would be very concerned about what Deontes saying,

like the reaction of pressure, that's where he had evolved over the last. couple years. He would hang in there for an extra beat, take a hit. Maybe he'd make a throw on the move after shuffling in the pocket. But every time I looked up at this game, I didn't watch it from start to finish, but every time I looked up at it, he was getting sacked or he was throwing a hurry checkdown. And that was like the worst parts of his game in Washington and early on in Minnesota. I thought he had eradicated that from this game, but apparently it's back. Maybe it's just, you know, it's my first game back after a major injury against a hard

defense and next week it will look much better, but he's a 36-year-old quarterback coming off a major injury. Yeah. The most likely outcome is that he's a little bit washed down. Declining player. Yeah, if you're just looking at the age curve, that is the most likely outcome. You go 16 for 26 for 155, a touchdown and two interceptions. Steelers win 1810. I didn't have eyes on this game. Just looked at the box score. Thought of all the fantasy heads out there. Ray Ray McLeod, the leading receiver for your Atlanta Falcons. It wasn't just Arthur Smith. See, you got to find another punching bag there in Atlanta. Deonti, I got to ask you real quick before we move on. Justin Fields gets the start here. Russell Wilson, calf injury. I think it creeped up on Thursday, I want to say, and then he's out.

Full uniform now. Full shoulder pads on, even though he's inactive, never have seen that before. But Justin Fields, the numbers say 17 for 23 for 156, took two sacks, ran 14 times for 50s. seven yards, no turnovers, which for Justin Fields is a big, big deal. What did you make just the way he played? I think that you can probably sum up his game by looking at the passing chart and seeing that there's just absolutely nothing happening between the hashes. Right. So we're talking about just like his profile as a passer, nothing has changed between now and what we saw in the preseason and certainly what was there on tape in Chicago. But I think the reason why I probably feel a little bit more optimistic about him right now is because he did not

take a ton of sacks. He didn't put the ball in harm's way very often. I actually thought that he operated the offense pretty well, given some of his limitations as a passer in the pocket. And I think that because he still has, you know, springy enough legs, he still has enough of that quick twitch as a runner, it's hard to me to look at Russell Wilson, no matter what you think of him as a veteran presence, no matter what you think he might be, you know, passing the ball in the dropback game, he's not going to give you anything in terms of evading pressure if we're looking at what it look like in Denver over the last couple of years. And if that's the case, I know Mike Tomlin probably doesn't want to make a commitment

to changing his mind on who the starting quarterback's going to be. But if I'm Arthur Smith, I've got to continue to ask, like, hey, isn't it just smartest for this offense if we have two running threats in the backfield at all times and we just give Justin Fields all the flat routes and the fades that he needs, you know, I hope that maybe you just kind of win the variance game when you do have to pass. Yeah, the passing game's not going to be good. regardless. So then what do you do? And then I think they would look at it and say, well, Russell Wilson might turn the ball over less than Justin Fields. But if Justin Fields has games like

this, then it should become a much easier decision where you just say lean into that run game, lean into that defense. We'll look up at the end of the year. We'll be nine and eight or ten and seven. And you'll be making fun of Shield for saying that this was going to be the year that Mike Tomlin finally went under 500. First place in the division. Yeah. The only team of the win in the AFC North about it. Here we go still. All right. I'll stop with that right now. We take a break. We come back. We go in a rapid fire. All the games we've missed so far, you're saying, are you getting to my game? Yes, we are getting to your game. We split them up. We'll talk about all of them when we come back. All right. We're back on the Ringer NFL show. This is a little bit of rapid fire.

We'll see it's week one. How a customer are we actually going rapid fire? Who knows? Because I want answers to questions to some of these games that I didn't watch today. Let's start with the rookie Quarterbacks, a big theme coming into the day. One winner, Caleb Williams wins, Jaden Daniels loses, Bo Nix loses. Let's start with Caleb Williams, the most hyped guy out of the group. Bears win 2417 over the Titans. Caleb Williams, 14 for 29 for 93 yards. Average is 3.2 yards per attempt.

Bears had 11 first downs and 148 total yards. Ruiz, you watched this game. I was just looking at the score. I'll go, oh, Titans are killing them. Wow, how did the Bears win this football game? Explain it to someone who had no eyes on it. Special teams. That's how they won.

Jonathan Owens gets a punt block return for touchdown. Simone Biles' husband. They had two nice returns, one on a punt return, one on a kick return, where they ran like a power scheme almost, like a trap scheme almost. It was very interesting to watch that. That was like one of the most aesthetically pleasing plays that I saw on Sunday. But it was an ugly performance for Caleb, but I don't think it was as bad as the numbers imply.

I think he didn't get a lot of support. From this run game, I think Shane Waldron, the OC, didn't, you know, acquits himself nicely with this run game. D'Andre H. Swift only had 30 yards on 10 carries. I thought the offensive line was a little bit shaky. I do think Caleb had his warts, like the things that you would expect him to struggle with, like the pocket presence. There were a couple times when he bailed from a cleanish pocket, a clean pocket in the NFL, by NFL standards. But the thing that stood out to me that surprised me was the inaccuracy, which is something we didn't see on tape at all at USC, which makes me. me think that it's not going to be a problem going forward.

I think he was a little amped up. I think he was a little juiced up. He overthrew a lot of passes. The first pass he attempted was like a little screen pass out to DJ Moore. He threw it like 150 miles per hour. I'm surprised DJ Moore caught me. DJ Moore looked like he was caught off guard by how quickly the pass was thrown. And then he also missed Keenan Allen on an out and up that would have probably gone for like 30, 40 yards.

He missed another throw to Keenan Allen. But I thought in the second half he settled down. I thought we saw less of the pocket jitters. I think we saw less of the inaccuracy. We saw some really nice throws, like, into tight windows. He made one throw on the run in the first half that it was a lightning ball. He threw that one 100 miles per hour to DJ more, but that was necessary in that situation. Then he had a nice scramble on a third and 10 where he was dead to rights.

Like a Tennessee defender had him dead to rights and does this little like slip move where he kind of like he kind of turns to his side and slips past the defender. It was really nice to see because you could see that. Yeah, it was a flag football-esque move. Like put him on that team. But you want to see that come into play, like his ability to create out of structure. And even when he was being pressured and chased by very good defensive linemen, he was able to escape that for the most part. So that's a promising sign from him.

Okay. So it looked a little bit better than the numbers looked. First game, rookie jitters, still had some flashes. Deonti, I know you're a Caleb Williams. Guy, did you have eyes on this game? Were you taking a peek, or did you miss it? So this was my extra game in the early slate that I put on the screen. I wasn't watching it closely, but I wanted to make sure I had at least like a half an eye on it.

And I think that Stephen caught, you know, kind of encapsulated it pretty well, right? Like, I will flash my eyes. It would be like second and eight. And this dude is throwing a slant that's like a dirt ball because he's clearly trying to throw the ball as hard as he can. Right. And I think that some of that is jitters. I think that that's just like some early career jitters. I do think that, you know, he has, and this is something.

that was evident at USC as well. I think that he has a little bit of that Josh Allen competitiveness, checkdowns or for chumps type of mentality. And I think that that's what leads to some of his bad decisions with pocket management. I think that he can get a little bit caught on. I want to take a shot on this play, right?

Like there's this effect with some quarterbacks or you can tell that a play call that he got is one of his favorite play calls. And he wants to take the shot on it and he's not moving off of it no matter what. And I think that that kind of led to some of the situations we saw in the first half, which is second and long, turning in the third and forever, because he's losing 15 yards on a sack trying to do too much, right?

Trying to save plays that can't be saved. And that's going to be learned out, I would say, I think he'll de-learn that, unlearn that, I mean, as the season goes on and as his career goes on, I think in the second half, when things got settled a little bit more, I think the Shane Waldron did a good job of trying to get him on the move, get him out of the pocket, give him throws to his dominant hand. That's just like, things are going to be really comfortable for him. and I think that it got a little bit better.

But ultimately, like, I don't want to sugarcoat this and act like he had a good game. It wasn't the best game. There are things that he's definitely going to have to work on, but it wasn't like, you know, he took a bunch of strip sacks or he continued to put the ball in harm's way. This was just him being uncharacteristically inaccurate, and I think that things will be cleaned up. I wouldn't be surprised if he has a really good game coming out of this next week.

Yeah, if the inaccuracy shows up next week, then I think it's cause for concern. But I don't expect it to be because he was not inaccurate at all. He was the most accurate quarterback. in the draft class to me watching on film. But he was finding the right answers. He was finding open receivers. He just wasn't hitting them. I know the execution part is more important,

but that was the question mark with him. Is he going to be able to read out an NFL defense or he's going to go into panic mode all the time? And while that was the case early on in the game, like Deontes said, he settled down in the second half and saw more of it. I just wanted to add one more thing about Will Levis. No notes.

That's perfect Will Levis performance. Give me that every week and I'll be entertained. Just, oh my God. He was throwing bombs downfield. He was getting stripsacked. He was throwing passes that, like Brandon Whedon interceptions. It was amazing to watch. And that was a big reason why they lost that game, too, in addition to the Bears' special team.

I only saw Will Levis when they flashed the highlights on. And I remember, and I still feel exactly like I did when he came out in the draft that this guy reminds me of Carson Wentz. I don't know what version of Carson Wentz, but he reminds me of Carson Wentz so much. So, all right, you know what? If you're not going to be great, at least entertain the masses. sounds like Will Levis did that. If you're a Bears fan, your team won, 2417 and the rookie quarterback, hopefully, played his worst game of the season.

So that's a good thing for a team that could be in the playoff mix. All right, rookie quarterback number two, Jaden Daniels. You know who had this game? It was the man who predicted on the Friday show that at, what, plus 400, Jaden Daniels would have at least 70 rushing yards. We get a little message from Deonté. I don't have eyes on this game, but it wasn't late in that late window. And he's saying, oh, he's getting close.

Next thing I know, I look up 16 rushes for 88 yards for Jaden Daniels. So, Deante, which is the long shot of the week in week one coming in hot. Now, the passing numbers for Jaden Daniels, 17 for 24 for 184 yards and two sacks. Bucks win that game pretty easily over the commanders. All right. Talk to me about Jaden Daniels, Deonti. I didn't see anything except for the two touchdowns that. fleshed up as the highlights. I want people to know that I'm only smiling because I got that

prop call right. This was not a good game. This was not a good game from Jayden Daniels at all. As a matter of fact, he had over 80 rushing yards for all the reasons that I said he would, which is that the pressure that he would see from Tampa Bay, the changing coverage looks, the blitzes, you know, on the interior and off the edge, we're just going to, you know, get a force quit out of Jayden Daniels. And there were just so many plays, especially in the first half where you could tell he took one look. I don't like what I see or I don't know what I'm looking at. I can't tell where the pressure is coming from. I'm out of here because I trust me a whole lot more than I trust whatever else is happening on the football field. And I will say for as many

times as he tucked and ran, I actually thought that he did a pretty good job of keeping himself clean, not taking any big hits. That was something I was really surprised with, right? Like I thought he would tuck and run a bunch and it was going to put him at risk to get lit up. I thought he did a pretty good job of trying to protect himself and get to the sideline, get down, and understand where bodies are at around him. But you just saw so much of what made me kind of temper people's expectations about Jaden Daniels coming out of LSU, right? For his entire career, I can't even say just the last two years at LSU, this goes back to Arizona State. When things don't feel good for this guy, he takes off. He relies on his legs. And that does

lead to some dynamic plays. There were certain runs, especially in the second and third quarter, where you're like, okay, if this game were more competitive, this would be a very impactful play. This could change the momentum of the game. It just so happens that he's playing, you know, alongside maybe like the worst defensive depth chart of football. I think I wouldn't look at the, I wouldn't look at the play by play.

I don't think that a drive ended in a punt for Tampa Bay until like midway through the third quarter. It was like field goal, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, field goal. Like they were out of this game so quickly. There wasn't even an opportunity to evaluate what Jane Daniels would look like in a competitive game. I think that there will be something to build

on he'll probably connect a little bit more often on the deep passes in a way that he couldn't today right like he was just missing guys up the sideline and that's never really been a problem for him he's always been a pretty accurate deep thrower and i think he'll find terry mccloren and the rest of that receiving core a little bit more often than he did today but i think the book is out on this guy and it's always concerning when a rookie kind of already has the book out on how to make him uncomfortable and that's to take away that first vertical look and send some pressure and just watch the guy try to escape the pocket and that that's the reason why we're why I'm not really sure what the outlook is going to be like for Jaden Daniels in the NFL.

Ruiz, were you watching this any of Jaden Daniels or no? Yeah, I watched the condensed version after the game. Okay. It was a Cliff Kingsbury offense. Like, it's hard to punish Jaden Daniels for the performance. Obviously, he was jumping in the pocket and he relied on his legs a little too often. But 2.3 average time to throw, 5.6, A.D., 80% of his production came after the catch. he's not playing in like a pro-style passing game.

And I don't know if it's his fault, but it's going to be hard to get a true evaluation of his game like this in this offense, especially behind that offensive line. So I don't have a major takeaway from this game on Jaden Daniels. I do have a major takeaway on Liam Cohen. We talked about this on the Friday show. Like this is the Dan Quinn defense. This is the defense that your coaching tree torments.

And he did it. He earned his scheme board badge on Sunday. I like to see it against a more complete offense and against a quarterback who isn't a rookie, but first test passed. I mean, they put up 37 and it could have been 50. It very easily could have been 50. They missed a couple shots to really take advantage of what they were seeing from Washington. Yeah, I was definitely questioning what's this buck's offense going to look like. Best offense in the NFL this week, you know, in terms of EPA per drive.

I'm looking at that drive chart, Deontay. You were not lying. Holy cow. Eight drives. four touchdowns, three field goals, and a punt for the bucks. You can't really do much better than that. Baker Mayfield, 24 for 30, 289, four touchdowns, and no interception. So Baker's saying, you guys, we're giving Dave Canales all that love?

How'd the Panthers do today? How'd I do today? It's me. It's not Canales. I've got one more note for you, Shield, because I know that you love, you know, ripping bad coaching decisions. I watched in this game, Dan Quinn decided to go for a P-A-T, down 10 late in the game to make it a nine point game instead of going for two.

And then we had a late touchdown from Washington. They're down 17. You can take the PAT and give yourself a couple of chances if you get some lucky scores to go for two. He decides to go for two down 17. So you're basically making the entire game down to this one play. Of course they don't convert. And the game is effectively over from there. And Steve's in the same group chat with me.

And I'm just texting back and forth with our friend Charles McDonald. And I'm like, I understand why you were going crazy at the end of this guy's tenure in Atlanta because I don't know what the hell these decisions were that I was looking at. I just wrote that down in case I need to look at it for my column this week on the ringer.com. You know, I can't get it. You're right. Listen, never hesitate. Interrupt me, make a segment go longer.

If there's something dumb that a coach did in a game or some decision that you're like, oh, I can't believe he did this. I want to hear about it for sure. Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. I remember having a conversation on this show in January where it's like the commanders are in great shape. They've got all this cap space. They've got a top three pick. They can just create a coaching staff and a GM from scratch. And now it's week one. And you're like it's Cliff Kingsbury with a bottom five offensive line in the NFL, maybe a bottom, you know, a bad wide receiver group other than Terry

McLaren. And it's just like, and now you have, you know, Dan Quinn, who I thought could be a fine option as a coach. I mean, it's only week one, but you had the worst defensive performance in the NFL in week one. And then Deontes telling us about the coach's decision. So I look forward to watching. Did Cliff Kingsbury Dicey? He had some sunglasses like down low. What was his look on the sideline? I thought it flashed to it real quick. Did anyone see that or no? I just saw it for a second. It looked like he had like he had the sunglasses, but they weren't on. You know, you put him down kind of to the front of your nose so I can still see your eyes. Was he rocking that look or was that my imagination? I think I saw that when he cuts him aside. I just want to say,

And the handsome coach ratings overrated. Cliff King's ready, very overarching. I agree. I agree with that. I mean, we just, we talked about to Miko Ryan's earlier. I mean, come on. Give me a break. No contest.

All right. Moving on. Next rookie game. You knew Ruiz had to pick this one when we were dividing up games. He had to see Gino Smith, but he also had to see Bo Nix, who went 26 for 42 for 138 yards, averaged 3.4. 3 yards per attempt, no touchdowns, and two interceptions also ran five times for 35 yards. Broncos lose to the Seahawks, 2620.

I tweeted this out. The Broncos had the lowest offensive success rate of any team this week. Not only was it this week, this was worse than all but 10 offensive performances in the entire NFL last year. I'll remind you that there are 272 games played in an NFL season. All right, Ruiz, was it as bad as those numbers show? Or you say, no, listen, Bo Nix flashed. I think I can guess this one. He did not flash.

Bo Nix did not flash. You take one look at his passing map, which I'm nominating for one of the ugliest passing maps of the season already. It was a rough performance in all the ways that you would expect it to be a rough performance. Like the pocket presence wasn't there. We didn't see that trade bark accuracy that apparently Sean Payton saw on film when he was watching him at Oregon.

We didn't see the arm strength that Sean Payton also saw. I thought Sean Payton actually did a really good job of formulating this game plan, moving the pocket, not putting Bo Nix in a position where he has to process from the pocket and read out of Mike McDonnell defense, which Mike McDonald, like, that's the worst possible defensive coordinator to have your first start against. Maybe Dayton Daniels had a worse going up against the Todd Bulls defense, but I thought the Seahawks defense just played so well. That was so well organized and it just made things harder on him.

I think the one silver line, I guess, is the fact that he did run for 35 yards on five carries. That was the one thing, like, kind of moving the chains. And he did show some talent on that. He busted out the pump fake a couple times and caught some Seattle defenders with that. He scored a touchdown on it a la Aaron Rogers. So there was some playmaking there, but as a passer, just a lot to be desired. His interception, the first one, Rick Willen in the end zone, just a backfoot floater with no chance. it wasn't the smart decision making that you would hope to see out of a 24-year-old brooky.

And I don't know what you kind of latch on to. With Caleb Williams, there were flashes of arm strength and talent and playmaking outside of the pocket. But with Bo Nix, there was very little of that. Yeah, they had 14 possessions, and they didn't gain a first down on nine of those possessions. At one point, Bo Nix had 25 passing yards on 17 attempts in this game. So it was a very weird game. two safeties for the for the broncos. The Seahawks took two safeties.

That would Seahawks also had a muffed pun. They lose George Fant. They're starting right tackle very early in the game. So yes, I think if you play this game out 10 times, it's probably not going to be as close as 2620. But the Seahawks did have to put the game away at the end. And listen, Tyler Lockett might not be the guy he was in his prime, but that was a phenomenal catch. I love that, you know, I covered him as he was a rookie coming into the NFL. And so now, as someone, you know, he's considered probably one of the older guys.

I'm like, hey, he still got it. He can still make a couple of plays here. So nice win for the Seahawks there over the Denver Broncos. So those are the rookie quarterbacks. You know, I give the stat out every year that the average rookie who starts over the last 10 years, they perform like the 26th best starter in the NFL. It's very hard. So it doesn't mean you panic after week one.

It doesn't even mean you panic after one month. There's going to be ebbs and flows. There's going to be bumps in the road. you hope to see. I think the Williams discussion really framed what you're looking for. You might not win a lot of games. The numbers might not be good. Do you see those little flashes, those little nuggets where you can say, all right, if they can do more of that, then we might have something here. So I look forward to catching up on these rookie quarterbacks in the days ahead. All right, we got some other quick hitters. I'm kind of surprised that it

took us this long to get to this game, but I wasn't watching this game. Ruiz, this was another one that you had. Miami Dolphins beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 2017. This is another one where I need to ask you, what in the world happened here? Because I'm looking up, oh, Jags up 14-0-0. Oh, Jags up 17-7. And the next thing I know, the dolphins are lining up for the game-winning field goal. What happened in this game? We've been saying a lot about the losing teams. They can still feel good about what they saw. If I'm a Jaguars fan, I'm sick to my stomach that we gave this game away. Miami Dolphins had no business winning this game. I thought that Jags' defense was everything you thought it would be coming into this year.

They bothered two, and they made two uncomfortable. By the way, over three and a half rushing yards, cashed easily. I didn't see him. Oh, yeah. I think he ended up with 11, but he also had another run for 10 yards that got held back. I had a time in the burners with 11 yards. Right. It took them about five seconds to get those 11 yards, but he got them.

He got them. And guess who forgot to make the bet? I forgot to put the money on it, so I didn't even benefit from my good call. You said it behind the mic. That's all that matters. Yeah, that's more than real money. It's the pride at stake, the audience. But joking aside, like, we didn't see a more mobile version of two-at this game.

Like, when he had to throw on the run, I think he fared better than he had in the past, but it still wasn't a strength of his. And I don't think it's going to be an element that defenses have to a game playing around or worry about. They can still call their two-man. They can still turn their backs in the pocket without worrying. Maybe he'll pick up 10 yards every once in a while, but that's it. He's not turning it into 20 yards.

But from Jacksonville's perspective, I just thought the play calling at the end, obviously Travis Etienne had the game shifting fumble. They're about to go up 24 to 7. He's running into the end zone. He fumbles the ball. The dolphins go down and score right away. Tyree kill hits a big play. The Jaguars nearly fumble the next kickoff, but they recover it.

And that was the end of their offensive effectiveness. I thought the run game was a little too cute for me, a little too much of Doug Peterson's. I think Doug Peterson has a good run game, but he leaned into it too much. Too many, like, off-balance runs for me. I don't know. Did we know who was calling plays for this? Was he calling plays, or we're still not sure? It appeared to be Doug, because he had to play calling to shoot, and he was looking at it.

He was covering his mouth. He was calling plays. So I assume it was him. I do think Trevor played well in this game, considering what was going on around him. I thought he made a couple high-level throws. I thought he mitigated pressure well. He didn't throw into coverage.

He didn't take a lot of sacks. He didn't face a lot of pressure and he took some sacks but he didn't create the sacks himself. So a good day for him but that's really the only thing on the offensive side that I would feel good about

after this game. Yeah, the numbers are weird for him. 12 for 21, only 21 attempts, 162 yards and a touchdown took three sacks and they ran the ball 26 times in this game. So yeah, I don't know.

You're right that. Just looking at the sort of game log, the ETS fumble, turning into a tie-reckel 80-yard touchdown. And then I think the Jaguars failed on a fourth-in-one on one of their next two possessions as well. And then the game totally flipped from there. The fourth and one was a third-in-one.

They do a full-back dive to Tank Bigsby, who's not a full-back. And then the next play, they do like a misdirection run to at the end that he has to reverse field and he ends up losing yards. It was a bad showing for them in crunch time in high-libered situations, especially from a play-call perspective. It's so funny when I'm looking at teams. I'm like, all right, they can't be this bad at this again. This year, short yardage, they were a disaster last year.

And then you look at the first game of the season and they blow it in a big spot there. So Jaguar dolphins escape with the win. They play the bills on Thursday night. And like Ruiz said, Jaguars lose a game that they very easily could have won. Chargers, Raiders, Deontay. I think this one was you. I had some eyes on this as well. they were just talking about one of those games

where weird stats are flashing on the screen at all time like, wait, the Chargers have how many first downs right now? And it looks like they're winning. Chargers win the game 22 to 10 over the Raiders. What was your breakdown? What did you see in this one? I think my girlfriend probably had the best take on this

game because she was sitting on the couch watching it as I was and like she just kind of had a moment as somebody who's not very connected to football. Like, are they making these mistakes? Like, are they doing this on purpose? Like, why does this football game look like this. And I think that that kind of encapsulates what like the first three quarters of this football game was, right? Like early, I was so concerned because you saw Christian Wilkins making plays in the

backfield. You saw Max Crosby blowing up the interior of this offensive line. And you got to see a few of the things that has kind of drawn me to this Raiders defense, right? Because they have these two pieces in Wilkins and Crosby. And these are guys that can work inside and out. They compliment one another and they both can create a lot of plays individually. And I saw that early in the game. I was actually messaging our old colleague Daniel Popper at the athletic. And I was like, hey, man, this interior offensive line is not off to the hottest start, right? And this is something that he and I had talked about as far as like Trey Pipkins moving to guard and bringing in Bradley Boseman who has struggled throughout his career in past protection, right? And Zion Johnson,

who was not really proving himself as a guard either. And those three were really having some struggles in the first half. And I think after half time, I think the Greg Roman and Jim Harbaugh came back, simplified the game and said, hey, we are going to run the ball. We are going to try to establish the ground game on early downs, try to take some stress off of Justin Herber, because he was under a lot of duress throughout this game. And I think that you saw, you know, they were able to create just enough explosiveness to get by with the win here. So I don't think that there's really a huge takeaway in any one direction as much as they were able to get something just enough out of the run game to keep Justin Herbert from getting killed and an escape with this win. But if I'm a

Chargers fan, outside of Joe Alt looking really good in past protection against Max Crosby, especially in the second half, I don't know if there's a lot to feel good about quite yet. Yeah, the graphics from the first half were 83 yards, 0 for 7 on third down, two first downs in the first half, fewest since 2012. But like you said, the run game got going with J.K. Dobbins, they run for 176 yards in this game. Maybe that's what the Chargers are. going to be. It's just going to be like, can they grind out some of these games and not be the team? I mean, they have a very easy schedule. Can they be the team that doesn't make mistakes? Just hang in there, make a couple big plays, whether scheming them up through the run game or Herbert.

I had a big one to Hayden Hurst in the second half, do that type of thing and try to win it that way. I don't want to be too mean to Antonio Pierce, but I hope he has a good season. I like that the players like him. But man, his decision making, you mentioned Dan Quinn. I mean, he was, he's like a third. throwback to like 1994 with some of the fourth down stuff that was going on that he was doing in the fourth quarter. It's just like someone needs to get to him, be like, this is not going to give us the best chance to win these games that are close. Because this was, like you said, this was a close game there. So it's only a small part of coaching. I understand that. I'm not one of these people who judges every coach by that. I know there's other stuff, leadership, communication,

scheme, all that stuff. But that was tough to watch. I mean, the announcers couldn't believe it. I think it was Romo on the call. And they're like, all right, well, they got to go for it here, right? And they're like, oh my gosh. No, he's bringing out the punner here in the fourth quarter. So that was not a good sign from the Raiders losing the opener here. All right, time for me to take my medicine here. Ruiz. Talk to me about Vikings 28, Giant Six. I've just been coming on this podcast, nonstop, telling the Sam Darno Truthers, settle down. It's not going to happen for him. It'll never have. for him and then just the graphics on the screen again, eight for eight, ten for ten, twelve for twelve. He finishes nineteen for twenty four for two hundred and eight yards, two touchdowns, one interception, one sack. What do you think? Do I need to apologize now?

Can I wait further? Are you saying, shield, don't worry, you're fine. Just give it four or six weeks and you'll be fine with your take. Where are we on the Sam Donald meter after this performance? I think you're still fine. Okay. I think you don't have to start coping that. net, you're still fine. He's

completed the first 13 passes, but I don't think it looked as as good in the second half. He throws the pick in the second half. The completion percentage drops a little bit, but if you look at his splits, like his production came on first and second down. On third down, he was not good, which is what you expect.

You expect Kevin O'Connell to keep him out of those situations, and that's what happened. They had a 50% pass rate in this game. They were ahead of the chains. They were on schedule, especially early on. You look at his passing map, he wasn't making a ton of plays downfield. even though they did have some explosives. A lot of short passes to his right in this game.

So I think it was a well-managed game by Kevin O'Connell, and I think he got the best out of Sam Darno, but we've seen this version of Sam Darno before. We saw it early on in Carolina when Joe Brady had that offense rolling. The question is what happens when they face a good team that is going to be able to handle them on early downs and put them in a pass-first script. I don't think the results were that encouraging based on what we saw,

even in this dominant win over the bad Giants team. So I think you're good for now. Sam Darnold played well. He played about what you would expect, but it's not like some revelation, like Sam Donald's back and he's going to sign for $100 million next year. I don't think it's that. I think it's more like, oh, Joe Flacco at the end of last year kind of thing. Like, oh, this looks better than I expected.

Okay. Well, good job by Kevin O'Connell. I mean, your quarterback goes down and you go in there with Sam Darnold and you win easily 286, Brian Flores. I know what was the, I mean, this is a tough couple of few days for the Giants after the way Sequin Barclay played on Friday and then to come in your home opener and you lose 286 to Sam Darnel. Is there a Giants take from this game that you need to get off or what were they doing?

It's a good thing they didn't immortalize their offseason with a goddamn documentary on HBO. Yeah, Hyphitz had a great tweet about that. Yeah, if I were going to lose Seqa, I wouldn't have just documented it for the world to watch. I mean, John Maris got to be, if you're Joe Shane, man, just don't be, don't be answering the phone if John Maris calling you this weekend. No, it was a rough performance for everyone involved. Like, the run game wasn't there, the past game, like Daniel Jones looked rough. He threw, like, the prototypical Daniel Jones interception on Andrew Van Vinkle's interception of like a little screen pass. It wasn't good. 30% success rate minus 3.39 EPA per

play, 52% completion rate. It was as ugly as those numbers. And probably it might have been even uglier with those uniforms they were wearing. Get rid of those uniforms, by the way. How about my guy, Malik Neighbors? Did he at least give us some flashes or nothing to, I think he had like 60 something yours? The Malik Neighbors flash was the post game comments where he said, I don't know what the hell's going on back there. Did he ask about why Daniel Jones struggled to get him the ball, which I think, you know, is very fitting because if you look at the way Dan O'Donelsesway a quarterback. I don't think he had any idea what was going on.

He's like, me too. He was on the field either. Same Cies. No, but Malik Davis did have 66 yards on five for a second. So he can't do a little something considering, you know, the context. Yeah, Marvin Harrison. I didn't mention in the, uh, Bill's Cardinals was very quiet. He had one drop, but wasn't, uh, heavily involved in that game.

But again, only one game. All right. So I can continue with my darnal take. Just say, hey, let's get a bigger sample. Go to all the nerd, you know, things and then talk to me, uh, Halloween. Halloween. That's all set the deadline. If Halloween, Sam Darnold is still playing well, I'll do something on this podcast and apologize if I need to.

Maybe that's too short of a time. Thanksgiving. All right. Last game, I had the pleasure of watching in the early window. Sometimes it's good. You know, we divide up these games. And if, like, sometimes it's hard to focus on all of them. I'm sure you guys feel the same way.

You're like, oh, man, I didn't see what happened there. So if one game is a blowout, it's not the end of the world because it's like, all right, I know what happened there. I can focus on the other two. Saints Panthers, I mean, if you had to go do something, like, I was thinking about getting a coffee. I'll be like 10 minutes late for the early games. I'll just, you know, I'll get one later or maybe my wife's out. She can grab me one or whatever.

If I would have gone myself to get the coffee and come back, I mean, the Panthers would have been down like 30 to nothing. The season was over. The season was already over. It was crazy. The next three seasons are over. I mean, it's so true. Honestly, this just looked exactly like last year for Bryce Young. There was no difference in this game compared to last season.

And it wasn't just Bryce Young, but their office just feels hopeless. Like they can't. Sometimes you watch it off NFL offense, you know, they can't complete a pass. It feels so hard for them to get a first down. Like when they get a first down, you're almost like jumping off your couch and fist pumping because it feels like such. That's what it felt like. I think they had one to Adam Thielin.

And I'm like, all right, Bryce, there you go. I feel bad for the guy. I mean, it was just so ugly. 17-0-0 in the first quarter, 30-3 at halftime. Derek Carr hits Rashid for a 59-yard touchdown. The earliest in a season, you can have defensive backs going palms up at each other. J.C. Horace, the safety. Where's the safety?

They didn't even wait until Shaheed went in the end zone. They were already doing palms up before he even got in there. And then Bryce Young's first best. He throws an interception. So it's going to be a long season. But the Panthers do have their first round pick, right? For 2020. They do.

So they do. So there you go. I'm just saying that might be what you're looking at. Even the touchdown was kind of embarrassing. Like, Brayson is just like stumbling past a defender. It almost fumbles the ball. They called it a fumble first. Yeah.

Yeah. That broke an 11 quarter touchdown drought, which is like one of the longest in the history of the game. They hadn't scored a touchdown since last Christmas Eve. Oh my gosh. 13 for 30, 161 yards, two interceptions and four sacks. This is kind of the opposite of your Caleb Williams take. It was worse than those numbers indicate. Like they were getting garbed. They were down 30 to three when they were getting those yards. 11 first downs on the day. Just a horrendous performance from the care. And their defense, I mean, their defense is going to stink. This was every aspect. If you're a Saints fan, like it was the Panthers, but they dominated it in every aspect of the game. So let's see what it looks like next week. against the Cowboys. But Derek Carr, 19 for 23 for 200 yards and three touchdowns. I thought Alvin Camara looked great in this game. They were feeding him.

They had their patented Tassum Hill Drive in the first half where he's doing like four different things and they go down the field. So there you go. Saints 47, Panthers 10 is the final game. Unless I missed any. I was worried. I'm like, am I going to miss any of these games? I don't think I missed any.

But the only thing I'm interested there in is I know we have listeners in Charlotte who they will go to that restaurant where David Tepper flip the guy's lid just the most absurd, still the most absurd thing that's happened in the NFL as far as I'm concerned in the last year. I voiced on this podcast that I can't get enough of the sign guy there. And so the fine people of Charlotte who listen to the show have been sending me the signs throughout the offseason or they'll message me, hey, shield, they haven't changed the sign. I would very much like to know what the sign says this week after they lose 47. To 10.

All right. Anything to close with Deontay, closing. We did it. We weren't sure. Can we get through every game? We got through every game. We didn't go too long. I think the first recap show of the season was a success.

How we feel it? I feel good. Like you said, you're trying to get through all this in week one. There's intrigue across the league. And the best thing about week one is that we can already start checking some of these teams off is not serious. Yeah. And I can only make the show better from here. Carolina did its part.

It did its job. That's the one thing I can respect about them on the Sunday. Keep pounding. Keep pounding. The St. Certainly did. Yeah. Yeah. 47 to 10.

I mean, my goodness, that was 30 to 3 at half time. I couldn't believe it. All right. Well, this was a lot of fun. Thank you to Deonté Lee and Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ram Gopal. We'll be back later this week on the Ringer NFL show for a midweek show.

And then, of course, we will have our preview show. later in the week where we will recap our contest, and for the first time, we'll get to hand out a game of the week, W-E-A-K, next week. So stay tuned for that. Stay tuned for everything on the ringer.com. We'll all be writing during the week, so be sure to check that out as well. Appreciate everyone listening. Talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Cambling Problem. Call 1-800. gambler or visit rg dash help.com. Call 1-88-78-889-7777 or visit ccpg.org

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