The Ringer NFL Show - NFL Divisional-Round Weekend, Part 1

Episode Date: January 17, 2021

Kevin Clark and Ryen Russillo are joined by Mallory Rubin as they instantly react to the Ravens' loss to the Bills (1:05). Later, Kevin and Russillo discuss the Packers' victory over the Rams (16:40). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the Ring Run NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. It is a special edition Saturday Divisional Playoff Round Reaction show. Ryan Rusillo joins me to break down all the action. Mallory Rubin joins to talk Ravens Bills. Quick programming note, Nora Prince Diadi and I will be going live on Sunday after the second game on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to break down all of the action. We'll also preview next week's playoff games, talk a little more about the teams that won today, obviously, the Packers and the Bills, who will advance. Anyway, here's Ryan Mallory and I with Saturday. very rich takeaways. Welcome in to our ringer NFL show. We are live here for part one of divisional playoff coverage. Part two will also be tomorrow with Kevin Clark and Nora Prince

Idi. That's going to be on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. And for part one, it's just me here with Kevin Clark and a despondent Mallory Rubin, huge Ravens fan, watching the bills take care of them, 17 to 3. She's already bummed out about this, Kevin. I know you've worked a little bit more on these, so I don't really know you're going to have to feel this out for me a little bit more. But coming into the game, we knew it was, we should have been a great matchup. The Bill's 19 called pass plays to start this one. Lamar Jackson leaves the concussion. The pick six is the difference in this one.

So I think I'll start with you, Mallory. Like what point did the hope disappear? I was told that we would be discussing season one of Bridgerton tonight. And I feel misled and confused. Guys, I'm despondent. I am devastated. I don't have a lot of core analysis for you right now, which I'm sure is what the listeners love to hear.

I feel really sad for Lamar, the concussion protocol being ruled out of the game. It's just a devastating way for the season to end, but I'm still proud of the team. And I don't think there was really a moment where I lost hope completely to answer your question because I don't think that's how I've related to this team this season. It's like I had to maintain hope the entire time

because that's the point of fandom. And I'm very sad that it ended this way. I look forward to rebuilding the offensive line in the receiving core in the draft. I'm excited to move ahead to offseason planning right away. And I'm just, you know, I'm really just bummed. It was a strange season in many respects. I think when Justin Tucker missed two field goals in the first half,

I started to think that maybe it wasn't going to be the Ravens Night. Tough one. How are you guys feeling? there's an incredible number that came out of this because, you know, it never felt like the Ravens, especially you're right. I mean, just Tucker of all people to miss two field goals. Wynn was clearly an issue in this one, just not on the field goal kicking, but Josh Allen missed on a couple deep balls. Like he wasn't even close on some of those deep shots. And then there was a Marquis Brown route up the right side line where Huntley missed him when he came in for Lamar.

But how about this? The Ravens had five drives inside the bills 30. They scored three points on those five possessions. And they allowed seven, which is the pick six. they missed two field goals, one field goal, and then obviously to pick six. So that's five times inside the 30 with a negative four net rating, which is really hard to do in football. Wow. Mallory, it's not what you want, as you like to say.

You hate to see it, Kev. You legitimately hate to see it as the kids say in the memes. That was Lamar's first career interception of the red zone. That's just not a thing that happens. Yeah. Was there a part, Mallory, of the team tonight, whether that's, I mean, snaps were an issue all night. And that needs to be addressed.

All season. If you could wave a magic wand, I mean, the pass rush was not as good as needed to be. I think LJ.4 led the team in pressures tonight. If you could wave a magic wand at anything on the team right now, where do you start? In this game, if you had a redo or more broadly moving forward? No, more broadly. Taking what we know about this team, what we saw tonight and then building off of it, going towards the future.

if you say, okay, this needs to be fixed before the Ravens can win a playoff game like this. I think the Ravens can already win a playoff game like this. And it just wasn't there, I agree, to use that old sports cliche. I think this is still one of the strongest rosters in the league. I think that the areas to address are fairly clear. You know, to your point about pressure tonight, the change in the volume of blitzing was fairly notable and a little bit surprising. I was not expecting that strategy.

on defense. I think, you know, you mentioned the snaps. Macarre is in at center in the first place because he had previously replaced Scura, who was struggling with his snaps. So the line, you know, you cannot just instantly replace somebody like Marshall Yonda, Hall of Famer, one of the best offensive linemen in the history of the sport, right? So that's a carry-on effect all season long. You lose Ronnie Stanley, the carry-on effect all season long, struggling with the snaps at center. The line needs work, clearly. I think they're receiving. and core needs to be holstered. I think that's pretty clear, right?

It was one of the more encouraging things to me in the final stretch of the season, the win streak to actually make the playoffs in the first place. And then obviously the win over the Titans last week. I'm going to hold on to the logo stomp. That's what I'm choosing to focus on. But Hollywood, Hollywood reemerging, right, as a legitimate part of the offense to build around with Lamar, with J.K. Dobbins, with Gus Edwards. I'm hoping that Mark Andrews next season returns to the forum that defined last season for him.

And you supplement with another strong receiver, build a line. There's so much talent on defense. I mean, Marlon Humphrey is playing outstanding football. I loved what I saw from Patrick Queen this season. Overall, I feel really good. I'm going to try to look on the bright side for once. As this game played out, though, I mean, did you feel, and either you guys take this in either direction? Did you feel like, because, I mean, we can do this with Lamar every single week.

I personally feel like as much as I think as improvement and the MVP season is all as impressive as honestly we've seen from a quarterback as far as like some of the raw stats, some of the combination numbers, but there's always that part. And we've seen it in the playoffs where you go, can this guy win three or four playoff games? And I would say no. It just doesn't seem like it's going to happen. And I don't know if that's what was holding them back tonight because they did move the ball in between the red zone numbers.

there's just there's just so many throws in there where I still feel like, you know, but then there's a third down play where it looks like he has no chance on third and 13 and nobody else can convert that play the way he did. And so unfortunately for Lamar, which happens to a lot of supposed franchise quarterbacks, until you actually win the whole thing, it becomes this weekly session on who you are and who you're going to be for the rest of your career. If I'm a Bill's fan as frustrated as I am about being one-dimensional, Alan wasn't great by any means tonight,

but that it never felt like the Ravens were a threat offensively. Like that's the thing if I'm a Ravens fan. I'm watching this going, you're always going to have one of these games I would think against a good team with the way they run this offense. Kevin? Okay, so I'll take this.

The interception to me. No, I know. And we've talked about Lamar all season on a bunch of different shows. I'm curious to hear your respective after this. I was just as someone who wants to see Lamar as one of the best quarterbacks in football, for as long as possibly, as long as I possibly can. I was a little bit shocked by that interception and by the pick six.

He stared him down. He didn't see him. And it was just terrible. And it's an excuseable turnover, quite frankly. And, you know, the bills did some nice things. They ran 87% zone in the first half. They ran 56% zone during the regular season. I think Lamar struggled with that.

I think the play calling just wasn't up to par to break those zones. I think Lamar didn't play well enough to do it. 14 of 24, 4162 yards is not a good night for anybody. And as you said, he made some plays that were really good. But I think this Bill's team just got to him. You know, I mean, Jerry Hughes made the play of the play before the play of the game when he pressured Lamar into throwing a bad pass and not hitting a wide open Hollywood Brown in the end zone.

He had seven pressures on the night, two sacks. And obviously, if you don't, if Lamar has that touchdown on second night, he hasn't hit Teron Johnson in the end zone in one of the best plays the bills have had in the last 25 years. But when I saw that interception, I thought that it maybe hit me a little bit that the Ravens and Lamar need to be, they need to be much better in all phases of the game

because I'm worried right now because Lamar now is one in three in the playoffs. A couple of years ago, he went against the Chargers and they threw the seven defensive backs against him and obviously he didn't have that great game. Last year he goes against the Titans and they bully him, they go up the middle, all that stuff. And I'm, I'm worried now that like Rusillo is saying, that one out of every four

times, one out of every three times is going to be a game playing that Lamar for some reason and the Ravens are not able to overcome. I think Lamar Jackson on his best day is a top two, top three quarterback. I thought they were going to win this game. I thought that there was a chance they were going to, they were going to make the Super Bowl, okay? But right now, I'm with Rusillo. He's not a good enough quarterback right now for me to say, I guarantee you he's going to win three games in a row, four games in a row against the best teams in football. Okay. I will make that guarantee to you right now. Thank you. Please. That's what I was after. Lamar Jackson turned 24 years old a week ago. Like, I just, obviously, I'm coming from the position of a fan, right? So my base disposition is

that I'm going to root for Lamar. I believe in Lamar. I believe in the team and I believe in the way that they are attempting to build the team and have have restructured the roster around him, right? And the entire team building approach around him. It's a handful of games. That's just too small of a sample size to make a sweeping deduction about what he's capable of doing. And I think that if every other facet of gameplay and end game management, right, from the plan to the execution were, we're flawless. the only thing that went wrong in these losses was the way that Lamar played quarterback, then there would there would be a more valid concern.

But that's just not the case, right? Who was he able to complete passes to right now consistently? Can the line hold up? Can they snap the ball to him? I mean, when you can't, when you can't, I feel bad for putting such a spotlight on the snaps, but when you can't. Mallory, it's one of the worst snap before games. When you can't rely on a clean snap.

how are you supposed to maintain any rhythm? I think that the one thing that I, that stood out to me a little bit was that, that half step maybe of hesitation when it came to making a decision. Sure. So that I think is a matter of like with any young player reps, continued confidence, right? Kev, you and I have talked about this a lot like in the wake of last,

yet last season's playoff game, which I still refuse to acknowledge as a thing that occurred in reality. How the team, you know, Typically in sports, the team is going to say, you know, well, it wasn't, like I said earlier, it wasn't our night, right? You kind of revert to these cliches and this euphemistic language to kind of couch what happened. And that wasn't the way that they talked about it at all. It was, we're going to be thought of, but paraphrasing, as losers until we change that, until we win. Right. Right. And I think that that's been really notable that the team speaks about it that way.

But I think what was equally notable was the way that they responded to the win last week, so fully focused around how unfair it had felt that all of that pressure was just a Lamar. Now, of course, that's what it means to play quarterback in the NFL, like, definitionally, right? So I'm not saying I don't understand why that's a tendency that people have, but I, Lamar Jackson won the MVP last season. It's just, it's, it's not, it's, it's not reasonable for me to, to give up on him. He's one of the best players in the sport.

I'm in total agreement with you. I mean, like, no one has hyped up Lamar Jackson more than I have, whether that's with reporting or whatever. my my issue right now is with the raven's organization Rousseau and I talked to halftime and we said this is going to come down to Lamar trying to make a superhuman playing one of the 90s are going to be able to do it and I think that in a game like this a winnable game against a team that was

making mistakes not like the bills played some flawless games not like Josh Allen played some not of all I mean the score it's already getting played out like they stopped them and I mean the score says that but I didn't feel that hurt I mean the wind was weird but what I didn't get a chance he got hurt of course but I think it's at 17 to three, I think we kind of knew the direction everything was going in. Now, I understand the, the hurt and all that stuff. But I think, I'd also like to add to that at that point, I thought it was over. But anyway, what should we, let's make a wager right now on whether Lamarland's a Super Bowl.

Let's do it. With the Ravens. Um, and then, is there, is there, is a, is there a, is a, is there is a, Kevin? I mean, you know, seven years from now, Belichick comes in. Unbelievable. But to finish my point, all I want to say is the area is that I thought the, the Ravens, a team, I picked the Ravens to win the Super Bowl before this year. You know what you're doing right now, Kev? You're doing the I'm going to play every side of the Josh Allen argument so that no one can say I was wrong. I'm not even talking about Josh Allen.

What I'm talking about is the fact that I think that the Ravens organization was going to, I thought they were going to be better than this has to come down to Lamar. And what happened was they weren't better than that. And then Lamar couldn't do the superhuman thing. And that's what disappointed me is someone who's been talking about the Ravens for a calendar year now, who's been who, who had I go on his face against Tennessee last year when I had to say they were going to win the Super Bowl. I keep doing this and I keep being disappointed because I just think that they're going to play

better and then Lamar is going to do the thing and they don't and then I was like an idiot. Obviously there's I do. When they win a Super Bowl. Okay. And we cash in the wager that we're making right here, which is going to be let's see. Let's go with 34 Panama. you pick two chicken sandwich lunches. Okay, I know it's a favorite of yours.

Because that's how many points they're going to score in the game, all right, when they win. What about eight? Lamar's number. All right. So before we say goodbye to Mallory, who probably has to get something to eat,

eat her feelings a little bit after this loss. Did you guys settle on the vet? Did you settle on that the Ravens? Is it eight or 34 Panera gift cards? It was going to be 34 chicken sandwiches. You pick twos, right? So I know you have your preferred meal. Wait, what, wait.

If you win, If you win, do you get Panera? Why would you choose that? You don't even, that's not your place. Because it's an investment in our relationship and this year's journey moving forward together, you know, belief in the hope and possibility of a Ravens victory. And here's the problem. Here's the problem.

In the same way that I've taken all sides on the Josh Allen debate. Now I'm taking all sides on the Lamar debate because I like Lamar. love Lamar. I've been pro Lamar since before he was drafted. And now you're forcing me to take a bet that Lamar will not win the Super Bowl, which I don't want to do, but I will take it for content. I am forcing nothing upon you, sir. You're the one who said out loud tonight that you're not sure he can win three to four games in a row. I'm worried that he's not going to win three, four games in a row or they need the buy. And I right now in in the AFC, this seems like it might be Patrick Mahomes' top seed for a long time.

All right. So the better settle. We're good. We're good. Yes. Thanks, Mallory. We're great. We appreciate it.

Great to be here with you all. Yeah. Enjoy the rest of your chat. Yeah. You know you didn't want to do it. This was horrible, but I appreciated sharing this this time with you. And I wish you the best of luck moving forward. Thanks.

All right. All right. I want to stay on one last thought with this before we get to the Rams and Packers, though, because as much as much as. is, you know, I disagree with Mallory on on the Lamar part of it. And I don't, you know, this is, this became way too political in a way, like the divide on the Lamar debate became ridiculous. But I liked Lamar a lot more than I like Josh Allen. And Josh Allen had a turnaround that I don't know the league is really seen. Usually you don't have the kind of first two years

that he had and then turn into this. It just doesn't really happen. Maybe there's an example, but I feel like even that would be a stretch and a statistical explosion that we've seen in this league right now. So maybe it happens. Let's get to Packers and Rams, though, because going into that one, we knew that it was all about the Rams defense. We didn't know what Aaron Donald was going to look like once he was out there. We knew he had the rib injury. And the fact that it was that severe where he was in that kind of pain where he went to the locker room against Seattle, came back out. We're like, oh, he's good to go. I'm like, no way, he isn't good to go. And it didn't help Seattle at all. Normally, Donald plays 85% of the snaps. He played 55%. And I love watching Donald. He's probably the

guy. I watch the most other than the ball when I get stuck watching, you know, and just getting away from the line play. I will focus in on him. And there's just no way. I mean, he just wasn't even close. And that offensive line, even without Bakhtiari, is insane for the Packers. So the craziest thing about this game is the first five possession for the Packers, 46 plays, 326 yards, 25 points. But when it was 1610 and it looked like that was going to be the halftime score, I'm just sitting and go, how is this game 16 to 10 when it feels like the Packers have done whatever they wanted in these long drives and their first three possessions in the first half. Then, of course, they get that field goal that made it look a little bit better.

But if I'm in the Rams, that spot, be like, we're still in this. And then there's another moment where there's still only down a touchdown later on in the game. So whatever the score was, it was a better reflection, the final score of how a dominant the Packers works because that's how it's how it's had two spots there, Kevin, where you thought maybe they're going to find a way to get back in the game they didn't deserve to be in. Yes, and no. I mean, I think that the Packers played a pretty nice game today. And I think the story of the game was, if you look at the pressure numbers, I think the Packers had five guys who had more pressures than anybody on the Rams. And Aaron Rodgers, after the game said I wasn't touched at all or I was barely touched all, whatever it was. And that

shouldn't be happening against Los Angeles Rams. And if Aaron Donald were healthy, probably wouldn't have happened. And so I think that the Donald thing is a bit of the story. And I also think the Packers offensive line pretty played well. And so I think that this was, you know, I saw Stephen Ruiz and Trump Donald write about this. But they basically said Aaron, Aaron Rodgers didn't need to be the hero today, but he was anyway. Like that was the game plan didn't call for that. And I thought that he went above and beyond. I think that, you know, going back to Lazzard and getting that long touchdown after he dropped it and earlier one was great. And I think he was in total control. And I think that, you know, Chris Long talked about this on your podcast last week and I've talked to

guys about this before, how frustrating it is to play against Rogers. And when he's smiling and laughing and having a great time, that is the most frustrating thing in the world. You had a tweet on that tonight, right? Did you explain more of that, how that story was told you because it was great. Sure. So, yeah, so I did some reporting a few years ago on this. And a, essentially the and actually Emmanuel Ocho afterwards tweeted about how if you've played in the NFL, that smirk has scarred you. The smirk from Aaron Rogers. And and basically what ends up happening is that he is totally calm during the, during Rogers is totally calm for the entire game. He's laughing, smiling. I think that really drives guys crazy is he'll have conversations with them in between plays. Mason's foster, the former Washington football team and and Buck's linebacker told me that he would, Mason went to Washington and Rogers obviously went to Cal and that he would in between plays literally.

would be like talking Pact 12 with him. And I think, I think the player who told me the initial thing was Michael Johnson, the former Bengals and Bucks lineman. And he basically said that he compared him to Clive Owen from Inside Man, this very dry delivery and just like, you know, hey, hey, man, what's going on? And so I think that there is-

Did you know the inside man? You're like, Inside Man. How did I not figure that out? Never mind. Keep going on Aaron Rogers. No, no, I didn't. I didn't. Inside Man's an amazing movie because I did not see it coming. But anyway, I think it's frustrating. for a defense to see Aaron Rogers in total control.

And that's what he was today. And so I didn't learn a ton about about the Packers today. I thought they were the best team in the NFC and they remained the best team in the NFC. The throws he made were pretty typical today. Great on play action. Great on quick passes. You know, I think that the 58-yard pass to Lazard was the longest he's ever had in his career. I think that he was taking advantage of the fact that there were, what, 67, 6,700 fans in Lambo.

I think you really liked that and was fed by that. So I wasn't, it's not like I'm coming in with some new perspective on the Packers, except to say that they kind of are the team I thought they were. That makes sense. Yeah, you know, it was, it was one of those games where even though they were up and they, look, we want to talk about control and different, I'm not even going to use any game control numbers here. It's just, I like to watch football for three plus hours ago, who feels like they're in control,

who feels dangerous? Does anyone feel like a threat? Yeah. I feel like you go either way. Baltimore and Buffalo maybe felt closer, but I wasn't ever threatened by Baltimore if I'm rooting for the bills. We're on the other side with the Packers and Rams.

I'm like, how, how, I don't know. Like, then I would look at Goff's numbers and I go, okay, wait, he's 15 to 17, 160, one touchdown, no turnovers, no Cooper Cup, which is the most important guy other than Goff they have in this offense, actually maybe the most important guy. And he has a 120 passer rating. And yet the number that I'll never stop doing this,

because whenever I look at teams offensively on third down, defensively on third down, it actually kind of gets back to the Ravens thing a little bit where I go, that Titans defense is terrible, and they didn't really move the ball that well against them either. But that's back to the first game they were already talking about. And then I think the Rams 0 for four to start the game from third. So when the Packers finish 8 to 12 and the Rams finished 2 of 8,

that's the stuff where I go, oh, your QB rating's awesome. You've kept the ball clean. You're completing a lot of passes. There's actually some stuff going on here. You're moving the ball a little bit more than maybe we would suspect in the beginning of the game. But when you're not converting those thirds, not that this is new, but that's why I always look at quarterbacks with, what are you doing on third down? Is third and seven, impossible for you? Because for some of these, especially college, it'll happen

a lot more. Third and seven, third day, I think you have no chance. But that's where the golf line at a point in this game, if you had just said, hey, this is what golf is doing off the thumb injury, as inconsistency as he was throwing the football against Seattle. Because he clearly was throwing the football, I thought better for three hours today than he did last week against Seattle. But if you're not converting those third and then those guys started getting pressure. And then Green Bay gets pressure on that huge play at the end with only four players. Golf can't take a sack on that last play. The game's basically over anyway. But that Packers front really ended up telling you a story on third down and end to close this one out. So Jared Golf is pressured on 15 of 31 dropbacks. That's

the highest percentage in any game under Sean McVeigh ever. And according to the NFL, that the three highest pressure rates allowed this season have been the last three weeks. Week 17, last week, and now. So at the end of the season, we saw a breakdown a little bit. And one thing we know about Jared Gough, and this is true of a lot of quarterbacks, especially, you know, quarterbacks in their first three years or whatever, they play better when things are perfect. I mean, every quarterback is like that.

But when things are bad, Jared Gough very rarely rises above his situation. And that was a situation today on Saturday. And so I was not surprised if you just look at everything. I didn't expect much of this. But I, you know, when I look at this Packers team, this D-Line's pretty good. You know, Sean Gary looked really good today. I didn't expect that. Obviously, Kenny Clark looked really good.

You know, just sort of interesting performances from the Packers defense. And I can't really tell right now if it was the Packers defense or the Rams offense that was responsible for that today. But I, if you told me what the pressure numbers are on, were on Jared golf, I would not have been surprised about how the actual game turned out. because I just think that he is a product of his environment, and his environment was, I'm getting pressure all the time. He made some nice throws. You know,

we talk about all the time. Would you agree? He looked better throwing the ball physically this week than last week. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Yes. He made some nice throws. He made some nice throws.

And it's, part of me wants to kill golf, you know, and just say he's a bad, not literally kill him. No, that would be. You got to do this on a show.

Yeah. I want to kill him in the take sense. But with the thumb, I kind of think you have to take every. with the grain of selling in the take department here. Okay. And I think that if he, if he didn't have the endred sale,

35 million dollar quarterback, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't think you can do that because he rushed back. We didn't know if he was going to play even last week. He's tough as hell. I think he's, he's proven that. So I don't think I'm giving a grade of incomplete to Jared golf. And I think that even though the last two weeks were not amazing.

And I think obviously beating the Cocks was, was it quite an accomplishment. I just think that with the third. them that changed the entire trajectory of the season. It's a totally different game of Cooper Cup is there. It's a totally different game of Ferrandonnell is healthy. But I think this Rams, it was just a little too much to overcome. And I'm not going to hang that all on golf.

I know you've touched on this because it can get lost. It can get lost in the fantasy stuff a little bit. But over the years, you're like, okay, where are the weapons? Are they investing in there? So maybe they're not investing the way they should have. And then the Jordan loved draft selection. But Lazard, who had the drop when they were going right to left. I think that was earlier in the game.

It clearly was before the big touchdown. That's the drop. but I mean, that's, that's an unbelievable setup. And I thought Aikman and those guys did a really good job on the, excuse me, it was Moose Johnson and Burkow Johnson. They did a great job on sending up that like, Lazard as he goes off the line of scrimmage to set some edge to block other defensive backs on a run play.

As they kept saying, like he's doing that dirty work and that's setting up some of those stuff. And it set him up to get free on the drop that he had. And it clearly set him up to split two defenses. Like he, he had two guys on him playing in front and behind him. and he was already past them because they just made that wrong step off the play action on that throw. And that's where Rogers knew immediately, like super casual of this form, just plopped up there because he knew he had Lazard. But you look at him, the Devante Adams motion play where Jalen Ramsey had to carry him all the way back.

And that's where Ramsey got pissed at his teammate because it's like a zone handoff. And he was mad about that. Tunian, who's mad at, I don't know, that guy's mad at everything the entire time of tight end. So when you start doing kind of a big picture thing here and you're going, all right, they're hosting an NFC title game at home and then it starts to become more of a Rogers. But this team actually is, Packers fans already know this, but maybe for people to kind of lock it on their team.

This feels like maybe not the name recognition besides Adams, but a lot of these guys seem to make plays. Different guys seem to make plays for them every week. I agree with you. And I think that Lazard coming on is really important. I think that the fact that he had that touchdown after the drop was important because Aaron

Rogers, like a lot of great quarterbacks, Tom Brady's like this, is all about trust with his receivers. I remember being in a practice a couple of years ago. And the big storyline was that Rogers was throwing a bunch of practice interceptions. This was like July 31st or something, he'd thrown five and three practices, whatever it was. It's not to Mike McCarthy afterwards.

And he said, you know, the thing that Aaron does that nobody realizes is he's testing receivers. He wants to know their limits and he wants to know who we can trust in certain situations. He's downloading information, okay? And then it ends up being, oh, this guy doesn't actually fight for the ball if it's thrown high or he doesn't actually fight for the ball

if it's thrown low. And all of a sudden, you've got five interceptions in three days and the beat reporters are asking about it, right? And so I think it's interesting when Rogers has a drop like that, he probably was saying, okay, you know what, next time I'll hit that. And I think that that's significant to me. Lazard has come on. I mean, I remember the first thing I ever remember about Lazard is I was in training camp,

a training camp tour, and I was watching the preseason game. And he, the Packers radio guy or somebody said that Lazard had three pick sixes in one quarter in high school. Okay. And then I tweet that. I'm like, this is unbelievable. Three pick sixes in high school. school, what the heck? And I get all these people from Iowa where he's from. And they're saying,

dude, Alan Lazard is like one of the best athletes in the history of the state of Iowa. Okay. And so the whole time I'm thinking, okay, this guy, I love freak athlete stories. I'm in. I'm all in. I've been following Lazard's career since. And I've just loved his ability because it doesn't take much what when you have Devante Adams just putting so much pressure on the defense, Lazard in theory should have a pretty easy job. But like you said, he does dirty work. He's really come on the last year or so. And I've been hugely impressed. You know, I heard the PFF guys in the middle of the week say, if you can get Rogers off his first read, he becomes mortal.

Okay, he's the best first read grade in the NFL, probably like a lot of guys. And golf is like that too. But the difference is on a second read, Rogers don't really good. And he's still probably the best quarterback in football this year, aside from Mollops. But if his second read becomes a really, really, really good receiver like Alan Lazard might become, that changes the entire thing.

But all of a sudden, he's a first, second read, third read. I mean, the whole offense changes. And I think you go from Rogers is mortal on a second read to Rogers is still elite on a second read. And that's something to watch for me. Yeah, I haven't you got to the fact that they ran it for 180 yards today. I mean, Jones is always solid. He's just about 100.

Williams, BYU kid ran it 12 times. I mean, Dylan only had a handful of carries, but he did something with those. And it really comes down to the severe the Rams. This is not a reboot by any situation. You don't have Donald. And on top of it, you don't have a cup. and golf is still hurt, you're playing at Lambo.

But this is going to be kind of interesting if the Packers can pull this off, because for Rogers to be this good for this long and it played in one Super Bowl, and we know, you know, I was talking to you about this before, but sometimes I'm late on things because I'm just not quick to annoy it. You know, Luca Donchich is one of the perfect examples.

Like I actually liked him before the draft, I didn't think he's going to be this good. But after the first year, you're like, okay, could this guy really be an MVP caliber player? I'm like, wait a minute, what? And that's exactly who he was after a second season. he's going to be in that conversation for a long time because he's that great. So I don't feel bad on holding off.

But on the other side of that, there are numbers, as we've all looked through them, if you wanted to make an argument against Aaron Rogers, you could make it. If you wanted to point out slippage on throws outside the numbers and some of the other stuff he was doing, maybe just being pissy at McCarthy, then mad that it was a new guy. Because let's face it, I mean, Rogers, when you are brilliant at what you do, you're not always the easiest to be around. But I wasn't ready to just write this guy off either and to think, okay, now another year and another year older, he's going to be that much worse because he isn't.

I mean, he's playing probably as well as he has in four or five years. He's right there with Mahomes. He's probably going to win the MVP. And it'll be kind of a dumb public like, hey, that guy, you know, he's pretty good. You know, he's always been pretty good. Zarin Rogers, because that will be, this is a preview if they get through this, you know, they still got to figure out who's going to win between New Orleans and Tampa. But the way they look and at home and the way New Orleans and both Tampa look like completely

different teams depending on the week. There's going to be a lot of, you know, that Rogers guy, I don't know if I'll be able to handle any goat talk because that seems a little extreme when there's still another guy in Tampa plan with his resume. But that's just, he's that good. He's that good. He's that locked in. He's been like this all season.

And this is a deeper, this is not a one-man show with a bad defense. This isn't, you know, Rogers with some of these playoff losses were like, how does happen? Because his defenses gave up a ton of points in a bunch of those. I'm not saying he hasn't had bad playoff games, but there's so many, playoff losses for the Packers or the Rogers Tandier where you go, oh, wait, they gave up 40 to Arizona. So, I just like to see greatness. Even if you don't like to play, we don't root for them. I didn't want to see it end the way or heading in the direction that it was. And this is, I think,

just another reminder for maybe people watching playoff games the first time that weren't locked in the Packers all season because they had a great record last year. But you didn't feel like they were a great team. This team just feels so much better despite the fact that team had a great record last year too. Yeah, I totally agree with you. And I think that if you were to make a kind of a short list of losers of this playoffs, and like, you know, Ben Ruffisberger would be on there, a couple other people, maybe some Ravens after tonight. But I think Mike McCarthy's kind of up there. Because I think we're now, I mean, last year we're saying, okay, maybe, maybe the Fleurs. I did not expect Mike McCarthy win segment here. Winners and losers. Mike McCarthy's holding an L. No, I mean, I think about

how much better everything has gotten since he left. And, and the fact that, you, and the fact that, it does look like that the last couple years of production decline, and there's a lot of analytics guys who were saying he's done and all that stuff. And I don't think that those guys were completely sort of, they weren't completely misguided. It was that the numbers were saying there was decline. But I think the problem was that so much of that was the uncreative offense that Mike McCarthy was thrown out there, maybe a little bit was a supporting cast. But most of it was just the fact that the league had moved on towards three systems that worked.

And Mike McCarthy wasn't running one of those. And so I just think that he was the guy that was running, he was the one guy running a system that didn't work. And so I think that just part of this is just, he's rejuvenated in the Shanahan, McVeigh, LaFleur, whatever you want to call it, offense. And there's something there. And now we're seeing the unlocked greatness.

I think that there are probably a handful of coaches who could have done this with Rogers, but LaFleur is a damn good coach. I think we understand that now. The defense is good enough to win a Super Bowl. And I think it's going to be close when they do plan the Super Bowl. and I picked them to win the Super Bowl, actually. But I just, I'm with you.

I like seeing greatness. I'm glad this got unlocked because there's a scenario in which they either keep McCarthy for a couple more years or things break wrong and, you know, they hire the wrong guy, whatever it is. And we don't get this. We don't get this second chapter from Aaron Rogers. And that would have been as close to a football tragedy as we've had this decade. I'm made on this Packers team.

And I love what they've been able to do, both coach and GM, to build us out. All right, check out all of our podcasts on ringer.com against the NFL ringer show with Kevin Clark and Norfranciotti. They're going to be taking over just tomorrow on time. So thanks for checking us out. And again, if you missed any of this, you can check it on on the podcast week. So thanks, enjoy the game small.