The Ringer NFL Show - Packers Offense Struggles Again, Is It the End of the Bill Belichick Era, and More Big Takeaways From Week 5 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Sheil and Ben start the show by sharing their reactions to the Raiders hanging on to beat the Packers at home on 'Monday Night Football.' They then give their takeaways from Week 5. They talk about whether the Vikings should blow up their roster, whether it's the end of the Bill Belichick era in New England, and more (9:01). Then they wrap up by discussing how important it is for certain teams to move on from their mistakes at quarterback this offseason (1:08:48). Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Producer: Isaiah Blakely Social: Kiera Givens Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? It's Austin Rivers from the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's a new year and I have a new podcast here at the Ringer, Offguard, hosted by me and my guy Pasha Higigi. Austin and I go way back and talk so much hoop already that we figure it was time to fire up the mics and let you in on all of these conversations. Every week, Pasha and I will hit on the biggest stories happening in the league. And get Austin's perspective of someone currently hooping in the NBA. Tap into Offguard every Friday on the Ringer NBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Extraval and Siel Capadia. I'm here. Join by Ben Solac.

Raiders beat the Packers. Monday night, 1713. We'll touch on that game. And of course, we will go around the NFL with our takes from week five. Benjamin, how are we doing? Oh, Shil. What a fun week. What a fun week for contenders losing and learning things and knowing stuff.

I feel like I have so many. I feel like I know many great things. I feel ready to predict the rest of the season. successfully. Wow. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to it.

That's big talk. I no longer feel that way. When it was coming on my mouth, I didn't like it as much anymore. You didn't say it with conviction. All right, let's start with this Monday night game. My take is on the Packers. I know everyone was begging for,

you know, not everyone. There were people on social media channels who were saying, Sheal, I know you said you were going to swear off. You were one of them, Ben,

who were saying, I know you swore off, you know, your Josh McDaniel stuff before because it's gotten boring. But please give us up. Listen, you all saw, I mean, in-game management, maybe the worst coach in the NFL. But I don't want to rain on the Raiders fans parade.

You know, you got a victory. So you used to enjoy that. My take is on the Packers. I think this Packers offense is stuck right now, and I don't think there's a real fix, like a real short-term fix. Watching that game, I mean, they have 10 drives in that game against a bad defense, a banged-up defense, and they manage just one touchdown. And even on that drive, it was A.J. Dillon, A.J. Dillon, A.

Okay, how about another? AJ Dylan. AJ Dylan. AJ Dylan. Okay, seven. I don't know how many times he carried the ball. It was that short drive after the turnover. They scored a touchdown. That was the only touchdown of the game. The passing game lacks a rhythm to put it lightly. I mean, right now. They'll scheme up some big plays, and I've been complimentary of Matt LaFleur before on this podcast, and I still believe that, but it feels like that's kind of all they have. There is no consistency to it. Jordan Love right now is completing 55.6% of his passes. Like at first,

My hypothesis, you probably do this in your process, you come up, you're like, you know what? I think it feels like a surprise every time the Packers complete a pass. I wonder how many passes, Jordan Love is completed. And then you go look it up. And that's the number. And that's last among starters. He ranks 30th in success rate. I mean, that's behind guys like Mack Jones and Bryce Young and Daniel Jones.

And this is not me saying Jordan Love stinks. I actually don't think that's like the, we have a five game sample here. That's not really the take. It's just that they have so many young players. at the skill positions. They have an inexperienced quarterback. They lost their left tackle for the season. And you kind of add it all up and you get a game like we saw on Monday night where

Christian Watson drops a nice deep ball. Romeo Dobbs, Luke Musgrave, they have drops. Matla Flores getting frustrated at the rookies as they come over to the sideline there. And so part of this is just this is probably to be expected. You know, they were the team of extra point taken coming into the season. They're doing okay. They're still in the mix. they're a competitive team.

They're not like getting blown out week in and week out. But I just think offensively, when you have so many young players like they do, the only real solution is to let them play, let them make their mistakes, let them learn from them. And then hopefully the product you get at some point, it could be week 10. It could be week 14. It could be next season. I don't know.

Hopefully the things you thought you saw in these players come to fruition. So that's where I think the Packers are right now. That was kind of my big takeaway from that Monday night game. What do you think? Yeah, I think the end of game sequence was such a young player sequence for the Packers, right? They get first in 10. They're pushing the ball. They're holding on to that timeout, which they worked really hard to hold on that timeout,

and then they didn't take it right before this sequence. And you get the sense from the floor's time management that he really feels like his young quarterback might put him in a spot where he needs this. Like it might take a sack, you know, it might make a throw over the middle of the field that he shouldn't. So you're going to hold on to this. So it feels like they're a little bit urgent. They're trying to do the fire drill stuff, not take the time out.

And, you know, loves getting the call-in at the line, but it's not as fast as other operations. You're like, go, go, go, go, go. So they get the snap ball first and ten, throws it to Romeo Dubs on the sideline. Should be able to get to second and two right here. Dubs drops the ball, right? Second year receiver.

He was a fourth-round pick in large part because he struggles at times with catching the football. Otherwise, he's a nice little prospect. Second and ten. All right, well, they get to the line, snap the football. Luke Mush-gray, rookie tight end over the middle. he goes to settle in a spot against his own coverage.

Jordan Love goes to throw it to him. They're a little bit off from one another, so the throw's not on the numbers, it's off the numbers, and then it's another drop, right? But it's a little bit on the quarterback this time, and then also on the young tight end. All right, so we get to third and ten.

Third and ten drop back. We have Christian Watson. We have on a one-on-one with Amique Robertson. He is seven inches taller than this corner. We got the shot that we wanted. I put this play up on my Twitter. They got the same coverage on second and ten on third and 10. So this was called for this.

They wanted this look against this defense. Left tackle gets beat, right? There's a little twist, little game. It's left guard, really. And Jerry Tiller, he's kind of in Jordan Love's lap. You'd like to see your young quarterback standing there and uncork it, but he's a little uncomfortable, right? There's a little too much heat. So he climbs the pocket, he rolls out, and then he tries to make the throw

that you can't make now because you rolled out. It's too late. We don't live in the same world we lived in two seconds ago. You have to find a different route or throw this ball differently. So he tries to throw a jump ball. And then Christian Watson, the young second year receiver, who has to just win at the catch point. You have to get big.

You are seven inches taller than this guy. You have to play bigger than this. Get the DPI, right? Even if you can't catch it, at least make him contact you. Put it on the refs. He doesn't do that. It's a pick. And you watch that sequence and you just go,

okay, if one of these players was old, it's just a single one of them was a veteran guy. We're probably at least getting to a new series. And we can go from there. So that series right there felt so. some of it for the Packers, right? It felt like such a microcosm of what they're dealing with offensively, where there's a lot of good stuff going on, like on paper.

But young players make the execution really challenging. Your margin for error is so, so, so slim. And you've already set yourself behind because Love is a couple of young rookie boneheaded interceptions. It just, it became too much to overcome. Yeah, that's well said with all those examples from that last sequence, exactly what I was thinking. And yeah, like I said, I think the thing is there's not,

it's not just going to be like, okay, a week or like, you're going to see some flashes from young players. You're going to see some mistakes from young players. They will probably have weeks where they surprise and weeks when they disappoint and weeks when you're thinking, man, is this, you know, do they actually have a bright future? Do they not? But overall, I just think that's kind of what they have to live with with the way they shape this season. And I think that's fine, you know, for the most part. They didn't go into the season and say, hey, we have to win the Super Bowl. Now it was, hey, we're going to grow with a young core. Let's be well coach. Let's learn. let's grow together and let's see where we are at the end of the season.

So I think we're on the same page there. I did watch your video. Actually, I enjoyed your video. You had a great breakdown of that last play. I've been wanting to ask you this for weeks. Did you, were you, did you perform in like, were you like theater? Did you do stuff at night school? No, because I feel like you have a nice performative aspect to these videos.

We're like, you know, I watch a lot of X's in those videos and a lot of times. But you're like, you know, giving it to me like you're putting on a one-man show, which I'll enjoy. It's a compliment if you, you know, I don't want this to come across. Like, I'm, no, I appreciate that. The reason why I'm like, no, is because my brother was a, it was a performer in high school and a very talented. And so he was, he was very much the hand of the family. Still is, if we ask him, shout out of Nico.

And I was a little bit less so. That doesn't stop me for being a big cheese, though. Come on, you're just doing the thing. It's having a good time. Yeah, yeah. There you go. It's fun to do those videos. And yeah, access and those videos are boring.

So you got a, it's the same thing as podcast. Spice it up a little bit. I agree. 100%. Rule number one, be entertaining. What you're saying can be completely wrong and terrible. Just entertain the audience. That's all I want from my host as a consumer. All right, entertain us, Ben, with your first take now that the pressure's on. What do you got?

Yeah, Vikings got to blow this sucker up, right? I mean, like, I feel like that's... Justin Jefferson is on IR, okay? We have reached what it was DefCon for for Vikings fans entering the season. Like, listen, we know we're going to be a little... A little worse than we were last year, you know, maybe the regression, right? You're going to get some bad turnover luck. And they've really gotten like some terrible turnover luck.

They're better than they've seen. This fumble stuff is crazy. But as so long as we can keep the young man Justin Jefferson healthy and we can build around that passing game, build around Jefferson, we have a chance to be, you know, feisty in games, we have a chance to win some games. And then he's our, he's our future, right? Last year of Kirk Cousins contract, but we'll be able to get a good quarterback in here, like I'm a veteran market, the trade market, or we go draft a guy.

Because Jefferson will be able to help develop that dude. Jefferson will help entice that dude. Like this is what our, our offensive philosophy right now, our entire thrust offensively is Jefferson. Well, Tom Palisera, reporting today, Justin Jefferson on IR. He's out for at least the next four weeks.

They're not really committing to like, like it'll just be four weeks. We're just putting him there to be safe. There's this, like, he might respond to treatment. He might take different time, whatever's a hamstring injury, right? And here's the thing about hamstrings.

You don't mess around with them. Hammies are, tough. It's a soft tissue injury. It's a quick twitch position. You have to be careful with that. Listen, then that extends to more than just full. I mean, as an old man, I can tell you. You don't mess. You stretch the hammies every day. You get one of the elastic bands or if you have a child, you have them. Sometimes they have fun just kind of pushing your foot, you know, sort of forward towards your face and what I'm saying? You're laying down. They enjoy that. So I would say everyone listening, not only Justin Jefferson, not only football players, take care of the hammies. All right.

So I had to interrupt you there. It was too important. This is critical advice. Next four games to the Vikings are at the Bears, home against the Niners, at Packers, at Falcons. They're never being in the Niners. That wasn't happening. The other three games were games where the Vikings were going to be in those games, right? Like Bears, Packers, Falcons, those are like Packers, Falcons.

Those are beatable teams. Without Jefferson, I don't know what this is going to look like. They have certainly like T.J. Hawkins has a good pass catcher. They drafted Jordanin's in the first round. It's not like they're nowhere, but we really like, this Jefferson's so integral to this passing offense that I'm not sure what it's going to look like. I wager it's not going to look great. In the event that the Vikings are a one-to-win team throughout the course of October, then Quessi Adofimensa, which I always struggle to pronounce his name, I apologize. The general manager of the Vikings has to consider looking at long-term trade options and acquiring draft capital to rebuild this team.

when you look at the Vikings current team salary cap, right? And you go to find rookie contract players who give the, who are like, okay, building blocks of the future, right? Because Jefferson right now is on a rookie contract, so he's cheaper than, then obviously he produces. This is like a franchise cornerstone for you. Let me read through some of the non-justin Jefferson names. You have at receiver, KJ Osborne and Jordan Addison are both still rookie contracts.

We don't know what Addison is. Osborne, we kind of know what he is. Christian Darisot left tackle, Ezra, at Guard and Gary Bradbury at Center. Darry saw is great, and then Cleveland and Bradbury are, I think, generally positive players. You kind of like that. Defensively, DJ Wanam at Edge, who's actually a good little player, Wanam's unrated. Ivan Pace, undrafted Free Agent's been starting for them at linebacker.

And then in the secondary, Caleb Evans, Mackay Blackman, Josh Mattelis, Cam Beinham. I like a Josh Patelis. He's had a nice start to the season. Other than that, like, that defensive list especially, that's not guys where you're like, who, here we go. Like, that's, you have some, some guys. you can get on the field, but it's not really a list of impact players. Offensively, you like your offensive lineman, but again, like outside of that,

where we're talking about impact players of the skill positions, if Jordan Addison has a huge explosion with Justin Jefferson gone, that's great. But otherwise, there are very few rookie contract building blocks on this team right now. And Quessie has had the approach in his time as the Viking general manager of like trading back in the first round, right? They moved out of the Jameson Williams pick to go to 32 overall. and then they trade a picks to go get T.J. Hawkinson, right? He's, he's kind of sold premium picks to move back, and then has gone on to sell picks to go and acquire a veteran at the trade deadline. They haven't

really sat at the top of drafts and made really high-impact selections. And obviously, it's a short-term time frame. It's not like Questi's not going to do that. But they just don't have those guys in the room just yet. Jefferson's injury, if that leaves this team, like I said, like a two-win team we get to the deadline with Kirk Cousins only having one year left on his contract, you obviously very seriously consider moving Kirk. And then you start to look at some of the other veterans on this roster and Daniel Hunter and Jordan Hicks, the linebacker and Brian Neal, the right tackle. I wouldn't move Brian Neal.

I love Brian Neal. But you start thinking about, okay, what can I do to make my future draft capital look a lot stronger because this team is about to make a change of quarterback. They're going to have to get younger at quarterback. And we have to find a way to build young for the future and kind of reset the time frame for this team. Yeah, I think as you were saying that, I was thinking, well, who is he going to suggest that they trade because I don't think it's a very

It's very tough. Yeah, it's not the most talented roster. Even your offensive line assessment there, I would say you were being generous. I like the tackles. I think those interior offensive linemen, I mean, that has been an issue. I like Ezra. I've always liked Ezra. Bradbury

no, yeah, no. But yeah, I think it's a good point. Now, right now, what's interesting, you know, you say, like they're one and four right now. They have the second, tied for the second worst record in the NFL as is. We've talked about cousins multiple times on this podcast. Is there a cousins to the Jets trade that could happen? We don't see these trades happen at all in the NFL, an in-season quarterback trade where that guy goes to a new team and then starts playing. It's just very rare if not just non-existent.

So that one's interesting to me. You know, if the Jets struggle this week, if Zach Wilson looks terrible. and Kirk Cousins, like, do they revisit that type of thing? I certainly would if I were the Jets, but at some point it's going to get a little late. I mean, if the Jets lose this week, they're going to be two and four. So what are you really doing there? So I think, like, is there another team that would trade for a Kurt Cousins in season? I'm trying to look at the standings right now and see who else would even think about trading for Kirk Cousins right now. And it's really hard to even identify a team.

Okay. Falcons is that's an interesting one. Which we're coming off of Desmond Ritters best. game, by the way, all right? It's not one of my three takes, but I just need to get this out here real quick. I was hoping it was going to be one of your takes. So I could say, settle down. The moment you finally uncorked Desmond Ritter is bad. Ritter, heard the hate. Ritter's like a faker Maffield. He's like powered by the doubters. Immediately rips out of 300-yard performance against the Texans. Great Ritter game. Just in FYI. I still feel good about the take. I think

let's give it some time. I think it'll be okay. Yeah, other, yeah, Falcons is a good one. I mean, I really, I'm, I just went through like the entire, you know, unless a quarterback gets injured this week, it's really hard to find a team that would want to trade for Kirk Cousins. Now, the other names you brought up are good ones. Daniel Hunter. Everyone can always use some pass rush for short. Jordan Hicks. Yeah, I think I think your boys there in Philadelphia. Is that something they would revisit. Hey, get Jordan Hicks back in Philadelphia here. Hicks. And if I had a guess one who gets moved, they drafted Brian Asamoa in the third round last year at a Florida State

to be a linebacker for them. And then he got beat out by Pace, the UDFA in camp this year. I think you still want to see what Asimoa is if you can get him on the field and the way to get him on the field is to move off Hicks. Asimoa and Pace next one another,

those two guys are like both 220 pounds. I don't know if Brian Flores he might throw a hisy fit if they try to move Hicks, but he's got one year left, right? It's mostly based salary that remains on his contract. He could be like a fine starter somewhere.

If anybody gets moved, it's not Kirk. He's my guess. It's not a sexy thing, but he's a fine little player. Yeah, I think, you know, the Vikings really started this process in the offseason a little bit with not, you know, Adam Thielen and Patrick Peterson, and they were, you know, Eric Kendricks moving on from some of these veterans that had been there for a while. So I think they started this process. They were wise to not extend or do anything with Kurt Cousins' contract beyond this season.

So, yeah, I think they had a sense. You know, they're very different from the Giants. Like the Giants sort of convinced themselves of what they were last season and thought, hey, this can last, let's build on it. And the Vikings looked at themselves very honestly what they did last season. And we're like, I don't know if that's like, all right, there was some flukiness to this with all the one score games.

Let's not get too caught up and kind of betray what we want to be in the future. So yeah, I think it could be an interesting trade deadline. I think there's certainly a team to watch. Like I said, they're one and four. So they, you know, they could be in the mix for like a top five pick. And to really get that. That would probably be the best thing for the franchise, even if you're a Vikings fan, you're saying,

we don't want to throw away the rest of the season. But man, if they can get a top pick and now you have Jefferson, that guy, two offensive tackles you trust. Like, we talk about young quarterbacks, what situations do they come into? Man, if you're a young quarterback, that's a pretty good situation to come into.

So that's something else to keep in mind. I agree, yeah. If they end up with that top five pick, you feel like you're in a great spot. The worry is that you end up with pick four, and the guys at one and two are taking Caleb Williams and Drake May, And then you're there holding the bag on that, which is why I think, again, if I'm running the Vikings now, if I'm Quessie, I want to add a little bit to my current capital.

Like, they don't have a third of this year. They have two fourths because of the swap for the Hawkinson trade. I want to kind of try to load up my middle round capital so that I can be more adequately prepared to build move up packages whenever the draft order gets settled. Because if I, if I, right now watching this quarterback draft class just from afar, I'm worried about being the third. guy I think of quarterback. I like Caleb Williams at the USC a lot, obviously. He can play. I like Drake made at UNC quite a bit. A QB3

right now, for me, would be like Bo Nix. And if you told 2021 Ben, the 2023 Ben was going to say QB3 is Bo Nix. He would not respect 2023 Ben. And so I'm worried about this class being a little bit of a two horse race. And then there's like a huge glut of guys that are fighting for QB3. So that's what I'm working about, that's what I'm looking at as the GM.

I'm saying I want to get ready to be able to move up for QB2 in the event that I get the sixth, overall picking up the second. Truth is it might not end up mattering what you offer because these teams that are near the top of the draft, like you said, they don't want QB3 either. And they've been waiting for a quarterback. And they might say, no, thank you. We don't care what you offer.

We want one of these two. But you never know. You could get lucky with a team moving up there who actually has a quarterback that they like, and all of a sudden you can make a move. All right. Let's take a break. Come back in a minute. Get to my second take.

All right. Welcome back to Extra Point Taken. My second take. Sunday was the end of the Bill Belichick era in New England. Whoa! No, it's your... Okay. I'm fine.

I mean, did it not feel like that to you? Do you disagree? It felt like that to me. Like, I don't... All right, go ahead. It felt like it could be. I don't have the... The gonest to say the sentence,

to say the phrase, end of the Belichick era in New England in any sort of recorded public... size thing. That's a, like, certainly was like, like, I wrote about it in, in the column. And I was like, if they move on from Belichick, I'll get it. And my editor, Riley, highlighted it and put like nine question marks on it. It was like, what are you talking about?

And I was like, I think I would get it. I would understand. Like, I think it could happen. I'm sorry to say it, but yes. But that, like, I couched it so carefully. You just drop it at the top. Listen, Peter. We just said, we're in the entertainment business, you know?

Like, Wheeler with the elevated fastball. So I'm not, listen, I'm not saying Bill Belichick's going to get fired in the next couple weeks. Or even that it's going to, I'm just saying for all intents that there's not going to be any more successful football in New England with Bill Belichick as their head coach. I feel strongly about that. Listen, coming into the season, you could at least tell yourself a story that, hey, Bill O'Brien's going to be an upgrade on Matt Patricia, that the defense is going to be really good. They're not going to win the Super Bowl, but maybe they're going to be a good competitive team that makes the play. I didn't think that. I don't think you thought that. I think we talked about it on this podcast leading up to the season. Look at where they're at then after five games here. They have been

outscored 72 to 3 in the last two weeks. Only the giants have a worse point differential than the New England Patriots. Their offense is somehow worse by every statistical measure than it was last year when Matt Brick and Patricia was their offensive coordinator. It's worse this year. They're averaging 10.6 points per game under Bill O'Brien. Here's one more staff for you. There have been 156 offensive performances in the NFL this season. You love these stats. You love them so much. The Patriots last two games in terms of EPA per drive among 156, rank 154th and 155. Two of the worst three offensive performances in the NFL. So what's 156?

I would have to look that. You know what? I would have to look that up. I'll look it up at a minute. I was in what? Daniel Jones against the Cowboys? I think it was either the Giants or it could have even been that Bengals game in week one against the Browns.

I think it was the Giants. I think it was Giants Cowboys. But anyway, that's what okay. On the extra point taken, I'll have it looked up by then. The Patriots have the fifth hardest remaining schedule. Like they're not coming back from this. this season. Their season is over. Mac Jones has regressed. They're a disaster on the offensive line. They have no talent at wide receiver. Their best defensive players are injured.

They're not coming back from this this season. So now you look ahead and you say, all right, Sheel, we'll settle down there, big fella. Hey, you just talked about the quarterback class. Maybe the Patriots will be so bad that they get a great draft pick and they're able to get Caleb Williams or Drake May with Bill Pellecheck. I mean, put yourself in Robert Kraft's shoes right now. you have seen what has happened with Matt Jones. You have seen what has happened with the personnel decisions on offense. Do you really want this version of Bill Belichick, again, has had a Hall of Fame all-time career, not taking any of that away from him, this version of Bill Belichick leading you into a new era

with a rookie quarterback as you try to rebuild the franchise? I think the answer to that question is going to be no. I think it would be a point where you say this is the time for a clean break, even if you're able to draft a quarterback, let's move on. I don't know what it would be. I don't know if it would be a firing. I don't know if it would be a retirement. I don't know if it would be a mutual parting of ways.

I don't know if it would be a trade. I think so like in our offseason when we did like wild predictions, I was like Bill Belichick will be coaching the Washington commanders in 2024. Maybe that's still on the table. I don't know. I don't think Bill Belichick will coach another relevant, successful New England Patriots team. I think when you look at the decisions that have been made,

both from a personnel perspective, from a coaching staff perspective. The way the team plays, this is not a smart team. For 15 years, we talked about, oh, Belichick's teams would never do this. Patriots would never, well, okay, it's looked a lot different, and it's not a small sample either.

So I think a lot of times when you get to somebody like Belichick, you wait a year, you have the offseason where you think maybe it's time to move on and then you give them extra time because of all they've done for the franchise, that was like last year. This was the extra year that you gave him to figure it out, to add a new offensive.

coordinator. And it looks just as bad, if not worse than it did last year. So that felt sort of like a funeral to me for the Bill Belichick era New England Patriots on Sunday in their shutout loss to the same. Paint the other scenario. Tell me why I'm wrong. I am interested. So, okay, it's not that you're wrong because I don't think you are. I think that you're right to say that this feels like the extra year, right? This feels like the, you know, we don't want to pull the rug out from to this guy because of how long he's been doing this, right? So we're going to be. going to give him like a long runway. So I don't disagree with that at all.

You're right to say that like you can't feel super comfortable with the idea of giving Belichick a young quarterback because the last time he had a young quarterback, he really jerked around the the development process, right? They went and like tried to get the requisite pieces to develop the guy, right? You go and you sign Kendrick Boren, you sign Nelson Nagor, you sign Hunter, Henry, you sign John News Smith and whatever. But I like that didn't work super well. And then he's messing around with offensive coordinator.

It was a disaster. Did not work super well. I mean, that was a disaster at the time, and the results are a disaster. Yes. Now, I do have this opinion about Mack Jones and his development that I think is an important one to present in the argument of like Belichick's offensive shenanigans. Because the Matt Patricia Joe Judge thing was so inexplicable and weird and like verifiably dumb and egregious.

And then because Mac Jones was immediately. really, really, really bad. It's very easy for us to say, Mac Jones was really, really bad because of this. Like, we know that this was stupid. And then we know that Mac Jones ended up terrible. So it's like, after it, therefore, because of it, this is what made Mac Jones bad.

I am personally of the opinion that, like, Mac Jones would have just ended up bad in a lot of different ways, in a lot of different universes. And that we probably, while the primary reason that his development halted was because of the officer coordinator of foolishness, we probably overweight just how much the office coordinator of foolishness really did make him bad. I do think that like in a lot of non-Belichick non-Bradie scenarios where we have this like long history of unprecedented NFL dominance and a guy who's who's heralded and Hall of Fame coach

and is never going to be impeached one of the greatest coaches of all time. Coach drafts first round quarterback who's like actually QB5 in his draft class and then that guy ends up not being not very good. It's like not an uncommon thing. That's a pretty regular thing to happen. It's just like draft a guy not top 10, where typically when you're outside of the top 10, you're not that great of a prospect,

and then he's bad, and then that makes your team bad. Like that happens all the time, man. Like that, I think that we probably overweight how much Belichick's office coordinator decisions affected Mac Jones. And accordingly, Belichick has like a straight bad quarterback

and it's hard to win with that guy. So that, I think, is like a necessary caveat. I agree with that. But by the way, yeah, I think teams should be encouraged to take swings on quarterbacks. And if you fail, that should not be a reason to it. Like, they didn't give up a lot. Like, they didn't give up three first round picks.

They took a swing on Mack Jones and it doesn't work out. That's fine to me. I would just add, like, that's part of it. That is not everything with sort of the Belichick argument. But go ahead and continue. That was your caveat. The other thing I would say is that Belichick's defense this year remains extremely well coached and successful.

Like losing Matt Judin and Christian Gonzalez are like, Like those are the two most indispensable players on this defense, given how Gonzalez played entering, like in the first three weeks of the season. That totally blows. And they've lost some of their heat relative to like the top Belichick defenses of Super Bowl seasons past. Again, it's personnel issues.

Like they just haven't done as good of a job cycling guys in. Like they went and signed Jalen Mills. They went and signed Yvonne Godshaw. Like these dudes were not the impact players that they needed to go in and snag. Belchick's not as successfully. not, he's just not, like, oh no, he kind of is with Jason Jackson. He is not as successfully doing the thing he did so often in the decades past where it's like, I draft a guy in the third round.

I sign a guy for peanuts. He's really good here for three years. I let him go somewhere else. He's terrible. Like, they've lost, they certainly have lost some of that. And they've had coaching drain on that side of the ball the same way they've had on the offensive side of the ball. But generally, like, Belichick's defenses remain very good.

Like, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that if Belichick were fired by the Patriots tomorrow, all 31 teams would try to find a way to get him on their staff right away. Not necessarily all of them as head coaches, but certainly all of them on the defensive side of the ball. Because in an NFL, we're like two and a half dudes maybe have solutions to like elite quarterbacks, Belichick is one of the guys, right? And so Belichick is still doing the thing that really buttered his bread for many, many seasons, he's still doing that.

And so to me, like the Bill Belichick good coach conversation tends to really hop, skip and jump over, like, the thing that we always measure, like, Kyle Shanahan on, which is like, all right, Shanahan always struggles with personnel stuff, right? He's constantly, he's, like, making picks in the middle rounds that make no sense, and he's alienating his own players and throwing guys in the doghouse. And he has this, like, bad relationship with his quarterbacks and whatever. But the one thing that butter Shanahan's bread is, like, I make my side of the ball. This offensive system work really, really, really well.

And that's the thing that Belichick is still doing. And we kind of tend to jump over that because it's the defense the side of the ball. It's not as valued. and where Shanahan has done a great job hiring on the other side of the ball, he's hired great defensive coordinators, Damiko Ryans, Robert Salas, Steve Wilkes. Belichick should really drop the ball in that regard. And so, like, I understand why we tend to hop over it, but it still deserves to be said. Like, Belichick's defensive system still great.

Yeah, I would say it's not nearly at the level of Shanahan who is here, give me the pieces, and this will be an elite unit. I think they're good. Obviously, they've had some injuries. I don't necessarily agree that he will always have the answers against elite quarterbacks. Like they've done some, like that, that Dolphins, Patriots came out. The Dolphists didn't score a lot of points. I didn't watch that thinking, man, you know, he laid the blueprint to how to shut down the dolphins. I mean, the, you know, the Cowboys a couple

weeks ago had, what, 370 yards and moved the football pretty well against the Patriots when they had to. Again, that's not their problem. So I would agree if the thing is, hey, he's still a good defensive coach. I would agree with that. I would also say that's like the least important thing of being an NFL Bellhead coach in the year 2023. If I'm making a list of things I want, that barely even registers. Yeah, but it's also Bellic, like, again, like, I hear you. But again, there's like four dudes maybe. Lou, Belichick, Fangio, like four years ago, don't even know if he still got it at this point.

That like regularly take the wind out of the sales of the elite quarterbacks. Like, I, I disagree with a level there, but that's fine. It's, it's, like, I think it's really hard to argue that Belichick's defenses are, like, he's lost the fastball there. And, and if we want to argue that he's lost the fastball in all the other spots, then that's a legitimate argument. I tend to believe that a lot of that is more noise than it is anything else, but not more noise that is anything else. I tend to believe noise is a larger part of that than other people do, right? Like, I think Belichick's, we look on Belichick's past few years a lot differently. if just like

Hunter, like, Johnny Smith didn't like just totally was like a zero, right? We look on it a lot differently if like, you know, the drafting of Tyco on Fortin works out. Like there's a couple of breaks that go to different direction.

Well, hold on, but John Hussmith is a great example. I mean, he made him a $13.5 million tight end, this wild tight end contract. They couldn't do anything with him in their scheme.

He leaves at that that he's an all pro, but he is a part of a good part of a functioning falcons offense right now. Like, Belich, the player, but had a vision for how to implement the player into the scheme, couldn't work, and then had to move on from him after having paid him a lot of money. Like, I don't know how that's a, how does he get a pass on that?

It's not that he gets a pass. It's that, like, I think that Belichick's like 0 for six right now on offensive weapon acquisition, right? With Kendrick Borne, Nelson Aguilar, Hunter Henry, Jonu, John Smith, Tenguan Thornt, if he were just like two for six, I think we'd talk about it a lot differently. I think that noise plays a bigger part in like the referendum on Belichick's like offensive personnel decisions and his offensive coaching staff moves than we want it to be. Again, like we want it to be like a very clear logical progression for like Belichick did

X, Y, and Z and that's what ruined the offense. And that's why he's bad. And I think it's Belchick did X, Y, and Z. And then confounding variables, A, B, C, D, F, and G came in. And now the offense is really bad. I think that you run the simulation of the 2021, 2021, 2022, 22, 23 Patriots 10,000 times. They end up halfway decent in a larger percentage of times than we're willing to, to talk about at this point.

But that didn't happen, right? If only some Justin candies and nuts, they did it. As just to say that if Belichick goes and comes the head coach of the commanders tomorrow, I'm not going to assume that he's going to totally nuke their personnel and be like, oh, he's going to only sign bad receivers and only draft bad quarterbacks. I think that he's going to roll some dice again. I think he's going to get a friend of your role of the dice next time. I think we definitely disagree there because I think we have a large sample now.

They're what, three games under 500 in since Tom Brady left, you know, and you look at all Again, he's made, to me, it's a clear cut evaluation because he's choosing the most important thing for a head coach. There's the culture leadership. And then there's the who are you hiring on your staff who, as we've talked about, can do more with less. And that aspect of it has been a disaster for him on the offensive side of the ball. In addition to he is the head personnel guy picking all the groceries, as we say. So we'll see. I mean, that's the really the only reason. He needs a real GM. I think that's the most important thing. Is he going to be head coach round two? He needs a real GM. Is he going to be willing to do that? Is he going to be willing to do that at this? you know, stage of his career. It's not like he needs, you know, like, you know, I'll throw him with like a Howie Roseman who's like a tyrant over his own team.

Like he needs a Nick Casario. Like he needs a guy who can like actually, who he respects, who actually can make some personnel shots. Like, like, we're going to go get this guy because these are our barometers, whatever. He needs an Ernie Adams too. Again, I'm at all times willing to say we should put Ernie Adams in the hall over Bill Bealshack. He was the real magic.

All right. What do you have for your next take? Dallas Cowboys fans, this was a very embarrassing loss. The sky is not falling. We're going to be, you're going to be okay. 42 to 10 sucks. If the Cowboys start the season,

losing to the Arizona Cardinals and getting blown out by over four touchdown to the 49ers fans, I think no matter what Dallas Cowboys, faithful was going to have like a big visceral reaction to that. And understandably so. Those are two of the worst losses

you can start the season with. Cardinals super embarrassing because of obvious. and then 49ers because they've knocked out of the playoffs the last two years. The good news is that when you go back and you look at like teams that have won the Super Bowl, guess what? They lose some games in October sometimes, right? The Chiefs lost to the Colts 20 to 17 in October. The 2021 Rams lost by 17 points to the Cardinals in October two seasons ago. The Bucks got blown out by the Saints in November, 38 to 3.

They also lost to the Justin Fields, Matt Nagy Bears in October in the season they won the Super Bowl. Like, we tend to think once a team gets washed by a contender, early in the season, it means like they're never going to be able to hit that level again, they certainly can. Like I bring up those examples to say, you can lose games in October

and still go the distance. Now, one of the reasons why it is beneficial to play these contending games in October and sometimes even lose these contending games in October is because it emphasizes to you maybe some of the things that you need to do differently in order to be a better football team. I'm going to crib here from Stephen Ruiz

who wrote a piece on, the NFC contenders coming off of the Sunday games, when you go to look at the performance of Dak Prescott this season, you say, all right, like, you know, a big goal for him is that interceptions would be down this year. Interceptions are down. The problem is everything else is down, Prescott has become just a little bit more of a muted passer in general, yards per dropback is down, EPA for dropback is down, success rate is down, A.A. is down. So, okay, fewer interceptions, but fewer explosives. And that's one of the reasons why the interception conversation is always dumb, right? And go, he threw the most interceptions in the league. Yeah, because he was doing

stuff, right? Like, interceptions are one of the costs of playing quarterback. If you're going to be aggressive, throw the ball downfield, try to hit explosives, you're more likely to throw a pick. When Stephen goes to break down, like, all right, well, what's particularly taking the wind out of this offensive sales, it's interesting from an EPA per dropback perspective on non-play action dropbacks, when Dak just sits back there, is reading a defense and ripping it, he's exactly the same that he was last year. 0.09.09. On play action dropbacks, which this was one of the areas in which Callan Moore was really, really productive for the Cowboys. He's got from 0.08 to negative 0.23.

A lot of the designed shot play juice of the Cowboys offense has been lost. Dak right now, one of the worst passes in the league throwing 20 plus yards down the field, also one of the least frequent passes in the league throwing 20 plus yards down the field. This team acquired Brandon Cooks and has run zero Brandon Cook's plays. Yeah. Just then Brandon Cooks is good at like one thing and they're doing not that thing, which is a very, very frustrating thing. again, like, the Kell and Moore absence is really felt in that regard, because one of the things

that Moore was really good at was getting Michael Gallup where he works best and Marty Cooper where he works best and CD Lam where he works best. Now let's talk about CD Lamb. I understand why CD is frustrated. CD had four catches on the day. Tony Poller had four catches on the day and the 49ers defense had three catches on the day. You never like when you only have one more cast in the opposing defense. It's not a fun performance. McCarthy actually, I thought he gave a really good line here where he said if he were not pissed about that performance, I'd be pissed at him, right? That's that, again, like,

this is kind of how you want star receivers to behave. You want star receivers to be demanding the ball. You want star receivers to be frustrated when the offense isn't going their way. And so I thought that was actually a good line for McCarthy. It remains to be seen, though, if McCarthy is capable of solving that problem in the way that Kellyn Moore used to,

move him into the slot, get him designed throws, get him on double move stuff. They're not, they're using CD right now as a cog in a scheme, right? They'll run a three receivers set and they'll run a common concept and he'll be one of the routes. Prescott might get to him in the concept if the progression goes as such and if the coverage is as such. But it's not guaranteed that like CD's even like a thought for him because just structurally he might just be removed by the defense. When you have a player like C.D.

You have to be willing to call just the C.D. Lamb play, right? This is what the Eagles do with AJ Brown. The dolphins do with Tari Kill. You see the Bears do it with DJ Moore the last two weeks. like this is not a hard thing, you just call the play for the guy. That's something McCarthy generally hates doing. If you go back and you look at his Packers days, right? They're pretty poor at just calling the play for the guy.

So these are the changes you have to make in the passing offense. I was going to say, I'm waiting to get to the point where Cowboys fans should not panic here. Right. These are the changes you have to make in the passing offense. Will you? If you do, you're going to be fine. And you should expect a veteran head coach to see this pretty clear. and be willing to go for it.

If you don't, it's very obvious what should happen. You need a new offensive system. You have to move on from the head coach. I don't understand. This sounds like panic to me, Ben. You said they need to make changes that Mike McCarthy typically has not made. And if he doesn't make them, they have to move on from a head coach coming off a game in which they got the doors blown off against the team that has beat them in the playoffs two years in a row. And now they're at this big deficit in the NFC East where they might have to win two games on the road.

Even if they're in the playoffs, they might have to go at San Fran, at Philadelphia to get to where they want to go because this was a season in which they said we need to raise our expectations because we haven't been past the divisional round in 27 years. Sorry, I had to get that in there. Okay, go ahead. You took a sip. Go ahead. Here's what, here's the kicker, okay? And McCarthy makes the changes.

The Cowboys are going to be fine. And that's good news. What is fine, though? Define fine. I think defensively, they're going to continue to be one of the top five, top six units in the league. I know the digs injury is hurting them right now.

I think they're going to be able to circle the wagons on that. And then offensively, I think they can be a top 10 unit. And then I know you said they're two games back of the Eagles. I continue to watch this Eagles team and they're five and oh, and I get it. It does not look like last year's team, just in terms of the personnel that they've lost.

I don't think the Eagles are going to be able to keep this up. Eagles are approaching an insane run in their schedule in the middle of month. The Cowboys are going to have a window to win this division. I don't think that like the Eagles have slammed the door on that by any means. I agree. Fix the passing offense and this, this, this team should work a lot better. Don't fix the passing offense. They're going to have to fight.

You have to fire McCarthy. You have to, right? If McCarthy can't get this team to the, the, the, the playoff bar that you've set for the third consecutive season, that's how coaches get fired. Like, that's how, he did the, I fire. my coordinator thing to buy myself one more year, and that's great, but this is the year he bought, and if he's fumbling the bag, this clearly, like the offense is markedly worse, like, easily, measurably worse than it was with Kellan Moore, then you move on from him. And that's also

great news for Cowboys fans. It's a win-win. Either this works, or you get rid of McCarthy, and that's better, and it's a relief. You'll notice, I haven't said at any point, like, move on from Dak Prescott, because that presentation is ludicrous. That's insane. If anybody can watch the Cowboys for the first five weeks and be like, DAC is the issue, they're outside of their minds. I have no idea what they're watching. I think the Cowboys are going to be okay because I think the offensive fixes are easy. I think that CD is saying the right things and Dak is saying the right things.

I think they're going to make the necessary changes. If they don't, I think the amount of heat and pressure on that failure, like if the Cowboys end the season like 9 and 8, I think that you, I do not see how McCarthy keeps his job. And I think that it'll be to the Cowboys long-term benefit. it. Yeah, I'm trying, I'm trying to debate. I like, I don't know where to even respect. Like, yeah, I mean, yeah, don't panic. And it's a win-win. But you're looking ahead to the 20-24 season. Here's a problem. One of your best case scenarios is they go, they stink

this season. And Mike McCarthy hits fired and is 2024. Ben, we just finished week five. You think that's what Cowboys fans want to envision as a best case scenario right now? Here's the issue. I'll tell you what the issue is. I spend the entire. day on Monday preparing my like notes and my argument and I don't prepare the one liner at the top and then you spend the entire time just being like I'm going to say bill bow tech era is over so you have these great one liners and then I get to do the take and I realize I haven't thought about what my starting line is going to be and I mean I say they shouldn't panic and they shouldn't they really shouldn't but like I don't know maybe it's better if it's like it's a win-win for the

cowboys maybe if it's better if it's like thank goodness the obvious issue is Mike McCarthy and nothing else is a problem who could have seen coming. But the thing for me is like when we enter the season for the Cowboys, I think the number one worry was going to be that like DAC was throwing a ton of picks and that like the offensive line

was falling apart because they're getting a little bit older and like the defense was going to regress and like they were going to look super messy. This team is very clearly the exact team they were last year with a coordinator who doesn't know what he's doing this time. Like it's very obvious. I think that that means it's very clear what the steps forward are. It's either fix it or you're gone. And I like

that binary world for the Cali. I think that's a good world for the cowboys to be in. Well, that was the concern, yeah, going into the season. I mean, this was the gamble that they made, moving from Kellynne Moore to Mike McCarthy and Brian Schottenheimer is going to result in an upgrade. That was the literal gamble, the bet that they made this offseason, most reasonable people thought, I don't know if that bet's going to work out. I don't know how much worse it'll be, but it's probably going to be at least a little bit

worse. So, yeah, you're laying out the argument that the issues are fixable if they do the right things and if the people in charge, if you trust them. But I think then you would go to the next level and say, well, I don't think you trust them. I don't think I trust them. I don't think Cowboys fans trust them. So where does that really leave you? To me, they look to be a team headed to a very similar fate as the last two years, which

is that they'll be a solid team. We're not going to be saying, oh, the Cowboys didn't make the playoffs or the Cowboys stink. They have too much talent for that to be the case. So I think they'll probably win double digit games. But guess what? That's not the bar anymore. I mean, again, it's been 27 years since they've gotten out. of the divisional round.

Like, this is, you have Dak Prescott and Michael Parsons. And like, you have some good players on this team. This should be a season. We're given what you did in the off season, you expected to get over that hump. This is what you thought would get you over that hump. And after watching that Sunday night, it's hard to feel confident that that's going to be the case. So, yeah, I think they're going to be okay. I think they'll be in the playoffs.

But if you want to panic and you're a Cowboys fan, go ahead and panic. All right. Take one more break. Come back and get to our final takes from the week. All right, we are back on extra point taken. My take. The biggest winners of week two were the Cincinnati Bengals. Of week two?

Week five. What just happened? See, I write my one-liners and I get the week wrong. At least you get the week right on yours. All right, let's try that again. Don't edit this. The biggest, my day, welcome back to actual one day. Here we are.

No one month it is. Ready go. The biggest week. winners in week five were the Cincinnati Bengals. I don't even remember. I have no idea what happened to them in week till. They lost week one. I don't know. Was that the Monday night game? Anyway, let's start with the obvious. Joe Burrow looked more like Joe Burrow in that win over the Cardinals. This is the obvious. He navigated the pocket well. He had a nice scramble for a first down. He was making plays outside of structure. He was launching the ball downfield. I'm not telling

you, everything was perfect in that win. It was not perfect. But the version of Joe Burrow that if you were a Bengals fan, you were crossing your fingers and saying, please, please, please don't just make this a lost season. Give us something. You actually saw that, I thought, in that game against the Cardinals. So they were signs of encouragement. But Ben, the bigger reason, maybe the not so obvious one, is what happened in a land far away in a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Sunday? I don't know if this is one of your takes or not, but we have to talk about this game. Not because I wouldn't be cogent. I would just be like yelling words about players.

So the Bengals are two and three after that win. So what happened in the land far away in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where we saw maybe the stupidest loss of the season by any team with the Baltimore Ravens, the division frontrunner, Baltimore Ravens, who had a chance to improve to four and one, who were in complete control of that game, lost that game to the Steelers, and end up with a three and two record.

The Bengals are one game back of the Ravens. Like how is that even a possible thing, given how we've watched both these teams every week this season? That makes no sense yet. I just looked it up. I confirmed it in the standings. That is true. So if you weren't paying attention to what happened in Pittsburgh,

end of the first half. Okay, let's start with this. It's fourth and two at the Pittsburgh 23. The time is running out. You're going to kick a field goal here. The Ravens, by the way, have already dropped a top. touchdown at this point in the game. Oh, one?

I was, I don't like, maybe three. They dropped a touchdown on second and goal and then dropped a subsequent touchdown on third and goal, which means they dropped in total one touchdown. They just did it twice. Okay, they did it twice. So the Ravens plan was to line up, but let the clock run out, let the clock go down to like three or four, and then call timeout and kick the field goal. Tyler Lindelbaum, the center did not get the message.

He snaps the football. Lamar Jackson is surprised. they end up not converting there. They waste three points before halftime for no reason. Ben mentioned the drops. They had seven drops in this game, according to PFF and True Media, the most by any team in a game this season.

And as Ben mentioned, these were not little, oh, that would have been a nice of a cool four-yard game. No, no, no. These were downfield. These were touchdowns. These were by every player, Rashad Bateman, Zayflowers,

Mark Andrews, Nelson Aguilar, over. And, oh, like, I was looking at the, in like the middle of the third quarter going, how do they only have 10 points? I am watching them move the football and have open people on every single drive. How do they only have 10 points?

Do you understand? I would be 9 and 0 on locks of the week the last three weeks if the Ravens covered. I know. I do know that. I do know that. When Nelson Aguilar dropped the pass, which when Nelson Aguilar drops a pass,

it's unlike any other receiver dropping a pass in the league. For whatever reason, when Nelson drops a pass, it looks like he was trying to do it. Like, he always, it always hits his hands perfectly, and then he separates his hands at the end. They throws them away from one another, like magnets that repel. It is horrible.

It is revolting. When he dropped that pass, chill, I was in my friend's apartment in Phoenix. I was out for the weekend. I got up. I left the apartment. I walked into the hallway, and then I forgot which door his was,

and I had to go back and find it. I was seeing red for like 10 seconds. I couldn't believe it. Oh, man, we got to get the cam on you next time. Something like that happens. That would be ringers social content. I'm in cable of sitting during football games. I sit and then two minutes later, I'm standing again.

I'm walking. I'm talking. It's horrible. All right. So the Ravens did that. Ravens had three turnovers, including a bad Lamar Jackson interception while they were up 10-8 from the Pittsburgh 5 with four minutes left. It felt like the game was over at that point.

And oh, by the way, they also had a punt block. So if you're a Bengals fan, again, you have this, the Bengals had the second hardest remaining schedule. They dug themselves a hole. This might not work out for them. They might not make the playoffs. Having said that, week five, your quarterback looks healthy. Your wide receiver looks as good as any wide receiver in the NFL in Jamar Chase.

Your defense finally shows some juice that maybe it was lacking earlier in the season. And not only that, what I think the favorite in the division and Fandul would say the same thing, gave away a game in Pittsburgh. So again, the Bengals right now, two and three, Browns are two and two. Steelers and Ravens are three and two. Every team is separated by one game in the win column. If you're a Bengals fan, given the way this season has gone, you absolutely will take that and you have to be encouraged by what happened there.

All right, now I'll let you say whatever you want about the Raven, anything else on that game. I feel like you just have takes bottled up that you didn't want to come out during this podcast that you need to unleash. It's not like so much like takes. It's just I have a like the Ravens lost four. games in the regular season last year when they had Lamar Jackson. And they had a win percentage, like a win likelihood from ESPN's calculator of like at least 80% in the fourth quarter

of all four losses. Like they were just handing these games away. And then you watch this, you go in this season. In the fourth quarter against the Colts, they had a win percentage of over 80%. That might have been the second stupidest loss of the season by the way, by any team. Yeah. Greg Rosenthal had a great Tee NFL network where he said the worst losses so far the season are the Ravens of the Colts, the Ravens to the Steelers, and that one time I picked the Patriots to beat the Cowboys, because, like, he was on that, like, upset and he just wasn't. But yeah, the Ravens had a greater than 80% chance of winning the game in the fourth quarter against the Colts, and they had a greater than, they had a greater than 90% chance in the fourth quarter of winning the game against

the Steelers. All of their regular season losses have come with ludicrously low probability. Right now, some of the regular season wins, the other team has had like 80 or 90% at one point in the fourth quarter, right? So it does go both ways. But the Ravens with Lamar, over the last couple of years, are not getting blown out of games, they are not getting dominated, they are in every single game. And when they lose, it's typically them fumbling the bag. That leads to disproportionate frustration from the fan base, right? There's a lot of like, what does John Harbaugh do?

Lamar's not clutch stuff, but it only feels that way because when they lose, they lose on knucklehead stuff. The rest of us, I'm an Eagles fan, not me, but most of the rest of us have to deal with our team, like going down three scores and never getting back, right? And so it's just, it's a skewed perspective sort of a thing. I still believe that Harba was like a very good end of game coach, and I believe Lamar's a very good quarterback. They are sloppy right now.

They're injured and then they're sloppy. A lot of their execution stuff, it has little hitches in it, especially offensively where it's a new system and it's an end as a new receiver room. I wrote about the Ravens last week, and I kind of said, they're doing all the right stuff. It's just not working yet. And injury's been a big part of that.

Time's also a big part of that. We talked a lot about the Ravens in the preseason shield. One of the things we said was this offense might, it's like starting a car manual. You haven't driven sticking a little bit in the game. getting that that engine on and getting that car moving the first couple times like oh wait and it hurts and it jerks and you don't really know how it goes and then you settle back into it i think they're going to be fine by november i think the operation will be a lot smoother every week that we get

closer to november that they lost a game i feel you know shakier and shakier about that take on the bengal side of things i will say this is obviously the best the offense has looked it also just is the spriest joe burrow has looked they could have scored 22 points and barely beat the cardinals they could have scored 17 points and lost. Just watching Joe, this is the quickest and most comfortable he's looked all season. 100%. I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch there, just because calf injury, he's still getting therapy on the sideline every single time. And once I see him, like, you know, no sleeve on the calf when he's sitting on the bench, you know, you see it over four weeks, I'll fully believe it. It's an easy thing to reagravate. Get rolled up once and get,

you know, try to plant once on turf and whatever. But so far, I'd say, uh, it was, that was the most encouraging thing. It was just watching Burrow. Everything else is just, you know, like production cardinals, whatever, who cares? Just seeing him look great. Yeah, it's a week to week proposition with him. Like you said, you don't know what it's going to. And he's still getting hit like he was getting hit in that game.

It's not like he was kept clean. But yeah, the way he was moving. I didn't think we would see him move that well this quickly. So that was an encouraging sign. The Ravens left the door open. And I agree with you. The thing about the offense, last thing I'll say about this is, yeah, like, I expected, like, that game was not a game where I'm like they're still getting used to, you know, Monkin, like, stuff was working. They were just, like, literally dropping the football.

Like, they could have had probably 30 points in that game. So it wasn't like get adjusted to it. It's like, what is going on here? And yeah, they just find ways to do dumb stuff. I don't think it's coaching. I don't think it's like Lamar. It's just, I don't know. It almost feels like coincidence to me that is not good analysis, but that's,

really what it feels like watching some of their losses. Here's the thing I'll say about, like, coincidence, because I large agree with you, drops are 100% noise. Lamar, like, I don't want to say it throws a weird ball, because that's not true. Quarterbacks just generally throw different balls, and Lamar does have a little bit of an idiosyncratic delivery and release, and you just have to be used to catching that, right? Like, Mark Andrews is a great example where, like, Mark Andrews is good at a lot of stuff, but he also has, like, at least one super debilitating drop a game. And sometimes, you wonder like, okay, how much of this is just the catchability of Lamar's ball versus Andrews.

The fact that like other receivers keep struggling with drops, I think also like, you know, starts to lend some credence to that where I think like you can, you can argue Lamar doesn't deliver the most wide receiver friendly ball. And I think that's fair. I also think that Rashad Bateman touchdown hit him in all 10 fingers and the Nelson Aguilar touchdown hit him in all 10 fingers, right? And that's the sort of thing where you say, okay, this is probably just like noise. And I'm not going to put too much stock into that. Yeah, I would say you're paid to catch the ball. is the number one most important thing. Figure it out how to catch a ball from this guy

who is putting a ball, the ball in a place where you can catch it. All right. Take number three. What do you got, Benjamin? Shield, a four-on-one Detroit Lions? They were on my just-miss list. I, they might, that I'm so close to being able to say they're real. And here's what's holding me back.

Okay, let's put it that way. That's a good, is that a good one liner? Do you feel good about that? Sure. Yeah, I like that. Now let's see if what you say follows that or not. The Detroit Lions are 4-1. They're third right now in DVOA.

Their one loss on the season was an overtime loss, pick six. Jared Gough broke the streak of interceptionless throws, and they lost to Seattle in overtime, right? Tough, high-scorning game where the last few bounces didn't go their way. They've beaten the Chiefs, they'd beat the Falcons, they'd beat in the Packers, they'd beat in the Panthers. I don't think they have a, like, those last three opponents are all like, fine, like whatever, and then obviously the Chiefs that win, they have a one-point win,

and they get a scoop and score defensively, whatever. They haven't had a game where they've like walked into Buffalo and beating the bills You know walked into San Francisco Walked into Dallas and beating them So they haven't had that win And that does make it a little bit tough To like fully put your chest into the lions are good

Sort of a thing But in general, four and one handling their business Only loss is a tough overtime loss You feel nice about that. Upcoming schedule for them by the way They get the Buccaneers this week They're at Baltimore That's one that you circle

Oh, Lions Lions Baltimore It's going to be a fun Well Mike McDonald against Ben Johnson? I'm excited. All right. Then they get the Raiders, at the Chargers, and we'll go through the rest of the schedule.

Bears, Packers, Saints, Bears, Broncos, Vikings. It's not a tough schedule the rest of the way for the Lions. And that brings me to my next point on the I want to fully buy on the Lions. We know that Jared Goff is a lot worse on the road than he is at home, right? This is just a function of playing in the dome for a quarterback who has some small hands and struggles at times with. weather. It's also just a function of home fields of general, but it affects golf more. Last season, 23 touchdowns to three interceptions at home, six touchdowns to four interceptions

on the road. He had a quarterback rating of 109.3 at home, 87.4 on the road for as much stock as you put into those things. Adjusted yards per attempt, 8.77 to 7.11, those numbers from A to Z sports and pro football reference. Not as successful on the road, especially true when he has to play in open air stadiums in the cold weather. Light schedule coming up, right? start-sched rush of the season. It is very important that the Lions don't drop games because the Lions want to make a post-season run, which is something the Detroit fans maybe haven't seen in a while. It would be nice to get to play a couple of those games at home, right?

You're obviously dealing with the 5-0 Eagles and the 5-0-09ers right now, but you don't know if those teams are going to drop games. You don't know if Hertz is going to be gone for a week, a month or McAfee's going to be gone for a month in San Francisco and you're to be able to catch up to those guys. It would be so, so, so great for the Lions to be positioned for not just the top three but potentially like a top two seed when we start to get the January football because you might be able to get a second game in your home stadium, a huge, huge deal for Jared Gough. So you're worried, like, golf in September is kind of always a trick.

Golf got, early, early season golf is always bait. And he looks incredible. But you have to calm yourself down. Like Stephen Ruiz, I was talking with Stephen yesterday. And like golf right now is like 23% big time throw percentage or something. Like that's not going to keep going. You have to, you know, you have to look at him through a season-wide lens. So that's the second thing I'm worried about.

The third thing is now, like I said, the third overall and DVOA, fourth offense, third defense. We think third defense is going to stay? We think that's going to hang? They're third and defensive DVOA right now? Third and defensive DVOA. No, I don't. Leads the league in pressures, which I'll tell you, man,

I thought Hutch, like, rookie season, I was like, all right, this guy's playing pretty well, but like, I don't know if he's ever like the long-term high sack guy. I saw him in camp in year two. He looked a lot different. I'm watching a play right now. He looks a lot different. He just taking multiple steps.

Big sophomore leap for Hayton. So you have kind of a star pass pressure there. And then you're getting great play out of Brian Branch. You're getting great play out of Derek Barnes, Alex Hans, Lone. Great play out of a Lee McNeill. Jerry Jacobs is making plays, right? He's been a longtime believer in starting corner for you.

You signed Cam Sutton. He's playing excellent for you. Kirby Joseph, but you have pieces. It feels really thin. I mean, they, they, they're banking a lot on Emmanuel Mosley to be corner two for them. He gets out in the field in week five, tears an ACL, a heartbreaking stuff for Moses who's coming off of a torn ACL. So now they're, they're thin and outside corner.

They're playing if he Melifonwu, who's long been like a criticized player and a question player and a guy that I've struggled to get in the field. They're playing him at like a safety nickel outside corner spot. Like he's lined up in different places. He's making impact stuff. And that feels good and also feels thin. I don't know how long that can be sustained. Jameson Williams is supposed to come back.

This was your top 15 picket wide receiver. They don't really get him on the field, and he's had drop problems. He's had injury problems. So you're still living on the Amon Rae, St. Brown, and Josh Reynolds world feels thin. Like, I started moving the offensive side of the ball. They were supposed to focus on the defense.

They've done such a good job, home brewing personnel, developing their guys, and they're now in a system where Aaron Glenn's got this thing humming. I don't know if they're, really that good of a defense. And I want to see if they can continue to get this play to young players or potentially add some guys at the deadline.

I think a star would be so beneficial to this team on either side of the ball. Just a January winner, a guy you think you can line up and dominate for four quarters, defensively at corner. Think about the Pat Sertan sort of a move. Offensively at wide receiver, thinking about the Devante Adams sort of a move. Getting that player would be huge for me in believing this Lions team. Right now I'm so, so close. But thin roster on defense, I think they're overperforming.

Jared Goff in the fall is the sort of thing that has me worried. They can have really, really strong October, November, set up with a great record, maybe out of star. I feel a lot better. Lions versus Cowboys tomorrow in Detroit, pick them. Who do you got? Oh, Detroit. Detroit comfortably.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. In Detroit for sure. Yeah. In Dallas? I don't know. It's still dumb, maybe. I'm a believer.

Listen, I don't know if they're, I'm not telling they're going to win the Super Bowl, but like well coached team, talented team, good up front on both sides of the ball, all these things that translate to being a very, I mean, they're four and one. They've outscored their last three opponents by 46 points. You mentioned the thing about, well, you know, like the level of competition, but there is kind of a history that a lot of times when you face other good teams, it ends up being a coin flip game.

Are you blowing out the bad teams? Yes, they are blowing out the bad teams pretty consistently. Like I didn't even think that was an A plus game from the Lions. And they were up, what, 28, 7 and, halftime. He's just like turnover, turn over, turn over, turnover. We're going to turn every one of these into touchdowns with really creative play calls from Ben. By the way, I think Ben Johnson should get to be, you know, I make fun of the football hipster society. I feel like the Normies, like myself, we should get Ben Johnson. What do you think? Do we need to do a draft or something, Normies versus

hipsters? Why would the normies get him? I don't know. He's in the mainstream now. I feel like everybody's like. Oh, you're saying he's, he's popular. Oh, yeah, 100%. No, he's been there. Yeah. Ben Johnson had three head coaching interviews last year. You can't just now claim the Normies are getting him. But he also did just have like one season of really, like we've talked about this before. Sometimes the coordinator, everyone loves them one year. And then the next year it's like, oh man, what, what happened to that guy? Like, he can't even get a job.

We see that in the league. So, you know, the Normies just wanted to see a little bigger body of work. I love watching Ben Johnson's offense. Every single week, I go, ooh, he's coming up with stuff to put his players in positions to succeed. It's such a stark contrast to some of the, I don't know, bad is too mean. some of the more un what's the word. All right, bad, bad offensive coordinator

compared them to Ben Johnson. Defense, I would say, better than last year. I don't think it's going to be a great unit when the dust settles by the end of the season. I think they'll settle somewhere in that mediocre range. And I think that's okay. Top eight offense, 16th defense.

Guess what? You're winning the division. You might host a playoff game. You've had your best season as a Lions fan. maybe in your lifetime. What really impressed me about this win, they're without Amon Rae St. Brown. They're without Jamir Gibbs. They're without Brian Branch in this game. Like, think of all the teams that are using injuries as an excuse as well, we played. Like they lost two of their, you know, what? Maybe they're two of their three best offensive players, offensive skill players. Amon Ross St.

Brown is such a big percentage of what they do offensively. And you wouldn't have even known it. They scored six touchdowns. They scored touchdowns on four of their first five positions. session. So I think that team's really well coached. I like them a lot. I believe in them. We'll see where they rank in kind of the NFC hierarchy. But I'm pretty much right there with you with the Lions. That was what I had on my extended list. I'm like, all right, I can, I'll be able to get to this another time. So I'm glad you brought him. I came into the pod fully expecting to be like, time to dance on the Lions takes. Hello, it's 2021 Ben. I believe in Dan Campbell checking in. Hello, it's offseason. Ben Johnson piece, Ben checking in. We did it, baby. We're here.

boys. And then I went through and checked out some of the stuff. And I was like, all right, we might do that in a month. We're not going to do it yet. It's so much of this is working the way they intended it to work offensively and defensively, schematically, personnel-wise. Like so much of it, it feels intuitive. And so you want to say, all right, this trade just keeps on chugging. But it's, it's very hard. So again, like, like, it goes back to stars for me. When I started talking about January football, I'm always talking about stars. And right now, star-wise, it's a Monrois Saint Brown who you love. And like such a good player, so good in his role, delightful.

After that, you're asking second year pass rusher to be your star on that side of the ball, right? Which is just, it's a young player. He leads to the league of pleasures right now. He's playing great, but that's not as known of a commodity. You're asking Sam Leporta to be a really high, like carry guy for you, or not a high carry, but like carry a lot of weight. Rookie tight end, you know, Penny Sewell is a star at left tackle. That's a great spot to have a star.

But in January, you like to have that at positions where the ball. actually goes. It feels like if they had one or two more big umps, big swings, I'd really, really, really be willing to buy this team. I hope they're an aggressive deadline buyer. I really do. Yeah, I agree with that. Next week, you know, Ben, will be six weeks into the season.

Our friend Nate Tice used to do a piece. I don't know if he's going to do them again. Like the 30s, he likes looking at stuff. Now that we have an 18 week season, you'll look every third. And so next week, if you want to bring some of that, hey, player X is the MB. this is the coach of the year a third into the season I'll probably sprinkle

like I might sprinkle it a little who knows? Dan Campbell Coach of the year through six weeks I don't know could be Coach of the year

I mean he deserves coach of the year just for overall body of work I said maybe I said maybe I didn't say definitely I'm throwing you know I'm just

I'm not going to give away my week six takes in week five come on that's not what we do here I like to do like every quarter of the season every month I do just like I watched these guys on film and they made me happy. I'm very impressed with how they're playing.

I'm not going to rank them or say anything else besides that list. And golf is my quarterback for that list. Because, I mean, again, you can't get too far over your skis with September golf. But man, September golf is shredding it. Holy smokes. He's playing some ball. They look good. Like in the same way that I was saying like the Packers, you know, completions feel like a surprise.

The Lions, it's almost like an incompletion feels like a surprise. You just expect somebody to be wide open, him putting the ball where it's supposed to be. Now, when it gets out of structure, there's a, there's a, issues there, but that doesn't happen a lot with that offense. Very, very well-schemed. All right, let's finish with this extra point. This off-season, then, will be defined by which teams move on from their quarterback mistakes and how they move on from their quarterback mistakes. Here's what I mean. I was looking at the worst teams in the NFL, Broncos. One in four right now, a complete embarrassment. They're somehow worse with Sean Fagney. We almost took the Broncos as the extra

point-taking team. And we grabbed the- Packers, and that's better, not by much, but it's definitely better. That reminds me to email our editors and see if they can take my piece about bold predictions for 2023 off the internet. Oh, let's go find it. Not related to that by any means. All right, so you have the Broncos. Russell Wilson is not going to be the Broncos quarterback in 2024.

That is not happening. How do they move on from him? I mean, they might have a top five pick here. Do they just have to release him? Is there some creative way where they can, you know, attach draft capital to Russell Wilson and move him. I don't know. You're probably just going to have to release him. So that's one. Russell Wilson. The Giants, the Giants might be the worst team in the NFL. Their last in point differential. They're one in four. They paid Daniel Jones this contract.

What do they do if they are in position to draft a quarterback in the top three of this year's draft? What happens to Daniel? Does anyone, is there a market? Let me ask you this. One year, $36 million, Daniel Jones. Does anyone trade for that? Falcons I love every every quarterback I'm trying to download you're just going

Balkans Don't do your boy like that No, I shouldn't But I would see Arthur Smith looking at big fast boy

Daniel Jones and going I can make a triple option offense out of that can you see it I can see it I could kind of

see that working out well yes so that's another one Cardinals one and four they were this cute little story early on. Now they're tied for the second worst record in the NFL. Kyler Murray, who knows when he'll be back, if he'll be back. They're another team that could be moving on at quarterback. And then this guy's not as much of us like a mistake. I don't even

know if mistake is the right word because like I said, sometimes you take a swing in the first round and you miss. But the bears, right now, Ben, I went to Tankathon. You look at Tankathon. Where do you get your first round draft order in the season? Takeathon. Tankathon is the number one's up for all NFL draft order. And then pro sports transactions is where you get future draft picks. Great spot there. And then for Scouting reports, you go to Ben Sol X-Brain. You don't go anywhere else.

Okay. There you go. I like that. So Tankathon informs me that the Bears, if the season ended today, would have the first and second picks in the NFL draft. Justin Fields. What happens to Justin Fields? Now, listen, the Bears' offense has played well the last two weeks.

Don't want to take that away from them. They're coming off of a big Thursday night win. what happens with Justin Fields after the season if the Bears draft a quarterback? What do you got? Is there a market? Yeah, 100%. Listen, I'm doing the play sheet on Justin Fields this week, and I'll tell you, Sheal, as a man who promised, he would not let himself get roped back in. I might be getting roped back in a little bit.

He's so good. It's just he's also bad. He's very bad. He's so good, but he's also very bad. There you go. Check out the play sheet for that. So I think this is going to be interesting to me. All these teams, you know, some of them, the Broncos, the Cardinals, we thought, all right, there's a pretty good chance they're going to be looking for a quarterback at the end of the season.

But now you throw a team like the Giants in there. You maybe throw a team like the Bears in there. And it's going to be all these teams saying, how do we, do we move on from some of these guys to draft a quarterback? And if that happens, what is kind of the domino effect with guys like Justin Fields, Daniel Jones, Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson, all being available on the market. So that's just a look ahead after five weeks, some of the worst teams, something that struck me. me that this could be an interesting offseason once again for quarterback movement. It's always an idea. It's always interesting off season for quarterback movement. But this is a look ahead at some of the names to keep an eye on.

I will say, given the flashes that we've seen from Mac Jones, Justin Fields, and Daniel Jones over the course of their careers. Oh, I didn't even mention Mac Jones. Yeah, it's another one. Yeah, which Mac is, Mac's the one to me that is pretty interesting. I'll say this. Here's my take with confidence. One of the quarterbacks who gets moved to this offseason

will find good success, not like Super Bowl success, but good success at their second home with a different team. Because you can build an offense at all three of those cats, right? It's not like Zach Wilson where it's like, I don't know what we're doing here. Like all of those dudes, there's ways to get the playing off the ground. One of them's going to land in a good spot with good weapons and a good O.C. And it's going to happen.

So someone's moving and finding success somewhere else. It's going to be just a field. Who said that? Wasn't me. Wasn't me. I love Daniel Jones to the Falcons. That should have just been my take. I feel like I stole a take. You shouldn't have revealed that you should have saved that tape.

That would be Daniel Jones. Big fast boy on rollouts, just running around. Just doing some Daniel Jones things. That's kind of interesting to me, Daniel Jones on the Falcons, one year, 36 million. Think about it, Arthur. You know, if you guys hadn't thought about that yet, it might be something you want to explore. All right, that'll wrap it up for this week's extra point taken. Thank you to Ben Solac.

Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for pinch producing. us. Thank you to Eduardo Ocampo for the video production. You can find those on the Ringer NFL feed on Solac's TikTok, on my Instagram, wherever else. Additional production to provision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal. The next episode will be Nora and Stephen with dual threat, and then Solac and I will be back on Friday. All right, thanks for listening, everyone, and have a great week.