The Ringer NFL Show - Saturday Wild-Card Recap

Episode Date: January 16, 2022

Kevin and Nora are joined by Steven Ruiz to discuss the first two games of wild-card weekend. First, they get into how the Bills dominated the Patriots (1:24) before breaking down what this loss means for the Patriots heading into the offseason (14:01). Finally, they break down the Bengals win over the Raiders (23:28). Hosts: Kevin Clark, Nora Princiotti Guest: Steven Ruiz Production: Carlos Chiriboga Additional Production Supervision: Isaiah Blakely, Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, long-time writer with the Atlantic Magazine on tech, culture, and politics. There is a lot of noise out there, and my goal is to cut through the headlines, loud tweets, and hot takes in my new podcast, Plain English. I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. Plain English starts November 16th. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the RERN NFL show, part of the Render Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. joined on a Saturday night by Norr, Fransiotti. I didn't know what's going on.

Pray for the tables, Kevin. Tough time to be a table. It's a really hard time to be a table. No, I disagree. I feel like this is what you want as a table. You want to like dough out getting broken by a drunken bills fan. I think you just don't want to go out at all. You want to keep being a table.

Really? No, you want to go out in glory. A life of being a table is terrible. It's a terrible lot in life. Children's birthday parties. I don't know that there's like an afterlife for the table. Just like hosting a cake. Come on.

Better to burn out than fade away. Let's get started. So we have two obviously pretty amazing games in their own way today. Let's start with Bill's 47 Patriots 17. So according to a number of metrics, including Aaron Shats and then Chase Stewart, who has this, this might have been the best offensive game in the history of, football by the bills. So imagine what it would have been like if they weren't facing the best defensive coach in history of the game. Like that's what we knew. And by the way, that was a joke.

He was not acting like the best defensive coach in history of football on Saturday. Stephen, let's start here. What was your biggest takeaway from that game? My biggest takeaway is that when Josh Allen is on, I don't think the bills are beatable. I don't know what you do against that offense when he's on, especially with how they're working in their other weapons outside of. Stefan Diggs and Cole Beasley. We saw Isaiah McKinsey. He looked like the fastest player I've ever seen in the NFL.

So I think they're starting to figure out on offense. I think they're starting to use Josh Allen as a runner. I really believe that that might have been a mandate from the front office not to use them as a runner, especially on the goal line throughout the regular season. But now that you're in the playoffs, I think you just say, screw it. Like, let's just ride them. And it's working. And look, it didn't look fake that 47.5. Like that looked legit.

And I think it's going to continue. I don't know if it's going to continue to that degree, but, again, the bills are scary. Right. So the stat is that by DVOA, it's probably the best game in history against top five defense from from the regular season, according to Aaron Chats. And then they were the first team to go the entire game without punting, kicking a field goal, or turning the ball over. Nora, let's start with the bills here.

Does this change anything about how you feel by this team in these playoffs that you didn't think about last week? It shows that it reinforces a lot. right? Because Josh Allen becoming an effective runner and someone that they used in their running game late in the season was what unlocked them turning things around at the end of the year. And the fact that they were able to do that and not just impose their will with Alan being able to run effectively, obviously being grayed through the air, but how afraid the Patriots defense looked of them doing that, how skittish they were about applying any sort of pass rush, particularly, or early in the game just because it seemed like they were terrified after the second game that they played against Buffalo when it was during that period when they were starting to run him more and more and he just destroyed them on the ground. And to be able to against a defense that that kind of, you know, whimpered into the playoffs, but still is well coached and had a good season,

I think shows just how difficult it is to play against the state. team when Alan is even, he doesn't have to be this effective through the air for them to, okay, they're not going to put up 47 points in every game. But if he can be that dual threat, they are so, so, so, so difficult to defend. Okay. So this was therapy tonight for Bill's fans. Like this was the absolute, this is what you wanted if you were a Bill's fan. They had last year, but they didn't have this, which was basically a four hour party,

putting Mitch Trubisky in. Mitch Trubisky, by the way, coming in, that is the human, like these used to call a human victory cigar, that is the human down bad. Like, if you see another play, if you see British Bits coming on, you know, we're down bad. Like, there was a chicken broth segment in the fourth quarter.

Like, this was some rough, rough stuff, if you're the Patriots. But the way that Josh Allen played today, and you know what, good for Bill's fans, because they've thrown in our faces that 99% of the pundits were wrong about Josh Allen, including myself,

And I've done a bunch of reporting sense on how I would happen and talking to Josh, talking to Bean, talking to McDermott. And it's worked out really well. But the way he played tonight. So first of all, that throw to Dawson Knox in the back of the end zone. And by the way, we might have had kind of an apex mountain on Saturday for quarterbacks rolling out, almost being out of bounds and having an unbelievable throws. Like that was a theme of Saturday.

We'll get to another one a little bit later. But that throw was unbelievable. It was the longest time to throw of any pass, I think, in the last. three seasons, but it was what Josh Allen is, which is that anything can happen at any point in the play. But what has changed now is that he rarely makes mistakes in those spots. I think three years ago, if you didn't have the infrastructure, if you didn't have the work ethic, I remember talking to someone a couple weeks ago, and they were talking about Josh Allen, how they missed on them. They didn't pass on him, but they're talking about the evaluation.

They said, the one thing we didn't understand was the work ethic. We didn't understand that the work ethic to be great was unmatched. And then you add that in with the infrastructure and the natural talent and all that stuff, and you get what you have. have now. But the fact that he's able to take those chances and they pay off, he's playing as well as anybody in these playoffs. And if that's sustainable, I agree with you, Stephen, really good things can happen. Well, but some of it is, is automatically sustainable, right? Because I don't believe that Josh Allen, even though he has made incredible strides and is an incredible player, Josh Allen is not going to have a throwing performance like this in every game. Josh Allen,

however, is going to be six foot five and two hundred and nine. 35 pounds in every game that he plays. That's true, but in barring, you know, stomach bug or something. Be a tough scene. I think I can hold on to that being true throughout the playoffs. But he will always, I actually really like Stephen's idea that the fact that he was not running more early in the season was just like a health thing and was maybe a mandate from the front office. That's the only version of that that makes sense to me because it's just such a cheat code. whether it's for him to extend that play so that he can make that throw,

or if it's when he just takes it and runs it, there is no really viable answer to it. And it's just sort of staggering to see it on display again against a defense that, that, you know, maybe it was not quite all it was cracked up to be, but should have been pretty good. Just to add on to that theory, like the Bill's front office is filled with people from the Panthers organization,

including Brandon Bean. And I think they saw. I didn't see this. I didn't see a Panther segment coming, but here we are. I think they saw what being a goal line weapon did to Cam Newton, especially around like the time when quarterbacks usually break out like 28, 29. That's like usually their prime Cam Newton with the other way and he started to fall apart.

I think that has to do with it. And he did not miss a pass over 10 air yards. He went nine for nine. That's ridiculous. No quarterback is ever going to have that performance again. Well, again, now without that, Okay, so let's, I want to just, I want to get to the bills in general as a, as a team building thing and all that stuff in a second. But, but Stephen, I want to put it to you, offensively, after seeing what you did, you saw tonight?

What else do the bills need to do to make this easy for Josh Allen and keep us going against the chiefs? I think they need to involve him in the run game even more. Like, I think we could see more design runs. And that just, it limits what you can do defensively. Because all of a sudden, now you have to have an extra guy in the box. you have to account for the quarterback in the run game if he's a threat to carry the ball. And I don't, there's only so many coverage you can play when you have to have that extra guy filling a run gap in the box. And I don't know if any of them work against a receiving cord like that with that type of talent.

Like they have so many different body types and different receiver types that it's really hard to match up with as we saw today when the Patriots try to play man coverage. I don't know, man. I like coming into this game, I think we were, we were all assuming that the bill's were going to play the Chiefs next week. And I was thinking I would pick the Chiefs in that game. Now, after seeing that, and I'm not trying to overreact. This is one game. I'm not going to overreact, and they played out of their mind.

They're not going to be able to sustain it. But this Bills team, even this baseline of what the Bills can be, I think, can match the Chiefs. And now all of a sudden, I don't know who I'm picking in that game. What's, okay, go ahead, Nora. The other thing I think we're going to keep seeing is more Isaiah McKenzie, who played in that second Patriots game because Cole Beasley could have. but I think he's completely like completely carved himself a larger role here.

And I think that's going to be something that is just going to keep going through the playoffs. I totally agree. I want to pivot real quick to something on the bills. And I want to get back to the Chiefs game here in a second. But the bills now and having two years of playoff success are the model for how a team should build. And I think that sometimes we go back and forth to what that looks like. But this was to build a consistent winner. And I know, I said this on Twitter earlier, and I got some pushback on it, where I said that they basically had a rebuild over the past three years.

They took the biggest dead cap charge in history in 2018 at the time in order to flush their roster. And the fact that they didn't go two and 14 is a testament to how good their coaching staff was. Okay. Like it wasn't, they could have tanked or they could have done the Browns thing and done the Dolphins thing and had a totally lost year. They didn't really do that. They were bad, but they weren't awful. And so people don't realize. how much the rebuild was.

Like, they had to flush that roster. We needed a rebuild on the fly. And that was the year they took Josh Allen. And so, you know, Bina said to me, they're just happy that he survived that year and they didn't have a line, didn't have skill guys, didn't have a defense, all that stuff.

Well, and when they didn't want him to be playing. Right, right, exactly. But that hasn't worked. That hasn't worked for anybody. Like, with the exception of the Mahomes, the quote unquote Mahomes model, everybody's had to play. But what I think, you know,

I picked, I don't even know why this stuck with me. A couple weeks ago, I picked up a magazine. I saw an interview with Tim McGraw, and they were like, what? Yeah, you don't know where it's going. And they were like, it was the one of the Esquire. I'm so excited. Like, what have you learned things, right? And he said, in music, you can have great songs.

You can have the look. You can have the stage presence. You can have everything. And it just might not happen for you. And I was thinking about that with teams, right? Where it's like the dolphins three years ago, I would have said, okay, you know what? Rocket ship. They got the people.

They got the infrastructure. Boom, we're there. The Browns, right now. The Browns will make it to better than what they were this year, but they haven't gotten to where Buffalo is now. Buffalo is done it. Buffalo is the proof of concept. They're the Tim McGraw in the situation. Okay. And then everybody else is the guys that Tim McGraw sees in Nashville plugging away writing great songs but haven't gotten to the stadiums.

Okay. So that to me, they are the model right now in football for a team that rebuilt on the fly quickly without excuses. I love this team. And I think their model is actually something you can replicate. It's not like Patrick Holmes. Like just draft Patrick Mahomes. Right. And have Andy Reed.

And have Andy Reid. Like a prospect like Josh Allen is attainable. And there are guys like that every couple of drafts. Now they don't have the physical talent. Offensive lines are attainable. Those skill guys were attainable. It's not like they went out. Stefan Biggs was a big ticket item.

But Cole Beasley wasn't. The offensive line wasn't. I mean, like this is, they didn't go out and mortgage their future for this. Sean McDermott wasn't like Sean McVe's assistance. I don't think. Andy Reid fired him. Right.

So I think 2012 or whatever. This is a blueprint you can actually follow and take something from. It's actionable. It's not the Patriots blueprint, which I think is unreplicable. Like I don't think the Patriots themselves can do this again, to be honest, what they did with Brady, obviously. So, yeah, I would agree with you. Nora, how'd you like me landing the plane on that Tim McGraw thing? That was amazing.

That was really, really amazing. Nora, tell me how this Chief Spills game goes. assuming, by the way, that the Steelers don't win tomorrow. Oh, gosh. I don't, I really hope this isn't just strong recency bias because we just watched it. I cannot give you an answer for how you defend that right now. And I do think that the Chiefs defense in their last two games looked shakier. I mean, they, they'd made incredible strides.

And I think some of the personnel changes that they'd made to kind of solidify things midseason are legit and are solid and sustainable. I don't know how you stop this. I mean, how you beat them is you put up 50 if they're going to put up 47. But I think right now I would take the bills. Oh, man. Stephen? I'm still taking the Chiefs. They're still playing at home.

Patrick Mahomes, as good as Josh Allen is and as good as he was on Saturday night, Patrick Mahomes is still better. They've got the better quarterback. All right, let's turn this around. This was a disaster for the Patriots. Nora, would you see where do the paths go from here? Well, it was embarrassing, right? Like, I think the biggest harm from this is kind of reputational because I picked the bills

to win this game. I think there's probably, um, probably a gentleman's loss that could have been had in this for the Patriots and this is absolutely not what happened. It's going to be a lot of uncomfortable questions for the defensive coaching staff. in particular about how this happened. I do think that basically they got so scared of Allen running on them after the second game that they played. Plus they already had a pass rush that was struggling late in the year.

And they tried to be conservative about it and just try to keep the edges sound and not let him get away and scramble on them. and it just was so, so, so passive. They don't have enough speed defensively. I think offensively, the big picture of the Patriots offense this year is that I think it was better than I thought it would be. And I don't want to discount that because it's still a rookie quarterback. They still had just so much that they needed to fix in terms of, you know, who's catching

passes. after last year. But they need a true number one receiver who can separate. They need a defense that's just a little bit more athletic than what they have right now. And they probably have to, to, you know, have some uncomfortable conversations about why. The reason I don't think that, you know, the defense is the thing that I think is sort of concerning and weird is because Mac, you got lucky falling to 15 and being able to take in the draft, right? The conversation that's going to be, that's going to have to be had is that

ownership is not going to love that they went out and spent all of that money and this happened, right? Like, that's not fun. And I think one of the number one things that's going to be a product of that conversation is that defensively, there's just not, there's not enough sort of explosion and athletic ability in Samaria's. Great. Listen, from a season standpoint, this met my expectations.

Like, if you were to tell me before the season, they would make the playoffs and lose the bills in the first round, I'd go, okay, that tracks. I think I picked them to make the wild card. But the way that this game was played was embarrassing on like a psychic cosmic level to the point that it carries over for the rest of the offseason. And it's almost like, I know they're not going to view it like this, but remember how I'd written And a couple of times we talk about this, about how the bills geared their entire offseason towards beating the chiefs because it was such a terrible, the loss took a toll on them.

Like you kind of feel like bridging that gap now is what the Patriots need to do over the next six months. Like every decision should be built around that. And that's the kind of loss it was. The Mack Jones thing was great for large stretches of the season. They had something to build with. But this, man, they've got that talent gap there that they got to close. Steven, same question for you. Where did the Pats go from here?

And also, anything about this game that stood out to you from a Pat standpoint. Man, I'm a little more pessimistic after this game because I do think that closing the gap in the bills is paramount because you can't get a first round by without beating the bills in the AFC East. And it's hard to win a Super Bowl without that first round by now. And the last two games, I think we could throw the first game out now, the first of the three. The last two games, I don't even think we're really competitive. and it showed that there is a massive gap between these two teams. And I don't even know how you play catch up because the Patriots were built to play a totally different game than the bills do. Like this is a powered running football team that puts fullbacks and multiple tight ends on the field.

If you want to catch up to the bills, you have to change everything about your roster. You have to change your whole skill group. I think you might have to change your offensive line a little bit. And I don't know how you're ever going to catch up when the talent deficiency between the quarter. quarterback's is so large. And I think that's what stood out the most is, like you said earlier, there's never a point in any play where you can count Josh Allen out. He can turn it around and turn it into a big play. With Mack, if he holds the ball for like more than two seconds, you're like, what is he going to do? It's going to be bad probably. And until that changes, I don't know how you

catch up. I'm in agreement. They've just got a lot of work to do in that regard. And I just don't I don't know. Were you disappointed in the game plan? Or was there any, was this just, this was just talent? No. Like, I think we, we joked Nora this week about how if he had, if Belichick has four perfect game plans, they can, they can do it again. Obviously, four was a bit of a joke.

They weren't going to win the Super Bowl, but they could have pulled an upset. But when you look at this roster, like this just wasn't, as currently constructed, the way they came into this game this weekend, there was no scenario in which Belichick could have game planned anything. Yeah, this is, this is why, like, like before the season, I thought they were going to keep Cam just because I thought he made more sense with the personnel. I think with Mac, you need receivers. Well, let me stop right there.

Norrie. You hear that? That's two Cam Newton references. He's on a roll. It's unbelievable. No, runners five, so I still have work to do. Yeah, I thought it would be better to have like a quarterback who can get involved in the run game if you're going to be this run heavy team where you're still running when you're still running when you're still running when you're still running when you're still running. I think with Mac you need receivers who can get open and win one-on-one.

you need like a Bengals type team almost and they don't have anything close to that. So I, yeah, I think this shows that they have a lot of work to do. And defensively, I don't know what you do. It would be like me playing Shaq, like 2000 Shaq one-on-one. Right. And getting dominated, it would be like, oh, I shouldn't have taken so many threes. Like, no, it didn't matter what I did. I was going to get dunked on.

Right. Josh Allen was 2000 Shaq in this game. I think your point about the offensive line is really interesting because that's still a team's strength. but they have invested, you know, they've invested so much in those guards who are really, really, really good run blockers. And it kind of defines what they want to be theoretically. But they started this season.

You know, they really wanted to be this like heavy two tight end team. And it just didn't work. So they kind of had to remake it on the fly. And I think it's a credit to them that they're flexible in that way. But it shouldn't get. loss that, you know, they went out and spent all that money and made all those acquisitions. Not all of those guys were being used in sort of high efficiency spots. Not all of those moves panned out.

And it is leading them, I think, to this sort of come to Jesus moment about, okay, can we keep zigging when everybody else is zagging? Because that's how they make those value plays a lot of the time. but it is constantly putting them in this paradox of like, can we truly just try to be this ground and pound team? One, when Mack Jones is our quarterback now. And two, just when, you know, the NFL is the way it is. Sometimes they get a great matchup and they're able to attack an opponent's weakness

because the opponent can be, you know, ironically, sometimes like the bills who are built to defend the chiefs, so then they're not built to defend the Patriots in certain circumstances. but I do think that, I don't know, I've softened a little bit on how viable of a strategy. I think that is because it just feels like year after year we're at the end of a Patriot season going like, sorry, but until you have some receivers who can separate, like, we're kind of done with this conversation. And the problem with zinging while the rest of the league is zagging. The reason why the league is zagging is because passing is more efficient. It's better to zag. Like this is like evolution.

Zicking sucks. This is Ruinian evolution. And when you're, you're zinging, you have no margin for error. You can't give up two touchdowns in the first quarter or the game's over like it was tonight. Hmm. Wow. When did you guys count out the Patriots? I thought there was a chance they could make it a game until the interception

to start the third quarter. Then I was like, when it was 14-0, I think one of the moments, I think when Stefan Diggs beat J.C. Jackson down the sideline, it was like, oh, that's the Patriots best player on their whole roster. And he just got beat by like the Bill's second. and best player. And I think that's when you realize, oh, these are two different teams. It was like it was weird that they've played three times because it felt like a college game where it was like two teams from out of conference. And it was like, oh, wow, these guys are

totally different playing. And Belichick got embarrassed. Ruiz, are you ready to put the entire Belichick family on fraud watch? Oh yeah. Steve never got off fraud watch for me. You got to earn your way. You start on you start on fraud watch. You have to earn your way off of it. about you, he's on the washed watch to watch long list for 2022. We're just, we're just keeping an eye on it. So let's get to Bengals 26, Raiders 19. Wow. So first of all, Joe Burrow first playoff win for the Bengals in 31 years.

Joe Burrough's quote was, it was cool. Thank you, Joe. No, but then he said, we expect to be everybody who play, not just hang with them. It's exciting, but this isn't like icing on the cake or anything. This is the cake. So we're moving on. Nice way to put it. Good job, Joe.

So, man, there are so many things you can kind of isolate from this. First of all, we talked about using a lot of the shot clock, so to speak, when you're behind the line of scrimmage. Joe Burrow, we talked about Josh Allen having the longest throw in the last three seasons. Joe Burrow is responsible for four of the 11 longest dropbacks this season, including today, where he had a pass up to Boyd, took seven seconds. Okay. So he's another guy who can create with his legs. He can move.

And I think people, I don't want to say people forget that, but it's an underrated part of his game. And we saw that today. There are so many things I want to talk about with this game, but I'll throw it to you, Steven. You think what about this game? I'm still worried about Zach Taylor after this game. Like on paper, if you were told that the Raiders were going to commit a bunch of penalties,

their offensive line was going to get called for holding every time they had an explosive play, the weirdness with the erroneous whistle. They were beating themselves all first half. And the game would still came down to the final drive. And I think it came down to the final drive because Zach Taylor, he's gotten better at giving Joe Burrow the keys to the offense on early downs. But I thought that was the only thing keeping the Raiders in the game, where the run plays and the reverses.

And I thought it was bad football at the end, especially when it was time to run out the clock. That last drive was really weird, running it twice, when they haven't been able to stop you at all. I think he was coaching scared, and I still have a problem with this team. I don't think it's going to hurt them next week when they play the Titans,

but against the Chiefs or the Bills, you need to play a perfect game, and I don't think Zach Taylor is capable of calling a perfect game. There's no, I think, about coaching scared. He was coaching scared, especially on that last possession. I mean, you have Joe Burrow, who's unflappable, who can make these throws. He's made them before,

and they ran the ball twice, and then threw a pretty short pass on third down. That was ridiculous. We'll get to the Raiders. game playing decisions a little bit later and they were horrible. Nora, big big picture like away from this game. Yeah, I feel to an extent the same way. I mean, they've ran 21 times on early downs for negative 0.23 EPA per play, which is not good. So clearly there's, they're costing themselves some yards in those situations. And there was just stuff like, you know,

you would see it, I think in particular in the red zone where they really struggled because the Raiders just play so much, so much cover three, so much zone. And Burroughs good at picking that apart. You know, we saw a couple of those explosive plays. But for the most part, I thought this was just sort of very good professional quarterbacking from Joe Burrow against a defense where a lot of what was going to be available. It was like short underneath.

But when the field would condense, I think you did see a little bit more. And I give the Raiders credit. They have been a very good tackling defense all season. And I thought they continued that, particularly in the red zone in this game. You would just see stuff like, you know, they would run that that like toss play on third and one that they ran a bunch of times. And it's just going to, it just gets stopped, you know? And it's not, it's predictable. And it just seems like a silly thing to do as much as they do when they have the other guys that they have.

I do think that we should. I want to say that with a grain of salt because. if we're comparing the two teams here, one made more dumb errors than the other by a pretty significant measure here, I felt. I think for the most part, we should give the Bengals credit for winning a playoff game and doing it in the manner of a solid professional organization,

particularly because the conversation that we had about this game leading up to it over and over and over again, for a good reason, was can the Bengals handle the Raiders pass rush. And they absolutely did it. Like Joe Brough took two sacks, but for the most part, he was just fine back there. And that's a win, right?

Like there's nothing that we're talking about right now where we can nitpick some of the play calling and I think we should. But there's nothing where we're talking about like, holy crap, why did you spike it on first down? Like what were you doing? Why did you block Hendrickson with a tight end, right? Like congratulations to the Bengals for winning. in solid professional fashion. Sure.

And there's something to be said for that. But I think that's two different conversations. I feel like if the Bengals had won a playoff game two years ago, we wouldn't be saying congratulations for winning a playoff game. We'd be like, why did, why was that game so close? Because it didn't feel like it should have been close. And the Raiders. Well, the Raiders outgain them.

They higher yards for play. I think that goes back to what Ruiz is talking about, which is it's a failure of like Zach Taylor and a couple other things. So coming into this game, Joe Borough was the best player in the NFL. against single high safety. And I think that there was probably an expectation that he was going to do really well against Gus Bradley, and he did do really well.

But as he talked about, there was the Raiders tackled, and they put the clamps down in the red zone. And they were 2.05 in the red zone. They set up for field goals, and they should have had touchdowns. And I think that they left a comfortable win on the table. Stephen?

Yeah, and this was a win against a team that had the fourth worst point differential in the AFC. This isn't like an actual world beating playoff team. This is like a bad playoff team. And it was too close and it was a home game. So congratulations all the win and I'm really happy for that fan base. They finally see a playoff win. But going forward, I don't know if this is a game that I'm going to be optimistic about the Bengals. I want to reiterate, Burrow is enough to overcome all of this. Burrow and Chase are- He has all season. Yeah, and he has and he will. And so this is not a negative on anything. This was a very good accomplishment for the Bengals just just

sort of as a franchise. But Burrow is whatever worries we have, Burroughs is good enough to overcome those. All right. Anything else on the Bengals? What do we expect from them? So they're going to play the Titans next week? Yes. When we're talking about the Bengals and the Titans, we're going where, Nora? I'm going directly to you, Kevin Clark. Where does this? Come on, Bengals, Titans? This must be putting your mind in just like a vice. This is for me. This is for me. So I'm picking the Titans, only because a month ago I told Solac that they were going to win a playoff game. They'll face the bills of the Steelers win. Thank you, producer, I, Arjuna.

We needed the stewardess contingency there. I'm picking the Titans because almost in the same way that I'm picking, I pick Burrow to win this game. And I pick Burrow all year. And I love the Bengals. I just feel like there's an energy with the Titans that's going to produce a playoff win. There's a culture. They play hard. They're going to be at home.

Extra week of rest. Can't be overstated. I'm going to Titans. We have more like X's and O's, like game breakdowns this week. But I cannot come off my take that the Titans are going to playoff game because of their vibe. I was about to say, did you just pick them off vibes alone? Yeah, but I've been picking. Dude, I picked the Bengals to win 11 games in August because I hung out with Joe Burrow for 10 minutes and was like,

this guy seems pretty good. and if a listener okay but did you not see him wear pink cardi A glasses in his postgame and say it was cool but like the one-on-one time was like less than 15 minutes and I was like this guy's got it oh

I'm nice I'm picking the Bengals to win I think the problem is the same going in like from last week you worry about how they can block the defensive line for the other team and I don't know if it's going to matter because you have Jemar Chase and I don't know who on the Titans can guard him I don't know who the NFL can guard him, but there certainly isn't anybody on the Titans that can.

And as long as they have Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase, I think they're going to be fine. I want to quickly get to the Red Zone stuff. What is going wrong with the Bengals and the Red Zones, dude? I don't know. I just don't think that's like Zach Taylor's thing. Like when you watch them, they're calling plays that don't make sense for the coverages they're getting. Like, I went back and watched that Raiders Bengals game the first time, and the score kind of

flattered the Bengals performance. And we talk about Gus Bradley, how we know he's going to play cover three. But like the Bengals weren't even calling cover three beaters. It was a really weird game to watch. And it's so weird that they don't do RPO's because that was such a big thing for Burrow at LSU is a big thing for Jemar Chase and all those guys at LSU. So that's another weird thing. I think that hurts them in the red zone. I can't explain it.

I don't know. They have all the players. It's just, I mean, they were in the bottom half of red zone efficiency this year with Joe Burrow and Jemar Chase. That shouldn't be happening. Right. And T. Higgins. And C.J. Uzama's a good player in the Red Zone.

Like they have all the pieces to be a great red zone team. You have to chalk it up to play calling. Also, I mean, like the Red Zone is where games are won and lost. That's it. Like when we had Dominic Foxwood on this spot a couple weeks ago, he said there's no such thing as good defense anymore. Can't happen.

Right? The only thing that you can aim for, I mean, you know, I'm talking about old school kind of 1996 defense. The only thing you can aim for is to be Red Zone specialists and turn touchdowns into field goals. And Zach Taylor does that to his own team. You know, listen, it's not a epidemic. This isn't a huge problem.

I mean, it is a huge problem, but it's not like he's going to hold them back. I'm just saying being bottom half in the league with Joe Burrow and the ingredients we talked about, that's got to get better. Yeah, I think it's easy to criticize Gus Bradley for this game plan because they did just play a bunch of cover three, which was expected. But I think the game plan was to get them into the red zone and then put the clamps on then. And that worked. They kicked a lot of field goals. I'm going to stop you right there.

You can't criticize Gus Bradley for this game plan because he's got one game plan. And he's going to roll it out there, buddy. He's going to roll it out there. Nora, he left us for a minute. Yeah, I'm sorry. I left it a huff because you weren't appreciating Joe Burroughs vibes enough. Is you an echo out? Yeah.

Shout out spectrum. Wonderful. I live in a large metropolitan city or anything. I'm getting a lot of text alert saying my. power of my internet's been going out in there middally. Can't wait to get back. Cool, cool, cool. Um, okay.

So I want to talk about their Raiders here and then I want to just get really angry about the referees in this game. Um, the Raiders showed you what tonight, Nora? That, you know, I didn't, I don't want to like crush them here. I just think that they cost themselves. I don't know, I think they had a real genuine chance to win this game and didn't seem prepared enough in a couple really, really key situations. I mean, you know, they spike it on first and goal from the nine.

And they really could have used that play, right? Like that could have turned into the play that. Oh, they could have used 25% more plays. Yes. I think they could have used 25% more plays. I think that would have been good. Um, I don't think like the problems here are not big picture of fundamental game planning errors.

I think they played a pretty good game. I think, you know, Carr particularly early looked pretty sharp to me. I just think that there was some game management stuff that really stunk. And, you know, they blocked Trey Hendrickson with a tight end. And that's what led to the strip sack that turned into Bengals points. And this is a really close game, right? Like if that doesn't happen, maybe we're having a different conversation right now. Um, so it stinks to have these types of conversations where it's just sort of like if you'd executed and on these little margins here and there, um, it could have been a different game.

But I do think that they seemed like they had an inexperienced coaching staff, which in some ways they have, right? Like, and Rich Passaccia seems like a great dude and they've overcome a lot of expectations this season, even just to make the playoffs. so you want to compliment that, but there were a couple times when it just seemed like, okay, you should know what play you're running in this situation.

It doesn't seem like you have it. So, first of all, we talked about the Bengals offensive line. Isaiah Prince was in there for Riley Reef. He was the only person, I think, who allowed, who struggled in past protection, it allowed five pressures according to PFF.

But what I'll say, the Bengals did a lot to make the Raiders life hard. Trey Hendrickson was a monster in this game. And we need to start talking about Troy Hendrcson being one of the best freightens signings for the last few years. I hated the signing at the time. I really hated it, even though Hendricksons from Orlando.

I thought Lawson was just as good a value. And they basically swapped him out. Lawson went to New York. We have no idea. There's no proof of concept for Lawson because he tore his Achilles in July or August. So we can just put a pin in that and see what it looks like next year.

But I love Troy Hendrickson right now. He is an absolute difference maker on the field tonight 43% quarterback pressure rate when he was on. I don't think they had a pressure. Yeah, zero percent team pressure when he wasn't on the field. He is such a difference maker. And that was the kind of thing that really mattered. The Raiders made some unforced errors.

The Peyton Barber thing was ridiculous. The game plan stuff at the end was ridiculous. But the Bengals were a good enough team to force the Raiders to make some of these mistakes. The unforced areas were stupid. Steven unpack those. I come back to Derek Carr. I know he played well, but at the end when they were down and they were down two scores in the fourth quarter, he's still throwing the ball away. And like when you have five minutes left and you're down two scores, you don't have the luxury of getting to throw the ball away.

You don't have the luxury of wasting downs. You have to throw into tight coverage in those situations and get more aggressive. And this has been a theme throughout his career. I think he's Kirk Cousins of the West Coast. Like we, you can point to his stats and his production. But like when you watch him play, you just get. you just are like something's off. The vibes are off.

Like he's not that quarterback that you think he can be based on his numbers. And I think this was another game. And I would not be surprised if that was his last game as a Raider. If I'm a Raiders fan, I'm hoping it's his last game because I don't want to do this anymore. Who had a honk outside their apartment just now? Was they you, Stephen?

Yeah. They were, uh, was that, they were endorsing my take. Was that the Washington football team trying to pick up Derek Carr from the airport? That was actually John Gruden, honking. cheering beyond. Jay, you're in Washington. It'd be Jay. Uh, yeah, Jay, sorry. He knows. He knows a deal. Um, yeah. So I, I, I am actually not going nearly as far as you are. I know that's not much of a surprise, but I think if they run it back with the car, that's, that's going to be totally fine. Nor are you okay with the car era? Yeah, I'm, I'm okay with

continuing the car. When do you say totally fine, what does totally fine mean? What is there still? I just, I think that, I think that you better have a real upgrade in mind. Why, though? why because otherwise you have a worse quarterback but they're not going to they were a bad team this year i think it's easy to look at the playoffs they also had they had a worse point differential than the broncos they made the playoffs over the chargers who podcasters can't stop falling all over themselves for all right that's too far that's too far remember that end of conversation remember how we spent the entire year talking about a Justin Herber throws perfect passes. And then his, his coach wasn't smart enough to tie a game.

Steven's like, actually, that was my ride outside. I got to go. Yeah, I'm about to leave. How dare you. All right. Let's get mad at the referees here. Stephen, you had a no more old referees take. You want to unveil that here?

Yeah, I have that take all the time. I dropped it on the pot a couple weeks ago. Like, why do we still have these old men being rest? Why are they trying to keep up with 22-year-old? age like there is for a European soccer. I didn't know there was a retirement age for European soccer, but what a great idea. And it needs to be like 40.

I feel like there should be a combine for refs. Ref combine every year, earn your job. If you don't pass the bare minimum, like if you don't run a 5, 540, you're out. You're done. No one's coming with me on that?

It looks like most referees, it says retire around 65, but I don't see an actual thing here. Most retire around 65. Why do we have 62-year-old refs out there running on the field? Is that even safe? So if once you get to be 45, FIFA reserves the right to require referees

to undergo additional technical assessments as well as specific medical examinations and fitness testing on a case-by-case basis. FIFA doesn't get a lot right, but they get the refs right. I'll give them that. Ref Combine. I'm in on this. It's like an eye test and then you have to do like make him do whack a mole like for sort of reflexes and stuff.

You have to go through a whole play without blowing a whistle for no reason at all. That's one of the test. The one guy failed it today. By the way, it doesn't like there's a retirement age. I may have gotten the wrong. It's just that you have to actually undergo the stuff once you get to be 45. All right. Nora, this mess with the whistle.

What the hell was that? So by the letter of the rulebook, it was a massive screw up. And the play shouldn't have counted. And it's embarrassing that everybody's lying about it. And this is all just a little bit absurd and farcical. I have to say, I know that I have a little bit of a contrarian take about this. Steven, beyond your no old refs opinion, I've also heard you say just no refs. We just shouldn't have refs.

What happened on this play was what happens if you, if you don't have refs. And I'm not saying that necessarily in a bad way. It was the whistle never should have been blown. But the fact that they then pretended that the whistle wasn't blown means that it kind of like two wrongs don't make a right because there was a screw up. And they should have acknowledged that there was a screw up. I really don't think this had any tangible impact on what happened. No. I always have a problem with teams that like beg for calls that didn't really affect the play. Like there was a play a couple days or a couple weeks ago where they, I think it was the Panthers.

They threw it behind the line. They got tackled like five yards behind the line. And Matt Ruhl is like on the sideline begging for a face mask. You just called a horrible play and you got tackled for five yards. Like the face mass had nothing to do with it. I think that's what happened here. I don't think it had a impact on the play at all. Did any of you guys? Because I did not, I could not see any evidence that defenders were like pulling up because

they heard the whistle. It seemed like it blew pretty close to when, you know, like a split second before the ball was caught. They were kind of casual back there. That could have just been the Raiders defense. Yeah. Just like it just seemed like there was enough time to flip that switch and pull up. I don't know.

Anything else about this game, guys? I want to amend something that I said earlier. In general, it did not have a problem with the Raiders game planning. I do have to say the flip side of my giving the Bengals credit. for we said the crux of this game was going to be whether or not the Raiders pass rush could get after Joe Burrow. And I think it is a, you know, both both a compliment to the personnel and the execution, but also to how they attacked the game planning for this game, that that did not come to pass. I do think that it's an indictment of how the Raiders went about this, that their best matchup

advantage was just to pressure Burrow and they couldn't figure out a way to do it. I only meant something I said there is a retirement age for European referees and most leagues It's 45 or 47 It's 45 or 47 The primary league I think got rid of it

But in most European league It's 45 or 47 Wow This is what a Sunday guys I got something to say about the game Over whether or not the whistle Was blown while the ball was still in the air And now about the retirement age of European soccer russ

The NFL being like well, this is, this is, it was fine. It was after the play. Like, they're just lying. They're lying hoping it will go away and it, and it will. But it will. What are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it?

We can't just keep saying to the NFL. They're right. They're right. They're right. But there's no age number for lying. Haven't you ever met like a 90 year old just full of shit? Right. And the funny thing about the lie is they're saying it was a bad whistle, but they're

also saying the whistle happened after the catch. And if it happened after the catch, then it's not a bad whistle. It can only be. what are the other. But also, what was the whistle for if it was after the catch? That we can hear it. It's on tape. They broadcast these things.

Also, after the catch, what was the whistle for? Was it a touchdown whistle from the back judge? They said they didn't know, they didn't know which ref blew the whistle, which is a complete lie. There was a guy with a whistle. They know. There was a whistle in the guy's mouth and he looked like he was blowing. This isn't exactly there's a pruder film here.

I got another take from this game. and it might be a little hot. I'm over a hunter Renfro in the slot receivers. Just in general. The route where he does like 15 different breaks, like grow up. Get open like an adult.

Grow up. Get open like an adult. That's all I'm going to say. In the open field, so not, this is specific to an area of the field or you just don't want him doing that many moves? Uh,

because like, Devante Adams puts guys in the torture chamber there at the goal line. Yeah, but he does it all over the field. I'm just over the fact that Hunter Renfro is like a very good slot receiver because like the rules are slain it against cornerbacks where they can't just mug him down the field. And I think if they could press him, you know, there's all sorts of shitty receipt. Like the Patriots, for instance, have, you know, there's all sorts of rules that would favor those guys being good too, but they just can't get open. Well, I do think Jacoby Myers gets open.

If a certain quarterback knew how to throw the ball outside of the numbers, maybe he would get some more catches. Hey, last thing. Any hope for the Raiders next year, Nora? Well, it's hard to say because there's so much, like, the quarterback. We don't know their coach or anything. We don't know the coach. We don't know the quarterback. Like, I guess that answers the question, right?

Like, hope springs eternal. There's a lot of decisions to be made. If they make them right, then yeah, like, let's go. If they got hardball, they'd make the playoffs next year. I think they would win at least nine games. They'd have a winning record. That's a tough division. Who would win more games with the Raiders next?

your Mark Davis as head coach or Urban Meyer is such a coach. Mark. But hey. The guy who honked outside. Some, it was a deuce Gruden? Remember that guy? Hey, um, why do you say it's a tough division? Because the chiefs are there and then whoever the Broncos hire.

And they have, and the greatest quarterback to ever play plays in the division. True lock. Sure. I'm just going to become viciously anti-chargers just to make you as angry as possible. I don't get angry at anti-chargers. If you're anti-Herbert, I'll get angry, but you'll also, you'll just look like the idiot. That's baked in. Noran, I'll be back tomorrow to break down Sunday's games.

Ben Solac will be here. I will also antagonize him about the Chargers. We will record that live on Green Room after the Stewards Chiefs game. Thank you to Nora and Stephen. Thank you to Carlos Chiraboga for production on this episode with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ramkeball. It's been the Renron-Ren-Refel show on the Ringer Podcast Network.