The Ringer NFL Show - Thanksgiving Food–Team Pairings, Week 12 Games of the Week

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

Benjamin, Kaelen, and Steven begin their Week 12 Wednesday-Friday by welcoming in Nora Princiotti. Then they dissect the biggest matchups of the week, including Bucs-Colts and Rams-Packers, and highlight the Games That Need Games with emphasis on 49ers-Vikings. Finally, they wrap everything up with Gimme a Reason, in which they deliver their takes on the rest of the Week 12 slate. Hosts: Benjamin Solak, Kaelen Jones, Steven Ruiz Guest: Nora Princiotti Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. This is Warren Sharp, NFL analyst over at Sharp Football Analysis. I want to welcome you to the ringer gambling show. Join me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays each week during the NFL season with guests Chris Vernon, Ben Solac, and Joe House to guide you through the NFL betting landscape. We'll be talking spreads, game totals, parlays, player props, futures, and much, much more. Be sure to follow the ringer gambling show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome. It is the Friday edition of the Ringer NFL show Brought to you by Wednesday, which is a day that is decisively not Friday,

but it's the usual squad, plus some extras. We are doing as we always. A nice preview of the upcoming weekend of games, but in that we have three Thursday games instead of just the one. We've called in some reinforcements and we've shuffled around our schedule.

I'm Ben Soak, joined as always, by Stephen Ruiz and Caitlin Jones, but far more importantly, on this show, purveyor of pasta takes herself, queen of cheese at rankings, food connoisseur of the Ringer NFL show. That is Nora Prentiani. Nora, welcome to the Wednesday Friday preview show.

Ben, happy Wednesday Friday to you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for all for having me. This is so delightful. Thanks for slumming it with us. Can I admit something to you guys? No.

We're going to move straight past that. I'll give it to myself. Listeners have no idea. Let's hear it. No one knows where the bodies are buried. So I am one of my most deeply held opinions is that Bucatini is the superior noodle of all

noodles. I have to be honest. I had some rigatoni last night that it was making me question everything. Rigotony is a great noodle. Adjust your rankings. I don't know if I'm ready to go that far, but it had me

thinking about it. Rigotony is the Justin Herbert of noodles. Okay, now I get it. Now that you put it in Justin Herbert terms, I'm on Speak to your audience in terms that they can understand. Right, right. The, like, the plot, the line plot of how much I cared about which pasta I was eating in my life just stayed flat for like 24 years. And then I met Nora.

Nora was like, pasta's matter. And I was like, they're different. And Mara was like, yes, they are. This is an important thing for you to understand. I never knew. This is the thing I had to care about. But apparently it is. Good pasta.

Chew. Chew and sauceability. Listen. I still eat like a college kid. I'm like, all right, so long as it fuels me, I really just don't care. College goods eat pasta. And listen, I ate whatever pasta was cheapest to Target that week, man. That was just, oh, we had 99 cents for this one.

Let's do it, baby. Let's do it. Yeah. It's always spaghetti, though. Like, it's always spaghetti. Listen, if my wife were here right now, she would tell you the story when she came to visit me once, and I had in my fridge rice and ranch dressing.

And that was the entire fridge. But that's a different story for a different time. I am excited to bring on Nora preview, specifically our Thursday show us because Nora is such a good food take haver here on the ringer NFL show. Our plan for the Thursday games is this. We've asked Nora to prepare the dishes for us as such. We're going to preview each game,

but Nora is not going to introduce the teams. She's going to comp the teams to particular Thanksgiving Day dishes and then explain the matchup. And our job as the NFL show, you know, through, as the poor group, is to, A, figure out which teams she's talking about based off her dishes. B, comment on how well we think the dish to team comparisons work. And then C, also, like, if the game is interesting, talk about the game.

But for Bears Lions, we probably aren't going to do that because that game is very sad. Nora, three games on the docket. It's Bears Lions early. It's Cowboys Raiders in the middle. And then it's Bill's Saints at the end. Don't tell me which one you're starting with. But dealer's choice, let's hear your first Thanksgiving Day game. All right.

Our first matchup is mashed potatoes versus stuffing. Okay? So let's start with team mashed potatoes. It all starts with a simple potato in the middle. The lowly potato, not an exciting ingredient. But that's when the magic happens. It gets dressed up by a solid roster, by scheme, to the point where you're going, mashed potatoes,

could they really be something? I'm really liking these mashed potatoes. Look, in the hands of the right chef, I know it's a little bit controversial, but a mashed potato can really go. Now, there is the possibility. You never know if somebody might take a left turn and try to incorporate the other potato,

the sweet potato into the situation here, and then all hell breaks loose. But the mashed potato fundamentally as a team, it has a simple basic ingredient in its center, but can be brought to life in impressive fashion. Now, on the other hand, we've got stuffing. We've got team stuffing. Stuffing can be turned into a complete meal. I am a big fan of stuffing. I think stuffing can be elite.

But you really have to work at it, right? Because stuffing can also be one dimensional. Now, if you've got you've got a nice crunchy veggie in there, maybe you've got like some sausage, something really juicy and great, and it's firing on all cylinders, all of a sudden, stuffing is exciting. You want a lot of stuffing on your plate. You're thinking stuffing, like, stuffing can go all the way. That said, if you start chipping away at some of those other elements doesn't have as many ways to beat you. Okay. Then all of a sudden, the ability of stuffing to make mistakes, it starts to cost you. If you get a burnt stuffing, yikes. Yikes. Big yikes. Big yikes. Things have gotten out of hand. And then you're going, all right, now I'm just dealing with some, like, kind of burnt cornbread situation.

And I don't have any, there's no protein in this. I'm not getting like that nice, salty, fatty, juiciness that I was really hoping with that was going to be sort of dripping all over the stuffing and we were all super happy. Can go either way. Mashed potatoes versus stuffing, our first matchup. What do you guys think? I just want to start out by saying, can we do this every week for me? That was incredible. I thought this was going to be like a fun gag.

She started talking about mashed potatoes. I started to get emotional, man. I was like, geez, I've never felt this way about potatoes before. We'd have to replace me with Nora on the pod because I could not pull that off every week. Every week. Ben or Kalen are capable of doing that, but I can't explain NFL teams and food terms.

And I feel like I know what the matchup is. Do you guys want to take a guess first? Yeah, Kayla, what do you think? I mean, it's Patriots Titans. I mean, you talk about one-dimensional stuff. It's Thursday. Thursday. It's Thursday.

It's Thursday. Oh, Thursday games. Thursday games. The degree of difficulty you just applied to yourself is so extreme. Wait, Kaylin thought, Kaylin, did you think she had? I'm sorry, I kind of tuned it out.

Like at some point I got lost. I was like, where is this going? Did Kaylin think Nora had had meals prep for every game this week? Every single game. Oh, that's incredible. Oh, no, I also had, what's it called the, are three, what's it called,

individual games instead of what was the Thanksgiving games. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's the Thanksgiving Day games. Kalens, I'm out here like, Caitlin's already thinking about leftovers on Sunday. That was his plan. Oh, yeah.

He was going to eat bad thing. I'm thinking it's Bill's Saints. I've got Bill's stuffing and then Saints and mashed potatoes. Was that your guess, Stephen? Correct. Yeah, that was my guess. It all starts with the simple potato

that is Trevor Simian. Yes. That's what kind of threw me off is I didn't know who the, potato was referring to. I was like, is the potato Taysom Hill? Is it Shaq? But then it made sense. Yeah, I realized once you brought the sweet potato into the mix, I realized who the sweet potato was. I was guessing Tays and Hill was like those imitation

mashed potatoes, right? Like the ones that you get like out of a bag. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, that was my guess. Bills' is something is extremely funny to me because I think right, the one dimensionality of the Bills is kind of the scariest thing in this game, right? Seth Gleana for PFF wrote about how the bills are seeing as much too high as any team in the league, more straight cover two than any team in the league, and then way more zone than they saw it last year. You know who just like plays a too high zone defense all the time? The Saints. Yeah. And that's why like the bills getting blown out by the Colts and then getting

beat by the Trevor Simeon Saints on a short week is going to, that's going to be like full panic mode if that happened. That's like sirens running, especially if the Patriots. continue playing the way they will. Like, I still think the bills are a good team, but this sequence of Colts and then Saints, and then they get the Patriots two times in three weeks, that's very, very scary for Buffalo right now. What are you trying to say?

Are you trying to cancel the bills? No. We don't, seven, that's not told later. Come on, stick with the segments now. Let's go out. It just sounds cancel adjacent is all I'm going to say. Yeah. Nora, are you worried about Saints or bills or no?

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that I agree with you that the bills are a good team, but it is so, look, they've done a good job putting so many resources into that passing game. But they do feel like they're at the tipping point, right, where to continue this metaphor, this increasingly unruly metaphor, you never go into the meal feeling like if the stuffing doesn't have enough, like, yummy components to it, then Thanksgiving is ruined. and you don't go into an NFL season feeling like, well, if we don't really have a running game, like, hey, no big deal, it's fine. Like our defense should be something.

We've got all of these other elements. But then you start to hit some adversity. Maybe the defense isn't quite as good as you thought it might be. All of a sudden, it's tough to not have more ways to win. I think that's a little scary for them right now. I still think that they are a good team. They're not even cancel adjacent for me. But.

Trouble some time. On this show, Stephen tries to make everything at least cancel a Jason. He's very cancel hungry. I wasn't going to cancel the bills. I just thought Ben was going to cancel them. You wanted to get Ben to cancel the bills. Yeah. I think the bills are going to be fine.

But I do agree with the, I like the comp. And I think they're problems now. And it's kind of weird to be saying like the bills have problems when they're six and four. If you told the bills like three years ago, they'd be six and four. They'd be very happy about it. But I think they have the same problem the Chiefs did. They can't get defenses out of that cover two shell. They don't have a plan B.

And I don't know. I think it's exposing Josh Allen's flaws in a little, in a way. Like, he does have flaws. I think he's a top 10 quarterback. I don't think he's ever going to go back to 2019 Josh Allen. But we're seeing the things he does have to work on going forward. Kaelan, you did a lot of work on like what the Chief's offense needed to do in terms of what they were facing.

And I think Stevens comparison is like solid, right? Like the chiefs and the bills are facing similar problems. The chiefs feel like they're at least like turning a corner. If they're probably not all the way there yet, they just scored 19 points against the Cowboys. Like that still feels like less than they should be, but they're kind of rounding it. Do the Chief's solutions work for the bills?

Like short term, bills got to figure out something to do with all this. They have the same issue with the cheats, like tough to run the football. Like that's not really the way they built the team. Do they have a short term fix that we could see this week, next week within the next couple weeks or is this going to be a problem that follows them the rest of the season? I don't know schematically there's a quick fix. Like you said, I think the fact that they're unable to run the ball effectively whatsoever. I think that's what is the starkest contrast between the two teams. I know that the chiefs aren't particularly

great at it, but they're better at it than the bills. It really does come down to like Josh Allen, like his ability to be consistent. And the consistency, you know, of his play just hasn't, It hasn't been high throughout the first half of the season plus. So until he plays at a higher level, I mean, that's the biggest difference between him and Mahomes. You have the consistency out of Mahomes, even on out of structure plays and critical situations, Alan isn't there. Yeah, I think right. I got more trust in Mahomes to turn corners than Allen, just in general terms of, like,

guys who have earned it for me, right? Like, I'd love to see it happen for Allen, but Allen already was surprising me with how well he was playing. So now that it's like a little bit of a struggle, it's like, why I don't, I'm not sure I have the faith yet that he's going to get around there. So big game for them against the Saints. Saints defense got beat up by the Eagles, but I think it's still a really good unit. Nora, the first metaphor for food was tremendous. Far exceeded expectation. So now you've got a high bar to clear game number two.

Feed us. What do we got? All right. Well, we actually have have one dish that is on the table and one entity that is going to be at the table because this matchup, this matchup is Brussels sprouts versus your family. We start with the Brussels sprouts. They're always there on Thanksgiving, but they just sort of sit there and they don't do much. And you like the person who brought them

and you want them to be happy. See, you just live with it. You just, you know, you picket them. You hope that there's some bacon bits in the Brussels sprouts and you can actually just focus on those. Maybe they help your fantasy team a little bit. A little maple glaze. Just get what you can out of it.

Because otherwise, you are dealing with a lowly Brussels sprout and you're just going to pick out the best parts and get on with the meal. Their record on Thanksgiving is actually a little bit better. Makes it a little bit better day for them than most. So you want everybody to be happy. And for the sake of that, you accept the Brussels sprouts being part of your Thanksgiving day. They are matched up against none other than your family. I'm sorry.

You'll love them. They're an institution. They're not going anywhere. And gosh, darn it, your little cousin just seems like a winner. And you're so happy to have him around. But they cannot, for the life of them, get their act together. Your uncle might be getting fired. You don't know if he's going to show up.

Someone's got a rib injury. Is the uncle the drunk uncle, the father of this nephew that we're all very excited about? No comment. Okay. Not a comment in the world. And you don't know who's going to be there. You don't know what it's going to look like. But they're your family and they're going to be part of the meal.

So you just nod, sigh, hope for the best and look for the wine. That's incredible. You just ignore your family. You could just ignore this game because I think I know what game you're talking about. I think it's pretty obvious. Let me pause it. Let me pause it, Stephen. You can ignore your family a lot of the time.

It is harder to ignore your family on Thanksgiving. Yeah. That's a good point. More difficult to escape. Fewer avenues to go away. There's not another family on another channel. I'm making Kaelin guess now that he knows it's Thanksgiving games. Caleb, which teams are these? Oh, my God.

Fuck off. It's the Bears and Lions. Yes. Who the hell has Brussels sprouts on their table at Thanksgiving? Like, is that normal thing? I don't have Brussels sprouts. I didn't know Brussels sprouts was a Thanksgiving meal. I want to say like

I've come to like Brussels sprouts as an adult, and I think they got a bad rap as when I was a kid. Like when I was a kid, that was the bad vegetable, right? That was like, oh, I got to eat brussels. And I felt a little bad that I was going to slander Brussels sprouts here. But I do think that spiritually, the lions are a Brussels spruce. I was going to say it. So is this Dan Campbell?

because we all love Dan Campbell and how badly he wants to win. But he's got Jared Gossil Brousel Sprax wants to be a part of the team. It wants to be a contributor. But it's like, man. DeAndre Swift is the bacon. Yeah. This is good for me because I have been like, I've weirdly enjoyed the Lions this year. Like it's been fun for me to like watch this team trying to figure it out.

And I like Brussels Brouselts. I'm one of those sickos. Who's always like. You don't have to lie. You don't have to lie. You did not have fun watching. What was it? The Steelers game.

where they tied, and then even last week against the Browns. You don't have to lie. You also didn't tell us, you didn't need to tell us that you were a Brussels sprout guy. Like, we knew, Ben. Oh, okay. Relax with that. There's no need for that. Yes, I agree that DeAndre Swift is the bacon.

I think that just Dan Campbell's general vibe is like the maple glaze that goes around the Brussels sprouts. They just like make something that's not that great. Dude, if you've never had like maple glaze, bacon, Brussels spouts, Kailin, you are missing out. I know it sounds disgusting. Okay. So the question here then is if you are,

if eating Brussels sprouts prevents you from having to talk to your crazy family because your mouth is full, do the lions have a chance of beating the bears? Because the lions were decently moving the ball against the bears the first time they played. They had some red zone turnovers.

Dan Campbell's taking charge of the play calling now. They're running it more and they're running it successfully. This bear's run defense was good, but now Akeem Hicks, Kaleel Mack aren't available. run-deafin's been bad last few weeks. What if the Lions win their first game of the season on Thanksgiving against the Bears as Brussels sprouts? What a turnaround that would be.

I'm appalled that you think I have an opinion on how this game's going to end. I have not thought about this game at all. I don't care how it ends, to be honest with it. All right. Let's then pivot to just simply saying the Bears to Family comparison is definitely the best one of the four God. I'd be shocked if another one is better because it's very, very perfect in terms of an institution that you cannot shake or hope to ignore. This Matt Nagy firing report,

fire or smoke? Like, does this make sense? Like, just tell them, like, hey, we're going to fire you in the long week. Like, do we think this is real, Nora? I'm going to be a real loser here. Okay. And just, like, advocate for old school journalism for a second. I don't know, man. It's a weird, like, patch.com situation.

I think we need some, like, real shoe leather guys. on this and let's figure it out because I don't know. He said it wasn't true. They've never fired a coach during the season. He seems like he needs to be fired. Right. I do think that once the real or fake report that you're getting fired

has already come out and then the coach needs to address it and says that he has met with the owners, you're sort of spiritually fired and the rest is an inevitability. Whether or not this one reporter who I'm sure is very good, but who I don't have any sense of personal credibility on got this one right. IDK man, I guess we'll find out.

Nor did not slander Brussels sprouts, but Patch can eat you. It's, uh, it truly shows you where the bears are as a franchise that they might fire their coach after beating the lions, which is like what was assumed to always be available to the Chicago Bears. Like, that was just always going to happen. And the Bears like, oh, you beat the Lions? Yes, they're fired. That's how you know you're down bad.

That's how you know you're in a rough spot. Third and final game, this is going to be the Raiders against the Cowboys, as we very well know. I was worried that by the time we got to the last game, the surprise would wear off. But the comparisons have been so good. I'm legitimately thrilled to hear this. Nora, please take us home. So, and I won't tell you which team is which, so you can figure, figure that out.

We've got turkey versus cranberry sauce. So we have what should be your main event, right? And theoretically, there should be a lot of good ways to do it, a lot of good ways to cook a bird. The last couple, though, they've been really, really dry. And you're just thinking, okay, you had your ingredient list and you went to the store and you didn't quite end up with, you thought you were going to have a basting tool available to you.

And it's not there and you can't find it. And you're thinking, it's okay. It's okay. we can figure it up, we can scheme it up, we can do it out. But it really does start to impact you once you're working without a few key ingredients. That said, what you're dealing with on the other side here is cranberry sauce. The best you can hope for from cranberry sauce is that it's just going to give you a little zing. Just a little zing, a little zip.

But what we've seen from it lately just slides out of that can, splat onto a platter and then it just wobbles there. Just wobbles for a little bit and you stare at it and shake your head and sigh. I feel very bad for cranberry sauce, a dish that I very, very much enjoy for being just described as a wobble and sigh part of the Thanksgiving dinner. I'm guessing that's the Raiders and then Turkey's the Cowboys. Correct. There we go. At first I was thinking Turkey Raiders because they also have had those like key hours.

absences. So there's have been a little bit more distinct than just the Cowboys injuries in terms of John Gruden and Henry Ruggs. The very, very sad thing, and this is like a good, like, Derek Carr to Turkey comparison is for a second there we thought like Derek Carr was ham. For a second that we thought like Derek Carr was like a good meat because it looked like he had turned over a new leaf. It looked like he was more aggressive. It looked like they were passing down the field. And then the last few weeks, whether it's the loss of Gruden, the loss of rugs or just carbian car, whatever it is, right now when you look at third down aggressiveness. There's a graphic floating around football Twitter. I don't know who has it. My apologies. The least aggressive quarterback on

third down passing downs is Jared Goss. You know who's second least? It's back to Derek Carr. Man, we, for a flicker there, we saw it. We saw greatness. And then we were reminded that this is just kind of who Derek Carr is. And the writers have been running the ball more. They've been getting to more third of manageables. This is kind of the way it worked for them last seasons when they were still a playoff team. But they definitely feel like a disappointment overall. This defense for the Raiders was the problem solver. Defense front was crazy. They could get pressure with four. We just saw a Dallas front without Tyrant Smith play really, really poorly for a couple of weeks. Now they're getting Tyrant Smith back.

A degree of concern for Dallas pass protection, are they going to be able to hold up against the Raiders such that Dak can get time in the pocket, can deliver the ball down the field? C.D. Lambs may be going to play. Do we think this Cowboys offense is fully back where they just beat up on a bad Raiders defense, Stephen? Yeah, even last week, I thought it was just the circumstance of that game. Obviously, Cooper, they lose Cooper late in the week. They lose C.D. Lamb, what was it, the last play of the second half? And then you have to adjust on the fly.

Now, at least Kellan Moore, it is short week, but at least Kellynne Moore has a couple days to come up with a plan with this new roster or whatever, whatever lineup they have to use. It's not him trying to adjust on the fly. I think that was the main problem against Kansas City more so than any personnel issues. are like the offensive line and not being able to protect. Obviously, they couldn't block Chris Jones. But I thought if Dak had schematic answers on the outside, that would have been less of a problem.

I don't know if it's going to be a problem against this Raiders team. They don't have an interior presence like Jones. And that's been the issue for them all season. Listen, Salé Thomas has been good. I don't want to hear Soli Thomas Slander on this podcast ever again. He's been very, very enjoyable with the Raiders. Dallas as an NFC contender still feel like their top tier, Kalen, or did the game against the Chiefs kind of force enough concerns for you

that you think, like, you know, really top-heavy NFC, they're just second-tier right now. Yeah, no, absolutely. Like, the Cowboys are still top tier. It was funny because, like, people were cracking jokes on Twitter about, I think it was Troy Aikman or somebody else who pointed out how Mike McCarthy at halftime told Fox that, you know, they couldn't hear, like, they couldn't communicate. And it was so funny because Stephen pointed out on,

Friday show last week, literally, operationally communication too. Yeah, you got laughed at it. And it was like, why is everyone laughing? Like, that's some real shit. Like, if you listen to NFL coaches talk, whatever. Like, and that matters. And I think, you know, them being at home against the Raiders, they'll probably look like

a juggernaut again, even without Cooper in the lineup. Lamb, I don't even know status. But I mean, that being said, like, when you look at the team when they're healthy, especially Tyron Smith, is healthy down the stretch. This is a Super Bowl contending team. And their defense, they make enough plays against some of these NFC offenses,

they're going to continue to be top tier. Yeah. Lamb right now is on track to play if he continues to do the concussion protocol the way he has, but also it's like a five-day turnaround. So it's hard to like fully believe that yet. Inevitably, we're going to know like on Thursday, whether or not he's playing in this game,

which it'd be nice to know if Lamb was on the Thanksgiving Day table before Thursday because Lamb's freaking amazing. but that's just a fun little last name pun whatever. You didn't have to explain that it was a pun. We all got it, but I wasn't sure when I first said it, I was like, this is really clever. And the more I thought about it,

the more I was like, it might be really unclear what I'm talking about right now because we've made a lot of these puns and we haven't had like a food last name yet. Nora. Benjamin Solac, Brussels Sprout guy, pun explainer. Yeah, it's been a rough podcast for me so far.

Those are the best puns, the ones you have to explain. Yeah, you know, they're good. No, it's okay, because we're going to take a little a quick break here. I'll get a chance to reset and settle back into my host share. Nora, thank you so much for joining the Friday show. Thanksgiving special. We got to, this is amazing. The producers are already sitting behind the scenes figuring out how to make this a weekly thing next year. Just Nora, chef, Nora, a lot, a lot of food comparisons, just 32 teams, as many dishes as we can get. Thanks, guys. Happy Thursday, Wednesday,

Friday, DO. Thanks again for Nora joining us for the Thanksgiving opening segment. I think we said it enough time, but just one more time. that was ridiculously fun and I had a very good time doing that and I think that that was hilarious and I'm glad that we did it. With that said, Thursday games officially previewed. We didn't preview for it on the ringer gambling show as well. So you're ready for your Thursday slate. But after you've eaten, after you've slapped it off, after you've head back home, there are still games on Sunday. It is still our job to preview them and we're going to do it in our usual schedule. We start as always with games of the week. We have three this week because it's actually a pretty

nice Sunday slate. Haven't really looked too much at it yet for most people because they're focused on Thursday. But Sunday's going to be a lot of fun. I wanted to start. start with Bucks at Colts because Tampa Bay, you know, handled business against the Giants, whatever, the Washington loss kind of forgotten, yada, yada, yada, yada. But here come the Colts a little bit, who we talked on this show about how, you know, the Colts kind of had the structure where they could beat the bills and oh, they could run the ball and that would be the bill's disadvantage, but we don't really think the talent disparity can be overcome. And then they just beat up the bills. It was 41 to 15. Jonathan Taylor was now like, you know, entering league MVP conversations.

Stephen, this is your game of the week, but I do want to give you a launching off point, which is the Colts have won five of the last six, including a really big statement win against an AFC contender in the bills. So is this a team that we are ready to buy in on as making a push for the playoffs as mattering in the playoffs, or do we need to see it a couple more times,

certainly against the Tampé Buccaneers in order to believe it? No, I don't think the Bucks game will have any bearing on my perception of this team going forward, especially in the AFC and the AFC playoffs. I think with this offensive line, which they have some body movers on there, plus they run, they got their RPO game,

which lightens the box. And then they have Frank Reich, who I think is one of the better offensive designers in the NFL. Like, they won that game because of Frank Reich in his coaching staff, just out coach Sean McDermott.

Just how they used motion. They used motion on 70% of their snaps. And what they were doing, they were getting defensive backs in the run fit and then running at those defensive backs where they had to take on guards in the, in the box.

It wasn't working, obviously. That's why Jonathan Taylor had the game he did. The problem is still wets, and that puts a ceiling on this team. I think they're a team that could pull an upset against a contender that has the same issues that the bills do. It might be the bills in the playoffs

if they end up matching up. But if they don't have a plan B, that's the problem. Their plan A is really good. Like being able to run the ball down team's throats. That's a good plan A. But when you have to go to plan B, it's Carson Wentz. And Wentz is the type of quarterback you don't want playing when things are going poorly.

You don't want to put the ball in his hands. That's going to lead to more disaster. So that's the problem I have with the Colts. But goddamn, that plan A is really good. And I think it's going to carry them into the playoffs. Yeah, I watching that game and knowing Frank Wright just from like his time in Philly, within the framework of what you said about Kellyn Moore in your article last week, and we talked about it on the show, how he doesn't really have like a system, a scheme.

he's just got plays on plays on plays on plays. I was watching Rake and I was like, Reich kind of doesn't have a system B has plays on plays on plays. It's a little bit less, right, because they have personnel they clearly want to be in and they have a philosophy that clearly want to follow, whereas the Cowboys can go from pass heavy to run heavy,

just kind of like in an instant. But Rike runs the stuff that like sucks for you. You know what I mean? Like, you're going to give me like boxes? We're just going to hammer this thing, right? Are you going to give me cover three? We got Michael Pintman.

We're going to take it. Like he's very much so, what do you like to do? Screw you. Like that's that, you know, like he's got that that fluidity to him. And those coordinators can be harder to identify because for us as like writers,

like we watch Shanahan and we're like, we get how this works. Let's write about it. Whereas for Reich, it's the, it's the small margins. It's like, oh,

like he's running this trap play from same side gun because, you know, the bills don't think this. And like, that's very weird. But that's like not a good article. You know what I mean? That's like a much smaller thing.

So it doesn't get covered in the same way. So it can be easy to like to lose those guys in the margins. But I agree to me. I watched that game and obviously Taylor was incredible. But the guy for me that, that shine was, Frank Reich. I'm excited to see that. I was looking through Anthony Ryder's timeline because I was looking for the revenge games of the week and he doesn't have them up yet, which is Wednesday,

so that's fair. But I did find this, which he shared, which is really interesting, which is that right now in terms of EPA per play gained and lost on turnovers, the Colts right now over the last several weeks are just head and shoulders above everybody else. So overall, they have 24 takeaways to nine turnovers. And in terms of cumulative EPA per game, that's plus six. The next closest team is the Vikings below plus four. The Colts haven't turned the ball over the last three weeks. That's awesome.

When your quarterback is Carson Wentz, it doesn't feel real. And that's the thing for me, right? I'm very worried that this Colts resurgence has been in large part because they haven't given up short fields and they've gotten short fields. And we know turnovers are a luck thing. We know turnovers are a bounce around thing, and I'm very concerned that that's not going to hang. With that said, Kailen just made a face at me, and now I'm worried.

I don't think it's a resurgence because this is who they've been all season, right? The difference is early on they weren't getting the bounces to go their way. You know, that matchup against the Seahawks. I mean, they completely got steamrolled. But then the Rams matchup in week two, I think, like they should have won that game. Like the Rams just ended up finding a way to outdo them. The first Titans game.

The first Titan game too. That was another loss. And the Ravens game on Monday night. Yeah, the Monday night game. So realistically, this team could be like, I don't know, like 8 and 2 or 8 and 3 or whatever at this point in the season. And the problem is, as Stephen pointed out, as I'm pointing out last week, like, it's been Carson Wentz, who you don't want to make these boneheaded plays in crucial situations. Yeah. But I don't know.

I've been a, I haven't, I've been a quiet believer of the. Colts and I think I've been consistent over the course of the season. You should have picked them last week. I know. That's the thing. That's what I'm saying. I can't really say I'm a believer if I'm picking against them. But it's the same thing with the title.

Like I've never. Yeah. I haven't fully believed the tights. Okay. Never got off the boat. Here's the boat. Here's the pier. Go,

where are you? Where are you on Colts Island? Where are we headed in that? Oh, no. I'm on Colts. I'm on Colts Island. I will stay on Colts Island. But I'm like carrying a spear and like

patiently waiting for Carson Went to like, like jump out and make a bone had a mistake and haunt me so. I feel like the, it's very interesting to see the parallels in terms of Indianapolis

and how they've found a successful offense by trying to minimize Carson Wentz's role and then the team that Wentz left, which is Philadelphia and how they found

a really successful offense over the last few weeks by cutting down on pass rate and getting the ball out of Jalen Hurts hands at least in the past game. And then they use him as as a buttress to the running game

because they don't have the talent of running back with Jonathan Taylor. they don't have the talent at tight ends. like the Colts do to just run the football kind of impose their will from under center. So both teams have you know, obviously hurts and

Wentz, we kind of have their careers compared inevitably over time. Both teams have found some success by minimizing the roles for their quarterback. And that like can feel scary. Like oh no, they're not trying to use their quarterback. It can also help. You know what I mean? Like we've seen Wentz have really, really nice stretches

of plays in which he has to pass and he has to pass the ball downfield. It's more likely, in my opinion, just from a confidence perspective, that you get that play out of Wence when he hasn't had to do that for the last few weeks. You know what I mean? Like obviously you still run that risk.

You still don't want to be down to the box multiple scores in the fourth quarter. But if Wence doesn't have to do this every week, he always has had that Superman kind of complex to him where he feels like every play has to go winning the game. Hopefully after a week of like, or as you know, a month of the offense working for him, if he's put in that situation again,

he will feel more comfortable. He'll feel less fearful of making mistakes he's made previously. You know what I mean? I think there's like a mental health confidence thing that helps out when Wentz is in this context. I just don't believe that's going to happen though. Even last week when they're running down the bill's throat, like he's still throwing into coverage.

There was a throw to Jack Doyle, I think it was, where it ended up being a catch, but it was not a good decision. It was into a tight window. And if the cornerback or defense back, whoever was, plays it better, it's a pick. He threw another one to Michael Pittman earlier on in the game. I just, he can't fight who he is.

This is who he is. and it's going to cost them at some point. I hope it doesn't. It'd be really cool if it did. Like, I think it would be one of the, hey, listen, it would be, it's, I think this Frank Wright coaching job is tremendous.

And I think that if we get to see that, that come to fruition, like they're able to get like a really deep playoff from with one of the quarterback. I think that'll, it'll emphasize just how good of an offensive coach he is. I do want to flip sides of the ball very quickly. Colts defense

very nicely built to stop the bills again we talked about on the Friday show we just didn't fully trust it and that's on us but they got enough good corner play and they're playing the cover two stuff and whatever

if you want to play four down drop seven cover two against Tom Brady guess what he's going to do to you for four quarters the same thing you did to the Giants right he's going to throw it in that no cover zone

five yards downfield in front of the zone and he's going to do it all game long he's going to take eight nine yard gains and guess what the bucks also have a very good run game I think that's kind of been lost because we haven't paid attention to the bucks and the last time we actually paid attention was last year and the run game wasn't so good

their top 10 in DVOA this year they can run it so you're not going to be able to play like boxes and you're not going to be able to play that cover two zone if you have to and if you have to play man you can't cover these guys like this is a terrible matchup last week was the ideal matchup

to the Colts this is the worst matchup I think the bucks win this game and win this game easily. Yeah. Colts are 29 in DVOA against running backs coming out of the back to those past catchers as well. And one of my favorite arcs over the last couple years is Leonard Fortet just becoming a scat back

because he plays with Tom Brady. He gets like six targets a game now. This is Leonard Fournette we're talking about. Yeah, it's that Nicol and dime stuff that you say in the aggregate, offenses shouldn't build themselves this way and defenses should force offenses to play this way. But then you play Tom Brady and you're like,

oh, right. he can do this forever. And he's shown us he can do this for two decades. By the way, his performance on Monday night, I have not, it's unnatural that he's this good at this age. I'm going to leave it at that. Yeah.

He's better than he's ever been athletically. He has a stronger arm than he's ever had. Yeah. What are you insinuating? What are you insinuating? I'm just saying, I'm not an idiot. That's all I'm going to leave it at that. You don't believe in the TB12 method?

I don't still believe in Santa Claus is all I'm going to say. Tom Brady has a Bond Stars football that he just carries around with him. He just walked up to Blaine Gabbard, and he was like, give me the 95 arm strength. That's what I need. The two quarterbacks in the league right now, who shouldn't be as good for how old they are, Justin Herbert, 22 or 23, Tom Brady, 43. That's just completely opposite sides of the spectrum. I would say the only thing that gives me a little bit of pause is that when we saw

the Bucks lose their games against the Saints, trying to get that one. And against Washington, whoa, it was their offensive line, which is very good, very veteran, just not having great days against good defensive fronts. And Washington's defensive front really had, I think, their best performance in the season against the Bucks. Colts defensive line has not been amazing, but has been getting better.

Pudy Pays doing a good job in terms of rookie pressure rate. DeForest Buccner has been a solid interior player. Kalen, any worry about Colts defensive line taking this game over? Or is this just, you know, Bucks had a couple bad games are going to be fine? I think they've just had a couple bad games, but I am impressed by Quipa, and especially, you know,

the force Buckner is always going to be a force from the interior. If you can, like, rely, if he can have a big game, get Brady off his spot a lot, consistently and kind of muck up, you know, the timing of the offense, then maybe you have a better chance, but, like, pay would have to have his, you know,

break his full breakout game. He's been getting pressures, hasn't produced sat. So he has that sack game, then that would be huge. I'm not so concerned. about the buck's recent losses. I agree with Kalin.

Like the Saints game, I think that's just a bad matchup. Dennis Allen just seems to be on everything they do offensively. He's been on all four matchups, even the playoff game, they lost. Brady was terrible. And then the watching game, I watched it last night.

That was just a fluky game to start. And they were down 13-0. All of a sudden, there was like a bad interception. John Dex. Yeah. I thought that game was a fluke. And that was, that's like kind of the model you would hope

if you're a Colts fan, like, play the same defense, Washington did. I don't think it's going to work again. Yeah. The best individual example in the league of how, like, being good doesn't mean you're good at everything, is Dennis Allen locking up Tom Brady

in the Tampa Bay passing game than having no idea how to stop, like, Ark Reed. And the Eagles, Jaylen Hertz has run for like 500 yards over two games against Dennis Allen. And it's because Allen's defense can't stop, like, zone read. Dude, like, how does this happen in back-to-back weeks? I'm on the bucks,

say, I think that the Colts score a decent amount of points against this Bucks defense. And if the Colts offense is good against the Bucks, that'll be really big for me in terms of joining Kaelin on Colts Island. Yes. Colts Island, Kalin, taking the Colts, take the upset.

See, okay, so now I'm going to sound like an idiot because we'll flip-flop and pick the bucks because they're going to have to bounce back week. Here we go, yep. I'm sorry, Colts Island taking books. And Vita Vaya's back. It's supposed to be back, according to Bruce Arias. Yeah. That's a big.

deal. That is. That's the conversation. Good luck, Carson Woods. Yeah, and and Colts running games been awesome. Bucks run defense is the run defense. Like, to me, they are the standard. And so it's, it's a good versus good. And that's a fun game to watch. Is Quentin Nelson? Week to week with an ankle. Though I will say, having watched, I watched a couple of Colts games this week, I don't think Nelson was ever 100% healthy this season, man. Like, he came off the foot injury. And I know he and Wentz had the same injury. And Wentz has gotten like what looks to be back to 100%. But Nelson just don't look like himself. You know what I mean? It's like losing Nelson, objectively. sucks so they doesn't play.

But also, like, to me, I saw, like, 80, 85% Nelson on the film that I watched in terms of his health. So I don't think he's ever been 100% this season, which foot injuries for offense one and really, really suck in that way. Our second game of the week, this one's mine, actually. This is Rams against Packers, which it's funny because, like, this game should be, and I think it's long been circled on the schedule as a stunning and exciting game with one of the four o'clock games, should be nationally televised, going to be a lot of fun.

But both teams are coming at it from weird spots. if you look at the Rams coming off of their by week, they're coming off of multiple losses. They had the embarrassing loss of the Titans. And then like, all right, going to go get right against the Niners. And then that didn't happen. They have questions to answer right now

on the defensive side of the ball with how easily teams have been running it on them. I know that like, you know, the Niners running game, people kind of gassed it a little bit. And obviously the Titans got the turnovers or whatever. But across the season, they've struggled a little bit in the running game,

passing game outside of Jalen Ramsey as well, this defense has issues. But more concerningly and more recently, on the offensive side of the football, with the loss of Robert Woods, the addition of Odell Beckham Jr. This has been a team that felt like it was in a transition phase. And then over the last couple of weeks,

it wasn't anything with wide receivers, wasn't anything with the pass game. It was this offensive line. It just got beat up up front by the Titans interior pass rush, and then by the Niners interior pass rush. These guards, Austin Corbett, Brian Allen at center, David Edwards at right guard, they are a very light group.

and they are built to run outside zone. That's why they were acquired, because that's the offense Sean McDay runs. We need light, quick offense alignment to run this offensive zone, outside zone offense. And then Matt Stafford came, and the Rams suddenly became a drop-back passing team. When you're a drop-back passing team,

you don't want 300-pound guards, man. Like, you need those guys to hold up against quick interior pressure from 315, 320-pound defensive tackles. And so Jeffrey Simmons and Eric Armstead, and DeNico Autry came to town and just started beating up on this Rams interior.

And because they're succeeding in that way, Stafford is starting to get the Mahomes treatment in terms of not getting blitzed at all. So these numbers from next-gen stats, Matt Stafford in the first eight weeks of the season was blitz rates of 22%, 29, 25, 24, 31, 23, 23, 28, 37. The last two weeks, Titans and Niners, 7.5 and 9.3.

This is a rush four, drop seven, and we can beat this offensive line formula, right now. Green Bay's got a really tough interior front. Kenny Clark, Dean Lowry, Tyler Lancaster, to Darrell Slayton, Kings of Kiki, those are big boys. I like the Rams offense with Stafford. I think Stafford right now, to me, still my pick at MVP. I like the way they call their passing designs with Stafford out there because he opens up the field so much. I think that the loss of Robert Wood sucks, but they still have enough wide receiver talent to get everything done. I don't know what they're

going to come out with in the buy week to solve this interior. your pass protection problem. The best guess I have is you got to run some more box stuff. You got to move Stafford out of the pocket, right? Like that would be the solution I expect from them because that's what McVeigh does and he knows how to do it. But that's not what they've wanted to be on offense with Stafford. So there's very much friction here to me.

There's a little bit of a give and take. And I'm very curious to see against the Green Bay Packers front that is good what the plan is to help protect these guards and protect these interior linings. If they keep dropping back, protecting the 5.5 in the concept, they're going to continue to put pressure right in Stafford's lap right away. and he's going to have seven zone droppers. That is not a winning formula for the passing game. So the Rams right now, still a team I trust, still a team I love the talent.

They have a very clear and big question that I hope they have a solution for out of the biweek. How are you going to protect your offensive line? Yeah, and I would say the Robert Blitz thing is definitely big if this is how defenses are going to start playing them because he was that guy that might catch those passes over the middle in the intermediate areas. And now you don't have that guy. Maybe it's Odell Beckham, but you still have to get him up to speed with the offense. but I think this is a great game, like a great litmus test for them. They're coming off a buy, I believe.

Like Ben said, this is a team and the Packers that have big dudes inside that can take advantage of their weakness. Is Sean McVeigh? Did he use that buy to make adjustments? And he's going to go back to more of the golf stuff and mix it and blend it with what he's been doing with Stafford. I think we're going to get our first big opportunity to see how the rest of the season's going to look for this offense on Sunday. I don't care if they lose this game. If the offense looks good, I'm still going to be optimistic about them going forward.

Yeah, that's what I'm watching. It is a very interesting revenge game from a NSA championship perspective, right? The Packers were able to just run the football all over this light box defense, right? I mean, it was the AJ Dylan and Aaron Jones show. And then whenever they got the ball with the Devante, they just threw it, right?

Now you look at the Packers team and you go, we've been a really good running team. Let's just do that again. David Bakdiari had a cleanup surgery on his knee. He was trying to come back. He couldn't get 100% back. They was nagging him, so they went and they put him under the knife again. He's out.

Elkin Jenkins, their second best offensive lineman. ACL injury during the game against who did they just play? I know this. The Vikings. Minnesota. Thank you. Minnesota. Yes.

Bad injury there. He's out. So now this offensive line is getting reshuffled again and doesn't have their two top players. And then Aaron Jones, who had the MCL issue, is trying to come back for this game. Since we're reporting on Wednesday, we definitely don't know his status. but they're potentially without their starting back as well. Throw in the fact that Rogers got COVID toe and has gotten through that, and that's affecting him, this Packers team on paper beats the Rams.

This Packers team with injuries right now, I'm not sure that they do. And my question for you, Kaelan, is they've done a really good job overcoming injuries to the point in the season, offensively and defensively. Are we reaching the point where they're going to have the Cowboys against Chiefs game? I mean, they kind of, I guess, maybe you could argue it did against Minnesota. I still scored 31 points. Like, are they at the point where they're at the point where they're going to have the game? injuries are going to pile up where they're inevitably just going to drop a couple games because

it's just too much talent missing. Well, this is the thing. I think you have to give a lot of credit to Matt Wafler and also the fact that they do have Aaron Rogers' toe injury or not. I think that there's a lot of stability in key areas, whether that's head coach, quarterback, defensive players, like, there's enough stability there where I think they're going, they're not going to drop off too significantly in terms of play level. and I think going into this matchup especially

it comes down to weather McVeigh is able to again like out you know come prepare with a better scheme and I think you hit it on the head they need to go to a more play action based moving the pocket getting stafford from sitting at being a sitting duck

behind that offensive line especially I mean like if you watch the Vigentin first game against the Packers last week or first play Kenny Clark like destroys the Vikings center or whoever it was, their interior part. Like that's going to be a problem for the Rams going in this matchup. So it really comes down to whether or not the Packers defense can play at as high of the level that they played at. Joe Barry, former Rams assistant coach.

Yeah. So I'm curious to see whether there's any mind games or just familiarity there that allows them to pull off a victory here if McVeigh was to go back to a more goth-based offense anywhere. Yeah, this is a huge coach revenge game because it's the first. Floor and Barry going up against the Rams. It's honestly like, it's the same thing. It's a Spider-Man meme. It is. And that's the thing about like, what do the, what do the Rams do on offense to solve

their offensive line problem? Well, the Packers took this McVeigh offense and just like started chucking, you know, quick game RPO's into it. Like, literally much the moment before left and went to Green Bay. And that was huge for protecting their offensive line. They just have a bigger offensive line in general, though, so they don't have to deal with that problem as much. But like some of the, well, Floor, obviously,

built off the McVeigh Foundation. He branched off and kind of do his own thing. It's clearly inspired by it, but it's different. McVeigh should probably go and steal some of that, John, and put that back in his offense. You know what I mean? Because it works for the Packers, and it's helped solve their injury problems as they've had to kind of change their structure.

I do want to touch quickly on that Packers defense, though. This was a unit that was very impressive. And it was like, wow, they're really doing a great job with injury. Like, they've been so solid. How cool. And then they gave up, like, 34 points to the Vikings. And it was like, oh, maybe not. What happened there? Was it just like Kirk Cousins' incredible game?

Like we just got really good Kirk, got really good Justin Deverson, and that's it? Or is it, you know, the Packers' defense isn't what we thought they were. Stephen, do you have any major takeaways from that one offer now? I mean, I think it's just that you could still get good matchups with these cornerbacks on the outside.

Yeah. As long as Alexander's out. And we saw a team in the Vikings that have the receivers to take advantage of those matchups. the question is, will the Rams be able to do that? They have, again, they're working in Odell still, Cooper Cup. I think he does, I don't know if he runs those isolation routes as much as those other guys do. So I don't know if he's that piece.

But I still think it comes down to the other side of the ball, how the Rams defense changes, how Rahim Morris looks at that playoff game and adjusts. Is he going to put out a Brandon Staley defense game plan? or is he going to have his own thing? I think that's a big deal. I think this is one of the opportunities where he could look back at last year and be like, oh, that didn't work anyway. So let me try my own way of defending the softens.

Yeah. And I'm personally picking the Rams. And the Rahim Morris effect is a big part of that. I think in general, the Rahim Morris defense is worse than the Brandon's day of the defense. We all agree on that. But they've been the most successful team with five plus rushers all year in terms of how quickly they get pressure and what they do with that pressure, generating sacks, generating pressures, generating turnovers.

But as a blitzing team, the Rams are now sick. They have had now two weeks to plan how to get Vaughn into that, number one. Number two, they're dealing with an offensive line that's shuffling again. And the Packers have had problems picking up blitzes this year because of the changes they've had. You want to have an office line with continuity to be good against blitzes. The Packers have just cycled in different dudes at different spots pretty much all season. They've struggled with that. And they're doing that again with Elton now out.

And so I'm picking the Rams. And I think that there's enough pressure package work that the Rams can do. with Jalen Ramsey, then handling Devante Adams early in the down as best he can. Devante will get his, but Ramsey's a good matchup for him. The Rams get their pressures. They get their sacks. They get their stocks.

And they're able to outscore the Packers. I think solidly high-scoring game could be like a final possession game. I think the Rams, they're one-point dog right now. They are my pick for this game, though. Yeah, I'm picking the Rams too. I think it's a high-scoring game. It could go either way, but I agree with everything, Benson. I think it's a high-scoring game.

The Rams win in the end. Hailing, you better pick Packers. You better do it. Nope, I'm picking the Rams. Oh, no. Picking the Rams. Here we go. We're all going to look silly.

Man, coach of the year is never a clean award, but for the Flores team to continue to be this good with the injuries they've dealt with, if he beats the Rams, I know the lost Vikings, but man, like this guy's got to get a coach of the year award. No, it's still Cliff.

It's Cliff. It's Cliff now. He's beating teams with Colt McCoy. It's got to be Cliff. We got to start giving Cliff his credit. I know we didn't want to do it early on in the year. We got to give Cliff his credit, man. It's not Kyler anymore.

You can't use that. What an incredible about face from Stephen on the cliff front. All right, listen, we don't have the Cardinals this week. They're on by. But we will make sure we get our Clif talk in next week on the Friday show. Make sure you listen. Ha, ha, ha. ha. Kalen is our final game of the week.

I've been excited for this game for a very, very, very long time because it is going to be a true slob knocker. That is New England Patriots against the Tennessee Titans. Titans coming off a loss to the Texans and yet are still in the game of the week category, man. That's an impressive come from behind win right there. Kaelan, what are we looking for in this one? I think you're looking at Ryan Tanner. And you wrote about this last week,

like how the Titans have lost our identity without Dary Kennedy within that lineup. And last week was a really good example. Tanyhill 52 attempts last week. 19.2 QBR. And I totally get that at one point. The conditions were bad. But if we're

going to talk around the ridiculously lucky ways that the Titans beat some playoff teams. We're not going to talk around, you know, we're not going to make excuses for four interceptions against the Texas. I'm really curious to see how, you know, Bill Belichick and this defense, which is rolling right now,

deals with, you know, whatever Todd Downing is able to cobble together in terms of an offensive game plan. Right now, I mean, the Patriots, and really this flips back to Mack Jones and what the Patriots offense is able to do. And really, it's what the Titans probably aspire to be

in terms of what they're asking Tanner would be in terms of efficiency at quarterback. For all of intent and purposes, like I know that there's definitely fair critiques of Mack Jones out there. And, you know, I definitely agree with them. But at the same time, like he's playing

within the structure of the offense. He's keeping everything on schedule. He's moving the chains most of time. It's the reason why the Patriots, I think, they're legitimate. And obviously being at the top of the AFC East right now, I think football outsiders has them with the second highest odds behind the Buccaneers in terms of Super Bowl chances at this point, you know,

through entering week 12th. So they're for real. And I think that this is going to be a really come-to-Jesus moment for the Titans because this Patriots team, especially now with what an extra four days to prepare because they played Thursday night last week, I think that they're coming into this matchup, you know, they should be heavily favored and probably should come away with a comfortable win. This feels like the moment in the movie,

where like, you know, the villain and the protagonists are fighting. The villain just took like, you know, a shot that made it very clear that he's weak, right? That's losing to the Texans, right? He's on his knees, blood's dripping out of his nose. He's reeling. And the protagonist is just coming back with that big game ending punch, right? The music's swelling. And that punch is the Patriots.

Like, oh, you just lost to the Texans? Oh, you have no offensive identity? Here's New England. You know, this is, this gives me like a true death now. We like to say on this podcast, the Belchick takes away what you're good at. I don't know what the Titans are good at on offense. Right. And that's what makes it interesting, right?

From a theory perspective right now, Stephen, what are you expecting? Like, there could be no AJ Brown. There could be no Julio Jones. Adrian Peterson just got cut. The Titans are nowhere on offense. What do we expect Belichick to do? Like, we expect it to be good,

but what is it going to look like? It's going to be cover one robber all game long. Right. You say they're not good at anything, which I agree with, but there's only one way they can play, and that's running those in-breakers over the middle. If you look at Tana Hill's next-gen passing charts all season long,

it's just middle of the numbers all season long. Point to 8 EPA per play throwing to in between the numbers. Bill Ajax's going to take that away. He's going to have to throw outside and Tanna Hill's not going to be able to do it. And just to reiterate what Kaelin said about the conditions being an excuse for the offense, it was 12-0 before it started raining. And Tana Hill already had one terrible interception in the first quarter. it was Tampa too

the linebacker never moved and he threw it right to him I don't like this is the problem with Tana Hill before he came to the Titans and he blew up I always thought he was underrated in Miami he was a good quarterback but he was a very

flawed quarterback if you made him think he wasn't good he held onto the ball too long he's been taking sacks his whole career like this him taking sacks in Tennessee isn't new it's going to be it's going to be bad it's either going to be a blow

out or Mac Jones isn't going to have a great game because he's a rookie and that's liable to happen every week. But the Patriots offense decides how close this game is. If they score 20 plus points, it's a blowout. If they get held under 20 points, then maybe it's close. The Titans aren't scoring more than 17 points in this game. Yeah. Titans defense has been able to carry them over the last couple of weeks. Didn't show up in the same way against the Texans. And it's because so many eggs are in the basket of that front, right? Right now, this defensive front, Jeffrey Simmons, to Nico Autry, Harold Landry, Bud Dupree when he's available. I know he's injured right now.

They are the players that have to win in order for anything to work with the Titans. Whatever Jim Schwartz goes as a defensive mind, he puts all the ships on the defensive line. That is his philosophy. If we win up front, we win. If we don't win up front, we lose. There's not the talent or the coverage integrity on the back end to succeed. I would probably say, like, the Colts obviously did this against the bills really well, But I think I would say in general this year, there's been no team that takes advantage of a penetrating defensive front better than the Patriots do. You go and you watch the game they played against the Browns. Watch the games they play against the Jets.

Jets are a bad defense objectively, but like the Jets are a penetration style front. They've got some talent. They just let you come up field and then they trap you. They run screens behind you. They run their stupid little double reverses wide receiver pass nonsense, right? Any team that wants to get upfield and get in the pocket like, oh, Mac can't move. Let's just penetrate. rates, get pressure.

They are so, so pleased that you think you could do that. And then they just want to constraint play after constraint play after constraint play. Just pitch and changeups and just letting you swing way too early at all of them. And it gives them so many explosives. And so right, just even how the Titans win on defense, if you want to argue that unit can carry them in this game, I think that the Patriots defense is, excuse me, the Patriots offense is well built to handle it. And so it's a tough argument from me on both sides of the ball. And that offensive line is coming off, I think it was two weeks ago.

they had the best pass block win rate of any team this season. Like that offensive line can handle the Titans rush. They're not going to get exposed in the same way that the Rams did. I just think this is a horrible matchup. They really need Mack Jones to look like a rookie. It's the only way they're going to win this game or be competitive in it. Mac hasn't looked like a rookie since. Man, four, five weeks now.

Okay, hey. The Chargers game. It was like two weeks ago when he played the Panthers game. I feel like. The Charger's game was four weeks ago, right? when they played the Panthers three weeks ago, he was not good. Okay, so let's talk about this then really quick, because I don't think we've touched on it in a couple weeks.

The Patriots just beat up on the Browns and had a great game against the Falcons, and many, many people, including the big boss, are very positive that Mack Jones is the best rookie quarterback that there is. What has happened for Mac the last couple of weeks that have led to such high-scoring output? Has it been anything he's doing specifically? Has it been the offense settling in a race? Now, Tim, has it been luck? Like, what are we attributing the Patriots' recent offensive explosion to, if not the improved by Mack Jones?

The offensive line is the best offensive line in the league over the last month. That's what it is. It's the best offensive. It's dominating games right now. And it's going to, I think it's going to win this matchup. And that's a problem if you're Tennessee, because you, like you said, all your eggs are in the defensive line basket. Well, guess what you're going up against right now? It's not going to look good.

Kaela about you. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, one, their opposite line. going to be nailed on the head. And then secondly, I think, again, like, Mac looks settled. And I think Bill Belichick even mentioned, like, the idea of him getting more reps and seeing everything, I think over the last, you know, three weeks, he's had a completion rate over 65%. Like, he had the one, again, against the charges is 50%. And then since then he's been on, in terms of accuracy, in terms of decision-making, he doesn't make poor decisions. And the iron,

I was thinking about this the other day. Like, when I watched Mack Jones play, like in terms of decision making, it's what I thought Tua would be at this level, ironically enough. Because, you know, like when they're in Alabama, you know, you can make the jokes like everyone's wide open. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they always make the right decisions.

And it seems like, you know, Tua and Mack, particularly when I was watching them in college, like they were always going to the right spot ahead of time. Tua is still coming along, and I think injuries, acclamation, how he's been onboarded and pulled in and out, all that. Like, that's had some effect on them.

With Mac, the Patriots have a clear plan. I feel like, you know, again, like just the parts around him and surrounding him, like, especially the off the line, the fact that Josh McDaniels has a clear identity for an idea for what the offense is supposed to be. You know, it's coming to life because he's so comfortable. And again, because he's such a sharp decision maker,

which, you know, it's funny to say that, you know, someone is a fast processor, but Mack Jones is. Here. Let me get at my Max Lank. for the week. Because everyone is going to bring up the Tua com. Tua has a better EPA per play than Mac Jones does right now. Why are we overreacting

to these games? The only reason we think he's good is because the team is winning. Hey, Trevor Lawrence is 100% better than him. Watch Trevor Lawrence play. Watch Mac Jones play. And they're playing two different sports. Yes, I agree. Please stop. Lawrence is fairly better. Fields is fairly better. I 100%. With that set, Mac was not dotting tight window throws at Alabama the way he is in New England.

It's very, very likely. Hey, hey, no eye rolling on my podcast. It's very, very likely that... He's got a negative EPA against band coverage, but yes, he's dotting tight window throws every week. Listen, the fact is just... I watch the film, it's not impressive. It's just not. I don't know what to tell you.

I think that that goes away. I think that he's had some really, really nice throws attacking tight windows, and like you see them against the Browns, and then he throws that pick against the Falcons. And you remember, he just doesn't have the arm to be trying this stuff. And he really doesn't actually have the precision to be trying this stuff. So I think we've seen some of his peak plays come in recent weeks to the point where it's been like, oh, like he's really settling in.

But in my estimation, my expectation, when push comes to shove across the rest of the season, even if the Patriots continue winning and the office continues working and they're running the ball really well, Mac won't have as many peak plays. I think that I've been shocked by how nice his best plays. have been over recent weeks, and I'd be surprised if he's able to that, sustain that. If he does, kudos to him. But that would surprise me. Do you know what it feels? It feels like Baker Mayfield's first season, his rookie season. He was the best quarterback on tight window throws. He was the best quarterback on tight window throws. And if you've watched

Baker Mayfield since then, that's not his game. That was a fluke. And that's why he looks so good his rookie year and he hasn't repeated it since. I'm just telling that out there. man, I would have to go and look back at some Baker stuff, but the more I think about that, and I thought about it for a total of eight seconds, the more it makes sense, like, the toughness, the willingness to

attack Windows, the, uh, the benefits of the screen game, the benefits of the RPO game, benefits of the running game, like, that all, that, that kind of tracks a little bit in terms of Nathan's career arc. All right, that's an interesting, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. They're like the aggressiveness, absolutely, but the thing with Mac, again, the context matters

because they're not asking to throw past 10 yards. So I think it is impressive in the standpoint that you're asking him to do, not do a lot. Like, it's just hand-holding. I know, Stephen, it's frustrating. I don't, I think it's kind of fake quarterback play. But you're asking him to just do a little bit. The receivers are running routes downfield. Yeah, wide open.

Yeah, exactly. Well, poor Nelson Aguilar, man. Let me just say this. Let me just say that it's the tight window thing that makes him a comp to Baker's rookie year. Right. In terms of process in the pocket, nothing alike. He's way better than. Baker Mayfield in that regard.

That's what I like, though. It's the, you know, the willingness to, like, take a hit and throw it, attempt a tough throw while you're taking that hit. Like, that's not a trait every quarterback has. And that's very bakerish. Obviously that, right now for Baker, you kind of wish you'd take fewer hits. And like that's, you know, that's the other side of that coin. But either way, all right, we're going to have to check it on Mac over the next couple

games. He gets the Bill's defense twice in three weeks. And that is a. I've been waiting for that. Yeah. That's going to be a really, really interesting sequence. Oh, I'm so excited. Okay. We're all picking the Patriots.

We're all, we're going to, all three of us, we can sense us on all three of our games of the week and it'll look like idiots on Sunday. Tremendous.

That does it for games of the week. Tremendous Matt conversation. We are transitioning now to games that need games, our second category of the show, in which we talked about some other interesting games,

just in quicker and in more specific ways, as this tradition. We start with Stephen canceling the team, which the teams that Stephen has canceled have actually, like, done poorly for the first time all season. So a big congratulations to Stephen for finally figuring out

how to get this done. Oh, and speaking of Baker-Mayfield, Stephen, we are canceling the Browns and the Ravens. Yeah, we're canceling the Browns, just the Browns. I don't think I should have to explain this. Like, the offense is bad. I didn't watch the last game, but I can imagine that, what was it, a

13-point, 17-point output against the Lions was ugly. I haven't checked in on them since then. But the last time I watched him, I think it was two games ago, I mean, I'm at the point where the oh, should they pay Baker-Mayfield, big money.

That discussion is done, right? Like, I'm tired of that discussion. The question is, should they even waste this fifth year option on them? Or should they move on? Obviously, now the fifth year option is guaranteed so they can't. They're stuck with them. But you've got to start thinking about replacing them and maybe trading them. I don't understand.

I can't envision a way where they fix this. It looks better next year. Significantly better. Here's the tricky thing for me with the Mayfo conversation. I believe two things to be true. One, Mayfield has played the year at less than 100% and pretty much all of his games. And that makes it tough to evaluate him.

Whether or not he should be playing, whether he's 95 or 65%, I don't know. But I legitimately believe that Baker's injuries and his Knicks have made it tougher for him to play ball. I think that's true 100%. The second thing I believe to be true is this. If the Browns were to put themselves into the veteran quarterback market this upcoming offseason,

Aaron Rogers, maybe Russell Wilson, they would be the most attractive landing spot. And I don't know, to what degree I would say, no, let's do the fifth year option with Baker and see what he looks like when he's healthy. If the alternative is, we can become a leading horse in the race for Aaron Rogers. That's the thing.

It's like, what's the cost of missing out on this year's quarterback cycle? Draft isn't good, but the veteran group might be incredible. And Browns have a great infrastructure to bring a veteran in right now. And so if that is a window that's open, I'm not sure I want to mess around and learn something new on the fifth-year option

if I could make a legit run at Rogers or Wilson. Here's my thing about the shoulder. Did we give Mitch Trubisky the same excuse when he had the same exact injury and was wearing the shoulder harness? No, we didn't. Do you know why we didn't? Because he was still making the same mistakes he did with a healthy left shoulder. Baker Mayfield is not throwing to trap corners because he has a left shoulder injury.

He's not leaving clean pockets because he has a left shoulder injury. He's not missing receivers open. downfield because he has a left shoulder injury. He's just not a good quarterback. Oh, baby. Stephen was spitting some fire right there. He was ready for that one. Yeah, that's the thing, though.

I mean, he nailed it on the head. Like, Baker's behaviorally as a quarterback. He hasn't changed. This is who he is. And the question is, like, we've seen what the Vikings did with Kirk Cousins, for example, right? Like, Kurt Cousins is honestly probably a little bit, like, Baker-Mathield Plus.

You know what I mean? and it's taken Mike Zimmer, you know, stewing at press conferences and on the sideline for years to finally get, you know, Kirk Cousin to utilize Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson downfield, two best receivers in the league. So my thing is, like, if we already know Baker is who he is, if we don't expect him to be any better than Kirk Cousins is,

like I think the gamble, especially with the roster that they have right now, I know that the fan base probably wouldn't like it, but if there is a way that you can be in the conversation for like in Aaron Rogers, if Derek Carr ends up on the market, like if there is a way to upgrade at that position from Baker, they should a thousand percent try. I feel like this is the offseason, like Ben said.

Like Rogers, if you strike out with him, Wilson, if you strike out with him, maybe Derek Carr is available. If you strike out with him, just go get Jimmy Garabalo. That's exactly what I was about to say. Go get Jimmy. In the pocket, they're the same exact quarterback.

The big difference between Jimmy and Baker's, Baker can create outside the structure. But guess what? I don't want Baker trying to create because he's not good at it. He's better than Jimmy at it, but he's not good at it. And I would argue that in the pocket, there's similar quarterbacks, I would argue that Gropoulos trigger intermediate middle is better than Baker's. The height difference to see it, but then also the willingness to just hit the window between the linebackers. That fourth down throw he made, was it, who was it against the Rams, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the game, yeah. Baker's not making that. Baker doesn't have that, yeah. oh man dude cleveland if they trade for jimmy to replace baker going to be down horrendous and then the offense is going to be like eighth seventh best in the league and the about face is going to be so fast oh love fixing the browns on a wednesday afternoon okay uh we did that uh kaelin you have a buyer itself for this game of memory sir yeah i mean it was basically did we

buy yourself cleveland and really it was baltimore too like where they're at in terms of like the records i know baltimore seven and three and i mean the rest of the a fc is all basically like five or six or seven wins at this point. They're 15th in DVOA, Cleveland's 17th in DVOA, Baltimore plus 17, tied with Denver in point differential Cleveland at minus seven, which is, you know, they're all hovering around 500. I mean, I guess now we can shift the conversation if we even want to have this at this point, like whether the Ravens are a legitimate, like,

contender, are they top tier AFC team at this point? Or do we consider them to be on the back end, middle of the pack roster. Yeah, we have also this week Steelers Bengals. There are two AFC North games. This is Stevens must win game of the week and it's essentially an elimination game, right? Loser goes home. So let's fold these four teams together right now. AFC North standings, right? After the win that the Ravens had up against the, the Bears with Tyler Hunt, the quarterback was tremendous. Right. I think that nobody expected that strong of a performance. Then you have the Bengals, the Browns, and the Steelers who are all there at six and four, six and

tied up one another. How many playoff teams are we getting out of this division? And who are we getting as division champion? Who's that wildcard team when the season finishes? For me, I think the coaching difference is so big, John Harbaugh versus everybody else. You see that in the Bears game, obviously, it's like Harbaugh versus Natty.

That's like Polar opposite, right? But just so many of those little decisions that Harbaugh makes is what gets you wins against the Polks, right? When you're down by those big scores, gets you wins against the Bears when you have Tyler Huntley, you have massive injuries. They've been so good. with so many injuries this year.

I still think the Ravens win the division. I think the Steelers are the second best team in the division, right? And like we went all in circles around the Bengals to start the year. We're in circles about the Browns now. And the offense for Pittsburgh looked exactly the same to start the year. And we were like, this is ridiculous and it's not going to work. Lo and behold, they're using more motion and they're getting the running game working a little bit.

They're getting the two tight end sets. And Canada and Rothensberger, I won't go so far as to say they found a happy balance, but they found something that they can agree on. That works. And so to me, I think Ravens win the division and Steelers come out as a wild card. I think Bengals and Browns both miss it. And I know that the Bengals still have a winning record and have some marquey wins, including one over the Ravens.

But, I mean, they scored 32 points against the Raiders. And it was the obvious 32 points I've ever seen in my entire life. Like this offense has lost its basketball in terms of that downfield shot in terms of the explosive play. They become very methodical, very laborious. And that's scary for me down the stretch. That's where I say on the AFC North. No, I agree with you. I think I'd have it the same exact order.

I think the Ravens are in a tier on their own. I know it hasn't looked pretty, but they've been dealing with a lot of shit this year. And I think once everything comes together, they're going to be fine going into the playoffs. I still think they're a contender. The Steelers are a playoff team, but I don't think they're a contender. Like you said, the offense looks a lot better. I thought last week they were obviously missing a bunch of pieces on defense, but even still, that was still Justin Herbert just going insane.

I don't think Joe Burrough is going to be able to beat them in the same ways that Herbert was able to beat the Steelers. Like if Burroughs scrambling around a bunch, it's not going to look good. He's going to run into some sacks. So I think the Steelers are fine. I'm not worried about what happened against the Chargers. I think they're a playoff team. And then the Ohio teams, I just don't think they're good enough to make the playoffs. Real quick, because I pulled it up and I want to just give this to you before you go.

538 has the Ravens at 82% to make the playoffs. Then the Bengals at 49, Browns at 32, Steelers at 22s. The Steelers have the lowest of the four, but Stephen and I think they're going to make it. I just wanted to give you those numbers before you went. Yeah, no, I still think the Ravens will win the division. I'm curious to see whether if we get this Ben Rathesberger who showed up

against the charge of grand, it was the charges the events. But the willingness to push the ball down field, that was surprising and impressive. I think if their offense, if they're passing game, and Matt Canada, if he can get it to look like that on a consistent basis, then they should be the team that wins. Because, like you said, it'll come down to coaching.

And while I do like Stefanski a lot, we just spent all this time talking about Baker. Yeah. Like, they're hamstrung. And quietly, it might be in the best interests of the Browns. Like, if they were the kind of flame out, because then it gives them an easy way out of Baker. It spurs on action when you feel. like you under achieve relative expectations. Yeah, you always, to me, just go back to the things you trust.

And I trust Lamar and Harbaugh, and I trust Tomlin and the Steelers defense. The Bengals defense has been impressive. The, you know, Burrough Chase has been a nice thing. Brown's defense I like, but this is all new. And when push comes to shove, I go back to what I trust. What do I know? And I know that Harbaugh and Lamar are really freaking good. And I know that Tomlin of this defense are really freaking good.

And before we get off the AFC North, I just want to add something to the Baker discourse. I don't think bake. I don't think Baker is the main problem. I don't think he's the problem. I think he's just not the solution. And this year has proven that. Yeah. It would be fun, in my opinion.

We saw what LeFour could do with that offense once he got Rogers. We saw what McVeigh could do with that offense once he got Stafford. Staphancy, obviously, from a slightly different tree, more heavy personnel, whatever. But it would be, I think Stapansky is legit got the juice as an offensive designer. I think you've seen that, like, some of the screens and some of the one-off plays that are able to hit. it'd be fun to see this offense with a different quarterback. It really would be just from an interesting football perspective. Moving on on games that need games.

I'd like to talk about get another one of these offenses, get another one of these situations. That's the same as to go 49ers. Minnesota Vikings, two offenses running, the similar wide-owned thing, two offenses may be looking for quarterback improvements over the next year or so. But both have had really good stretches recently.

The Vikings coming off of that win against the Green Bay Packers. Over the last two weeks, they lead the league in, Ipe game for play. But over the last four weeks, that honor belongs to the 49ers, who since getting George Kittleback and Jeff Wilson back, and I know they lost Elijah Mitchell's injury as well, since getting Brandon Iuk more established in the rotation,

this offense has started to look like it was supposed to look. This is how it was supposed to operate with Jimmy G. This is the floor that we've expected it to have with him under the helm. On defense, they get Jukiski Tart back, they get Dre Greenlaw back. This is a team that took a lot of injury lumps early that is starting to get healthier. But focusing on the offensive side of the side of the side of the the ball after the impressive performances we've had against the rams against the jaguars obviously last week uh i'm at the point where i think that the niners are a fraught team they got a lot of

problems but we are undervaluing the offense because they've gotten back to the point where their bread and butter is their bread and butter and we've seen that offense just dice up teams dominate the running game they've had two drives in last two weeks of over 10 minutes with the way they're able to run the football got debo in the backfield i think the niner's offense is back and that's my buying or selling for this week. This Niners Vikings game, the Niners are three-point favorites, and it's because of how well the offense is played. I'm buying the Niners' offense down the stretch. Not necessarily as a playoff team, but as a, oh, shoot, this is the Niners we expected, and we got to be able to beat this really, really good system. Niners' offense is back. Are we buying or we selling?

I'd buy that. I think, I agree with you. I think we undervalued this team, and it's because we started off the year overvaluing the team. I thought they were like a fringe Super Bowl considered. Like, they were like a sleeper pick. but obviously circumstances, what happened during the season, it kind of messed them up, and then now they're back to the team that we should have thought they were going to be going into the season, which is a playoff caliber team that might not make it now

just because of how the season went on early on. But yeah, the offense, Kyle Shannon, I canceled them a couple weeks ago, and he made me look like an idiot. Not surprising. 49% playoff chance, according to 538 right now. That puts them just below the Vikings

start 59% those two guys are right middling. With a win, San Francisco goes all the way up to 74, Minnesota goes all the way up to 83. There's no playoff leverage right now yet from Brian Birx. It's too early in the week, but this is pretty much an elimination game as well

in terms of the NFC playoff picture. Yeah. And when I say playoff team, I mean like in a regular year, I think they're going to be in competition for that last wild card spot all year long. Yeah. Yeah.

Last three weeks, San Francisco first and EP are per play. 0.183. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, Shanahan's got the often tummy, but like you guys said, I think they dug themselves too deep of a hole. I do think a lot of people overestimated them, including myself. And I credit Shanahan because, you know, and Ben, you wrote about it very thoroughly in that piece, I think a few weeks ago about, you know, the Niners problems internally and Shanahan specifically. But, you know, like when the offense is creative, when they're able to, you know, get production out of the players that.

we expect him to get production out. And specifically when Jimmy Garoppolo is playing at a consistent level. Like, I know that he's not going to, you know, light the world on fire. But I think you guys mentioned it, like last week, some of the throws that he made against the Rams defense specifically, like, reminded me, yeah, like he's capable of playing at an above average level, which is pretty damn good quarterback play. Worth noting that, let's say like the Niners win this once.

They've won four of their last five, their six and six. five. They get the Seahawks, who, you know, what's Seattle doing right now? That's the topic for later. Bengals, Falcons,

Titans, Texans, and then the final game of the season is Rams. And so, like, if they keep this thing afloat, they got an easy schedule

down the stretch, and then a team that they have this historically beaten who might be like fighting for first round by, fighting for the division win in week 17. That Niners Rams game could have like massive playoff ramifications.

That could be a really fun one. Yeah, that might be a must win for them. And if the Rams, maybe they have their seed wrapped up, maybe it's a easier game than we think. Oh, right. Also, yeah, it could be a sit day for the Rams as well. That's a fun one. All right.

The final game that I'd like to talk about in games that need games is Chargers at Broncos, which I have to keep reminding myself, this is not the game that got flexed. That's next week. The whole flexed Sunday night football happening two weeks in advance always throws me off. I'm going to get that wrong at least at one point so far in the season. But my Maya Copa for this week, I actually have it as Kings Barton because we canceled Joe Lombardi,

and I'm here to uncancel him. And the reason is- I'm with you, I'm with you. Oh, I'm very thrilled. I thought we were just going to have to meet you. I mentioned, I think it was last week, that Lombardi had been doing well, been doing better over the last couple weeks.

So I was already there with you. So I think the important thing to bring up here is like that there's been a lot of conversations on our pod, on other pods and other places about what Joe Lombardi's doing with Herbert. And it's easy to put everything in, to one bucket. But if we divide things up, we can see where he's improved this season. Namely, what I'm talking about is that they have wanted to be a Drew Breeze offense. Joe Lombardi is like, this is how we run offense. We nickel and dime. We are quick throws.

We are RPAs. We are slant flat. Pick a half of the field, throw, get the ball quick. We're going to get to second and six. And in general, it feels like that is not the right way to call the offense for Justin Herbert. Due to Zahawitzer, uh, unbelievable intermediate and down to the accuracy this year can lace the ball between zone guys. That throw against the Steelers just absolutely freaking obnoxious throw. Like he just has these tools in his bucket that nobody else has. So you should be running an offense that breaks the rules because Herbert can do it. That has remained.

Herbert remains a low A-DOT quarterback all year. And that is frustrating. And I wish that changed. With that said, there was another problem that was connected and was folded in. And that was early down successfully because they wanted to be this Drew Brees offense that won on first downs, one on second downs, got to third and manageable, and then converted the third down. out to a new series. To start the year, they were not that. Before the buy, weeks one through six,

the charges as an offense were 0.06 EPA for play on early downs, which was 23rd in the lead. Specifically, they were 24th in EPA per dropback. And if we go to success rate, which just says, was there a positive EPA on this early down? Yes or no. They were at 46.7%. So they were trying to be a methodical early down offense. That doesn't make sense for Herbert, but it also just flat wasn't working. Out of the by, in the biweekly, week seven, and since week 8, they are 0.108 EPA per play on early downs, which is fifth in the league. They are third in EPA per dropback on early downs. Their A dot is still low.

It went from 6.5 to 5.9. They have not changed depth of target at all. But the success rate is 54.9 percent. One of the best numbers in the league is jumped 10%. So while they continue to be a shallow passing team, and I don't think that's how they should do it, this offense needs to work by succeeding on early downs because of how methodical it is. they weren't there to start the season, took the byweek, and got better. They are a much more successful early down passing game right now.

It's who's getting into the concept. It's the yak. It's the designs. I don't have the exact answer for the secret sauce, but it's very clear that the model they want to follow, which was not working early, they've gotten that train on the tracks here a little bit. Still, I don't think optimal, but much, much, much better. You've seen that reflection how the offense has played. And so Joe Lombardi, long receiving criticism from this show, also got canceled.

I now dubly pardoned. Congratulations. You're back allowed to be a football coach or whatever. Yeah, Stephen, before you go, you literally canceled. Was it last week or the week before? It was two weeks ago. You're like, oh, I was leading this way. I think we all have a habit of like being like,

oh, this is done. Like contradicting ourselves all the time. It's funny. Oh, yeah, I do it. I'm probably going to do it right now. The only truth is the truth of this week. But one thing that has changed, and it was something we were lying,

being for early on is more shotgun since week 5, 663% shotgun rate before week four, or weeks 1 through 4, 55%. So that has gone up. Last week, 40 shotgun dropbacks for Justin Herbert, only nine under center. And we saw how he played.

I still have an issue with how the offense is called. I just think he's doing a better job of it. And I have a number that I think explains it. On under center dropbacks, Herbert ranks 25th in a. at 6.9. Right ahead of Mack Jones and Kirk Cousins. Why are we calling plays?

That's so nasty. That's my problem. If I don't have any problem going under center, just call play action shots from under center and throw it deep down the field. And I talked to Justin Herbert's quarterback coach, John Beck, a month or two ago, and he mentioned how Herbert had never taken drops

from under center before he got to the NFL. So it doesn't surprise me that he plays better when in shotgun. Yeah. And the other thing, too, was like, the personnel that they have. You know, I know a lot of people clamored for them to get the Sean Jackson when he became available because they don't really have a downfield creator outside of Mike Williams. And granted, I think NextGen stats every week, they're talking about how he's run the most go routes, you know, since entering the league.

But outside of him, they don't really have a consistent deep threat. they do a pretty good job, and you can always tell when it's coming. Like, there's a shot play that they have where they'll have Keenan Allen off backside run like a go. And then Williams kind of run like a post route towards the inside, and they hit that a lot. But you don't really see them take too many other attempts down the field unless you're allowing, you know, within the framework of Herbert to kind of make adjustments on the fly. Like, for example, the game winning touchdown to Mike Williams. Like that was just kind of an option route where Mike Lulings felt the opening and then

went down the sideline and Herbert hit him within you know that split second. Herbert making that throw is so disgusting. But yeah, it's, oh my God, dude, I was freaking out. You're talking about the game winning throw? Yeah, that was a game winning throw. People thought that was like a coverage bus. That wasn't a coverage bus.

That's how the coverage is supposed to play out. This guy just can see the future. And I tweeted about it earlier. This is why he's so good. He's so good at hitting the back. was dropped reading the leverage of the defenders where their hips are facing he knows where the route is going and in an instant he knows whether that guy's open or not and if he's not open he moves on if he is open he's like the best thrower of the football we have right now and he's

going to make the throw every time steers are running there uh they're blitzing the slot and then have the outside corner who's going to look like he's covering that outside receiver vision the quarterback and because that slot's coming in on that blitz and you expect him to be a free rusher that outside corner is going to watch that slot receiver. He's going to expect the quarterback, seeing the slot pressure, to throw to that slot receiver. And so that outside corner is going to like pretend he's covering the outside guy and he's going to crash in on that slot. And it's a trap.

You're laying a trap. And your thought as a defense coordinator is, there's no way the quarterback's going to be able to in real time see the slot coming, but also see the corner trapping and then have the arm strength to while he's got pressure in his face, deliver that ball to the outside receiver up the sideline. That's not a real thing. That doesn't happen. So you don't have to worry about it.

And Herbert just, he doesn't even hit the throw. He hits it fast enough that Williams beats the angle from the safety. Safety's not human. And watch that play. First of all, if you watch the top of the screen, the same thing's happening on the other side. Like the cornerback reacts the same way. That's how you know it's like a design trap play.

But pause it at the drop. Look at the cornerback's hips. And then look at how quickly Herbert makes the decision to throw the go route. it's like instantaneous. It's before the corner even breaks on the slot receiver. And it's because of where his hips are pointed. It's an amazing play. And no other quarterback in the league makes it.

He did say that he noticed, like he found this out. I don't know if it was a series. He didn't say when, at what point in the game. He did identify this. Like that that play could happen earlier in the game. Oh, yeah. He told Mike Williams on the sideline early in the game. And I couldn't find the play where they'd ran it before,

but the fact that he could execute that is incredible. It happened at least like two times where they ran a similar coverage and the Chargers ran a similar route concept. So I'm not surprised that he picked up on it. It's just amazing that he reacted in the way that he did. Just an unreal quarterback. Yeah, not a real person.

And that probably is going to live with me for a while, man. The best quarterback in the league. Yeah. Okay. He is. I don't care what you guys say. He is. They know what's better than him right now.

We are moving on. It is give me a reason. our final segment of the show in which we take the worst games of the week Stephen and Keelan asked me for a reason to watch them and then I do my best to give them a good enough one that they will watch it. It is five games this week. It is undoubtedly going to

be my worst performance of the season because boy oh boy, we are just getting to the point where these teams are bad. I think whenever you have a lot of really good games, which I think we have at the top, inevitably you have a lot of really bad games. It means the two bad teams are playing each other. Five games on the docket. What would we like to see? This is the most give me a reason game of all time. I feel like Jets, Texans.

All right. So Robert Sala, the head coach of the New York Jets, has come, you know, a little bit. He's had a bit of a contentious relationship with the media so far this year. In terms of how his team is, in terms of how bad the defense is, and he's supposed to be a defensive guy. It just hasn't been great in New York, obviously. So talking about Jets fans' frustration and their feeling of urgency that they want to win and win now, Salas said this week,

quote, usually it's been a quick fix followed by a scramble. This is an actual plan. What he's saying is that Jets fans are not used to seeing a rebuild happen with an actual multi-year plan in place

that mostly has been coaches scrambling for wins. First thing is probably not true. But secondly, whatever. Let's posit that that's the case. We're going to hold that off to the side for now. And let's now re-remember that Zach Wilson was injured. The Jets started Mike,

White. They had to acquire Josh Johnson and trade Joe Flacco because they didn't have a veteran quarterback in place to help their rookie quarterback. White plays well against the Bengals. Sala says that it's an open quarterback situation and White has a chance to win the future job. Then White is abysmal the next week. Sala benches White for Flacco, who he just traded for, then says that White deserves better than when the fan base was turning on him and was pissed at him and that he should be treated better than that, even though he himself is benching him for Joe Flacco. and then the guy he traded for Joe Flacco is unvaccinated, got COVID, and now both Flacco and White are in the COVID protocols,

and they're back to starting Zach Wilson, which does not feel like a plan. It really feels like a scramble there, Rob. That feels like what you're talking is not good. The Houston, Texas are favorite in this game, which is the first time they've been favored in a game all season. Watch to see the favorite Houston Texans and David Cully exposed the lack of the plan with the New York guys.

I'm not going to watch it, but I agree with everything you said. So I'll give you a... That was more of a vet session than it was anything else. Listen, Northeast, Gus Bradley. Oh, why. You can't be talking about long-term plans when the first steps of your plan is drafting Kidsbop Jim McMahon

and then trading for a backup quarterback who isn't vaccinated. Like, your plan is not looking good so far. You're giving up 45 points a game on defense over the last month. Why would Jets fans trust your plan? This is worse than Adam Gase. Oh, that's scary. Damn. Yeah.

Damn. I agree with everything you said, Ben, you're going to get a dink for me, but I wasn't going that far. Damn. Yeah. I think, I just think when you're a coach who's very clearly losing to be in a rebuild, don't get stuffy, right? Don't get like, all in a tizzy, right?

You got to understand, like, these are fans, fans are rational, fans are going to be pissed. Yeah, we understand why you're pissed. We're doing everything we can here, try to win games. Just don't make headlines for yourself. Just be a quiet, losing team. team and rebuild, and then that's the best way to do it. It's annoying.

All right, four games left. What would we like? Give us Atlanta and Jacksonville. Yeah, this one's extremely ugly. We check in with Urban Decay, our weekly segment, which we see how Urban's doing. This from John Shipley, who by the way, this segment is sponsored by John Shipley.

He's a Jags beat reporter for Jaguar Report and every single week I'd DM. And I'm like, hey, what's the worst thing that Urban Meyer said this week? The shout out, John. After the game in which the Jaguars lost at the 49, Niners. Urban opened his presser by saying, quote, I was disappointed with everything about today. Very fair. The Jacksonville Jaguars, and I don't know if this like has never happened before,

but here's the stat. When they took their fifth offensive snap, they were down 17 to nothing. I think that's really, that's got it. You can't, there's no way somebody else has done that ever in NFL history. I'm going to go ahead and claim that that's a record. I would love to say this is the second game in, I would love to say this is the first game that the Jaguars are favorite this year, but they actually were favored over the Texans in week one. Remember that. That was a good time. They're now a pick-em at most books against the Atlanta Falcons. Arthur Smith, by the way, is a strong second place for also terrible sad quotes about a losing team in the media. He said of the four and six Falcons, we've yet to play a complete game this season. He is correct.

The Falcons are pretty terrible. I have no major reason to watch this game, besides the two funniest coaches in the league to watch lose. are Arthur Smith and Urban Meyer because they both have tremendous sideline shots and then just looking totally lost in the sauce and I feel like those will be fun screen grabs at the end. I don't know about that line. No. I'm not watching.

What'd you say, Stephen? I don't know about that line. I think the Falcons are going to win this game easily. But I'll watch for Trevor Lawrence. I'm telling you guys, watch Trevor Lawrence, man. He's a top 15 quarterback already. I don't care what the stats are. I'm not disagree.

I'm not talking to you guys. I'm talking to the listeners. Oh, okay. I was like, damn. I should have pivoted to watch for Trevor Lawrence after the Mac conversation we had because, man, some of Lawrence's incompletions

are just like jaw dropping plays where you're like, if you just took the average offensive line and average receiver, because like play designs are fine. Like the average offer line an average receiver and put them on the Jaguars,

Lawrence highlights real would be amazing. But instead it's Tayvon Austin. He would be in the MVP discussion right now if he was on the Patriots. I don't think he would deserve to be on it. But Mac, Jones is almost... Kalyn and I say the exact same face.

Let me explain. Mac Jones is getting close to the MVP discussion based on how everyone talks about him. I think Trevor Lawrence might already be there. I'm not saying he deserves to be there. He was saying based on how we think about how quarterbacks win games, he would be in it. Holy smokes.

That's fair. Okay, I follow that law. Yeah. I totally followed up. We've got to get through these last three games because Stephen is just firing off play. I'm tilted. Steven's on full send vote right now. He was like, no one's going to listen to this holiday weekend. I'm just saying what I want to say.

All right. Three games last vote would be like. Panthers, I'm already giving you a ding before you even start. Pam Newton, baby. Okay. So the Panthers had, I think, a couple of good opportunities to beat the Washington football team.

Washington's, you know, play some nice ball over recent weeks. They had the fourth down, the, you know, the spot. And with Christian McCaffrey and with the play call, whatever. They had the opportunity to drive the end of the game. It was a tough loss. And Ron Rivera coming back with Charlotte, very emotional game for Washington, in Washington delivered a good game.

With that said, Cam was 21 for 27, 189 yards, so not super deep down the field, two touchdowns and no picks. Throw in that he also ran 10 times for 46 yards in the touchdown, including a 24-yard long run. We were all very excited for Cam on this show, but don't get a twisted. Like there was a chance he wasn't that good. He looked great. Like, you know, over 30, past athletic peak, not the best quarterback in the league, but he looked fully functional. would have been really nice for the whole

playoff conversation if they were able to win that one. But it's nice to see a full working cam. It looks fast again. Like this is nice. So going up against the Dolphins team, which has also had a couple wins in recent weeks, but in general it's not very trustworthy. I told you last week to watch Cam debut.

I tell you this week, watch to see Cam win his first game back with the 2021 Panthers. They're one and a half points favorite against the dolphins, and I think they cover that pretty easily. I think they win. Yeah, and just to add to it, he didn't get to throw down field that off. him, but when he had to throw downfield, they were really good throws.

He ended up as the fifth highest-graded quarterback by PFF this week. And if PFF likes how Cam plays, you know Cam had a good game because PFF is historically hated Cam. That's true. And the gameplay was what I thought it would be just a bunch of option routes. Like, they just ran option routes over and over again. And it works. And I think it would work against the Dolphids.

By one concern is if they throw out that cover zero gameplay at them, I don't know if Cam is going to be able to find the answers. within the scheme that he's just starting to learn, and that could be an issue. And teams have historically blitzed Cam a lot more than they have other quarterbacks, so that could be the game plan. But I do have faith in Joe Brady.

I think this is a good game to test, like, where Joe Brady's at as an offensive coordinator. Kaelin, how we feel? I'm giving you a ding because of Cam. Yeah, maybe. Like Stephen just said, I was impressed by the game plan that Brady had for Cam and the fact they look so fluid,

already within that offense is impressed. Yeah. I think one of your best answers to however zero is the quick running back target. And baby, if there's somebody you like to give a running back target to and then football, that's, that's Christian McCaffrey. Yep, I like, I think Panthers have a good day. All right, two games left.

What would we like? Eagles Giants. Tell me that Jalen Hertz is a top 10 quarterback. He isn't? I just wrote about Jalen Hertz for the ringer. The offense is working very well. They're running the football very well. They're about to get a too high defense

in the Giants who really haven't stopped the run all year. Eagles are going to win. I think Eagles are going to cover. It's going to be very nice. With that set, Jason Garrett was fired. The offensive coordinator by the Giants. Incredible. That a decision can both be the right decision,

but then also be hilarious and have probably just no impact on the team. That just kind of shows you where the Giants are. This from Mike Clay at ESPN, offensive touchdown scored since the start of the 2020 regular season. That's when Jason Garrett became the offensive coordinator of the Giants. they are last in the league with 42. Next closest is the Jets with 46, then the Jaguars with 52, to give you a scale for just how bad the offense has been under Garrett.

The top team is the Buccaneers with 95. That's more than double. How many of the Giants have had in that stretch? Jason Garrett's passing game has been abysmal. Now he's replaced by Freddie Kitchens. If there's a list of coordinators, you're more worried about the Jason Garrett, man. it's a very short list and Freddie Kitchens is on it. I'm objectively interested to see what he does with this team,

with all of their injuries, with this terrible offensive line, with Daniel Jones not playing well. I legitimately, I beseech you, watch this game to see what a Freddie Kitchens led Daniel Jones offense looks like because it is rare that we see that level of disruptive, terrible chaos in the NFL. See, you're throwing that out there like it's going to be a circus to watch. I'm not so sure that it doesn't make things a lot better. Say what you want about Freddie Kitchens,

but he did a damn good job as the last time he was an interim offensive play caller. Interim, yes. Actual offensive play caller. But he's an interim play caller now. And I do think, I think his issue was being a head coach and weighing that with, or balancing that with being a play caller.

I think if he's a play caller, like he had some good ideas when he was the Brown's play caller. And with a quarterback like Daniel Jones, I'd like to see him use those ideas. Like maybe involve him in the run game a little bit more than Garrett was doing. And I think he's more willing to do that. Kalyn wants to see Daniel Jones at the running game.

I do. I want to see him be a redobject quarterback. Like, what are we doing? Right. Give him the Jalen Hertz offense. Right. I was not to say. Yeah. As we long expected, the showdown between the two great running quarterbacks in the league,

Jalen Hurts and Daniel Jones coming to you on Sunday. Yeah, I think they run a more. I think they probably run more like under center play action stuff too, if they have it. But like, yeah. I, to me,

like, okay, how many John Ross and Dante Fettus Target's are we talking here? Because that's what you're dealing with. Yeah. It's not going to solve anything.

Yeah. That's the, you should have, firing Garrett was like drafting Daniel Jones. Yeah, you needed a quarterback, but this isn't going to solve it. Exactly.

Yeah. Everybody should read Danny hyphitz as Pete's on the ringer, which is about how firing Jason Garrett makes sense. But also, you know what was the worst thing? Hiring Jason Garrett. That was the first problem. Exactly.

Ben, You should have went with Cadarius Tony because I would have given you a thing. Because that dude, phone booth quickness is off the charts. There's nothing more fun than watching a guy make NFL athletes look like regular people. And that's the kid that's that's Goddarius, Tony. Nobody makes defenders miss in terms of five-yard gain into a six-yard game quite like Tony. Yeah, that's the thing is, he's making guys miss. He just is not going backwards after he does it.

Make him miss the go upfield. We've got to get the yard. Yeah. Yeah. That's maturation for you. He's good, though. He's good. He's going to be a player.

He was good. Our last game that's on Give Me a Reason is Seahawks at Washington Football Team, which is the Monday Night Football Game, which means that you're going to watch it by default, which means that I win. But last week, I did something clever with the Texans, where I found an article where someone was like, hey, here's the reasons to watch the Texans.

I listed those, and then they went and beat the Titans, which was surprising, and I wish I had called that. I found a similar article for the Washington football team. And so I figured we're going to try this again and see if the magic continues. this from Ethan Caddo over at NBCSports.com. The title of the article is one reason to watch every remaining Washington game in 2021. He wrote this before the Bucks game, and they've won the last two games. So this really seems to be like the move.

You just write about reasons to keep watching a bad team, then all of a sudden they start winning again just to prove you wrong. Here's his reason for the Seahawks game. Primetime struggles continue. For the past several years, Washington has been absolutely terrible on Monday Night Football. I do not know this. they've played 18 games at FedEx Field on Monday night since it opened in 1997. They are 2 and 16 in those games.

All together on Monday Night Football, they are 6 and 23, which is horrible. They get Russell Wilson, who has been tremendous in prime time across the course of his career. He is 29, 9, and 1. But the Seahawks are absolutely reeling right now. And I think losing to Colt McCoy is bad. But I think losing to Tyler Heineke and the Washington Football team on Monday Night Football might be even worse. So watch Seattle football team Craitor and also watch the Washington football team become better on prime time. Because apparently if you have no reason to watch a team, they're going to start winning games.

Respectfully, I know that you and whoever wrote that article put a lot of work into that, but I'm not going to watch. Nope. Ben didn't put any work into it. He just Googled it. Exactly. And I don't need to see theater kid Russell Wilson try to carry the Seahawks into backing relevance. Oh, man. Oh, he's a theater kid.

Oh, my goodness. I took issue with one thing, Ben said. He gave credit to these guys writing these articles about bad teams and why you should watch them. And then they start winning again, he gave them credit. But when a guy cancels a team because they're bad and they start winning all of a sudden, they get laughed. Yes, they do. I'm not watching this game. These are my favorite late season Monday night games because you get to not pay attention on Monday night.

Yeah, get something else done with your time. I learned today, looking up all this, that Ross Wilson, Mr. Unlimited, has another nickname on Pro Football Reference that I didn't know, called the Asterisk, which if you're just nicknaming yourself as like the exception, that's way too self-aware for my liking. The asterisk, that's horrible. That's what Pro Football Reference has. I don't get it.

Is it because he's short and he's like, in short quarterbacks don't make it? And he was like a third round pig? Yeah, that's what I'm guessing. The asterisk. That's terrible. And you know, you know Russ called up. PFR and was like, can you add this? This is like a nickname I'm going for now.

We should have seen the Russ descent coming with all of his really bad nicknames. That was the first sign. That'll do it for us here on the Ringer Friday show on Wednesday, it's Thanksgiving week. Thank you so much for Nora for joining us for the Super Dupor show. Thank you for sticking with us all the ways. We preview the Sunday slate.

And we hope that you enjoy your Thanksgiving. For me, I mean, like, it's been really fun doing this show all year. It's been a new show here for the Ringer Feed. And I'm very thankful for Kaelin and Steve and for doing it with me. We have a lot of fun. thankful also for Stepan Anderson who stepped in today for Chris Sutton who's usually doing our production work. Thank you, of course, for Juno Ramble, who's running the show behind the curtain as per usual.

Regular scheduling, regular programming next week. So we will catch you then on Friday with the usual trio doing the usual things. Same time, same place. Nope, different time. Same place. Next week.