The Ringer NFL Show - The Browns Can’t Win Without Nick Chubb, the Ravens' Coordinators are Building a Contender, and More Big Takeaways from Week 2 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

Sheil and Ben start the pod by sharing their takes on the Saints' win over the Panthers, and the future of the Browns after Nick Chubb’s injury in their loss to the Steelers on 'MNF.' Ben then explains why the Falcons' Bijan Robinson is one of the best draft picks ever, while Sheil points the finger at Brandon Staley for the Chargers' continued struggles (21:13). They then give big flowers to the Ravens' coaching staff before talking about which surprise teams may be representing the AFC in the Super Bowl (41:38). Ben ends the pod with his extra points on Sheil’s golf game and the state of the Jaguars (58:21). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Social: Kiera Givens and Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Come to Extra Point Taking. Shield Capati here, joined by Ben Solac. We're coming off a Monday night football, double header. Saints beat the Panthers and a snoozer. Steelers beat the Browns and what was not a snoozer, if you like offensive football, this wasn't the night for you. Soak, I feel like I just sat through another full, like, Sunday of football.

It feels like I was sitting there for seven hours watching these two games. But we'll have takes on those two, along with the rest of the week to, action, but do you feel this way? How do you feel about the Monday night football double header? I thought I made it clear on our previous podcast. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. Maybe he has ever happened to anyone. I mean, this is so bad, dude. You spend so much time paying attention to multiple games on Sunday that when you go to the part of your brain that's responsible for multitasking on Monday, that part is like, absolutely not. We are off.

We are not having more than one thought for the next, like, two to three days. It was, it was like, thank goodness both games were so herky jerky because it made it easy to. And like, they were both ugly. So you weren't dialed in. If they were two really good high, fast-paced games, I would have fried, man. It was terrible. Yeah, Saints Panthers was close to putting me, you know, old man nap time here on the chair next to me wondering, you know what? We could probably just record this pod Tuesday morning.

I don't know if I'm going to make it till the end of the night. But I made it. you made it let's get to it you lead us off Steelers beat the Browns so we decided you're responsible for that game what's your takeaway from that game from that victory for Pittsburgh yeah so obviously the major thing that happened was the Nick Chubb injury he goes down and has had the 10-yard line I think it was

early second quarter obviously Chubb had a really substantial left knee injury in college he had tore multiple ligaments cartilage damage Adam Schaefter tweeted it out and it looks like he got injured on the same leg and pretty badly he was carded. I think there was an air cast. It's probably a major injury.

That really sucks. Nick Chubb is so fun to watch play. He is so good. And he's also a bastion. And I thought Ryan Clark did a nice job discussing this on the Monday Night Football on a halftime desk with Scott Van Pelt. He's a bastion in the argument for running back value and running back contracts. He's on a second contract and he continues to provide value for his team.

And so for him to get hurt really affects that conversation, puts in a different light, but to spin things forward and to think about the world after the chub injury for the Browns. The take is this. The Browns are not equipped to have a Nick Chubless offense. And I think we started to see what that was going to look like here against the Steelers. Now, you're not going to face TJ Juan, Alex Highsmith, every single game, of course. But right tackle Jack Conklin goes down. They have DeWan Jones now out at tackle for them.

And he's holding his water as best he can. Honestly, playing pretty well for a fourth-ground rookie. but they just don't have great pass protection between Jones and Jedrick Will's. That's not where the strength of that position is. And Deshawn Watson, when he was good with the Texans, when he was bad with the Texans, when he was bad with the Browns, it doesn't matter what stage of his career you're talking about. Deshaun Watson's guy who takes a lot of sacks. He invites a lot of pressure.

And we saw how dramatically that impacted Watson in this game in which the game winning score, the game deciding play, is a strip sack. Right. I think it's returned for a touchdown. Again, not going to be playing the serious pass rush every week. With that said, this is not a very good coverage unit. And the Brown's wide receivers had some good separation. Ari Cooper had a good night,

but it's not like they were throwing the ball with a plumb and regularly finding wide open receivers. Jerome Ford also, like I would say is a pretty decent backup running back. He's not a really well-known name, but he's a solid player. Had a huge explosive run in this game. It had the catch for the touchdown after the Chub injury. Like, he's an actual legitimate player. But immediately after the Chub injury,

they put it up on the broadcast, 14 passes to three runs for Kevin Stapansky. Once they lost Chubb, they clearly felt like they lost their ability to establish with the running game and they went into the past game. Now, some of that was a two minute drive, right? And that skews the numbers a little bit. But the Browns ended up going a high pass rate over expectation once Chubb went out. And so if they believe internally that they can't be the run first team with Chubb. And if they have four back there, they have to be a past first team.

I don't think they're equipped for that. I don't think Watson's playing well enough. I thought he was poor again tonight. I don't think their pass protection is equipped for that. And receiving core wise, I do think the Browns, of a good group, but I think it has been a little bit inflated in the offseason process. I think you saw that with some of the struggles

to separate against these Steelers defenders. So if the Browns decide, all right, Chubbs gone, we're going shotgun 90% of the snaps. We're passing on 65% of the snaps. I remain unconvinced of the horsepower for that. I don't think that's going to be good for them offensively. Yeah, first of all, it is a bummer.

I'm totally with you. Probably, in my opinion, the most fun running back in the NFL to watch and just in terms of quality, either He's first or second in the NFL, him and Christian McCaffrey to me. So we don't have all the details of the injury. We're recording right after Monday night football. We'll see what it is.

But you could kind of tell from the broadcast that whether Joe Buck and Troy Aikman knew something definitively or not, the way they were talking about it. You saw the outpouring on social media with other athletes talking about it, that pretty much everyone believes this to be a serious injury. If it's not, that would be a wonderful surprise that we'll react to later in the week. but for now, it looks like the Browns are going to be without Nick Chubb. Yeah, I'm with you. You know, Jerome Ford looked good in this game. There's no doubt about it. Had the 69-yard run had a couple other really nice plays.

But this is a guy who had eight rushing attempts last year in 13 games. You know, so this is not somebody who has said, and that was his first year in the NFL. So this is not someone who's carried a heavy load in the NFL. And Nick Chub is just the prototypical bel cow back. It's just like give it to him over and over and over again. head and he's breaking tackles and he's winning games for you and he's, and he's tearing off explosive runs all the time. So yeah, he absolutely does matter.

It will be sort of this weird experiment to see what does that brown, because that Brown's running game has been like top five efficiency, basically every year with Nick Chubb. So what does it look like this year if they don't have Nick Chubb for an extended period of time? And I'm with you. I mean, you look at that Brown's offense. It still doesn't look like this meshing of what Kevin Stifansky wants to do and what DeShon Watson wants to do.

It's not there. They've got work to do. They had the ball 14 times tonight, and they scored two touchdowns on 14 possessions. They had a couple opportunities there late in the game. And the Steelers scored two touchdowns on the 12 other possessions. Exactly. It's not a good net there, buddy. He had two personal foul penalties where he's grabbing face masks trying to escape.

He's not somebody who just goes down easily. He's trying to extend these plays. Sometimes that leads to a spectacular play. Sometimes that leads to penalties. or other issues for them offensively. So, yeah, he took six sacks. He's always had a high sack rate. In Houston, we said, well, you know what?

He's playing behind a terrible offensive line. Well, in Cleveland, you know, like you said, they do have the injury to Conklin. But even if you look at last year, his sack rate was way higher than Jacoby Brissette's was. That's just kind of the style of quarterback. He's going to be someone who can extend those plays. So I thought coming into the season, this Brown's offense was, I was like, if they lose Amari Cooper or Nick Chubb, all of a sudden I don't like that supporting cast much. You know, it was kind of a thin group I felt like coming into the season. And now it looks like you might lose that one player

in Nick Chubb. So in terms of my like season, you know, projection for them. I had him at eight and nine coming into the season. I think I would probably have something similar to that now, even with the Chub injury. Again, that's not to say he doesn't matter. I think their defense looks pretty good so far through two weeks. But yeah, it's certainly a big blow. if you're someone who felt like this Browns team was kind of a sleeper in the AFC, there's no doubt about. The defense looks good. You were right on that one.

I liked it. I would like for them to play one real. I don't spike the football after two weeks. We got a lot of football to go. I like what I'm seeing. I would also like to see them play one real offense. If I could just get a single real offense to line up against the Browns, that'd be helpful.

The take was about Nick Chubbin about this Brown's offense. But man, it could have been pretty easily about Kenny Pickett and the Steelers offense. Holy smokes. We are not looking good right now on the offensive side of the ball for Pittsburgh. Not looking good. Like you said, the defense scored two touchdowns. The offense scored one touchdown, right?

Is that correct? They had the big thing to George Pickens, and that was it. They scored 25 total points. 14 of them came from the defense. 13 came from the offense. That's just complimentary football, right? When coach talk about balance, that's what they're talking about. We want as many points scored by our offense

as it was scored by our defense. It was such a classic, like, nonsense sort of win for the like prime time Steelers. Like how are they going to win this game? They're not doing anything offensively. We all know they're going to win this game. How are they going to win this game? Let's see.

Oh, okay. Alex Highsmith, by the way, like stuff. We have, I don't know that it would be mentioned him or not, but unbelievable night for him. I mean, really, like you said, responsible for two touchdowns for the Pittsburgh Steelers and really gets them to win. So what I'm most happy about, Ben, is that the streak is alive. We now have Matt Canada, 37 straight games under Matt Canada, without gaining at least 400 yards of offense for the Pittsburgh Steelers. So listen, we've got a show on Friday.

We'll preview the week three games. We can talk more about the Steelers then. Good job by them getting the victory. Defense plays well. Offense has the same questions we thought coming in. You had a good sort of transition for me previously where you said you would like to see the Steelers do it against a good offense. We can carry that over to the Saints Panthers game.

Saints beat the... How about the... What a what a... a week for nonsense picks and nonsense pushes and nonsense covers Ben Solac. The Saints minus three going into this game in full control, like not even in question. You're not even sweating it out in the fourth quarter. Panthers out of nowhere with the touchdown drive, get the two-point conversion. And all of a sudden you get a push if you're like me and you write a weekly picks column

and you really could have used that victory because it was a tough week. And instead, you have to settle for the push. You have that. You have the McVeigh thing on Sunday. that I was losing my mind. McVeigh, why are you kicking the field goal? Are you fading me on my picks, McVeigh? What do you do?

I don't know what I'm talking. I'm losing it. But that was not nice by McVeigh. See, now imagine if you place real money on these bets. I, you're a proud owner of a Panthers plus three and a half and an under ticket on Saints Panthers. It was under 39.5. We scored 37 points.

Panthers plus three and a half cover. Couldn't have been easier. Never sweated it, not once. Oh, my gosh, you had plus three and a half. Unbelievable. So my transition was about the Saints defense because the Saints defense now has given up one touchdown in the first two weeks of the season. And good for them. They're two and no.

Saints fans can be happy about that. My take is about the Panthers. And as you know, I was high on the Panthers coming. I wouldn't say high. I thought they could win the NFC South at 9 and 8 because I think all those teams think. So I threw a dart. Firstly, high is a relative term. If you thought the Panthers were more likely better than other people did,

You were high in the Panthers. You can't choose how the word works later when it doesn't work. So my take is, I don't know if Bryce Young can develop under these circumstances. This was painful to watch. They cannot, oh my God. Adam Thielen had like five targets on the first possession. Adam Thielen cannot run. There was nothing, nothing downfield.

They finally took a shot down the right sideline to DJ Shark. and they got a pass interference penalty. But this was just, there was nobody open. And it was really interesting. There was 155 left in the game. And, you know, the announcers don't have much to say. And Dan Orlovsky was just like, how many times has Bryce Young had an open receiver tonight?

And I'm like, yes, that is the story of the game. Like, even the completions you saw, unless they were little checkdowns or screens or whatever, there was nothing beyond like five yards where you said, wow, that receiver got a good separation. And it's not only that. because we knew coming into the season, he wasn't going to have great pass catching options with him. When you combine that with the offensive line, now it becomes really difficult because now it's not only our guy's not separating, but now the pass protection's not holding up either. And I thought their offensive line had a chance to be better than what it showed against the Saints defense.

Again, the Saints front is pretty good. But man, if I'm the Panthers and I'm looking at it and like our goal is, hey, we want to maximize, you know, we want to develop Bryce Young. We want to maximize who Bryce Young can be as a quarter. back, I just don't know what the path towards that is going to be this year. When you're targeting, again, Adam Thielen leads the team in targets tonight. You know, he had, what, nine targets in this game? Yeah, I think of it after three drives that Young had had gotten seven pass attempts off, and he had five Adam Thielen targets and two Miles Sanders targets.

That's a dark and dangerous thing to say. Like, that's your script, man. That's what you intended to come out with. That's gnarly stuff. Jonathan Mingo had eight targets. I feel like those were later in the game because there was a while where I'm going, wait a minute,

where's the rookie who's at least got a little juice? Let's give him some touches. Chuba Hubbard had five targets. Miles Sanders had five targets. A lot of the Chuba ones were that two-minute drill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I told a bragging story about betting there. Here's the sad story about betting.

Terrace Marshall led the team in Rout's run in week one. And I bet on him to have over 12 and a half receiving yards in week two. guess who was leased in the league or leased on the team in Rout's run today. Terrace Marshall, DJ Charks back and they said, get that second year player off the field immediately. We have a one year, $4 million vet

contract to get out there. DJ Charks going to save us. That's how bad the Panthers wide receiver situation is right now. Yeah, I mean, I wonder if they, you know, if they're a team that looks to make a move before the trade deadline, if there's a team looking to get rid of a wide receiver if they're one of those teams that pounces because

I just don't know how you can scheme it up. And again, I thought that their coaching staff would be able to scheme it up a little bit if these guys could give them like slightly below average play. But I don't even think they can give them that right now. So I am worried a little bit about Bryce Young's rookie season. We're two games into Bryce. He has behaved largely as I expected him to coming out of college,

where he's got a calmness to him. He's got a poised to him and a willingness to great plays. That third and 11 scramble where he makes that safety miss in space. Like it was the easiest thing, man. It's silky. Bryce's best plays are smooth, dude. They're so fun to watch. However, he is physically limited.

And this was a thing that we didn't really want to talk about when he came out. But he was quicker than fast. He's not going to run away from guys. You saw Saints defensive players successfully chasing down. Carl Granderson, Tomahawk chopped from behind, right, cause a fumble. He's getting chased down by defensive ends. The physical limitation also comes in terms of where he can throw the football and how he can throw. He's just short, right?

And so he can't really work the middle of the field super well. It doesn't have a super strong arm. And so it's not like he can like laser tight windows or make really hard throws off of platform. It's a fine arm, but it's not super strong. And so some of the plays that he got away with creating at the college level, he hasn't gotten away with at the NFL level.

Now, we're two games in. So none of this matters, right? Of course he is what he was in college. That's how it typically goes. However, this is when habituation begins,

right? If the receiving court doesn't get better. And they have injured guards, right? They've Cade, Maze and Chandersavala out there. the pass protection doesn't get better, then Young's just going to keep doing this.

He's going to keep on trying to be a scramble quarterback when he doesn't necessarily have the explosive ability to do that. He's going to continue to have to throw these fadeaway shots because he's getting hit, and he doesn't have the arm talent for that. And Justin Fields here serves as a great example of like, okay, like a guy could have developed, but if the environment around him never got good enough, he's going to generate really, really bad habits that are tough to break

even when the things get a little bit better. And so that's what you're worried about with Bryce Young's, the long-term effects of him experiencing this at the NFL level. Yeah, I think they probably thought coming into the season, hey, our protection will be pretty good. We might not make a lot of plays downfield, but we can be methodical and he can still develop this way, but went, like you said, when you have those backup guards in there, and now that's breaking down and you're scrambling and you're looking for Adam feeling to uncover, I mean, there's not a lot the guy can do. So that's definitely on my radar. All right, let's real

quick give these teams. I feel like if you're a Saints fan or Steelers fan, you're like, hey, our team's one. You guys barely said anything about us. Is there anything, we want to say about the Saints and the Steelers before we move on to the rest of what we saw in week till. Steelers, good Alex Highsmith extension. And Keanu Benton looks nice. Hopefully, make up Fitzpatrick is okay. That George Pickens catch and run was hilarious.

Saints, the Saints have not given up more than 20 points in a game. Yeah, they've given up 20 points a game or less in 10 consecutive games, which is now a franchise record going back to last season. The previous record, it was set in 1991. This was on Twitter. This is not, this is not my nugget. I saw it from, I think, Saints PR. Dennis Allen, man.

I don't know why the ability to coach a defense doesn't translate into any of the other jobs that he's ever attempted and any of the roles of being a head coach. But man, the guy can coach a defense. Such a good unit. Saints, I've been a big Saints stouter. I thought that Derek Carr had a real rough game against the Panthers. I thought he was shaky against the Titans as well. I don't love the way this offense is built and is working.

But man, it's very hard to be fully out on the Saints because when we look across this NFC South, three, two and O teams, the Falcons, the Bucks, and the Saints, okay, who's legit, who isn't? I think the best unit without question is that Saints defense. That's the one where I'm like, oh, like they can actually really hang their hat on it and beat some good teams of that defense.

It's impressive stuff. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. And the schedule they have this year, combined with that defense. They can kind of win games the way they won this game where it's really not that pretty. I mean, it wasn't pretty. But Chris Olavé, my goodness, we probably went too long without mentioning him.

Just a couple highlight real catches here where you're saying they should be throwing him the ball even more. I mean, I'm looking at 11 targets. It felt like I was watching that game going through. It should be getting him the ball even more here. There was that second quarter. It's a lot of Michael Thomas, Michael Thomas, Michael Thomas. You know, okay, like, this is fine.

But like, are we sure? And they come out in the second half. where's a lot of it? Where's 12? Somebody had a conversation in a locker room and they were like, you know, this young cat can play a little bit. We might need to rethink where the ball's going and get on them for that. He kind of showed those signs of being the type of receiver

that can kind of put the offense on his back when nothing else is working. I mean, he made two monster plays for them where the offense was really sputtering for New Orleans. So Saints improved to 2 and O. I think they're probably still the favorites there in the NFC South, although who knows with the rest of our takes,

you might feel differently. Panthers 0 and 2 here. Browns are 1 and 1, but suppers, we'll see what all the injuries are for them later in the week. And then the Steelers are one-on-one, like you mentioned, that Minka Fitzpatrick injury. Hopefully, he's going to

be okay. All right, we'll take a little break here, and then we will get to Solax next take from week 2. Snap into action this NFL season with Fandall, America's number one sports buck. Right now, new customers get $200 in bonus bets, when you place a $5 bet. That's $200 in bonus bets, win or lose.

All right, week three, I like Thursday night football. Niners, minus 10 and a half at home against the Giants, get that one in early. Miami Dolphins hosting the Denver Broncos, I like at minus six and a half. And you know what? I do like the Chargers money line minus 106 against the Vikings. If you've been thinking about joining Fandle,

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$10 first deposit required. Bonus issue does not withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt, restrictions supply. See terms at sportsbook.fandle.com. All right. We are back on extra point taken. Benjamin. Hit me.

What do you got? Non-Monday night football edition. All right. The Bejot Robinson draft. pick was a great draft pick. It was one of the best draft picks in the last 100 years. It's one of the best top 10 draft picks ever made in all of history. In all seriousness, the Falcons came out of heavy criticism for drafting a running back in the top 10 when they drafted Bichon Robinson. This is not a good use of resources.

How does this make any sense? You already have a good running back in Fowler, Alger, you had a good running game last season. Two games in. Bejohn Robinson right now is seventh in the league in success rate as an individual runner. he's second in the league in rushing yard. He's third in the league in rushing yards over expectation per attempt. Second in the league and overall rushing yards over expectation. Danny Kelly tweeted this out. Danny Kelly of the ringer tweeted this out earlier today.

Bejohn Robinson has 10 rushes with at least four yards after contact that's tied for third in the league right now. He also is the target rate leader among running backs in the league right now. 23% target rate. That's how many targets he gets on routes that he runs, which is 5% more than the next guy. they are using him the way that like we thought the lions might use Gibbs. They're using him the way that like dual threat running backs have traditionally been used. He's not going to like McCaffrey usage where he lines up in like the slot out wide and runs like legitimate routes,

but it's just the next step below that. In week two against the Packers and what ended up being a not like a hugely impressive win, not like a dominant win, but really like quite an eye-popping victory for the Falcons down by 12 in the fourth quarter. not a pass happy team, not a past heavy team. Are they going to be able to operate in these conditions? And they do. They come out with the one point win. Bejohn Robinson ended the day with 172 scrimmage yards.

That's 14th all time for a player in their first two games. He walked into the NFL and immediately translated. And it's a huge part of why the Falcons are 2 and O. Because when Tyler Algier runs the football and then Bejohn Robinson runs the football, there's a very clear difference, right? And running back value gets discussed in the offensive line. impact this and the other thing. When you watch the players, it's very clear which one was the top 10 pick and which one wasn't. It's very clear who has the juice, who creates these explosive plays,

29-yard catch and run, multiple runs of over 10 yards against the Packers front, breaking tackles in tight areas. He did this again in week one against the Panthers. He is a walking explosive play. He turns three-yard gains into five-yard gains, five-year gains at eight-yard gains, and eight-yard gains, and eight-yard gains. This is exactly what the Falcons thought they were buying when they took Regent Robinson at A's. They say, we are going to be a run-heavy team anyway. So let's get a guy in here who when we put the ball in his belly, he can go and create a legitimate game for us. He can chunk our way down the field.

Then the past catch and stuff on top of it is great. For the Falcons to be 2 and 0 right now, I think a good amount of value, a good amount of credit goes to an offensive line that's playing pretty well. A good amount of credit goes to Arthur Smith in terms of the way that he's decided to build this offense. He was very analytic-oriented in this game against the Packers,

went for multiple fourth downs, three of them, all of which were nerd-supported than we're critical to winning. But a big part of it goes to Bijon, right? Who we always want to talk about top 20 picks at wide receiver and top 10 picks at quarterback, all the top 10 picks at edge rushers. But we all feel squirrelly about top 10 running backs because we know they're not, they're not the good nerd picks, right?

They're not the optimal way to build a team. But for the Falcons, Bejohn Robinson has been extremely valuable over two weeks. Huge part of the reason why they're two and O, great draft pick. So is that that's the take, is that it was a great draft pick? Is it? Bejohn is great. Yeah, I think he's the best rookie player I've seen this season. I think it was a good pick for the Falcons of 10.

It made sense to their team philosophy, made their team better. They're 2 in a large part because of him. Well, Bejan Robinson's incredible. I love watching him. I look forward to hopefully watching him for the next eight to 10 years. As long as he stays healthy, you're right. He just passes the eye test. And that was the case when you watched his college film and looked at him coming out.

Like, I don't think anyone had to take that Bejan Robinson isn't going to be a great player, isn't, you know, the top running back in the class, all those things. Okay. I do have screenshots of various people saying they wouldn't drop Bejan Robinson in the first round. Those are in my possession. Okay. Well, I think that, well, no, I think that's a different conversation, honestly.

I mean, that's what I was going to say. Like, I still pretty much believe in the, like, if people are questioning the Falcons taking him when they did, and you're saying, is that the best use of resources at eighth overall, given the state of your roster and what you want to build long term, I still think that's perfectly reasonable, even if he's the best running back in the NFL this season, next season, and the year after that, you know, it's a long-term viability of the position. How many touches can a guy handle? Are you going to pay him to a top of the market contract for a running back when really none of those have worked out? There are all those questions

to talk about. Also, we'll see where the Falcons are at the end of the season. Do they have a quarterback? Do they have pieces on the defensive line other than signing a bunch of 30-year-olds? Do they have enough talent elsewhere? You can, like, I think those are still reasonable conversations. I don't know. Maybe it's just me at 12, 20 in the morning on Monday night. I'm like, I'm not going to get roped in to a 20-minute running back value conversation here. I thought I had you on the line.

Maybe if we did this on like a Tuesday morning or something like that, you would have been able to. I like how she was just openly petitioning our bosses to let us do this podcast in the morning instead of having to do it after Monday. That Saints Panthers game got to me. That Saints Panthers game. All right. So do you disagree with anything that I said there? Yeah, go ahead. Well, so this was going to be my follow-up.

Let's put some names to this. Bejan Robinson went eight overall. At nine was Jalen Carter. I think we both agree the Falcons should have drafted Jalen Carter, but I think everybody should have drafted Jalen Carter. And B, I don't know if Carter was on their board. There was the off-field stuff. After that, I'm just going to drop some names for you.

Bears at 10, Darnel-Rite, offensive tackle. Titans at 11, Peter Scoronsky, offensive tackle. Lions, Jemir Gibbs, 13 Lucas Van Ness, a pass rusher, 15 jets of pass rusher Will McDonald, 16 commanders, Emmanuel Forbes a corner, 17 Patriots, Emmanuel Forbes, or Christian Gonzalez, a corner. Any one of those players you would have taken over Bejan Robinson, now with two games worth of data? Oh, so based on, oh, this is a good question. So based on what we know right now, and am I the Falcons? Yeah, you're the gym of the Atlanta Falcons.

all right and I can say Jalen Carter or I can't say Jalen Carter I would take Jalen Carter you would take Jalen Carter I think everybody could watch football so far I would take Carter he's a tricky one though because you don't know if they passed on him because they were like I don't know the off field Bijon matters more to us than this guy or if it was because of the off field

stuff yeah I mean you I think I could certainly make the case that Christian Gonzalez based on what I've seen from the first two games or if I'm talking about sort of long term premium position type deal and I have a remand, you know, and I can get like 70% of Bijon Robinson for $2 million a year. And I don't get 70. I know that like that's what the numbers say, but I watch him and I'm like, you know it. 70%? Algear is a good thumper. I mean, he's a good between the tackles, get your nose down and grind, but he ain't making cats miss. Bejan. I mean,

with, I, yeah, again, I don't want to, the last thing, I'm not going to come on here as being ripping Mishon Robinson. I'm pulling a shield right now. I'm just making it. you out to be, I'm totally strong manning you into being a certain case. Yeah. No, yeah, I think you can make the case. Christian Gonzalez. Yeah, you can make that case. I make a case.

I tell you right now, with the way the Falcons are built, I think I would take Bijon over Christian Gonzalez. I get down to those wide receivers. Jackson and Zigba, and Jigba, Quinn Johnson, Zay Flowers, who's looked incredible, Jordan Addison. I don't think I'm taking any of those guys over Bijon. I know I'm supposed to. off of what I've seen, man.

I mean, Bejohn, he looks like he's what he was billed on. It looks like he's going to be immediately in the conversation for one of the best backs in the league. Will Levis? Like, no chance, dude. Yeah, I think I love the Bejohn pick at the time, and I love it even more and I think it was a great pick for the Falcons. I think when you, again, when you go to list the reasons why they're 2 and O,

I think that selection has to be very high on the list. All right. My first non-Monday-night football take, Benjamin. I told you that, you know, we're going to have to revisit the Chargers. Listen, I didn't want to talk about the charge. I'm really coming off as a grump during this episode. I don't want to talk about the chargers either.

We don't have to do this, man. We can leave. It's our podcast. We choose. We do have to do this because what happens is Monday, I review all the stuff I missed and then review my notes from Sunday and I look at all right, what do I feel most strongly about? What are the biggest things happening? What are we going to talk about on extra point taken?

I thought, you know what? People are probably tired of hearing about the chargers, but the chargers are owing to. And I'm pointing the finger at Brandon Staley for the Chargers 0 and 2 star. I don't know if that surprises you. If that doesn't surprise you, what you thought I was going to say. I think I made you nervous when I said we're going to talk about the Chargers here again tonight. But they lose to the Titans 27, 24.

Their 0.2. This was a team that some people thought could be a sleeper in the AFC. So you have to play the game of who do you blame for their 0.2 start. And as we've discussed on this podcast on numerous occasions, I like to look at who's doing more with less, who's doing less with more. And in Staley's case, I want to know by year three, where is the head coach giving me an edge if I'm a fan of that team? So with Brandon Staley, it's supposed to, it's pretty clear. It's supposed to be like defense, game management, leadership, you know, all those other, the stuff that Mike Tomlin is very good at, all those things. though he's supposed to be some combination of those three things.

He is not an offensive coach. Well, the defense through two games ranks 26th in success rate, 30th in EPA per drive, and 32nd in DVOA. Brandon Staley's scheme is supposed to prevent explosive plays. The athletics, Daniel Popper, had this great nugget. The Chargers have given up more completions of 30-plus yards than any team in the NFL since Brandon Staley was hired. And if you watch that game on Sunday, the Titans weren't methodically moving that like the Titans were not having a great offensive showing.

But you know what? They hit on a 75-yarder. They hit on a 49-yarder. This did not look like a well-coached defense. This was a defense that had three personal foul penalties. And this is not a one-off thing where I'm saying, look at what happened to the Chargers on Sunday. This is why Brandon Staley, I'm pointing the blame at him. You can zoom out more than that.

I mean, you look at it. You know, they ranked 28th in EPA per drive and 28th in success rate since he got there. If you look at the three years composite, I mean, they have been clearly a below average defense. So not giving anything to them defensively. They made a lot of personnel moves to add guys who we thought, okay, he's getting his guys in who's going to fit his scheme. He's had some good one-off game plans. They've had some good one-off wrinkles against top opponents, but they haven't done anything consistently. and it's been a big reason why they're losing a lot of these games.

Then you look at the other stuff. You look at the analytics. I remember we had a conversation before the season where you were talking about, well, you know, Staley is Pegg that's an analytics coach. And if he doesn't work out, then that's going to take a hit. But then he does stuff like you did in this game. And this goes back to last year. They have a fourth and two from Titans territory.

And he's taking the ball out of Justin Herbert's hands and he's punting. They had a third and four in the second in the fourth quarter. where they're taking the ball out of Justin Herbert's hands, and they're running the football, they come up short, and they punt. They had the last play, third down in overtime, where Mike Williams is on the wrong side. They move him over. The ball is snapped.

He doesn't run a route. Now, you can say, She'll, you just said Staley doesn't have anything to do with the offense. That's true. But at the same time, you zoom out and you look at, is this a well-run operation or is it not a well-run operation? And I think the answers were pretty clear during that loss to the Titan. So I know it's going to sound a little bit like another podcaster making excuses for Justin Herbert. And it's true.

Justin Herbert got them to overtime with a tremendous drive in overtime. They go three and out. So they kind of went one for two in those situations when the game was on the line. I'm sorry. I watched that game. And I thought Justin Herbert played really well. And I did not think the offense was at fault for why the Chargers lost. And I'm looking at the first two weeks.

Their top five in success rate, EPA per drive and DVOA offensively. offense is doing its part, obviously, end-a-game situations, you would have liked for them to score there. But if you zoom out and say who's more at fault, it's the defense. And so I think you saw Staley in his press conference. He's feeling some of the heat. He's feeling some of the pressure. They're 0-2 right now. But if I'm looking at someone who's most responsible for why they're 0-2 right here, I'm starting with the head coach. I completely totally agree. When we had our debate about the Chargers a week ago, we were talking about a three-play sequence. at the end of the Dolphins game

and how it reflected on the overall offensive performance, right? That was a minute thing. On a macro scale, I think the most disappointing head coaching higher from my perspective over the last like four or five years has been Brandon Staley, right? Disappointing in the sense of, like I actually had expectations. Like Matt Patricia was definitely worse,

but I didn't come in thinking about Patricia was kind of like we revolutionized and stuff for the Lions, you know? Staley was a guy who was so successful with that Rams defense in a way that was really appealing. from like a schematic perspective and a philosophical perspective to where the league was trending. Where we were at in the late 2010s

was like, is anybody going to stop offense ever? And then we had like one and a half guy. We had Bill Belichick was still doing it. But it was this huge offensive swing as people got used to the Seattle defensive system. And we needed somebody to introduce a new solution. And Vic Fangio was a huge part of that. And Brandon Stanley was a huge part of that.

So it felt like he represented a new thrust. And he kind of gets this Chargers job. And I think looking back on it now, you can really argue. He was ill-prepared. He was not prepared to take on a head coaching job. He hadn't been in the NFL enough. He had like four or five coaching years under his belt.

He hadn't seen enough go wrong, go right, learned enough from the old heads, life experience to just be able to manage the ship. They walk out in year one, and there's so much aggressiveness on analytics, and there's criticism and there's support for it, and they don't make the playoffs. They walk out in year two,

and they're afraid of that. They're worried about that. There's schematic changes to the defense. They go out and they acquire star talent, right? Offense plays a little bit better, but Joe Lombardi, who again, like Staley hired him because they were boys. Lombardi was his OC back when he was in college. It continues to neuter the offense and we get to another offseason and they go around, right, year three, there's new schemes of they're doing on defense again, right?

They're trying to figure out new stuff and Staley continues to make a really good concocter, a really good alchemist of defensive ideas. But when you try to do this much, you don't get comfort in, scheme. Your players can't play fast because they're constantly thinking, right? They're, they're like serious defenses are so complex and, and his, his approach changes week in week out that it feels like it hamstrings his unit at time. Like, they just can't line up there and go. I do think, and so the end right, and then you have the analytics approach changed. They finally get Kellynne Moore. And the Kellynne Moore thing is working. Two weeks into the season,

Justin Herbert, eighth in success rate, sixth in EPA per dropback. He's ninth in explosive play rate, 20 plus yards, right? In this game, he had an hour, an air yard an average depth of target of over 10. It was the deepest he'd thrown the ball in a single game since his rookie season. They're doing the thing. And week one, they handed the football off and it worked. The last time the Chargers fan

saw their team hand the football off to a running back and it worked for a game. Ladania Tomlinson was playing. Like, Kellan Moore fixed some of the stuff. Everything else falls on Brandon Staley's plate. The other plate, though, that I would introduce a little bit is it belongs to Tom Telesco, who's the general manager of the Chargers.

And Telesco has always been known as a general manager who doesn't take a ton of risks. He's not a big trader of picks and move up and move down and what have you. And tends to work on some really rigid requirements for his players. Take a look at the wide receiver room where like everybody's big. They take Quinn Johnston to presumably be a field stretching deep threat for them. And Johnson can't get on the field. He's run like 20 routes on Herbert's like 80, 90 dropbacks, right? He's wide receiver 4 to Josh Palmer.

Meanwhile, the Ravens got a speedster in Zayflowers. The Vikings got a speedster in Jordan Addison. Those guys are stretched in the field. But guess what? They're a little bit smaller than Tom Telesco likes. Telesco tends to have a pretty rigid idea of like these are the measurables that I need to hit. I think that limits the talent that he can bring in. In free agency, the charges are swinging and missing.

I mean, J.C. Jackson has about as big of a target on his back as any corner in the league does right now. Khalil Mack is not young. But don't you put the... those defensive moves? The defensive moves, I just, they feel like, all right,

Staley is kind of making the calls there. I don't know. I don't know that for a fact. That's just when I view it and I'm looking at the moves they make, I mean, it's pretty obvious. Staley's saying, I want these things,

go get me these things. So I think it's fair on the offensive side of the ball. Defensively, the moves they've made in the last couple years, I got to think that those are heavily staley influenced. So, like, let's take J.C. Jackson as an example.

J.C. Jackson is, not huge, man-oriented corner. That's not really the sort of corner that would typify a Fangio system. It's not the guy that Staley had in Ramsey. It's not how he used him when he was in Los Angeles, right? So you can make an argument that like, all right, well, J.C. Jackson's not like a perfect fit for Staley, so maybe it was a Telesco thing. What I would say is this.

To whatever degree, it's Staley's decision, I think that that reflects poorly on both to Lesco and Staley, staley from making a poor free agent acquisition, to Lesko for letting a coach who's got like five years of NFL experience come in and dictate defensive personnel, right? The head coach general manager balance is always such a tricky one. And if a, when a free agent acquisition is really poor,

like I think it's hard to figure out where the dividing line of blame is. A little bit of it belongs on both plates. But I just think Telesco needs to be acknowledged here because when the Chargers were good two years ago, like two, three years ago, not like they were good overall, but when they played well, they played well because Justin Herbert, Austin Echler, Mike Williams, Keenan Allen were playing well offensively. Defensively, they played well because Joey Bosa was playing well and Derman James was playing well.

We're three years later. Guess who plays well when the Chargers play well? It's the exact same guys, right? They haven't really been able to bring in anybody who elevates for the team. They've been able to bring in new weapons. I think a lot of that is on to less. But Staley deserves a brunt of the blame. Telesco deserves a mention.

And the Chargers are just extremely challenging to take seriously at this point because the quarterback is so good and they continue to lose games in spite of it. It's almost like you can just feel it watching them, the anxiety, the pressure. And it goes to like my initial point about coaching. Flip those two coaches, Mike Rable and Brandon Staley. How are we feeling about the Chargers this year? I might have picked them to win the Super Bowl. I mean, so I think there's enough talent there for them to be better than they are.

They're oh and two. Listen, some O and two teams make a run, given how good the offense can be and how efficient the offense can be, I'm actually not counting them out. Totally. It would not shock me completely, but we'll take a little break from Chargers talk on extra point take. We'll see what they do here with the games ahead. But I don't know. Just looking at all the games on Sunday, that was my big thing. It was like, oh, my gosh, they're doing it again. They're 0 and 2. How is this happening? And who's to blame? So I had to get to that one there. All right.

Let's take a break. We'll be right back with Benjamin's next take. All right. We're back on extra point taken. Thank you to Ben. You know, he's got that young, fresh mind. I'm in command now. You're looking out for teammates.

Yeah. Well, Captain Phillips. I'm taking it over. Here's what we should do. And when there's a, when it gets past a certain time, we should be like, all right, so I'll actually just host because Shield's going to be incoherent. He's used to being in bed for like two hours at this point. So we should.

set that deadline. Oh, past a certain time of day. Okay, I thought you'd pass a certain time of like our existence together. And I was like, I'm not doing a Doug Peterson Press-Taylor thing where you just like hand me over a play calling to make the offense force for us for no reason. We're about where we are underway to the best season of Lamar Jackson's career.

And that man won an MVP. Lamar Jackson and the Todd Monk in the Todd Monk in offense throw some data at you. Average time to throw. From 2019 to 2022, Lamar was pretty consistent. It was 2.8. 2.88, 2.83, 2.9, through two games this season, 2.49. Shaving down 3 tenths of a second, fastest of his career.

And in the world of time to throw, 3 tenths of a second is a year. It is a long time. What is this impact? Pressure rate. First four seasons, 31%, 37%, 37%, 37%, 34%. Through two games, 27%. Guess who's getting hit less? Guess who's getting affected in the pocket less?

The mobile quarterback who's now got a little bit of an injury history tacked to him, has had some knee troubles. Success rate, 51%, 45%, 47%, 47%, 43% this year, and this is on true passes here, true dropbacks, 53.5%. Best of his career. The Lamar Jackson, Todd Monkin, and then a lot of wide receivers

who we don't know who's going to be good or not experience was something that you and I were excited for, but apprehensive about entering the season. We say this might take a little bit of time to get off the field, get off the ground. There's just so much newness in this approach. It's such a schematic change, and there's so many new pass catchers.

It's going to be shaky. At that time, we did not know that left tackle Ronnie Stanley was going to go down with injury. That center of Highlanderbaum was going to go down with injury. They have John Simpson playing at Left Guard, who's an offensive line not playing super well. They got offensive line protection problems.

And lo and behold, through two weeks, I mean, it's far from perfect, but this ship is way further off the dock, way better constructed, way quicker ready, than I expected it to be. And I think a huge amount of that credit goes to office coordinator Todd Monkin, who Monkin is cool. You know, when he was the OC of the Bucks, like James Winston era 2015, 2016, it had an air raid background.

And this was like a super like fun time for the air raid. Like Lincoln Riley was good and like Cliff Kingsbury is about to join the league, whatever was like big air raid hours. And so that's all everybody wanted to talk about. But Monkens air raid background was like not, it was over exaggerated. It wasn't like a huge part of his game. And over time, like the Buccaneers, then he was with the Browns, Friday Kitchens,

and then he was with Georgia. The offense that he runs is not, like, it's not air-ready. It's very motley. It's very muddled. There's a lot of we deal with this, and we do a little bit of a lot of that. There's defining characteristics to it. The Ravens had more under-center handoffs in this game,

this staff from Nate Tyson's The Athletic than any game of them are seasons previous, right? They run under-center stuff. They run vertical routes. There's identifying characteristics, but it's not like anyone's, simple family. And what's nice about that is that they really get to just turn the dials where they like him. Monkin is so good, so impressive over the course of his career, and you're

already seeing this with the Ravens, and saying, okay, what exactly do we do well? And we're going to make sure we get it done. We have ways to schema touch to Zay Flowers. We have way to get Odell Beckham Jr. isolated. We have ways to make the running game work without putting Lamar in jeopardy. The offense makes sense. It's such a good watch. And they've gone up against Demico Ryans and Louanarumo. And the Texans don't have a ton of horses, but they've seen two very different defensive approaches and both of good defensive game planners,

and they've come out on top with successful passing performances. I didn't even mention the J.K. Dobbins' injury and how that affects the running game. They found success with Gus Edwards and Justice Hill. I was going to say, like, so long as the Ravens can avoid injury, but they've avoided it later, they haven't even done that. If the Ravens continue on this trajectory, development's not always linear.

There's going to be hiccups, there's going to be bad weeks. But if they continue on this trajectory, we're going to sit at the end of the season, look at a 2-0 Ravens team right now that offensively is playing very well. And then defensively, holy Moses, this is a good unit.

And we're going to be saying this is a contender in the AFC. I have a ton of faith right now. What I've seen for the Ravens are two weeks, I like it a lot. Maybe the most encouraging win I thought of week two was that Ravens win over the Bengals. For the reasons you pointed out, I mean, Lamar was just playing inside.

He still can do the out of structure stuff, but the comfort level that he had, the rhythm he had in that game, it really stood out because it has been a while. It has been so long where you're watching some of these Raver's performances and they're putting up points in years past here and go, man, this is cool because he's a great player and he's just putting the team on his back. This one, we've been begging for it. Not everything has to be so hard, you know? Let's help the great player out and give him some easy stuff and let's let him play in a rhythm. The passing game had a better rhythm in this game than really I can remember for a long time.

And I'm with, yeah, I mean, I think I said before the season, I expect this Ravens offense. Like, once we get to Thanksgiving, we're going to be saying, watch out for them down the stretch. I thought it was going to be bumpy in September, October. If they're doing this in week two against a good defense, not to give away my third point. But yeah, I'm there with you. I think if you're a Ravens fan, you are thrilled with this development and how they look their a couple other numbers to add to the ones you threw out there. Sunday was their highest success rate since week five of the 2021 season.

And I think that goes for Lamar Jackson as well. So to do that in, again, in week two with this new offense, with new wide receivers, I mean, to rush for 178 and not give up a sack when you're down your left tackle and your center, your starting center, I mean, that is really, really impressive. I thought you saw John Harbaugh, like at the end of that game sort of, like, he was, like, he was like a playoff game. You know, I think so too. I think he's saying, oh, baby, we, you know, we kind of took this. Maybe I waited a year too long or whatever, but we kind of took this gamble.

I didn't really know this OC. But, man, this looks really, really, really good and really, really how I wanted to look. And to the injuries, Marcus Williams, the news came out today that he's not getting surgery and he's not going on. are. So this is a safety, a very good player who I thought was probably going to be out for the season based on initial reports. And now we don't know he could come back. So yeah, I think if you're a Ravens fan, you're feeling great about how Sunday played out and kind of what this season might bring to you. Yeah. Can I get a quick two B in on the Ravens and a two B take? A little extra extra point in the middle of the, the pod. Yeah, Mike McDonald, this DC, like you brought up the risk that that Harbaugh took moving off from Greg Roman and Todd, Monken. They let a good defense coordinator go in Wink Martindale to bring in a guy in Mike McDonald who ran a different defense, a different philosophy. And the value in that, the goal, like,

this hasn't been explicitly said, but I'm positive it was the case, was that, hey, if we live on blitzes, we're going to lose to Burrow every single time we play them. This guy who's in our division, we have to play twice a year and we have to beat him. We are not going to be able to, because he's going to carve us up. Mike McDonald, now has coached four games against Joe Burroughs Bengals, three last season, because they saw him in the postseason, and then won this season, if you took Burroughs numbers against the Ravens and marked them against Burroughs numbers against every other defense that he's faced, he would have been ninth in EPA per dropback last year against non-raven's opponents, 31st against the Ravens, fifth and success rate to

40th, 23rd and explosive play percentage to 44th. Mike McDonald's got his number, man. And, and like, if I asked, I think if you went to an NFL fan that go good and well-known NFL fan. You were like, hey, who are the stars in the Ravens defense? They think, okay, Roque One Smith. And then it becomes just a series of guys. Rockies Sin, who I've been critical over the course of my podcasting life.

Great play. What a play. Best, I've seen him play. Great pass breakup. Kyle Hamilton looks excellent second year safety. Gino Stone, delightful interception. Justin Matibuque, defensive tackle is having his best season. Odafei always playing well. Jadavian Clowny looks like what they build him as. Patrick Queen. Patrick Queen is playing his best ball of his career,

period. He's playing great. He's lining guys up. Everybody's working on this defense. That unit is humming. I'm so in on what I've seen from the Ravens through two weeks. And again, that's with multiple starters out of their secondary here. The tie the theme of coaching into this episode. I mean, you didn't have those guys and you're putting up that performance.

That is what coaching is all about. All right, this gets to my third and final take. So now this is how I feel after week two. This is obviously going to be subject to change. I think we're going to get a surprise Super Bowl team out of the AFC this year. Now you say, now I know you're going to say what qualifies as a surprise.

So it might not count as a surprise for you. But I thought before the season, the Bills, Chiefs and Bengals, if you just looked at, I think if we did our predictions on the ringer.com. I don't think there was an NFL staffer who picked anyone other than those three teams to make the Super Bowl. I could be wrong.

Call me out fellow NFL ringer people if I am. But those were the three, favorites to come out of the AFC. Those were the three best teams last year. Those were the three favorites coming into this year. I have some level of concern with these teams. I mean, the Chiefs, listen, it's only week two. They still have Mahomes and Reid. However, of Patrick Mahomes' 96 starts, this was their worst performance in terms of success rate going up against the Jaguars. Their first two games of the season, both of those were worse than any game they had last season. Now, are they going to figure it out, probably. Are they going to be terrible? No, they're not going to be terrible.

But when I'm looking at that team going into the playoffs and I'm saying, man, the issues they have at offensive tackle and at wide receiver, are those going away? Is someone going to emerge? It's at least something on my radar where if you're another AFC team, you're going, you know what? We kind of thought they were invincible, but now they look a little getable here. So that's the Chiefs. Bengals, O and two. We don't know if Joe Burrow is playing in week three. This was my pick to win the Super Bowl. Sorry, the Capadia curse lives on. in the year, uh,

20, three, sorry, Bengals fans. I hope Burroughs healthy. I still think, uh, you know,

they have enough talent there that they can get it together. But if you're a Bengals fan, you're a little bit getting closer to panic mode, especially if Burroughs going to miss some time here and you lose some more games. Bill's had a nice bounce back first. The Raiders, you know,

they're probably feeling better after that let down in week one. But I don't think anyone's penciling them in as the yes, they're going to be the team. So the two teams I'm looking at are two teams I know, uh, Benny Souls is going to like. One has to be the Ravens. We've got bets on these teams, baby.

We're living. One of them has to be the Ravens. I mean, we just talked about it. I think if you're a Ravens fan right now and you were saying, you know what, I don't know what we have in this team going into the season. Two weeks in, you got to feel good about where you're up. I mean, special teams, you're always going to have an edge there. You can win in different ways.

It doesn't always have to be the rhythm passing game. And Lamar throw in slot fades to Nelson Agu. How about that throw? And the bomb downfield to Zay Flowers. You can win in different, you can win with the run game, you can win with the past game, you can win with the defense, you can win with special teams, you can win with coaching. So Ravens fans have to be feeling good after two weeks. And then the other one, what this Dolphins team is doing so far.

Now listen, I had concerns about them going into the season. Those are still there. I think they're a bit of a fragile team. But I thought if you lose like Tehran Armstead for two weeks, that's really going to impact the way your offense operates. I mean, we saw that last season with this Dolphins team. Tua, how quickly he's getting rid of the football, this is like, I'm not, Tua is not Tom Brady, but the style, the numbers here are reminiscent of Tom Brady a few years ago with the bucks.

Remember when it was like Tom Brady has the quickest time to throw? And he's also throwing the ball downfield more than any other quarterback. Like, wait a minute. No, no, no, those two things. That's illegal. You don't do that at the same time. Yeah, you can't do those. Well, we'll look at Tua.

numbers. He's getting them rid of the ball in 2.35 seconds, the quickest time in the NFL. By the way, his average pass goes 10.4 yards downfield. The third furthest downfield. He leads the NFL in yards per attempt, 9.5 yards per attempt. Again, and he's getting rid of the ball quicker than any other quarterback in the NFL. This scheme that Mike McDaniel has put together, that was my other question about them going into the season. What's McDaniel's like plan B? Every great coach, you do it for a year, you come back the next year. Defense is play you different. Then what are you going to do?

Well, I mean, look at the results the first two weeks of the season. That wasn't even like a juggernaut performance on Sunday against the Patriots yet I was watching it going like every time the guy, they got the ball. I'm like, they're probably going to score here. All right, this feels sustainable. Oh, there's another wide open receiver. Oh, he's working the intermediate part of the field this week more than the downfield. So that Dolphins team in a wide open AFC, and I hate to keep saying if Tua can stay healthy,

But I am at the point through two weeks of watching that offense where I feel like they absolutely can be a contender. So again, subject to change. A few weeks from now, I'll be gone. This is a two-team race. It's the chiefs and the bills. No one else matters. But that's the point in the show. How do I feel at this exact moment in time?

And I felt like watching the AFC this weekend for the first time in a while. I felt like, you know what? It could be one of these surprise teams that comes out and gets to the Super Bowl. I know you agree with me because you love both these teams. a big big fan I don't think the dolphins are going to lose a game I think they're going 17 and no

I don't like I had no idea how you stop this this offense well what do the 72 dolphins do then are they so are they rude no they're not rooting for it they love the attention of being the only thing listen we had a we had on the broadcast a mechanics comparison from Tua Tungo Vaila to Dan Marino

okay so the people are doing the thing I'm all right well now I'm cheating I'm I'm copying your notes here so I'm looking at your power rankings, all right? Because we submitted our power rankings tonight for the ringer NFL ranking, which you click on it. Go check it out.

Okay. You got the chiefs at one. First of all, those, these are like off the record and a Slack channel sent to an editor. I don't know these are going to be brought out during a podcast recording at one in the morning when I can't even speak. I mean,

the audience is like, what's wrong with this guy? How is he hosting a pot? All right. Sorry, go ahead. This is like a Joe judge presser the way you've got excuses for everything tonight. All of this.

all that. Chiefs one. Bill's three. And then you have the Ravens six and the Dolphins seven. So still, you're getting closer, but you're not there. Let it be known. I have Chiefs three, Dolphins four, Bills five, Ravens six. I've got them right. I've got them all right in a chunk. Well, who do you have one and two? Cowboys and Niners.

Yeah, yeah. None of this. None of this actually matters, obviously. I'm poking fun because I know you didn't read the dolphins of the Ravens as high. But you're right. It's not about how the chiefs have looked through two weeks or how the bills looked in week one. Like, it's not at all about that for me in terms of like the AFC. It's just the fact that like we were scared of really believing how good the Ravens could be and really believing how good the dolphins could be.

And even like the Jets, like there was like like, you know, preseason night for the Jets. We watched the way this defense plays. I think we were scared of like putting all of those guys up in that first tier because it just feels wrong. To have like six teams in the first year of a conference, it's ludicrous. It's not how tears work. But through two weeks of the season, like, we would have been right to do so. Like, they, they, they, uh, with the any given Sunday idea of the NFL is so prevalent in

my mind when I think about the dolphins playing the chiefs, the Ravens, like, how can I possibly say, oh, yeah, the bills are, are more reliable, more consistent. They would beat the Ravens. Like, no, like all of those games are coin tosses to me right now. It's, it's extremely tough. It's really tightly not. it up there at the top. It feels like anybody can come out of the conference and rightfully so. It's two weeks in. That's how I feel two weeks in. All right. Finish with our extra point taken.

What do you got? So I have two extra point takens. This is a two point conversion. If you don't mind, that's a little joke. I mean, now he's just showing off. I'm complaining in every point. He's like, oh, can I add three more here? Listen, everyone knows you're the younger. You've got more energy. All right. Now I'm bouncing back. Let's see. Another competitive sides coming out. This is going to go for another two hours. I got a right. I got a right. write the Sunday night column this year, okay? This is an early, I'm up early right now. This is an early night for me.

The first is for you, actually. I got an email from your boy, Leamer. I understand he's a friend of yours. He said, Sheal has been working hard on his golf games that he took up the sport during COVID. His goal at the beginning of the season was to break 100. He came semi-close a couple of times,

but finally got the job done last week, a 98 on what might have been his last round of the season. He might have already let you know due to his excitement. Claire doesn't know you too well because you'd never brag like that. You'd never take a whiff. But figured I would pass along in case it makes for good pod content. So our first extra point taken, hey, congrats. I had to Google how hard is it to break 100? Apparently it's pretty hard. So big congrats to you, Sheel. Hey, in the 98. No, no. Most listeners would say,

why are you bragging about this? That's terrible. But yeah, listen, nice breakthrough for me. So it's good. Nice goal. You set a goal. I saw a thread where they said most golfers can break a hundred after like three or four years. And you started it during COVID, which means you've been doing it for max three years. So you're ahead of schedule. All right. I checked because I knew you would demure.

I knew you would not be interested in this. Lemur just sent him the email to Solac. Wow, I didn't see that coming in this episode. Shout out to Shiel. My final take is this. Whatever they're doing offensively in Jacksonville, it's time to stop. Through two weeks of the season,

the Jackson Bowl Jaguars have one of the lowest offensive success rates when passing the football. this with Trevor Lawrence playing outside of his mind like playing very good football Lawrence is very evidently not the issue dropping back and throwing passes

I don't know that he had a great game this week I don't know that it had a great game this week I would say I wouldn't say he had a perfect game but I've got I've got some screenshots of some passes that should have been touchdowns on the end line that weren't touchdowns

at the end of the end line there there were four like four of those that was so weird they set a record for passes attempted in the red zone without a completion in this game. And I think some of that is Lawrence, not great. This is an next-gen stats database, so this is like six years deep.

But they set that record. Some of that is certainly Lawrence. A lot of that is Zay Jones. Just not a great day for Zay. Zay versus the endline. End line is a winner there. But some of that is on Press Taylor. If you've been watching the Jaguars games live,

you've experienced a lot of third and one reverses to Jamal Agnew. lot of like first and 10 design throwbacks to tank Bigsby. There's been a lot of enormous brain occurring, which is, I think, oftentimes a symptom of a young play caller. But what's frustrating about Press Taylor, who's the Jaguars offensive coordinator and was given play calling duties this season over Doug Peterson, who previously was the play caller for the Jaguars, is that this is not the first time we've seen this. Press Taylor was calling plays for the Eagles at the end of Doug Peterson's tenure and doing

the exact same stuff. There's a lot of too clever for your own good when you have a really talented quarterback and you have some talented receivers and you can just let them line up and play. At the end of the Colts game in week one, there were Jaguars Beatwriters who were noting the fact that Doug Peterson,

who previously had his eyeglasses up resting on his head, suddenly had them over his eyes during the fourth quarter. He previously did not have a play sheet and did not have a headset, and then he suddenly did. I think that it is cool. that Doug wants to find ways to have young coaches get play-calling opportunities, because that's valuable for them. And I think it's cool that Doug also wants to, like, you know,

be able to have full attention on game management stuff. I think that's great. I do not think that Jacksonville Jaguars' offense has been well-called through two weeks. I think if it had been, I think they'd be two-in-oh, and I think they would have beaten the defending Super Bowl champions. It's a nice idea. The fruit of the labor is not good. And I think that Doug Peterson needs to take play calling back in Jacksonville.

Yeah, so I think, though, I mean, the first time you were referencing the Eagles, There was a lot of gray area about what was going on there, who was calling. It wasn't as clear as this where Doug Peterson said before the season, Price Taylor's going to be calling plays. I'm willing to give it some more time. That felt like a one off to me. I mean, if you looked at it in week one, like Trevor Lawrence's numbers were pretty good. You know, they were well above league average, his success rate in that game.

I think this was like, I think the reason if you look at it two weeks as a whole, it's because this was a terrible offensive performance by the Jaguars. I mean, they really had so many opportunities to win this game. I think they had what not, you know, they didn't score a touchdown. Like you mentioned, they had 18 first downs, 271 yards, 11 offensive drives without a touchdown. Like you mentioned, they failed to score a touchdown on a first and goal from the one. So no doubt, I'm with you. Watching on Sunday, it was like they're overthinking stuff.

They're getting too cute. What are they doing? Like, I just wanted to see Trevor Lawrence drop back and rip some throws down field. Now, Chris Jones had something to say about that as well. But obviously, the stuff they tried to scheme up did not work at all in this game. Now, again, that was, we're two games in. I thought offensively, week one, they were pretty good. So I'm not there yet, as you are with kind of the play calling.

And it is sort of like Doug Peterson, I don't know. He always says these weird things. Like when he became the Eagles head coach, he's like, yeah, Andy Reed would give me play calling for like the second half. It's like, really? He would do that. that seems like a weird way. Then he's like, yeah, I did that, you know, before with some of my assistant here. So I don't know exactly what's going on there.

Who's doing what? It's hard to say. This is an example of like if Andy Reid does something, you should actually not do that thing because you're not Andy Reid. Like if you're modeling after Andy, like Andy's too good at this. They don't try to do what Bill Belcher does. Don't try to do what Andy does. Do what regular human beings do.

Now that we have two games in, though, official stats on third and fourth downs with one to five yards to go. the Jacksonville Jaguars have converted on 29.4% of their chances. They are four for 17. They are last in the league by like seven percentage points to the Pittsburgh Steelers. They have been through two games absolutely atrocious in short yardage, got to have it downs. Some of that's offensive line, right? Like they're getting blocked up and they're not succeeding on the runs.

But you go and you watch those plays. A lot of that is like one read designed stuff that the defense just sniffs out. Like, we do not need to be running shovels. We don't have to be running reverses. We don't even running screens. If you want to pass, tell 16 to run a three-step drop and read it out. Because he can. He's going to throw a laser beam on somebody's hands.

They have been so atrocious in areas where, like, the play call feels like it's the main thing at fault. And even if it's Doug saying, like, hey, I'm going to take over, like, a third down script. That's fine. The glip press still do the first and second down thing. But this feels to me like such a weird and generally useless experience. Like, just go back to what worked really well down the stretch last season, please. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure he's looking at it. They were kind of working together last season.

They had a top 10 offense in terms of DVOA last year. And to be fair, like Doug has had, you know, periods in his career where there are games like that where you would say, you know, overall, he's been an excellent, obviously, play caller. But he has had stretches in his career where you would look at it and say, what were they thinking there? They got too cute. You know, why were they failing in those? high leverage situation. So I'm just taking a deep breath. Let's get a larger sample. Let's see where

we are, for me at least, at the end of September. If you're a Jacks fan and you want to, you know, glass out full, I didn't know they had a defensive performance like that in them where they hold the chiefs like they did in that game. Again, the worst start of Mahomes' career in terms of success rate. So when we were talking about the jack ceiling before the year, I think we both thought their offense was going to be really good. We both thought their defense was probably going to be really bad. If their defense can be like, okay, then, you know, a few weeks from now, I could be saying dolphins, ravens, like, Jaguar. Like, it was, they're coming off a bad game. So I didn't mention. We were doing AFC hype. There was one, yeah, there was one tier two team that

we loved free season. We were mentioning. It was Jacksonville. Yeah. I still like them. I'm, I'm going to give them, give them some more time before I'm, uh, I'm fading the Jaguars. I think they're going to be. Okay. All right. Did we get to everything? Do you have seven more? Are you good? Very hostile tonight. I'm a conversation with your wife. On Monday nights, he needs a nap from two to three, two to four. I don't know. He needs a nap midday.

I don't know. Come in here with just barbs and complaints. I'm not a bad spirit for the podcast. It's especially mean because your extra one was a compliment. A nice thing you're saying to me. So you're right. I apologize. I need to let you know now in case you don't know,

week three Monday night football shield. There's two games. All right? Let's start stealing ourselves. And in case you don't know, we also have a ringers Philly special. The Eagles. Oh my gosh. What a night. We'll figure it out.

All right. That'll do it for this episode. Fun as always. Thank you to Benjamin Solek. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. Thank you to Eddie Ocampo. Those cool videos you see that we're posting Solek. What's your TikTok? Benjamin Solac.

Oh, okay. Benjamin Solac. Keep it straight, baby. TikTok Twitter. You got Ringar NFL on Instagram and TikTok. He got at Schiqa Patti on Instagram. Eddie's cutting all those videos. and we're posting them.

So there's no video of the whole show, but there are certain clips that you can find on there. If you're interested just in seeing what we look like, the voice might not match the looks. The voice might match the looks. I don't know. I do a lot of weird things on video. I encourage you to watch.

I can attest to that for sure. Additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ram Gopal. All right. The next episode will be Nora and Stephen. And then Solac and I will be back on Friday to look ahead to week three. Thanks to everyone for listening and have a great week. We'll talk to you soon on extra points again.

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