The Ringer NFL Show - The Chiefs' Receiver Room vs. Patrick Mahomes, the Most Devastating Loss of the Season, and More Big Takeaways from Week 11 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Sheil and Ben get together to share their reactions to the Eagles' win over the Chiefs on ‘MNF'. They then dive into the Seahawks' future after their loss to the Rams and see disappointing returns, before shining a light on the Broncos' suspicious win streak (12:14). Next, Sheil is excited to see the Jaguars and QB Trevor Lawrence back on track, while Ben breaks down why he’s done with Commanders' signal caller Sam Howell (29:04). They end the pod by tearing down the Brandon Staley experience in L.A. and saying goodbye to the Zach Wilson era in New York (50:17). 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 Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins 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. Welcome to Extra Point. Take it. Shield Capati here, joined by Ben Solac following Monday night football. A wild game. Eagles come back from a double-digit deficit in the second half beat the Kansas City Chiefs. 21-17. We're going to talk about that game. We're going to talk about everything else that happened in week 11. Benjamin Solac, how we do it?

You know, there's just one seed, Philadelphia Eagles, the team of my of my, of my, of my love, the team of my youth, and the one seed Baltimore Ravens, the team of my, of my long time backing. My two large adult sons, Jalen Hertz and Lamar Jackson, leading the MVP race, things are going very well in the Solai household, Sheila.

How are you? I forgot about, yes, this puts the Ravens as the number one seed in the AFC, right? The angle I had not previously considered there. I am doing well, listen, a little peek behind the current. Solach and I just recorded an episode of the rigorous,

Philly specials. So this is an especially late night of extra point taken. I think things could get a little bit, you know, loopy out of hand, so that could just be popping an espresso or one of his other energy drinks in the middle of this. I just said a handful of cheesets into the whirdle. So I'm

living. I'm peak. I'm ready to go. That's high energy right there. All right, well, you start us up. You are up with the first take from this Eagles Chiefs game. What do you got? I am worried about the psychological damage that this Chief's wide receiver room is enacting upon Patrick Moehm's.

We talked a lot on an episode the last couple of weeks, Sheal, about the Chiefs' offense, the degree to which we're concerned. And I was like, ah, I'm not that concerned. And you were like, oh, I'm pretty concerned. And since then, they haven't scored a point in the second half, which is concerning.

It's been three straight games now. The Chiefs scoreless in the second half. They are the lowest second half scoring team in the league, 5.3 points per game after this loss to the Eagles. They were held scoreless in this game, gave up a double-digit second-half lead, which Mahomes, Mahomes-led Chiefs team has only done twice previously.

That was the 2021 Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship game, a game that they lost, Bengals won on the Super Bowl. And then three weeks previous, week 17, against the same Bengals team. So they'd only ever lost a double-digit second half lead twice before. And it was to Joe Burrough the Bengals and the same

Bengals team, the Bengals team that knew they could do it. And so this is now an important thing. This matters. The Chiefs are really struggling to get points up on the board once defense is having an operational. to adjust, figure out what they're doing. They really feel like they don't necessarily have pitches that they can hit on change-ups and they can rely on other players when the guy that they are relying on starts to get taken

away. Obviously, some of this is messy. Travis Kelsey fumbles the ball inside of the 15-yard line that the Chiefs very well could have and should have scored points in the second half. But the other thing that could have and should have happened in the second half were receptions. A third and four reception of Justin Watson over the middle of the field that would have extended a drive. A second and 10 beautiful bomb.

to Marquez Valdos Scalding, hit him in all 10 fingers. If you had 12, it would have hit him in 12. I mean, just in the bread basket to win the game. And Marquez Valdescan, it just drops it going across. Just a complete and flat out drop. And then fourth and 25, the only guy in the world, it gives you a good shot. Fourth of 25 is Patrick Mahomes. He hits Justin Watson right on the face mask, man.

I mean, a little bit above the face mask, but still, it's a very catchable ball. And Watson has it and it go right between his hands and you have another drop there. It's one thing to have drops. It's another thing to have sustained drops. Most drops in the league right now, the Chiefs have on offense. It's another, another thing to lose a high leverage game with constant drops in the second half and to just have that camera continue to cut to Mahomes.

Every third down, they're trying off the field. They're trying off the field after the MVS drop, which would have potentially won them the game and just see the guy, like the light is leaving the guy's eyes. You can tell that he is so frustrated with the state of his wide receiver room. Travis Kelsey had dropped on third down. Marcus felt a scantling bad routes. and Mahomes is throwing inaccurate passes

because he's not where he's supposed to be. And you can just see that this is chopping away at him. And Mahomes is a consummate pro, and the Chiefs have been a good team for so long that they're going to be fine. They're not going to blow up, lose the locker room, you know, sideline fights and whatever. Though Travis Kelsey started to get a little bit fired up on the sideline.

You can tell that this is wearing at them. And so while I still think, like, the Chief's offense is largely good, they have a second half problem they need to figure out, but that feels like it's probably a little bit noisy and they're going to be okay. They run in the ball great today. Like the offensive line still plays well for them.

There's a lot to like. I do think that you're at a point with this receiving room with Mahomes where you wonder how much the trust has eroded. You wonder who is he going to possibly feel good going to on a third down with the game on the line in the AFC divisional round if Travis Kelsey got rolled up on his ankle and he isn't out there for the play. Maybe Rashy Rice? Maybe?

There's no one else who wants to throw it to Cadarius Tony. Skymore, Justin Watson. he doesn't want to throw it to any of these players. And that's a very, very scary thing. And so we're at a point now with the Chiefs where like the concern for me is like locker room stuff and sideline stuff and trust stuff and like that fracturing and feeling like that eats away at you because it's just been so long and in such high leveraged spots, the Chiefs have dropped these balls.

You were so close to just coming all the way over to my, you know, the take could have just been, Shiel, you were right. You know, we could have had Chris just play the clip from a few weeks ago when I told you exactly. But you didn't want to come all the way. You started swimming. Then you started treading some water. Listen, the issue, I mean, I don't know how you watch this offense.

And don't just see this as a major issue, these players that are surrounding Patrick Mahomes. I mean, Justin Watson got targeted 11 freaking times in this game. You're telling me that's going to be good enough to win a Super Bowl, Justin Watson, being targeted 11 times. If Chris were to play a back, you would hear me agreeing with you. Then the Chiefs wide receivers are a big problem. You'd be agreeing with you that the Chiefs, poor wide receiver play is going to lose them games. Overall, this has still been a pretty good offense despite that.

It's just you play the Eagles this week and you have two Red Zone turnovers, which let the Eagles hang around in this game, right? And so I like, the visibility is so much so on the Chiefs Wide Receivers because of the MVS drop. That was a game losing drop. Catch that ball, you probably win the game. So absolutely, like there's a ton of visibility on that. There's other stuff going on is all I'm saying.

So it's just not, they are absolutely a problem. They're a huge part of why the offense performs poorly when they perform poorly. They are massive culprits in this game. There's just also other things that occur, like Patrick Holmes being incredible, making 19,000 amazing plays, hitting Justin Watson on a third down corner route, third and nine falling away from pressure. There's so much stuff that he still does very, very well that has to be acknowledged.

Yeah, I agree with that. It's almost, I mean, it's not quite at the point of the conversations we've had in the past about a Lamar Jackson, you know, and how much does he have to do? Josh Allen, he's got to be Superman for this offense. Justin Herbert, look at what, you know, look at this offense. Like, it's not quite at that point because he's, Mahom still has the coach, okay? We know that and he still has Travis Kelsey. So it's not like the cupboard is completely bare. But every time you watch this team, you see Patrick Mahomes drop back to pass and he doesn't have a lot of answers there. And he's still going to make Superman plays. You're absolutely right about that. He had one.

throw down the left sideline to Justin Watson today on a third down. It's just like, all right, you cannot cover that. He's one of the only quarterbacks who's going to make that throw on the money more often than not. And so if that's how you lose the game, that's how you lose the game. But is that really like Patrick Mahomes is in his prime. Is that really what you want from a Chiefs team right now in a wide open 2023 season is to be in this position where it's like, hey, you have to be Superman.

And by the way, like if Marcus Veldes Scantling catches that ball, we're probably having a conversation, Patrick Mahomes is Superman. Oh my gosh, he's still doing it. But they don't. And they leave the NFL in drops. Like, that's my thing. This isn't like a one game thing. They're doing this over and over and over again. And you're right about the trust. How could he trust any of these guys? Even the last fourth down, he just rifles one. And it's not an easy catch. I'm not saying it's an easy catch. But it's a catch you would want the guy to make. I mean, he's holding the ball right now for 2.96 seconds. One of the longest times in the entire NFL. He scrambled six times. in this game. He's having to do more with his legs in week 11 than he's had to do in a very long time. This offense is, and I'm going to say all the way down for, you know, a normal team is they're all

the way down to 15th in offensive success rate, which just measures what percentage your plays are positive, which are negative. Now, there's other stats we can say they're a little bit higher. They're 10th in EPA per drive. But man, this is what it looks like coming off a buy when you think, all right, Andy Reid probably was able to come up with some answers and you figure, they're able to make things easier on the quarterback, and this is what it looks like. I just have a lot of concerns about this offense. Now, I'm not going to say it means they can't win the Super Bowl

because this defense is legit and looked great for most of the night tonight. So you have defense, you have great interior offensive line, and you have Patrick Mahomes, and you have Andy Reed, and it's a wide open season. So can you still win the Super Bowl with this group? Yes, but you know what? It's going to look a lot different than it has in previous seasons and not for the better, in my opinion.

You don't want an offense that just, I mean, it's the worst offense. We've seen them fielded with Patrick Mahomes, like, bar none. That's absolutely like inarguable. Yes, okay. So, right, because this is going to go up on a social clip and it's going to make it look like I was like, the Chiefs players are great. And she was like, no, Ben, they're bad. And everybody was like, wow, she'll made such a great point.

I mean, if we do want to cut that, yeah, I'd be in on that. Well, you said right there is you said, the Chiefs can still win the Super Bowl with this group, which is going to look a lot different than it has. that's what I'm saying. And I said, I opened us with like the way that the chief receivers continue to perform is eroding the trust on the homes. And I'm worried about how that's going to matter in the clutch. Overall, this team is 7 and 3.

They walked into this game with the AFC 1 seed. They're a half game back from the AFC 1 seed right now. They are still a very, very good football team. They run the ball well. They play good defense. And they have a quarterback who is extremely good in clutch moments, throws very, very accurate footballs, two very bad receivers. If they get some catches from those very bad receivers,

if they get a huge Travis Kelsey playoff postseason bump because he's kind of been like not super great over the season. He looks like he's old and whatever. If they get some of this, then they can look more well-rounded. But even if they don't, they still can be a Super Bowl team. And so just the over there. Ben is not saying that the chief wide receivers are good or that they're not the problem.

They're absolutely a problem. However, I'm nowhere near where. writing this Chief's team off. Yeah, I don't think you're there either. No, not in terms of writing them off. I will say in my head, when I picture the idea that that like supporting cast, those pass catchers have to be good for three or four, three or four game stretch where other stuff can't compensate for it. I don't know. I don't feel great about it. I don't feel nearly as good about this Chief's team, even with how well the defense has played as I have teams of the past. So we'll see. We'll see what they do. The rest of the way here,

like you said, they're still going to be in the mix. Like you're not going to pick a bunch of other teams over them. And that's because the quarterback is, you know, greatest football player probably we've ever seen. So there you go. All right. Moving on. My first take, Benjamin.

I think that Seahawks lost to the Rams could prove to be one of the most devastating losses by any team this season. Now, listen, I'm prone to panicking about the Seattle Seahawks. I did it after week one. So if you are a... We're all back in a while, baby. What's it called the completest? Someone who has to listen to like every episode,

like someone who just, yeah, which I'm kind of like that with podcasts, to be quite honest. So if you have it, you know, you want to go back and listen to the week one extra point taken to know what I'm talking about. Go ahead. So I am prone to overreaction with this team. However, they blow that 16-7 fourth quarter lead

to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday. If you didn't watch the game, they allowed a long touchdown drive. Drew Lott comes in because Gino Smith got injured, elbow injury. They allow another long field goal drive. Drew Locke throws an interception. Gino Smith comes back in the game on the final drive after Sean McVeigh,

a little clock mismanagement. We won't get on him for that. Sean McVeigh? Mishmanaged Clark, are you sure? Is it him? Are you positive? That's crazy. It was funny because it was a fourth and one where the broadcast crew is like McVeigh is always aggressive. I'm like, at least pretend like you pay some attention to the guy's career. He's been a very good coach. He is not aggressive. Anyway,

Gino Smith comes back in the game, takes the Seahawks down the field. Big, to D.K. Metcalf, they're at the Rams 39 with 23 seconds left. I don't know if you read up on what happened there. Ben, Gino says he can't hear the play call in his headset. Now, he made it sound like there was like a malfunction and he couldn't hear anything. Pete Carroll said something, like there were people talking over each other. I don't know. We don't know exactly what happened. Gino Smith could not get the call in his headset. He just calls a run play. It's a good look for a run play. If you watch it, he explained it afterwards.

If one of the, I think it was the right guard or the right tackle gets to the linebacker, it really has a chance to pop right there. It doesn't. It gets stopped for two yards. Now you have to settle for a 55 yard field goal. You miss that. So, all right, it's just one lost shield. Calm down. Who cares? They're still

six and four. Well, here's why I feel like there's a chance it could be devastating. Have you looked at their schedule, Benjamin Sola? It's not pretty. It's not pretty. Per unpredictable, which I would say the official strength of schedule website for extra point taken? What do you think?

They found a great niche, which is instead of me looking at the schedule and being like, they play these teams twice, this team wants on the road, this is real tough, but there's just a little number that says how hard it is. It makes my life so much easier. But also, what I like, it's based on the betting markets. Like, you know, like, yeah. So you and I are very good at betting into more than that on Friday. No, we'll never talk about that again.

They have the third hardest remaining schedule. Their next four games for the Seahawks. 49ers at home at Dallas, at San Francisco, and the Eagles at home. They're going to be underdogs in all four of those games. And by the way, Gino Smith is dealing with an elbow injury. I don't like my quarterback to have an elbow injury to the elbow that he throws the football with when so much of my offense is about Gino Smith making aggressive, accurate throws. So their chances of making the playoffs right now, if you look at DVOA, which is now on FTN Fantasy,

down to 60%. If you look at the New York Times model, it's down to 54%. So I still think they can get there. Those numbers don't totally alarm me, but I do think there's a chance that if they have a rough stretch here, if this injury really hamper Shino-Smith,

if they lose all four of these games, that they're going to look back in like week 16 and week 17 and be like, I can't believe we blew that game a 16-7 lead in the fourth quarter to the Los Angeles ramps. All right, you don't seem panicked. you seem like, Seahawks are good, everything's going to be good, or am I reading your facial expressions incorrectly?

So I think that like the Gino Smith elbow injury, if we have to play Drew Locke against the 49ers on Thanksgiving, we're up the creek without a paddle aspect. I think that's legitimate. Smith did come back into that game fresh off the injury and look like he could sling it a little bit. Like maybe it was some pain, it's going to be a pain management thing, or like, do we risk a long-term injury?

What if he gets hit again? Like, there's absolutely worlds in which he came back in that game, but he's not going to be ready to go on Thursday. but in general you see that and you feel a little bit better. A division loss, of course, never good. They're 0 and 2 to the Rams, which is just like messy and frustrating. And McVeigh seems to have had Carroll's number

over the last few seasons. It's bad. But I think independent of the Rams game result, the Seahawks playoff futures was going to go through how they played against San Francisco, a team that they play twice in the next three weeks. Like if they win that game, they're 7 and 3. The Niners are 7 and 3. They probably still need a split with the Niners.

and be eight and four, not seven and five. Otherwise, it's going to be tough, especially if they want to be able to have a chance for the division down the stretch. And if they lose to the Rams, here they are. They're six and four. Lose two games to the Niners.

You're six and six. Your conference record is abysmal. It's going to be a tough road to, how going to the playoffs. If you're able to split with the Niners, you have a shot. To me, the Seahawks future, their destiny,

was always going to come down to, what are they able to do in this, this Niners stretch? They're home against the Niners on a short week. on Thanksgiving night. Like you have a big home field advantage at Lumen and you have a short week, which can

always cause things to be wonky. Obviously, you're dealing with the Gino injury. There might be a little bit more wonkiness on your side, but in general, that could be a normalizer. There's seven point underdogs in this game. Which the Gino uncertainty, I think, adds to that, but that is a big number for like a 6 and 14 that we have seen put some really nice offensive performances

out and defensively still remains by a lot of metrics. Like, they're the number one defense and success rate against the run right now. They are like a very, very good run. They're best in the league run defense. So that's a big, big, big number. If you win this game against the Niners at home, it flips everything, right? It gives you an outright win against them, allows you to still continue to push for the division

title. It gives you a conference win and it improves your record. Like, it was always going to come down to this Niners run. Oh, and by the way, who do they have in between the two Niners games? The Dallas Cowboys in Dallas, right? And so, like, there's also a key game there. Who do they have after the Niners? the Eagles in Philadelphia.

The Rams loss was bad, but this four-game stretch, and particularly those Niners games, this was always going to be the defining factor. If they're a legit playoff team, they were going to be able to win enough for these games to make it, and if they were a opposer,

they were going to lose these games, and they weren't going to go. And so to me, like, this obviously sucks. It would be nicer to have a little bit more of a cushion. Maybe it will end up mattering seven seed versus eight seed or something. But to me, like, this is the stretch that defines the Seahawks season upcoming.

Yeah, my point is about the cushion. I feel like if you have that cushion and you go into these games, maybe even sit Gino this week, if you win that game and say, okay, let's just come back with him. Next week, yeah, that is a big line. Last year, the Niners beat the Seahawks

three times by an average of over 15 points per game. I think all those wins were eight points or more. So we'll see what happens there on Thanksgiving night. That's going to be a big one. Seahawks lose that one. They'll be six and five. Again, the Niners, Cowboys, and Eagles, or with the Cowboys, Niners and Eagles

as their next three games. All right, let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to Benny's second take. All right, we are back on. Extra point taking. Benjamin, I have no idea. Sometimes we communicate,

hey, I might talk about this game. We give kind of vague stuff. We don't want the person to know how we're taking. Today, nothing. Silence. We are both just grinding away. What are our take is going to be? So I have no idea where you're going with this.

Where are you going with it? Broncos, four-game winning straight. longest in the NFL. This is good? It's also very dangerous. All right? Why is it good? Well, the Broncos gave up 70 points to the Miami Dolphins, right?

The Broncos were quickly careening towards this is the worst season you've ever saw on, ever seen. Everything's going to be terrible for forever. Russell Wilson and Sean Payton are going to fight each other on the sidelines. Like this team was such a travesty last year. And then you're worried about them going through the same stuff. stuff this year. We're like just there are players fighting on the sidelines and they're constantly

tripping over themselves and even like they all defense is kind of plucky. Maybe they'll be close in this game. They can't get it done and just the vibes are horrendous. Well lo and behold they write at the ship. The one in five Denver Broncos, right? They lost to the Zach Wilson Jets, a terrible thing to do. Don't do that. They lost

a tight game to the Chiefs or one of five and then they win a close one against Green Bay. Beat Mahomes in Kansas City in Denver in their home game. Take the buy. Beat Buffalo and beat Minnesota. Now, those four games that they've won, the most recent two, they've won by two

points and one points in like really ugly, weird, late game fashion. So it smells a little stinky. But five and five is five and five after a one and five start, right? This is a team that's now put themselves in the playoff picture, even though previously if you had said that, like in October, somebody would have been calling for your head. So there is

goodness to it. I will remark, it is very funny on Aaron's shots of DVOA and of FTN tweeted this out, earlier today. The Broncos are still 32nd in defensive DVOA, like right now, despite the fact that over the last

five or six weeks, they've been 10th, because the performance against the dolphins was so bad that it's still nuking their numbers all the way down. To the bottom. It's a small sample size. You cannot overcome a 70-point game. But if we look from week 7 to 11,

which encapsulates this Broncos four-game winning streak, this team is still not actual, right? They are 22nd offensive success rate. They are 29th in defensive success rate. They are massively living off of turnovers on the defensive side of the ball. On the offensive side of the ball, they're actually like throwing it kind of well. They're 12th in success rate.

They found more reliable passing game production. They've gotten the backs really, really involved with this three-headed backfield, Giovante William, Simagio Pira, and Julien McLaughlin, all working out of the backfield and they're kind of staying ahead of the sticks that way. they've gotten Jerry Judy a little bit more activated. Cortland Sutton, who had such a delightful, wonderful game against the Vikings, looks healthy again for the first time in a while. What a delight he is to see when he's healthy.

What this was supposed to look like is kind of coalescing in the passing game, but it's still not reliable. It's still not, and it's not generating explosives, which the whole thing about Russell Wilson is you want to generate those, they're not finding those as well. So the good was there. This is the danger. You keep winning games.

Are you going to run anything back? Are you going to run some stuff back? Because it was very clear in October that we weren't running this back. All right? We were looking at the Russell Wilson contract, $85 million in a dead cap hit. And we were figuring out ways to get around it, right? We were talking about Sean Payton. He brought him buddy, Vance, Joseph, run the defense.

We're going to have to move on from him. It was very clear they were going to interchange some parts, try to get a new quarterback into the future and go. You have upcoming, you know, the Cleveland Browns, Dorian Thompson Robinson. Might be six and five. And you get Houston, you get the Chargers, you get Detroit Patriots.

Chargers again, Raiders. I mean, there's a very good shot the Broncos end up like 9 and 8. And you sit in there at 9 and 8. Wow, they really rallied. Sean Payton figured some stuff out for Russell Wilson. What if we just kind of keep them on the cap

for one more year? And then if we move on from next year, the cap it will be way nicer. It won't hurt as bad. That's the part that would scare me. as you get to that point of mediocrity where you're good enough now that you didn't get the premium pick.

So you're like, all right, well, let's just run this back next year. And that's a lot of money. You're spending on Russell Wilson. A lot of money, ownership is spending on Sean Payton to probably just be a 500 team again because you're dealing with 36-year-old Russell Wilson and the limits that he puts on your offense. And so I'm happy for the Broncos four-game winning streak. The talent that was there,

Cortland Sutton, Baron, Browning, Justin Simmons, Tarr, Jerry, Judy, Giovante Williams. The talent that was there that was supposed to work is working for them and that's good news but you can't delude yourself you can't keep your eye on the ball. The eye on the ball was figuring out

how quickly you could get off Russell Wilson and find a quarterback of the future and you have to stay focused on that. Don't let the midseason surge. Don't let the winning record trick you into thinking that that's not the objective anymore. Well, I think when you look at how Sean Payton coaches Russell Wilson, I don't think he's being tricked by Russell Wilson.

When you see how Wilson plays, it's like their best, I mean, every throw, it seems like, it's like, all right, let's do eight throws that are within, you know, two yards of the line and scrimmage and then make one play to Cortland Sutton and the end zone. Like, it's the weirdest offense. It's like, check down, check down, check down, Cortland Sutton do something awesome. Check down, check down. Corton, Sutton, can you do something awesome again? Let's get to 17 points and win the game.

You made the key point there, I think about their defense, which is a great one, that, yeah, if you look at, like, defensive success rate, They've been one of the five worst defenses in the NFL during this win streak. So, like, I hate to always lean on turnovers and random and lock, because they're not always. There's obviously some skill there. But, yes, when you see a unit, a defensive unit that is very reliant on turnovers, which they are, and that they're not down to down very consistent defensively,

usually that's going to catch up to them. And so I think that is a big piece of it. Yeah. There's been a lot of focus on their defensive takeaway, 13 in those four games. that they've played. But they've also been extremely, they've avoided turnovers on the offensive side of the ball. Best turnover per drive any offense over that four game stretch.

Their turnover margin over the last four weeks is 11, plus 11 over four weeks. That's bananas. Next closest is the Steelers at six. Okay? This is happening because they are not turning the ball over and they're getting turnovers. That's the only reason.

And if it serves as a springboard and they're fine, the rest of the way, cool. But I agree with what you said, like, the Sean the way he's coaching Russ is like, I don't trust this cat, I don't like him, I want a different quarterback. I think about things from a general manager from an ownership perspective. And she's like, oh, like, we got

mid, we got average. Now we don't have to take an $89 million dead cap hit spread over two total years to move on from Russell Wilson. Now we can just keep them around for one more year and we can build and prepare for the next guy. It's that invitation to patience. that worries me. Well, it all depends what their other options are. I mean, for next year, doesn't it? And,

like, the financial ramifications. And, I mean, it would be the biggest dead cap hit in NFL history. So I do think you have to weigh all those things. But, yeah, I mean, the offense to me, I don't know, I think Sean Payton would rather do almost anything else than have to run the offense like this for another, another season. I will credit Sean Payton. This is what I thought it was going to look like at the beginning of the season. This type of what we're talking about right now, conservative on offense, Don't lose the game. Let the other team lose the game, do, you know, do little stuff, make a play. Like, they are doing that type of thing.

And to their credit to kind of write the ship from where this thing was early in the season, I think that's impressive. It almost reminds me as some of those streaks Sean Payton had when Drew Brees was out and it was like Teddy Bridgewater and he had to like just figure it out with a backup quarterback. That's kind of how they're playing right now. Is it sustainable in the long run? I don't think so. You said you think, you know, they get to nine and I mean, I don't know.

I just think there's a shelf life when you play this style of football where I still don't think they probably get there but yeah I don't know like I don't know what is there they don't have an easy answer at quarterback because they did get to this middle range if they just suck this would have been a lot easier

they have their first round pick they're gonna take the massive Russell Wilson dead cap it and then like acquired Daniel Jones and and and and no he's going to the Falcons we cannot back off of that

actually Justin Fields is to the Falcons because I just watched the Justin Fields Lions film and ooh baby my uh the anime make a play I was very very close to having one of my take for the show be Justin Fields is good and then I was like nah I can't believe it's not

okay all right there you go all right so the bra I think we're on the same page with the bra I don't think they're going to get fools I think Sean Payton is making the best of what is a not great situation with Denver trying to build a culture be competitive all those things they are a competent team if you're a Broncos fan

who says, hey, just let us enjoy these wins. It's been a rough go. Absolutely. Enjoy the wins. You know, it's fun to be there for three hours when your team wins. So I totally get that. All right. My second take. Ben, we talked about the Jaguars last week. We had a long, in-depth discussion. I don't know how many people had eyes on that Jaguars game on Sunday. That is the version of the Jaguars. I want to see the rest of the season. No, what did you think I was going to say? You know, I was going to rip the Jaguars or something? I was interested because I didn't get a ton of eyes on that Jaguars game live because very quick I was like, okay, so this is just going to be like this.

And then it was a big item of discussion. Like I wrote a piece of the Jaguars offense last week about some of the issues. And so people were turning back to that piece and points like this, that and the other thing. Doug last week got asked about the route depth thing. I said the Jarw was the lowest route depth in the league. He got asked about it and he was like, oh. He was like, where's that from? And they're like, that shit stats.

That's not good, man. No, yeah, I thought he agreed with it. I already said, like, quite honestly, yeah, we got to do it. No, no, no, he did, but like, I don't think he was ready for that stat to be like that. Gotcha. He was kind of like, oh, like, okay, that's not, that's right to the heart of the issue, isn't it? All right, so if I'm doing this podcast with the new co-host next week and Ben Solac is named assistant to the coach or the GM in Jacksonville, then, you know, we'll still.

Give me the mic, press Taylor. Give me the mic. Give me the headset. I got it. You still got a leak to me, though, okay? I need the goods about what's actually happening. Who would you leak to first? I wouldn't be first.

Where would I be on the list? Top 10? No, you'd be high up there because you're very trustworthy. It's a straight shooter. Oh, thank you. All right. I appreciate that. Top button button.

I would leak like you wouldn't believe, dude. I would leak so hard. I would incessantly leak. And I say this every year when we get to this time, right? We're like, it's November right now. You know, but the focus on the draft is about to start to end. increase for the teams that are losing a ton of games. And there's going to be a draft coverage guy who tweets out some quote that an NFC executive gave him.

Oh, God. I'm not ready for this season yet. I'm like Caleb Williams can't lead men because I don't like him. And he cried in his mother's arms after they lost a game and he didn't do a press availability. Or no, because that's not a good example if that happened and it was on TV. There's going to be a quote that's like Marvin Harrison Jr. is the best wide receiver prospect in the last 20 years. And he reminds me of if Jerry Rice and Calvin Johnson did the fusion dance.

I was going to make that sort of quote. And every year I'm always like, what you have to remember about this quote is that this executive hasn't actually watched the player. He hasn't. It's November. He hasn't scouted him. He's just chatting.

He's just saying things. And that's what I would, if I was in the league, I would be constantly, I would tell everybody. I just watched this, you know, Western Colorado left tackle.

And I think he's the second coming of Trent Williams. I would say anything and people would run with it. It would be amazing. All right. So again, if this scenario plays out, I will then transfer those takes to extra point. I told you this episode was good. I didn't know what was going on. I would love it. I would love it.

It's living up to that. All right. So that's the version. The take is that's the version of Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars. I want to see the rest of the season. They were spectacular. Benjamin, this was the Trevor Lawrence. This is the guy who just reels me in.

Well, I'm like, no, no, no. This is like one of the five best quarterbacks in the league. They had eight real possessions. They scored four touchdowns, two field goals, and punted twice. Based on EPA per drive, this was their best offensive game under Doug Peterson and Trevor Lawrence. Based on EPA per pass play, this was the best game of Trevor Lawrence's career on Sunday. If you watch it, dime to Calvin Riddley down the left sideline. What else?

Scrambling to his left and then kind of just flicks one to what's his name. De Arnish Johnson, I think it was fourth down, 34-yard catch and run. scramble. They're in the red zone. You know, how you fix red zone problems with you know, this is catching on this year? Quarterback scrambles a little bit. Out of structure. Guess what Trevor Lawrence said. Out of structure scrambles to the left pylon for a touchdown. He looked fantastic. Their average depth of target, which you were pointing out to Doug Peterson last week, nine and a half yards downfield, easily the highest of any game this season. All the physical tools that Trevor Lawrence possesses were on display during this game.

against the Tennessee Titans. And so I'm hoping, because I was reading this, Ben, from ESPN, where they said it was the first time since Trevor Lawrence suffered a sprained left knee against Indianapolis on October 15th that Trevor Lawrence wasn't limited in what he could do. So I was wondering, like, how much of the offense we've seen in recent weeks might have been a combination of, hey, you know, Press Taylor and Doug Peterson are saying, our quarterback has a knee injury. we don't fully trust our offensive line. We don't love some of these matchups. We have a specific way we need to play. And maybe now that he's feeling better, it's unleash him a little bit.

I mean, play action, he was seven for 10 for 100 yards on play action. I mean, he was moving around, looked great in this game. So I'm just hoping. I have my fingers crossed because even when we had that discussion, I remember I was definitely saying,

I can't remember if you were with me. And I was like, I think, you know, after that Doug Peterson press conference kind of swayed me where I was going, you know what, I think they're going to figure it out. I have trust in them. And this was a very encouraging performance from Lawrence and the Jaguars. Yeah, a lot of my Jaguars' offensive consternation circled back down to like I trust Doug,

which some of that is probably like the Eagles fan. I was covering that team during the Doug Peterson era. And so like I feel like I understand him and I know him and how his offenses grow throughout the year probably better than a lot of coaches do just because my proximity to it. But in general, like even from like I think an unbiased view and just like a national view, Doug is proven, like this Jaguar team is two and six around this time last year. Like Doug is proven like he's really good through the season

and like figuring stuff out as it goes. And Doug's also extremely good at taking a team and saying the highs aren't too highs, lows aren't too lows. Like we're going to have bumps. And after we have a bump, we're going to kind of set ourselves and figure stuff out. Oh, that leads so well into my third take,

but I'll come back to it. Oh, and because I know the team it's about, I can pretty, I can think I could do your third. take off the dome, no problem. So it solves right. It solves the problems they figure stuff out, not too high, not too low. And when we've talked about this Jaguar's team, you and I, liking them

so much in the preseason, experiencing their first two months, we've talked about like, it just feels disjointed, it feels incorrect, it doesn't feel perfect. And a lot of that like descriptive language that isn't exactly diagnostic. It's more just like vibes. It's appropriate because what they

really needed was like a shot in the arm. What they need it was to go against the Niners in their home stadium. get molly wapped, get slapped around for fourth quarter, four quarters, like, all right, like, enough of the like, oh, we didn't figure this. Oh, this was awkward. Oh, bad third down. Like, let's figure out how to be good at offense. You just do it.

Like, let's, let's remember what it's like to score 35 points on a bad defense. It's bang. Like, let's be adults. Let's be big. Let's be the AFC contending team that we want to be. So they needed that kind of kick in the tocus. And I think they got it and you see that big win against the Titans. Now, great.

Congratulations. Houston this week. Put up or shut up. right? Did you have a nice passion in passion performance against the Titans team that gets a good defense because of Rable and everything but they've given up some big passing performances here the Titans have? Did you have a nice game against the Titans

because you were embarrassed about the 49ers loss or are you turning a corner? Because guess what? The corner's here. The Texans would like to win the division. They already beat you once they beat you again. They're coming for it. The Texans are knocking on the door. So if you really turned a corner, this is put up for shot up time.

Texans Jaguars, man. I'm fired up for this game. These are some of the best units to watch both sides of the ball. Really good coaching staffs, delightful quarterbacks. This is going to be a good game. And I'm hoping the Jaguars bring their stuff. I'm hoping they bring their a game. We get a four-quarter battle.

I really am. I would love to make fun of you for describing Texans Jaguars as the game of the year. But I feel the exact same. I wanted to tell me that I'm wrong. I wanted to throw in like a hipster thing. Texas Jaguars, give me a break. But no, I can't wait for that game. We'll obviously talk about that one later in this week.

on extra point taken. By the way, what you were saying there reminded me this email I got from listener Paul who said, hey, Shiel, I've noticed Ben uses the term Maliwop at a much higher rate than the general public. Did he lose a bet and has to hit a quota on uses of the term or something? So I didn't forward that to you. I don't know why. Paul didn't, Paul should have just emailed Shio. I don't know your emails available, but I appreciate it, Paul. I like to hear from you. Thank you for listening to the show. Well, okay, so firstly, I would say like a lot of descriptions for like one team really beating another team badly are like inappropriate for

podcasts and never something that I would say, mom, if you're listening, right? Like, so firstly, you just cut all those out. Now you end up with like, oh, they got beat, they got demolished, they got destroyed, they got boat race, which it turns out boat race is not accurate. Actually, I used boat race a lot previously. Is that true? I used to say like boat race as like a closer one, but it's actually a boat race is like

No, no. You're killing them. Yeah. Exactly. Again, be real big. And so I was using boat race wrong, so I didn't move away from boat race. But of all the options, Maliwock is the most illustrative. It's the most beautiful. It's fun.

Yeah. Mollowahua now. Like, that's got some music to it. I like a Molliwop. I like beat around the yard. That's a good one. Beat the brakes off. All these are great.

I don't know if this is our best episode or our worst episode of all time. We'll say. All right. Let's take a break. We'll come back with our third takes. All right. We are back on. Extra point taken.

Benny Souls, what do you got for your third take? I'm done with Sam Howell, future quarterback of the Washington commanders. Dun Howe. What's that? Done how. Like, it'd be more descriptive.

Well, I was going to continue. That was just the opening line. I get criticized for my opening lines that I work on them. And she was like, tell me what that means. Yeah, that's what the next part's for. Okay.

So the explanation. At various times throughout the season, following some, like, strong performances and losses or some particularly impressive late throws, I remember in their overtime loss to the Eagles, excuse me, not the overtime loss, the 31-38 loss later in the year. Like, he had made some great throws there down the stretch

as Sam Howell had, and there were people like, man, like this sort of stuff we're talking about, like Howell was kind of fighting for his spot to be the quarterback of the future. There's been reporting to this. I know Diana Rossini of the Athletic did some sourcing on it, how the commanders feel about their guy, like, oh, maybe he's the dude to the future.

I've never been fully there. I like Howell the trick shot artist. He attempts some throws and makes those throws that are mighty impressive. I like Howell the gamer. I want Howell in my locker room. That touchdown run he had against the Giants was a tough run. He's had a lot of tough runs as the starter of the commanders. There's stuff to like there with him.

I'm nowhere near Howell's a bad quarterback. Don't play him. I would like, Howell is very similar to Baker. Mayfield to me and like I can get that guy in the field I can get some offense out of him and he'll make some tough plays for me too like I like having a guy like that available to me

but in terms of like detailing the future of a franchise looking at this commander's team coming off of that loss to the Giants where they had six total turnovers lose that game 31 to 19 when you watch how like again like the trick shots like the intermediate throws layers like they're good and they're impressive but how is not a

consistent player at all in terms of how he manages the pocket in terms of how he gets through his reads what he decides to throw how he decides to throw it. He has bouts of really bad inaccuracy. He's constantly making muddy platforms worse by like kind of panicking and feeling like he needs to rush his throws. He doesn't have great natural size too.

So he's just like never trustworthy in the pocket to me. He always has to get out of it. He always has to get outside of structure. And he's working with a good receiving core. And I think that helps him out quite a bit. But you're not always going to have like a Terry McLaurin and a Logan Thomas and John Dawson and a Curtis Samuel, a group of guys that like can take these throws you're getting after the catch and really make some work out of them.

He's got a lot of yards after the catch this year. And I don't think that's always going to be available to him, like, over the course of his career. There's enough here that, like, if the commanders elect to go the path of, we're going to spend the 2023, 2024 off season, just totally investing in, like, fixing the defense and adding to the offensive line and, like, building a, like, a good infrastructure. We're going to give Howell another year. I wouldn't fault them for it.

Like, I would get it. I think that that patient idea of team building, especially if they bring in a new general manager bringing a new head coach. I think that's absolutely defensible. But the Howell games, like this giant games, get looked over far too much. Like this, this sort of play is way to turnover prone and way to risk prone. And guys who play like this typically don't get it out of their system at some point in their career. It's a lot easier to take a guy who like plays a checkdown oriented style of football and, and a risk-averse style of football and and build an offense out of that that can sustain relative to a guy this turnover brung.

Even when you build a good offense around him, like, oh, it works, he has these games where he just totally pulls the chair out from under you. And this was, I think, one of those games. So they had three fumbles, obviously, wasn't all on him. But he's a high sat guy and it's a high interception guy. He just costs his team too much. And so I know that the commander's faithful wants something to hang on to. I know they want to build their offense around Howell.

I get it. But I think that we do too much. Oh, wow, look at how these cool throws in the fourth quarter. And we don't talk about the other side of the coin, which is just like, there's a lot of stuff he tries that he has no business trying. And so for me, if you were giving me control over the commander's controllers and directing this franchise, I definitely want to get another quarterback in the room. And if that's, they end up with a pick early enough where they can go do that.

I think that that pursue is reasonable. I do think this is the team or a veteran quarterback would make a lot of sense. I know they have Jacoby Verset on the roster. Obviously, they're not interested in that. But I think you're going to see for the commanders this offseason, new head coach, new general manager. And I wouldn't be surprised if you've seen new quarterback too. I think I disagree.

Now, some of the stuff, as you were explaining it, I said, yes, I agree with that. Yes, I agree with that. No, I don't agree. I've been pleasantly surprised by Sam Howell this season. I mean, I think we, like, we move the goalpost for some of these guys or have different, like, expectations. Like, he started 12 games in his career.

This was his 12th career start. Like, I came into the season thinking, what are the commanders doing? There's no chance this guy's going to be even competent enough. Jacoby Brissette's going to be starting. in week three, and he has made a number of high-level throws that I did not. He was, no, he was even capable of making. I know you said that. You acknowledged that there when you were describing it.

So I think he's tough. I think he tries our throws. I think he wants to push the ball down field. I think they move the football a lot. I mean, even in that game against the Giants, like, what did they have? They had like four over 400 yards of offense and 28 first down. I hate to keep coming back to the turnover thing. you mentioned, not all the turnovers were on him. I think two of them were in the fourth quarter when the

game is kind of getting out of hand a little bit. Now, I will acknowledge the weaknesses that you said. They're absolutely true. He takes a lot of sacks and it is part the offensive line, but not all the offensive line. If you look up, you know, pro football focused as the pressure to sack numbers, he's tied for the worst pressure to sack rate in the NFL with your boy, Desmond Ritter. See, I didn't say your boy, Arthur Smith. Desmond Ritter, once in future starter, Philana Falcons, playoffs, here we come. Would you rather have Desmond Ritter over Sam Hal? No, I'd take Sam. Oh, really?

I'm shocked. Do you just not feel like arguing with me at 115 in the morning? No, no, no, no. I think, I think Halel's going to be like Ryan Fitzpatrick. I think he's going to hang around. I think he's going to be around for a while. Okay, that's not bad. I don't think this sort of play style in this sort of, like, body type and physical toolkit,

has a viable ceiling, right? And he is like leading the league in dropbacks, leading the league in attempts that go more and 20 yards down the field. Like his, I agree, like 28 first downs, 400 yards of offense. Like the counting stats are gaudy. But that's because Eric Benemy is back there playing Madden, dude. Like they're just shooting and hoping. And it does not feel to me in any way that you can construct something reliable around this.

All right. So let me ask you this. How come you feel differently about Justin Fields? his warts were like in terms of just the negative the aspect of a young quarterback who has all these negative plays like that was my big thing I feel like I'm the only reasonable person on Justin Fields everyone in my life is either like you or all the way on the other side I'm like I think he's a fun player he flashes sometimes

just like you know but there are like he's had more negative plays than any young quarterback is it just because the physical tools here exactly what I said how like this play style in this physical tool kit, I don't think is viable. The Justin Fields, high-risk play style within his physical toolkit is a lot more viable to me. And just the very short answer is the effect on the running game. Right.

Like I put up, I had a thread on my account today on Twitter of Justin Fields just running read option. Just zone read, day one install. And the, the lions are defending it on block defenders. They have edge rushers and linebackers, scrape exchange, get a guy on the outside of Justin Fields, unblocked, ready to stop him. And Fields just beats the guy in space just every single time.

And it's like, okay, like, I can now find a way to generate consistent, consistency on offense out of a player who is often inherently inconsistent because of the way Fields impacts the running game. Howell is like a good scrambler, but he's not that, right? And so that's where like, like,

again, like, I think Baker Mayfield is a good illustration. Like, think about that 2019 Kevin Stefansky run where it's like, oh, like, we can make something work with him. And then defense get on it at false pieces because, like, he doesn't bring enough snap to snap, whereas I think Fields physically does. So that's the difference maker there. Okay.

I would not want to see Jacoby Brissette or any other veteran of that elk if I'm a commander's fan. I'm with you. Listen, the odds of Sam Howell being like a top five quarterback in the NFL, like a franchise guy for the next 10 years, which Ron Rivera, I think, was trying to sell probably partially to keep his job. Yeah. No, I'm not there. At the same time, I have been pleasantly surprised. And I would not want to just say, like, let's have a boy. He's fun also, by the way.

He is an entertaining quarterback, and there's something to be said for that. This is the only time I've liked watching the commanders in however many years. So I think it's worth like, yeah, obviously, if you can upgrade and you feel like there's a great, you know, young quarterback out there that you can acquire, you should always be looking to upgrade there unless you have, you know, one of the top five or six guys in the NFL. But I would not be looking to sign some middle of the road guy. I mean, I think you can absolutely, you know, have a top, I don't know, like a top 12, of offense with Sam Hal as your quarterback if the other pieces in place are good enough. Like the offensive line right now is not great. It's the first year under Eric Bienomi. I think he's

done some nice things. Again, most weeks I watch the Washington commanders. Like, they're stringing drives together. They're moving the football. They are not like a stagnant, boring offense. Now, they have those negative plays that, you know, end up costing them. But I, listen, I like Sam Halel. I probably like Sam Hal more than you, more than consensus here. I'm not like. Sam's your sort of guy. What does that mean? Plucky Underdog tries hard.

Okay. That is not my fun. You love a fun quarterback. You love a fun quarterback. Yeah, I like fun. I don't like people who work hard. No, I'm just kidding. But no, I think there's enough there

because I do see the high level stuff from Sam out, like the very hard, hard throws to complete the aggressiveness. There's enough there where I kind of like it. So we'll say, listen, they're going to have a new coach and a new GM and everything. We'll see what they do. But he's on a rookie contract.

I would rather take my shot with him than signing someone for $6 million a year or whatever it's going to cost. All I know, like, the number one thing I've learned from this commander's offensive season is that like Eric B. enemies just got it, dude. Yeah, he's been good. They, like, Howell's like one of the lowest play action rates in the league. He drops back more than anybody else does in the league. He's like, he's a high A dot passer on first and second down. He's super low on third down.

So they're taking all their shots on early down. They're just out there living, dude. Again, the BNamy is a madden play caller. He has no interest in the running game. He has no interest in second and manageable. They are firing. And it is, like, it's so cool to see. Even though I look at it, I go,

this is probably a little bit fraudulent and, like, you know, juicing up stats and whatever. It's still just a very aggressive play caller doing it for four quarters and limb with the results. It's fun to watch. They pass out a higher rate than Andy, I think. Who would have thought, you know, Anybody would be doing that.

They are living. There you go. All right. My last one alluded to it earlier. Solac was saying, you know, Doug Peterson is very even keel, very professional, sets the tone for his franchise. You know, my third take here, and I've gone on kind of hiatus from even talking about this team because I feel like we hit them in the first few weeks of the season. And then people were like, stop talking about them. And I'm like, you're right.

They don't deserve to be talked about. But now it's week 11. And my take is, I think I've had enough. for the Brandon's Daily experience. It's nothing personal. Listen, they lost to the Packers, 2320. They had like four drives that ended with drop passes. Ben tweeted out the, I think all of those clips, which watching live, like, they're just

jaw dropping. Like, oh my gosh, what, all high leverage. Like, it's third or fourth down. It's red zone. It's all these high leverage situations. They're dropping the football. They lose 2320. The defense gives up 397 yards and 23 first.

downs. Brandon Staley got a little testy at his press conference. I don't like to read, listen, I don't even like to, I don't even like to be the guy who points out the press conference. It's all right. It's 15 minutes after the game. You want to get a little testy. That's okay.

As a reporter when I was in those, I kind of like the back and forth when we go at it a little bit. That's okay. That's part of the job. But the message he was giving out, I thought was kind of the opposite of what you were describing earlier. So he says, you guys act like we've never played good defense. that's not the truth.

That's a direct quote. He talked about how they stopped the run, how they rushed the passer. He said they need to get better in coverage. He said, quote, there are a lot of other things that caused us to lose today. It certainly wasn't our defense, end quote. Then he starts pointing to the other stuff, which I don't know why you would want to do this, but he starts pointing to the red zone offense, drop passes, giving up sacks. He said, it's not about one unit.

The team lost, quote, I'm fully responsible for it. End quote. I guess someone asked him about giving up defensive play calling. And he's like, you don't have to ask me about that ever again. That's not happening. I'm calling the defense. Listen, I don't want to judge a guy again by a moment where he's frustrated and upset. But this is three years now. I think we forget, like Brandon Staley's been there a while.

It seems like only yesterday he got there. And he was like, oh, wow, this guy's pretty cool. He's talking about analytics. And he came from the Rams and Fangio. Oh, my guy, he's got a great defensive philosophy. If you look at this team over the last three seasons, and Brandon Staley's been in charge of the defense, they are. This is, again, three seasons, 29th EPA per drive, 29th success rate, 30th in points allowed per game. Only two defenses in the NFL in the last three years have allowed more points per game than the Los Angeles Chargers.

The offense during that stretch, fifth in EPA per drive, fifth in points per game. Like, this is very simple about what the problem with the Los Angeles Chargers has been for this three-year stretch. And it is your side of the ball. It is the reason you got that job with the Los Angeles Frams to be defensive coordinator. It is the reason you got the head coaching job with the Los Angeles Chargers. And so to come out after a game like that where you gave up 397 yards and to be, quote, defiant as described by my friend Daniel Popper at the athletic who's in attendance at these press conferences. He's like, that is sending a bad, bad message. And you're not lying about the other stuff.

Like, I watched that game and I wasn't like, yeah, they lost because their defense totally sucked today. At the same time, that was the Packers' second best offensive performance of the season. That was like a get right game for the Green Bay Packers. And so it's not like the defense played well. And so I get it. The guy's frustrated. He probably knows what the future is going to hold.

They're four and six. They have a 12.1% chance to make the playoffs per DVOA. Maybe he just kind of sees the writing on the wall. and it's like I'm sick of taking all this heat. I'm going to fire back a little bit. That's his prerogative. I don't like it from a leadership standpoint. I don't like it from a messaging standpoint when you still have a chance.

And it's just a bad look. You kind of look petty when you do that. So that will be my last time talking about them until they're, unless something wild happens until they're relevant again, if they make a playoff push fine, if they make a move at head coach fine. Other than that, I think I can have a moratorium on the chargers. But I needed to get that out today. Yeah. I'm with you.

I remember hopper on this pod after the Monday night game they played against the Cowboys. Had a Justin Herbert game time driving that game, lost that game in the fourth quarter, and said, all right, like, this is the game that I'll point back to when the Brands Daly era ends, because this is how it goes for him. Right, his team plays a coast game, and then they lose in the fourth quarter late because defensively he can't buy a stop. Since then, he's lost a game to the Lions that way, and he's lost a game to the Packers that way. The guy you see up on the podium is a guy that understands it's slipping

through his fingers, right? Like a guy who understands, like, he's running out of legs to stand on. Whenever we talk about coaches getting fired, it sucks because, like, guys are pulling 20-hour days, seven days a week, and they're working their tail off,

and they're at a very, very, very, very high level in their field. And, like, Staley got there, John Carroll, right? Like, an NFL hotbed. He got attached to Vic Fangio, like, on his own merit, right? He wasn't a legacy hire for Fangio. Like, he worked to get on Fangio staff,

got a defensive coordinator job, lit it up. Like, he, like, did the, good stuff. He did the right stuff. It was certainly a meteoric rise, but he worked his tail off for it. And so it sucks to get here at the end of three years. A guy who like dramatically impacted defensive football in the NFL and be like, yeah, he hasn't cut it as a head coach. But he hasn't. Proof the put-ins always in the Eden. And the Ian here is tough in the product for the

Chargers. They have given up too many points in too many games, especially in too many late games, especially in the fourth quarter, to continue engaging this staff. And there's drops to talk about in one game. There's penalties to talk about in the next game. There's sacks to talk about in a third game. There's always mitigating factors.

Defensively, you've got to be able to stop guys in the fourth quarter. When a game is on the line, scoreboards up, everything is happening for 55, 56 minutes. You have to be able to say, all right, we get a stop here, we win. And this is how we're going to get that stop. And they she'll incessantly

get penalties on third down. when they're off the field defensively. Third and 20 this time to set up the Romeo Doves a game winner. All they do is draw flags on third down. And that is fundamentally coaching, right? And he talked about it in his press conference slash,

you know, therapy session slash screaming into a pillow, you know, poor guy lost at sea in the middle of the ocean. We talked about it where he said, we're confident our message is getting through on these penalties, just execution. Dude, the message isn't getting through or the execution would improve.

Like, it's not getting there. And I don't know why it isn't. know if it's your fault, somebody else's fault. I don't know what it is, but it isn't. And the proof of the put-ins in the eating, you've got to get a fresh slate for Justin Herbert and a fresh slate for the Chargers in order to feel you can be a serious team in the AFC-West. So with Staley, it's, he had a huge impact on defensive football. He continues to have a huge impact on defensive football. He's going to stay around the league.

But the tenure with the Chargers has got to come to a close because they're just at their wits end. They're at the end of the rope and they're barely hanging on. They're eighth in offensive DVOA. I mean, you needed to field an average defense this year. You get an average defense, and you're probably having a different season, but that's not happening. Herbert is,

Herbert, like, remember copping on the pot and being like, Herbert's had a couple off games that we did that in October? Since then, he's been on fire. Lights out, dude, throwing to Alex Erickson. 50-year touchdown to Stone-smart. What was that guy's name? Stone-smart, yeah, literally, I definitely had never heard of that guy,

and this is my job. A Juco quarterback, transferred to Old Dominion wide receiver, UDFA tight end, 50-yard touchdown. That's where we're at, offense for the Chargers. Yeah, he was trying to put the team on his back.

I know people are, and if you're a non-chargers fan, you're probably tired of hearing about Justin Herbert because he's never in relevant games. However, you know, we will stick to what we think, which is that he played really well in that game,

and the offense has played well enough for them to be a good team. All right, what do you have for your Extra point taken today, Benjamin. My extra point taken is a summation. It is a nail in the coffin. It is the dot at the end of the sentence. It is an eye dotted and a T-crossed, right?

We're just finishing a job we've been doing for a long time. If you're 100% or if you're a completeist, like Shield said, you don't even have to listen because you've already heard this plenty of times before. You know it's coming. You know what it is. But we have to do it. We have to bookend the end of the Zach Wilson starting quarterback of the New York Jets era. Oh, I didn't know where we were going.

You and I, we've done this spot for two years, Sheal, and for two years, once a month, once every six weeks, when Zach Wilson, we'd be the quarterback of the Jets and Robert Solomon, we have with the presser and be like, we love Zach Wilson. We're so happy. This is the best. We would get on the mic. We'd be like, why? Why are you doing this to us personally? We watch these games, man. We watch the film. Why do we have to look at this? Why are you doing this to the fan base? Why are you doing this to yourself? This is just horrible. And then that was last. last year, and then we've had to do it this year since the Aaron Rogers injury, and here we are now, Zach Wilson, in just what is a shocking development. Just a stunner is not the quarterback for the Jets. He has been benched for Tim Boyle, who has signed his QB3 because he's Aaron Rogers buddy. Okay, Tim Boyle, quarterback at Yukon, who had more interceptions than touchdowns. Tim Boyle, who just can't play, who's QB3, because he's Aaron Rogers' buddy.

He will now start. Trevor Simeon, who has signed mid-season, will be the backup, and Zach Wilson will be QB3. Robert Sala, when asked about could the Jets have done anything different in quarterback evaluation, their draft process back when they took Zach Wilson? I was doing with two overall. Trey Lance went three, Justin Fields went nine, and Mac Joneswood 15. So I said, I've got my thoughts.

I've got a list of stuff. I've shared them with Joe Douglas. but we're not going to talk about that here was just a hilarious way of being like yeah, I've been starting this guy for the last two seasons but also in 2021 I would have been right by the way. Actually I had some ideas that

Joe maybe shouldn't have listened to. Just awesome retconning. Actually I would have we would never draft exact Wilson if I were more involved. It's excellent work. The take here like again like it's not like it's like a new take. It's not like it's like oh it's coming on this. Just to say we as you and I on this

pod have to acknowledge that this is exactly where we've landed. Not to be like, oh, wow, we're right. Not to be like, oh, you know, victory dance on Zach Wilson's career and he got benched by the Jets again. But just to simply say, like, this is what we're talking about. Like, there's so many times where, like, a quarterback is in the midst of like a good two or three game stretch, like the Bailey Zappy stretch, the Tyson Bayesian stretch. There's always these life cycles of these backup quarterbacks. There's always these stretches where coaches act, like, we're all crazy for looking at a quarterback being like, this is clearly not it. And this is always where we're,

we land. We land with him unable to do anything against the bills, losing by multiple scores, being replaced by Tim Boyle, and then the team being listless. This is the reality of things. And so the Zach Wilson Jets era would teach us a lot. It's a total mess. And there's 10,000 things.

And who knows how, you know, Sala holds onto his job, doesn't. Joe Douglas wasn't job, does it. And Roger comes back. I have no comment all that at this time. It's just to say, yeah, this is what, what, this is what, what did you, this was always what was going to happen. And the fact that we pretended otherwise

and acted as if anything else could have happened is frustrating and maddening. It was maddening then and it's maddening now. Congrats on throwing away the great defensive season, New York Jets. And a reminder that the Aaron Rogers injury happened in the first quarter of week one. If you are a Jets fan, how do you stomach watching Joshua Dobbs

join the Minnesota Vikings and go in there without having learned a play and play like he's playing and you're sticking with Zach Wilson and you're waiting you know what if you're a jet season ticket holder they wasted your money they should give you your money back they wasted you

they were not serious they were not serious this year they should give refunds to you they were not serious about fielding a team think about the organizations in your head think about an organization you think is a good organization

and you think howie Roseman in that situation is sticking with Zach Wilson he would have searched he would have made any trade he could to bring someone, the 49ers. He didn't Kyle Shanahan with this supporting cast. If he didn't have a quarterback who he liked, they would just sit on their hands. They all knew the guy couldn't play.

They traded for Aaron Rogers because they knew he couldn't play. And then when you have to adjust on the fly and make a decision, you do nothing and you throw your entire season away. You waste the time of players like Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall. and Quinn and Williams and CJ Mosley and Quincy Williams and Sauce Gardner and DJ Ree I'm naming a lot of freaking good players

on this team because there's a lot of good play I didn't even get there's more I didn't even get to all of the player you wasted their time you wasted a season of their professional career the NFL is short one of these guys is going to get injured next year and probably have their career totally altered

and 10 years from now they're going to be telling their kids you know what I can't believe those guys wasted my time with that quote And you're right. I'm not here to like, like, Zach Wilson is down low. This isn't even like a Zach Wilson take. It's just so annoying. And I'm not even a Jets fan. Like I'm, hey, if you were a Jets fan, I can't even imagine how you would feel that they are wasting your time like this. You look forward to 17 Sundays, Mondays, or Thursdays in the fall and the winter, in the offices and you read up on

free agency and the draft, your family members, birthdays, you buy them jerseys and hoodies and you give them your money and your time. And they, don't take you seriously. They don't respect you enough. They even make a move and they just take this guy out there. And then all of a sudden, in week 11, they're like, he's the third stringer. We just figured it out just last week that he couldn't play. So now he's third string.

Firstly, incredible performance. Round of a pause. It was amazing. I like how I walked into that so determined not to get upset and frustrated. And then I did by the end. And then I watched you go through the exact same process in your response. This is the sort of thing where, like, Like for you and I, just the proximity to it,

the being in every single weekend, seeing how other teams is that you brought about higher Roseman, Kyle Shannon. That's what's so frustrating. It's like, you didn't have to do this to the fans. You also didn't have to do this to Zach. The NFL is Big Boy Football.

It walked in. You gave him a shot. You changed the coordinator and you try to develop him. It didn't work. Move on and go. And like, you didn't have to do this where it would be, again, him being just like the clear reason

they can't move the ball at all times, wasting a great defense and being under the sort of criticism that he gets from people like you mean. You didn't have to do this. You could have just got Jacoby was set in there and been perfectly reasonable and perfectly fine. This is the NFL.

You've got to move on from guys when they can't play. You've got to go. You don't get 10 years, general manager, 10 years head coach figured out. You have to make moves. And it's just, it's not good organizational process and it hurts everybody. And that blows.

And it has blown the entire time been doing it, and it's been clear, and now Tim Boyle's playing on national television on Black Friday. And why, I have to watch that game. And we have to record after that game, Tim Boyle! Man, it's nothing bad that I don't stink. Even worse. And now tomorrow in my picks column, I have to decide whether to take Tim Boyle plus nine and a half or to take the Miami Dolphins minus nine. That's the worst of it to be quite. Miami Dolphins minus nine and a half until the cows come home, though they just killed me against the radar. so maybe not.

Me too. They killed both of us, which is a good way to end the show. We'll be back to talk about how much our picks suck on Friday, Black Friday,

after that Jets Dolphins game for the next extra point ticket. So we figured it's weird. You got Thanksgiving Day games. We'll wait till that game ends on Friday and then we'll get you

your second podcast of the week extra point taken. All right, you got me all riled up. I'm supposed to need to go to bed soon and now you get like my heart. The juices are flowing. I'm like, oh, well,

Jordan Love looks nice. Yay. Happy. I did want to give Jordan Love some love. I'm going to do that on Friday. Jordan Love played a nice game hunt against Los Angeles. Jordan Love will Justin Fields. The team of extra point taken is not dead yet.

I will say that. Packers? You still got a shot at this. Packers? Packers are plus seven and a half right against the Lions. I like the Packers with the points at least. I would like the Packers more if Aaron Jones could stay healthy, but yes. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Thank you to Ben Solac. thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. Thank you to Eduardo Ocampo for the video production. Additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna, Ram Gopal. Next episode will be Nora and Stephen with dual threat. Hey, everybody have a happy Thanksgiving. We won't talk to them, Solac, until after Thanksgiving.

Everybody have a happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the football. Enjoy the Black Friday football. Solac and I will jump on after that. Appreciate you listening and have a great week. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Fanduel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem.

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