The Ringer NFL Show - The Coaching Carousel Has Begun | The Ringer NFL Show (Ep. 356)

Episode Date: December 3, 2018

Mike McCarthy is out, the Aaron Rodgers coaching sweepstakes have commenced, and other coaches are on the hot seat (1:30). Plus, the recent suspension of Kansas City running back Kareem Hunt (15:30), Stock Up/Stock Down after Sunday’s slate of games, and today’s challenge flags (23:00). Hosts: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Cody Kessler's want to know as Jaguar's starter. It's the story. No, the Pittsburgh Steelers think it's okay to put a linebacker on Keenan Allen coverage on a crucial third down. I think multiple times. Josh Allen is the new Cam Newton, apparently, according to some dolphins players who made the comparison. the game. But I want to start with some really surprising news. I just found out, which is that during this podcast, which is essentially recorded overnight in your time zone, you drink coffee. Yeah, I need a little jolt, man. It's 11.30 at night. I'm currently staring at the clock. It's 1127.

But how do you then go to sleep after that? Caffeine doesn't affect me that much. If I have a little bit of it, I can stay up and then go to bed. That's always how I've been. So instead of putting out an entire pot of coffee. I frothed some milk. I fired up the espresso and I've got a nice little latte working for me right now. It's very cozy and I don't know, it puts me in a good place. Should have stayed with the Kessler storyline. All right. Let's talk about football. So let's start with, in my opinion, the number one headline that's come out of Sunday and that's that the Packers have fired Mike McCarthy, which it felt like it was inevitable at the end of the season. But as we've talked about all year, really the only reason that Mike McArthur,

McCarthy's had a job for this long, is that the Packers are, I don't know, by most estimations, the most conservative franchise in the NFL when it comes to these sort of decisions. I would say for them, I would say the Steelers are number one with the bullet, and that. That's, all right, fine. So the second most then. So they fired their coach after a week 13, which I don't know, both of us kind of discussed this, that we would have been surprised that they had done this midseason.

And I think it probably required a loss to the. the Cardinals for it to happen before week 17 and Black Monday. But a decision that we all expected to come, but did not expect to come this soon, I guess I would say. I guess the big picture point from my perspective is everyone sees this as certainly a shock. And I find it a shock as well. He is the second coach in history to be relieved midway through a season who's won a Super Bowl, that according to Adam Schaefter. Wow. That's really interesting, actually. The other being Don McAfrity. You could have given me a hundred guesses.

So I like, I've done some deep dives in NFL history. Did not know Don McAfriety won a Super Bowl. No. I don't know who Don McAfriety is. I missed it. He was a Colts coach. There you go. Yeah.

You could have given me a lot of guesses. I still got that. Byrd 1972 after, after a Super Bowl in 1970. Okay. But here's the thing. I know we see this is sort of. disrespectful because he got dumped midseason after a really bad loss to an awful Cardinals team. But the point was made by a couple smart people, I think, out on Twitter and

in some of the stories that this saves Mike McCarthy. A couple things. Number one, he does, if he wants, I do believe he'll be a head coach again, kind of set the agenda there, you know, start seeking out, get some time off, whatever, before the coach carousel in a month. We knew this was going to happen. And instead of this inevitable last four weeks, he's been. being asked about his job every single press conference four times a week after every loss. I mean, this saves him a lot of grief, I guess you could say. And so I'm not, when I think about it from that way, they obviously was going to be done in a month's time.

I can see why the Packers did it. Yeah, it makes sense. Again, I'm just a little bit surprised about the timing. Sure. So a couple of things to unpack that you just said. If you were running an NFL franchise, would you hire Mike McCarthy as your head coach? well I mean no but I wouldn't do 95% of the things NFL teams do that's fair yeah I as we're talking about this and we're going to get into this discussion a little bit

kind of the climate that allows Mike McCarthy to be fired 13 weeks into the year why a guy like Mike McCarthy gets fired why most more teams will move on from their coaches in my opinion than we thought six months ago just based on what's going around around the league I think that climate and that environment is one of the reasons I just wouldn't even think about hiring Mike McCarthy as my head coach. I think there's a couple of things to think about when we're talking about the candidate pool. First of all, if typically I think around six teams, six and a half teams make a move every off season. Okay. And I think there's sort of a limiting factor there because there's just not enough candidates. And I looked at the, you know, some of the Packers writers

put together a list of candidates you think will be considered. And it's, not as impressive as you'd think. And it was actually, give me some of the names. Okay, Zach Taylor, the Rams quarterback's coach was on it. That's, remember we were talking about a couple weeks ago?

They're going to be so many terrible head coach higher that happened. I'm not saying Zach Taylor is going to be one of them, but it's the Zach Taylor types that could end up being an unmitigated disaster for some of these franchises. But here's the problem is Sean McVeigh was a Zach Taylor type. Agreed. It's not a bad idea. No.

It's the right kind of sphere of coaches that I think should be considered. But I think the Zach Taylor type will come with a lot of regrets for a franchise very soon. All right. Let me read you the other names. Okay. This is Tom Silverstein, great Packers writer. He has Josh McDaniel, Zach Taylor, Lincoln Riley. He has Brian Dable on here.

Okay. Who I got, who got Brian Dable confused for the other day? Greg Roman. He was Greg Roman. He was Greg. Gregorough. It was any mediocre offensive coordinator in the NFL. He got him confused with. Pat Fitzgerald, John Harbaugh, Jim Harbaugh, David Shaw.

David Shaw intrigues me. He's not, he is not a Lincoln Riley type in the sense that he's not going to be Mr. New Age spread, but he is a college coach with a lot of success. The problem is I think- David Shaw intrigues me too. But I think that David Shaw has gotten a million of these calls and he's never really entertained any. So,

have, the Combine ones. the only time I've ever interacted with David Shaw, it was on the tram in the Atlanta airport. And I just ran into him and he had gotten Chick-fil-A because-A did you introduce yourself? And say, or just go up and just start yak and chick-fil-a? We were talking on the tram. And I was like, do you guys have one of those in Palo Alto? He goes, no, I have to get it when I'm on the road. I was like, that's a great move then. Get it in the terminal and being able to eat it on the way to the baggage claim. this is a really savvy choice.

So that sort of decision making and that sort of forethought, I feel like he could be a decent head coach. I met him and he was on, I think the NFL network stand at, or the set at the combine of the draft. And he was showing everybody his apps. He had really cool apps.

He had like handwriting apps that then turned into text or something, which is literally a Simpsons gag from 20 years ago. But, But it worked and he was shown. I don't even remember what the app was. I don't be like, I don't, you know, fucking Jeff Fisher's not showing anybody any apps.

So, all right. Let's talk about the David Shaw thing, independent of the apps for a quick second. So let's talk about the candidate pool and how many job openings there might be. Because I think this is another takeaway from the weekend outside of the Packers and Mike McCarthy. So let's try to figure this out. So let's, the Packers are one.

I think the Buccaneers are two. I'm still putting the Cardinals in there, even though you don't think there's any chance they fire their coach. I don't know there's, I'm first of all they just won today. That's fine. They're three and nine.

Okay. So it's, there's not a lot. Typically, it's a GM change, which is, by the way, possible,

which brings a, there's a non-zero chance they fire their coach. Okay. Yeah, I would say that's, but I would say that of almost everybody. So that's the conversation we're about to have.

Jets. So that jaguars four, Browns five. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm going up to standings. The Jaguars are going to fire Doug Marone. Would you be shocked if that happened? Wait, are we just doing non-zero chance?

Or we think it's going to happen. Non-zero chance. Okay. This is, okay. The possible teams. So the Jags are five. The Browns, obviously. That's six.

The, I'd say all the AFC West teams are safe because the bad team of the AFC West is a 10-year coach coaching contract. I think the Jets are seven and the Jets are six and the dolphins are probably seven. I'd say those teams are the ones I'd throw out. Okay.

And then the other headline I want to chat about today, I want to talk about the teams that don't necessarily seem as logical because it came out this morning that David Teper was considering a change for the Panthers possibly. But an organizational change.

And that would mean everything because he's concerned about the analytics. Exactly. But I think that, more and more teams are maybe going to consider an organizational change because of some of the coaching jobs we've seen elsewhere. For all of the McVeys, for all of the really good coaching jobs we've seen around the league, I think the same way we've discussed this in terms of quarterbacks and offensive coordinators, we're going to see with head coaches as well. I feel like there are

going to be some shocking choices at the end of the season. And in my opinion, the Rams, or excuse me, the Panthers firing Ron Rivera would be a shocking choice. Yeah, I agree. I don't necessarily disagree with it, but it would be surprising. It would be less surprising if the organizational change involves front office moves. Correct. Just because if you're looking at the analytics sort of move, bringing in a GM whose analytics forward thinking is a lot easier than a head coach.

Okay. But what I will say about the, as we learn with Sashi Brown and some of this other stuff, it's not baseball yet. There aren't a huge pool of, you know, I remember like 2012. 2013. A lot of teams were getting in their first analytics guys. As we know, the charters don't even have an analytics department. It's not like there's a hundred guys out there who are analytics guys. There are some very talented guys who are ready to be GMs out there. And I understand that. They're younger. It's going to be baseball-esque. But it's not like there's a huge pool of candidates if four,

five, six teams try to go forward thing with the front office. That can't happen just yet because of the pipeline. I think that we are three, four, five years away from that. And it's going to happen. there will be an analytics revolution in football. But I don't think if a bunch of teams are going to try to hire analytics GMs, I don't think that can happen in 2018, just because of how slow the NFL was to bring those guys in on the front end. It's not dissimilar to the offensive play callers and the offensive minds conversation. Maybe the pool won't be as big as we want it to be. Maybe it won't be a sea change at this very moment.

Maybe there will be some really bad decisions made as a result of teams wanting to drastically change. but I do think that there is a right way to think about the direction that you're going, even if it's going to be a bad decision based on, again, a limited pool of candidates. I just want to see teams do different stuff and do stuff that is born of the right motivation. That's it. And I don't mind the Panthers sitting there being six and six looking at what's happened to their defense over the last month or so and saying, why are we doing this? Like, why do we need to have this be the direction that we're going?

And like you said, it's mostly based on changes at the top. If it were still Jerry Richardson there, there's no way they'd fire the coach. But when other changes happen, this is the type of stuff that follows. And I don't necessarily hate it. I feel like if you're not trying to catch up to the big boys at this point, then you're not doing anything. You're running in place. And that's not, it's not okay. That's not where you should be right now.

If you want to win a championship and win a Super Bowl and being competitor, then you have to be in the conversation. with these really, really smart teams. Okay, so I want to talk about the Packers real quick. Because, you know, I'm going to, I'll write this on the ringer this week. But when I think about this hire, it's one of the most important hires, I guess most pressurized hires in recent football history. Because you think about, you think about inheriting a superstar, a genuine, we overuse

the generational talent label, but he really is a generational talent. Aaron Rogers. He's more than a generational talent. I mean, he's a once every three generations talent. He's one of the most talented quarterbacks that's ever played. I mean, that's how important this is. Right. So you're inheriting him in his mid-30s.

And the two sort of analogous hires here are Gary Kubiak with the Broncos after John Fox was fired when they realized that John Foxing wasn't happening. And this was the time we still thought Peyton Manning was the elite of the elite. They won a Super Bowl with him, but we didn't know that he was going to become a corpse midwether. that season. Okay. The other one is Jimmy Johnson with Dan Marino. Jimmy was brought in after his successful

Cowboys run to sort of do the last gasp with Marino. That's a good poll. I wouldn't have said that, but that's 100% true. That didn't work, obviously. They had some, you know,

they made the playoffs and all that, but that wasn't, that wasn't it chief, as they say. So that's really it. You know, you can't really do the George Seafurt stuff. I mean,

you know, Tom Brady, this is not going to happen to. Drew Breese is not going to happen too. So there's not a lot of guys sort of in the modern NFL that we can look to as far as this goes. Yeah. I mean, I'm so curious about what's going to happen. And as someone who doesn't necessarily root for the Packers to succeed, I'm not sure how successful I wanted to be. But I also would love to see somebody get the most out of this final stretch of Aaron Rogers career. I made this comparison earlier in the week when people were talking about how Dun Aaron Rogers is. And I

compared it to the Justin Verlander trade. It's like people were watching Justin Verlander. Burlander in Detroit. It's like, oh, well, Justin Verlander's done. And then as soon as he gets in a semi-decent situation, Justin Verlander was the best pitcher in baseball again. I don't think you can overstate how bad it's been in Green Bay for the last two or three seasons and how much Air Rogers would still have in the tank with the right circumstances. If they make the right higher, I have no doubt that this Packers offense can be really good,

really fast again. I don't understand why you wouldn't. Did you see a sort of a nice little feather in the cap of the McCarthy era? that Aaron Rogers is now no longer. This is from Chase Stewart today. No longer the leader in yards per attempt among active players. It's a perfect ending. There's no better possibility.

He's been passed by Ben Rothsburger and Russell Wilson today. There's no better way to end the Mike McCarthy era than that. All right. Let's change gears here. And let's talk about the other biggest story of the weekend, clearly. And that is the Kareem Hunt News coming out of Kansas City. You wrote about it on Friday night. I also wrote about it on Friday night right before he got cut and then had to stop writing about it because the entire news cycle changed.

This is undeniably, I think the biggest story coming out of the NFL that has nothing to do with the games. What are your kind of takeaways from the last 24 hours or so after we've learned more and more about the NFL's investigation after the chief's thought process? So you come away from Sunday feeling even worse somehow about the NFL's investigation. The athletic reported essentially that the NFL told the chiefs to stop trying to get the video, which there have been so many missteps in NFL investigations over the past four or five years. And this just boggles the mind that they would want to be less thorough in their investigation. And it really does raise more questions and answers. Yeah.

So there are so many elements of this that I felt like we really have to dig into. One, the NFL did not talk to him and did not talk to the victim in the situation. Obviously, they, I mean, they said that they reached out to her on multiple occasions. I believe that that's true. But they did not talk to him because they felt like the chiefs had already done it, and that was enough. Which is not, that's not an investigation. Yes, that's not an investigation. If you're kind of claiming that you did your due diligence on some of these aspects, right?

You called the hotel and asked them for the tape, and they said that they don't give it to anyone but law. enforcement. You called the Cleveland Police Department and asked them for the tape, but they said they didn't even get it because I guess the Cleveland Police Department only accrues that sort of video if they feel like a felony is involved. But if they didn't get the tape, how would they know if we were a felony or not? Yeah. So it's not an investigation unless you cover every single avenue of what could be possible in these circumstances. And that's why I just don't believe anything that the league is trying to say. Part of this issue, I think, hiring Lisa Freel to be the head of this investigation kind of side of the NFL's organization and having them do their own in-house work on

this. She's a former prosecutor. And there may be an aspect taken out of the NFL kind of doing these shady backroom deals about how to get a tape like this. And if they can't get it through legitimate means, they're going to stop trying to get it. But TMZ got it. The NFL is a $15 billion a year Are we really supposed to believe that if the NFL can't get it through the right channels, that they just can't get it? Or should we believe that if they can't get it through the right channels, they just don't want it that bad? Because that is what I'm inclined to believe.

So here's my general thought on this, on this particular investigative prowess of the league. It is amazing to me how many similarities there are with the Ray Rice case, right down to the fact that we're arguing over a hotel tape and who should get the hotel. tape. The NFL did not learn from its mistakes in 2014. I covered that very closely. I was in owners meetings. I was talking to owners all the time, team presidents all the time. And everything they said was, you know, we're going to get through the scandal. We're going to get through the scandal. I get it, et cetera, et cetera. But after this, everything's going to change. And I feel like the fact that they think their scandal proof made it so. And by and large, by the way, the Ray Rice

incident did not cause ratings to dip. And owners know that. But I think they think that they're scandal proof. So nothing is going to change until somehow scandal can hurt their bottom line. That has not happened. And that's what this seems like is that because there are self-interest involved on both the chief side and the league side, they're willing to look the other way when any sort of putting their head in the sand is going to be to their benefit.

So here's where I disagree with you a little tiny bit. I don't think it's evil or malicious. I think it's incompetence. I don't necessarily believe that. I don't think the NFL has any trouble railroading its own players. I think if they could have done it, they would. I think they're just incompetent and they didn't know how to investigate this. Yeah.

No, I can see it. I think they're just bad at this. Yeah, what I wrote that never saw the later day was that was the question to me. Was it incompetence or was it just this level of maliciousness? And I don't know which side I come down on. Obviously, I don't think a lot of people, and league office doing a very good job, but I don't think they're evil.

I think many of them are just stupid. Do you feel like the chiefs have been kind of let off the hook a little bit based on the stuff that's come out in the last 24 hours or so? If they wanted the tape, if the NFL told them to back off and not try to get it, they cut him as soon as they saw the tape, as soon as this all came down, what could they have known if they had tried to get the tape,

if there was not total transparency in the police report based on what we've come to understand? Do you feel like the chief should be commended for the decisions they've made? Or do you feel like they also should be kind of taken to task for this? The chief should not be commended. As far as what their actions were on Friday, leaving aside everything that's happened before,

they did the only thing they could have done. If they tried to hold on to them, put them on the commissioner's exempt list, and waited for a decision, that is just a media firestorm waiting to happen. And they knew they couldn't do that. So as far as Friday goes, they answered the only question they could.

Okay. but before that he had two incidents in the off season. He had one at Ohio Resort and he had this as well. I think just him coming into camp and it being business as usual and then not doing a thorough, thorough investigation and what the hell was going on with him in the off season, I think that's where you start to question what they were doing. I mean, I think that there's going to be a lot more questions.

I don't really know any answers right now because we don't know what Cream Hunt actually really told them as far as we don't know the chief story we don't you know we don't know the ray rice esk details because so many of the details in the ray rice thing trickled out over weeks over months that could happen here where we're just learning stuff weekly about this and and that's why i think that this might not be the end of a scandal but the start of a new one because at the very least at the very least i the problem the NFL faces right now is TMZ is their best investigator. They are. And I feel like that's at the heart of this issue. It's just that when another

entity can get this tape and they can try hard enough and they can have the motivation to do it, I just don't understand how the NFL or one of its teams can have that same motivation, even if the means are a little bit more nefarious than we'd like to admit. All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break. Here at the NFL show, we talk a lot about football. Why do we call ourselves a show if you aren't actually watching us? It doesn't matter. What does matter is that when it comes to watching NFL football, you never have to miss a game with the Yahoo Sports mobile app. That's because the Yahoo Sports mobile app lets you watch local and primetime NFL games live on your phone.

Tune into your favorite teams in the biggest NFL matchups, wherever and whenever you want all NFL season long. So download the Yahoo Sports mobile app and watch NFL football at the tap of an app. Now, back to the show. Yep, that does sound weird. All right, let's get to stock up and stock down and get back to the games from Sunday. stock up I mean all of the

AFC playoff teams that we've ignored for the past month I guess that's the way to frame this the Ravens, Broncos, Titans,

dolphins, I mean, what's going on in the AFC playoff picture and do you feel any better about these teams

today that you did yesterday or at least one or two of them. I feel like the in the hunt graphic on the playoff picture it's dark right now. It's the last thing

you see before you die. It's the scene from a final destination movie for sure. It's pretty bad, dude. I mean, so we have the 7 and 5 Baltimore Ravens, who I actually am extremely intrigued by, okay? But then you have at 6 and 6th, the Miami Dolphins. You have the Denver Broncos. You have the Indianapolis Colts.

And the 6 and 6 Tennessee Titans, who were we at one point banned from discussing on this show, and they are in the thick of the playoff. I feel like we could maybe get back to their very soon. I'm not quite ready to talk about the Titans with any sort of vigor. What was going on with the Indianapolis Colts today? It was a terrible game. I mean, the Jags brought a ton of pressure in a way the Colts haven't had in a while,

some really bad Andrew Luck decisions. I mean, we can see that on the road against Jacksonville. It's not shocking for that game to take place. Their defense is still good. We just discussed this earlier in the week about how it's not as if the Jaggs defense completely fell off. They're a pretty solid defense for the most part. They're just not a game-changing defense anymore,

but they still have the talent over there to have this game at home every once in a while. I still have a, I have faith in the Colts for the rest of the season. But even if I don't have faith in them for the rest of the season, we didn't expect the Colts to be good this year. The Colts laying an egg like this, it's not as if this is their shot. I feel like their trajectory is such that the Colts are heading in a very good direction. And the idea that we needed to hold the Colts up as this back.

of a contender in the wildcard race of the AFC says more about that race than the Colts. Yeah, I mean, you start to look at it, you just wonder, and the NFC is like this too, who can win a wildcard game? It's just the Chargers. What you don't want, dude, what you don't want,

we had this every year is one of these playoff games where it's just like, do not watch this. You know, like the, remember those Bengals, Texans games? Well, last year it was supposed to be Bill's Jags, but it was so disgusting that we all had to watch it. It was so bad that it was good.

I'm not sure if we have one of those this year. No, we didn't. We didn't have to watch that at all. I certainly did, though. A couple of things. Did you see the stats? Scott Katzmar had it. The Colts have never lost a game. They were 94 and 0 when Manning or Luck played

a full game and allowed fewer than 17 points. That's amazing. That goes to show you. That says it all. Building the offense and finding a quarterback is the NFL. That's consistency. That's amazing. That's an incredible stat. And meanwhile, you're going to lose to Cody Kessler?

He's the one that breaks it. Again, though, I mean, what do we really expect from the Colts? They're fun. I like their offense. I feel like they've got a lot of intriguing pieces, but they can have this type of game. They absolutely can lose on the road to Jacksonville team that still has a good defense. To me, it's more about which of these teams actually matter. And if I had to throw one out, I still think the Colts are probably in the

conversation just because of the ceiling they have on the right day offensively. But is it the Ravens? Is that the other one? Is it the Broncos who continue to keep winning? I mean, do we have an answer to that question? Or is it more so all of these teams are an afterthought? We know the teams in the AFC and those teams are the division winners and the Chargers. So the Ravens, do you know how many offensive yards the Falcons got on Sunday?

I can find out very quickly. Well, no, I do. It's a rhetorical question. You can tell me. I'm not looking at it right now. 131 yards. At home. They had not been held under 299 yards in the first 11 games.

That's amazing because you know how many yards Matt Ryan had on Sunday? Tell me. 131. They had the exact number of yardage lost on sacks that they had rushing. It's 34. So Matt Ryan's yardage shuttle was the total. This is depressing. Lamar Jackson, 75 rushing yards.

I mean, look, by the way, RG3 came in. looked okay. Looks like maybe the Jaguar should have listened to me and traded for him. The idea, I saw the report today that Joe Flacco

is maybe going to be healthy next week and they'd consider going back to Joe Flacco. We should contract the Ravens if they go back to Joe Flacco next week. They should not be allowed to be a franchise anymore if they go back to Joe Flacco next week.

I don't know. I mean, I agree with you. I think Colmarge Jackson should start. At least they're interesting. No, their defense is going to be what gets them anything they're going to get. I think their defense and being weird offensively is the best version of them.

They can start Guy Fieri a quarterback. I don't care. That's fine. If Guy Fieri is running for 75 yards and getting that 16-yard touchdown that Lamar Jackson had and being a weapon in the red zone because he changes their numbers advantage, then fucking put Guy Fiery in there. It's much better than whatever it is with Flacco. I agree.

Mos Sanu first career completion in that game. You upset? The greatest quarterback of all time falls. Aaron Rogers no longer has the greatest pass rating of all time. And most of the new is no longer is a perfect quarterback. Right. Yeah, 158.3 coming into this game, six for six on his passes.

It's pretty bad. It's a tough one. When you watch a legend fall from Grace, it's never easy. It's a tough one. Yeah, so can we talk about the Broncos for a second? We can't if you want to. What do you want to say? Well, speaking of not getting 200 yards of passing,

Case Keenum is, I think I had 151 yards, something like that today. Philip Lindsay is really good. Yeah, it might not be the best move to draft running backs really high. Even if you're a Bronco. I mean, so Philip, Philb Lindsay was an undrafted free agent. He became the first player in 11 seasons to have three consecutive games averaging seven yards to carry. That's amazing.

I mean, 19 for 157 and two touchdowns today. I mean, 165 yard score, but even if you take the 165 yards score out, you know, it's a massive game. It's so 18 for 98. You could tell me anything with the Bengals defense right now, and I believe them. Did the Saints break the Bengals defense?

That may have happened. I also don't think the Bengals defense was ever very good, and they're pretty banged up at this point. I don't have much faith in the Broncos moving forward. I think that they're fine. They lost Chris Harris today. I don't know for how long he was carted off. That would be a massive loss for them.

I think it's pretty significant from what I understand. So, I mean, if they lose him for this season, it just feels like that team doesn't have the juice on either side of the ball. I mean, they played against Jeff Driscoll today. It's not as if they shut down this powerhouse of an offense that the Bengals are trotten out there. AJ Green got hurt in the middle of the game. It just, again, we're talking about these teams, these wildcard teams in the AFC. And I feel like the number one question we have to ask over the next three or four weeks is,

does any of it really matter? wait Chris Harris has a fractured fibula oh yeah he's definitely not playing then no but he says he doesn't need surgery and they're going to have further evaluation is this going to be one of those weird things where he's inexplicably playing in the playoffs with a broken leg

I don't know dude I had NFL players do crazy shit all the time Vance Joseph said that he'll have further evaluation so basically he's out for the season but they haven't said it when I saw it on the screen today he was questionable to return. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying this might be one of those weird injuries where we think he's like, you know, going to miss training camp next year and all of a sudden

he's suiting up in week 17. Yeah, I'm not sure if he'd be back for week 17, but maybe it was a clean break and he'll be back sooner than we thought. For the Super Bowl? Yeah, those unstoppable Broncos. Philip Lindsay. Let's move to another stock up here. Let's talk about Russell and the Seahawks. I mean, I spent a ton of time on this. We've said a lot about Seattle in the last few weeks. their stock being up is almost as much about the other NFC wildcard teams, just kind of not showing up today and losing games they probably could have won. I mean, at this point, it just feels like Seattle's in the driver's seat to get that number five seed in the NFC and maybe be the most dangerous team out of any single one of those that

could make the playoffs. We're talking about Seattle. We're talking about Minnesota and then we're talking about Carolina. We discussed it recently, but I definitely feel like Seattle is the most intimidating of that group. Totally agree. Russell Wilson is continues to be really good. I went on a Russell Wilson rant last week. I'm not going to do it again.

What I will say is that the homage to the Richard Chairman tip, did you see that celebration? I did not. So they recreated the Malcolm Smith, Richard Sherman tip. How did I miss this? In the end zone. I have no idea. It was fantastic.

That's pretty good. I do like that. Were you at that tip game? No, I was at, what was? What was the AFC championship game that year? It was Broncos Patriots. I was there. Yep.

I was in Denver. I think that that was the best football game ever meant to. That FC championship game? Yeah. I think. It was just so different. It was just so like, and also every championship game is better than the Super Bowl because of the crowds. Absolutely.

I've said that many times. I firmly believe that. There have been a couple really good Super Bowls, though, over the last three or four years. I mean, the Patriots Seahawks Super Bowl was unbelievable. in Arizona. Okay, let's really quickly talk about the potential playoff stinkers. Ravens at Texans, historically bad. How do you feel about the Texans?

I think that we're just going to write it off because it was the Browns today, but I also feel like the Browns have been playing decently well, and I think the Texans performance today was actually pretty impressive. So I agree. I've been thinking about this, and I thought about this today with the Texans in particular. we keep saying, oh, they haven't played anybody for like every team because there's only a handful of teams we all agree are good. Yes. Okay.

And so they blew out the six and six Titans last week. The structural problem right now is that everyone agrees the chiefs are good. The Rams are good and the Saints are good. We don't even, if team beats the Patriots, we're not like that's a statement win. Even though I think the Patriots are the second best team in the AFC, I'm just saying. when we start talking about how, what teams are, you know, our signature wins or whatever, there's really only three teams we all agree on. And so it's really hard for a team like the Texans, a team like the Bears, even a team

like the Cowboys before coming in when they beat New Orleans before that to have proved themselves against a team because everyone's pretty mediocre except three or four teams, three and a half teams. I've talked about this with the Bears over the course of the season. Obviously, they lost a very strange game to. today in which they gave him a defensive touchdown and Odo Beckham threw a touchdown and Eli Manning was three of 12 for like 48 yards at one point. But you should beat up teams that are worse than you. Doing it with your backup quarterback on the road when you turn the ball over a bunch,

it's not necessarily easy. But I think that's the standard. Are you winning games convincingly, even if they're against not great competition? And the Texans have started to do that. I mean, what they did against Tennessee last week, what they did against Cleveland, the game they had against Miami. I mean, obviously you have some close wins, but the one on the road against the Broncos looks pretty darn good right now. The one on the road against Washington

isn't as good, but at a certain point, if you're nine and three and you've got a couple squeakers, but you've got a couple mass blowouts, you need to give teams credit for that. Well, the Seahawks are sort of a cousin of this in so much that they don't,

they lost to the Broncos, lost to the Bears, but they, I mean, the best team they beat is, I mean, I don't really know. The Panthers, which a loss that looks kind of, I guess the,

I guess the Cowboys now in hindsight, but the version of the Cowboys. But that Cowboys game, they were a disaster when they played them. I know what I'm saying. I'm saying that version, that version of the Cowboys is not a signature win. So I'm just saying almost every team.

The two point loss to the Rams. Almost every team and running up the gut with them. But almost. every team suffers in the same problem, which is we cannot figure out if they're good because there are not enough good teams to prove yourself against. Yeah.

I mean, we need kind of a barometer. And that's, oh, by the way, that's only a problem for pundits like us. And we're going to find out in January who's good. Yeah,

it's coming. All right, let's stick with teams that we, I think, know are good at this point. I was going to call them the San Diego Chargers because we do it every single fucking time. Terry McCauley did it on NBC broadcast tonight.

The Chargers, that's a nice win, man. I mean, down double digits to the C-O's on the road. Their offense just, I mean, not necessarily any big turnovers. The special team's touchdown. I mean, that Desmond King, Pumerturn is huge. But, I mean, the amount of yards that Keenan Allen was just eating, eating up in that second half, the way the Rivers played. I mean, they had Justin, you know, rip it off pretty big runs during that second half.

That is a super impressive second half from the Chargers. And it's the type of game that, I don't know, they would have lost last year. They would have lost two years ago. If you want to get excited about the Chargers, I think tonight was, I don't know, it gave you a reason to. So can we talk about the referees in that game for a second? I don't really like talking about referees.

I think neither do I. That's why I said that. I think it's boring. Don't miss a false start panel on a huge shutdown is my advice. Yeah, that was bad. It's a second time that's happened for the Chargers. Well, the first do you not happen to the first referee who did that? he got fired.

There you go. So I bet that guy was nervous, the second guy. I just think that... I forgot about that. There's so many... There's so many judgment calls and there's so many gray areas and I do think the game moves so fast.

It really is harder for officials. The rule book expands every year. There's too many exceptions. But for God's sake, don't miss a false start. That's someone's job on every single play to watch the line and see if someone moves early. It's not as if you can miss it.

We were talking about this in Slack a little earlier. I mean, every single, a lot of the big Chargers plays were a little bit fluky today. I think the real problem, I have no idea what the hell is going on with the charge, or the Steelers right now. I mean, the third down, and I joked about at the beginning of the show,

the third down where you put Keenan Allen on coverage of the linebacker, stop it. Keenan Allen had 19 targets in this game. That's amazing. That's kind of how I feel about the Chargers, though, is that even in games where they're a little bit uneven, where their offense kind of, you know, hams and haws and there's a little bit of sputtering going on, which there was today over the course of the first half, I just have a lot of faith in their ability to do stuff like this.

I mean, no Melvin Gordon. They had a running back that made a couple huge plays, but for the most part, this was Kenan Allen and Phillip Rivers. And with that defense, with the number of plays they can make, you know, with Darwin James making a big play here and there, everything else. else with Bosa coming up with a big sack as he did again today. I just have a lot of faith in the talent on this team to eventually win. And if we're talking about teams in the AFC that can win,

if we're talking about the games that matter, all of that, I think that tonight was an example of the fact that among the non-division winners, this team does matter and they're going to matter for the rest of the season. So I don't think the Steelers are going to win the AFC North. Really? Yeah, we were talking about this and Slack a little earlier with some of the folks. I don't like outing people on Slack on who was saying what

because if they want to make their opinions known they can tweet the Patriots still have the Steelers, they still have the Saints. Who do the Ravens have? The Ravens have the Chiefs Bucks Chargers, yeah.

And Browns. The Browns isn't a gimmie either. We'll see. Both of these teams have two fairly hard games. And I would say that I'd actually probably rather play the Chargers

and the Chiefs. than the Saints and the Patriots from the Steelers right now. That's pretty close. It's close, but I think that it's, I don't like what I saw from the Pittsburgh Steelers tonight,

at home to blow a game like that. It's just, it feels like a weird steward season to me. I think they're still pretty dangerous. All right, very quickly. Look, it doesn't matter because obviously either of them

are going to make the playoffs. Yeah. They're not going to, the damn dolphins aren't going to make the playoffs. I think both of them probably end up getting in. It doesn't matter.

It just who plays the home in the playoffs. And that matters for the Steelers, though. Well, I mean, they still have to go. They would still have to go on the road in the second rounds. Yes, eventually they'll have to go on the road. But having one of those home playoff games does matter. All right. Very quickly stocked down.

We've talked about most of these teams already. The Colts, is there anything else we want to say about them? It just feels like a stinker against a good defense. Andrew Luck barely over three yards per attempt in the first half. It was a combination of stuff. I mean, bad decision making plus kind of being more under fire than he's been at any point this year. I think he got sack three times today. The defensive line for the Jags absolutely dominated.

And Gagway had a big game. They still have this potential, even against a Colts team that's been playing really well, against a line that's playing really well. It's not the most shocking thing in a world to watch the Jags defense play like this. Did you see that Colts money line was, or I'm sorry, Colts? just the Colts in general was the most lopsided bet of the season this year. Just in terms of the more money on one side of the line than the other. What was it?

99%. Really? Yeah. What was the line? Four. Good job. Vegas. They made a fucking killing today.

Rovel tweeted that out. Goodness gracious. All right. The Panthers we've already discussed. I mean, just the idea that it seems like, I mean, this has gone south and a hurry for one. And two, I wouldn't be shocked by any decision that's made over the next month or so in terms of their coaching staff, in terms of their front office.

I mean, Marty Herney is the GM there. He was given that job kind of as a de facto whatever because Jerry Richardson didn't want to look for a new one. Why should that leadership continue to be in place there when you've considered how well they or how poorly they played in some areas this season? And that defense just doesn't look very good. And who's in charge of that? the defensive minded head coach and whoever builds the team.

Fortune nervous to Cam Newton. He didn't wear, he wasn't wearing a shirt in the post-game press conference. I did see that. He was wearing a jacket. It wasn't. I'm in favor of many of Cam's looks, but this wasn't one of them.

Let's talk about the Vikings as well. Wait, wait, I need to talk about this game for a second. Let's do it. James Winston broke the box record for touchdown passes. we talked a little bit about this on Slack. The Bucks are the only team with sadder passing records.

James Winston passing Josh Freeman. That's so terrifying. That's not exactly Roger is passing far off here, guys. I think Mark Carrier has the Buc's all-time receiving yards record. And James Winston having now the touchdown passes record really speaks to the Buc's passing efficiency over the last 30 years or so. The Bears' all-time leading receiver in their franchise is Johnny Morris. who was a running back in the 80s and like an Hback and flanker

these are the two, if you want to go get really sad or have a good laugh, go look at the all-time passing and receiving yards records for the Bears and the Bucks because they are in a class all their own. Amazing. Amazing.

All right. I'm on Mark Carrier's Wikipedia page now. Is it Mark Carrier? I think it is. I don't think I'm wrong about this. He does not have a long Wikipedia page for someone who had 8,000 NFL yards. Mark Carrier.

the running back, and there was also Mark Carrier, the safety. He is not, he is not the one with the receiving yards record for the Buccaneers. Anything you want to say

about the Vikings, it just feels like, you know, they're going to have a hard road now. We talk about the Seahawks. It still feels like the Vikings are going to get that six seat in the NFC if you were picking one of those teams,

but did tonight's game give you any sort of different opinion out how you view Minnesota or no? I'm just starting to be more and more convinced Minnesota isn't actually good. Yeah. I mean, that's the problem.

is I keep, and this is just sort of confirmation bias, but, or whatever it is, it's some sort of bias because I thought they were really good at the beginning of the year. And I keep looking for reasons to say that they're good. And I haven't seen them. That offense is really hard to trust. I mean, it's just one of those things. I feel like they did a great job taking away Adam Thielen. They didn't have any plays down the field. And the defense played well again. I mean, Patriots could not move the ball for the most part through three quarters. They had 10 points, I think of the two-minute mark of the third quarter. I have faith in that defense, but it's also hard to trust the offense just because there are games where they're going

to have these. And maybe in the NFC, we're not really excited about anybody. You know, there's a chance that they're going to be a little bit more dangerous because of that defense than some of these other teams. But it really does feel like the top teams are starting to separate themselves and everybody else is becoming sort of an afterthought. What did you think of the Adam Thiel and Bill Belichick? Oh, I loved it. A fair. I loved it. It's the second time. It's the second time of that's happened this year. We've had a high profile head coach and a high profile player jaun each other. Remember jared garyd, or 80 reed told jared go fuck off during the Monday night game? Yeah. I love it. I don't mind it at all. What what year do you think Adam thielan will

be playing for bill bollichick? It's probably two seasons from now. Adam the adam the thielan's contract is such that we're going to see an adam thewan contract hold out sooner rather than later. So I absolutely could see him getting dealt and the Patriots giving up like two first run picks to get him on the team. Just giving up their entire, just mortgaging your future to get Adam Thielen. God, Adam Thelan's contract is insane. Do you know how much Adam Thielen's making next season? You've told me, but repeat me.

It's $7 million. And he has $2 million in dead cap remaining on his deal after this year. It is the best non-rooky contract in the NFL, in my opinion, that does not belong to a quarterback. Obviously, the Brady thing, whatever. But it's just a ridiculous contract. It's a football miracle. All right.

Let's get to our challenge flags for the week. I'm throwing a challenge flag on the idea of an interim coach ever keeping his job and how every time momentum starts to build on that narrative, we really need to stop paying attention to it. The Browns lost today in embarrassing fashion. They turned the ball over four times. It was ugly often. I mean, they managed to turn up a bunch of yards because they were losing for most of the game.

I kind of think it's a good thing for the Browns because the last thing this team needed is to carry over any of that leadership because they won a couple games at the end of the season. Could you imagine like an Ed Ogeron type deal where they're just like, we're giving the job to Greg Williams? Think about like the Mike Malarkey Doug Marone instances we've come across in the NFL. It's never a good idea. Really out on Doug Maron. I don't think it's necessarily the best choice. Okay. I think Doug Maron is a better as an above average coach. That's fine. All right. Let's, we'll stick with the Mike Markey example here. Okay.

It's never a good idea, in my opinion, to keep your interim coach. So if you need to lose a game in an embarrassing fashion or to shake people awake and realize that's not the best move, I'm okay with it. By the way, speaking of Mike Malarkey and Doug Marone, I am just shaken to my core every time I see Gus Bradley on the Chargers sideline. I forget he's there. I forget he's there and he's like. I'm wondering what you meant by that. He's good. I mean, like, I just, it just stuns me every time.

I also think, even though I know he didn't, because he had a one-year deal last year, I've just Mandela affected that he left. Yeah, I could see that. Because he was like a free agent or something last year. So I'm just like, oh, Gus Bradley. And I don't think anybody else is the coordinator in Los Angeles. I just am shocked every time it's Gus Bradley. The only reason I know it is is because I recently had a conversation with him about

Darwin James. Oh, I know. Yeah. All right. what's your challenge flag for the week? My challenge flag is the NFC, which has a decent chance after Minnesota's loss, Carolina's lost, Philadelphia and Tampa Bay are just not going to make it. Green Bay has fired their coach in Atlanta.

By the way, did you see that Atlanta, like, they had like 50% of their seats filled on Sunday? It's a really rough season for them. And it's honestly one of those years where I kind of wish they were worse. You know, the year from hell that seemed. top 10 pick. But it's one of those seasons where I kind of wish they would just go on 2 and 14 and been able to draft at Oliver, whoever

was going to be the best defensive player available to them so they could just drop that guy in with a returning Dion Jones with Keanu O'Neill, if they wanted to maybe go get a pass rush or free agency or something. I still feel like that team has a ton of talent. And I think that based on the financials, they'll have one more year

to really have the defense be cheap and maybe be a contender if it all breaks right. So this middling Falcons team is kind of the last version I wanted to see of them. When it started to go wrong, I wish it had gone even more wrong. Atlanta's like a soccer town now. Yeah, I know.

It's the more exciting franchise in that building. We're getting off track. And that was my fault. So there are two NFC East teams whom I made the playoffs. And if the playoffs started tonight, they would. And I'm throwing a challenge flag

at the NFC teams who are making this possible. I don't need to see Colt McCoy in the playoffs. You know what? As a guy who roots for the team that's most likely going to get the number three seed in the NFC, I would love to see Colt McCoy in the playoffs. Let's make this happen. I don't care one way or another about what teams get in.

What I'm trying to avoid is what we talked about earlier, which is those playoff matchups. You know them. They stick them on a Saturday night and you think maybe you should skip them because it's a Saturday night, but then you never do because we're addicted to this dumb, dumb sport. And it's 13 to 10. It's always 13 to 10.

I'm not with you here, man. Let's go. Redskins Bears Saturday night. I'm into it. This is all I want now. Right. Now, that's because you're a homer. But what I'm saying is that I don't want a Redskins Bears six three matchup on Saturday night.

I can understand that. Who do you want to make the playoffs in the NFC if it's not Washington? I agree with you that. I don't want to watch Washington the playoffs. I would say either Minnesota or Carolina would be. vastly more interesting. Now, now, let's go. Col McCoy all the way. That's what I'm rooting for. You putting it into my mind really is solidified it because I definitely don't want to play to biking. So Minnesota is 6, 5 and 1, Carolina is 6 and 6. And I think either of those teams,

but I think Cam Newton in the playoffs is just interesting to me because I just think the ceiling is so high. I totally agree. I would much rather watch either of those teams. But as somebody who wants my team to win a wildcar weekend game, I would much rather play Washington than either of them. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't really, as much as we've talked about

these super teams and the fact that this weekend was a little bit of an outlier as far as super teams go, I mean, the Saints lost. It was a bizarre weekend in general. The Rams did not look very good. The Patriots took care of business, but whatever.

And the Chiefs, I mean, that was a weird Chiefs game. Did you watch it at all? Yeah, I watched a little bit of it. That was on Red Zone. It was a strange game. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's,

that Oakland team, it doesn't seem like we should be using them as any sort of measuring stick, no matter who they play. But the point is, even though it was a weird week, I do think that what happens in the first two rounds is, is kind of a, it's kind of irrelevant. Yeah, I don't know. Well, I mean, we talk enough about the Bears in the show and we'll see what they end up doing. Here we go. Well, I'm just saying, we'll see what they end up doing against the Rams next week.

Part of me thinks that this week was an outlier for them in the same way that it was an outlier for a lot of teams. It was a very strange game, but I don't know. I'd like to think that on the right day, they can be a wrench in whatever's happening, but I tend to be Sure. Listen, defense can win you games. I mean, I know this is simplistic. We're going to get into it to an exact preview of that. But, you know, a team like the bears that can not only, you know, limit points, but also create turnovers and score points off of turnovers, they can basically be in any game. It's going to be a fun game next week. I'm looking forward to it. I mean, just more so what they look like against that Rams team and not necessarily whether they can win or not. I just, I feel like it's a really good litmus test and a really good barometer. All right. Very quick. let's talk about tomorrow's headlines. I feel like Mike McCarthy getting canned is going to be, it's going to linger. Who's going to take that job is going to be a storyline for the next 72 hours or so. And it's not going to go away until they hire somebody. I mean,

we had a thing today where the Cliff Kingsbury name popped up going to the Rams as a consultant. It just feels like we shouldn't allow this to happen. A team like Green Bay needs to go out and get somebody that's that sort of forward-thinking offensive mind. We've discussed it time and time again. I'm still on that track where I just feel like they need somebody to unlock Rogers. And I'm curious to see who it's going to be. And I think that is really going to be, you know, a dominant storyline over the next month or so. Totally agree. All right.

That's all we got. We will be back on Thursday. As always, thank you guys to listen to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.