The Ringer NFL Show - The Patriots No Longer Look Like the Patriots | The Ringer NFL Show (Ep. 366)

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

The Patriots might not have enough to make the Super Bowl this year, Nick Foles the king is back, and the Rams offense is in a spiral (0:30). Plus, the Colts' late-season push, the Cowboys' goose egg, Seattle’s bizarre loss to San Francisco, and tomorrow’s headlines (20:30). Hosts: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What do you wish for most of this holiday? If you're like me, you want all Ws for your favorite NFL team. Unfortunately, even Santa can't make that happen. But the Yahoo Sports Mobile app can make it so you watch those games and more right on your phone. In fact, with the Yahoo Sports Mobile app, you can watch live local and primetime NFL games during the holidays and all season long. Never miss big matchups or your favorite team in action. What are you waiting for? Download the Yahoo Sports Mobile app.

And may all your football wishes come true unless, of course, your team is playing against mine. To the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Robert Mays, joined as always by Kevin Clark. How you doing, buddy? You know, Robert, I love finding things out about football. On Sunday, we found out one of the quarterbacks from last year's Super Bowl is going back to the Super Bowl, and it's not Tom Brady. The Nick Foles-led Eagles, I just can't imagine what will happen if they ring off a couple in a row here. Somehow the Vikings lose.

I mean, you tweeted it earlier today, the 15% rule. They had a 15% check. I need to back up. I need to back up and address this because I had some people who are unfamiliar with it. I haven't talked about it in about a year. So after the 2016 election, there were a handful of events that were dubbed having the same probability as Donald Trump's election. Okay? About 15%. The U.S. not qualifying for the World Cup was one of them. The Falcons collapsed in the Super Bowl was another. And so I started to identify, and this was before it happened. happened. People were saying, okay, the odds of this happening are the same as the 2016

election. I started to look out for things that were 15%. This was early 2017. And once that happened, it was basically a horror movie. Every time we talked about something on the podcast, it would just automatically come true. The bills before week 17 had a 15% chance to make the playoffs last year. All those crazy things happened. It happens. And I think maybe, the crowning achievement, maybe like the 10th thing where this happened, was a reader, I believe her name was Colleen.

Before the playoff started, because she tweeted about it tonight as well she tweeted at me tonight. Before the playoffs started last year, she said the Eagles have a 50% chance to win in the Super Bowl. At this point, the Eagles looked like absolute crap.

It was when they played the Raiders and who else did they play in that stretch? They played the Giants and looked decent, but the Raiders game was terrible. And it was actually televised because I think it was on a Saturday night. We joked about it because we didn't understand the power of the rule. Yeah?

I don't think we still don't. I did not think the Eagles were going to win this game coming in, and I did not respect the rule. Before tonight, I looked at 538's playoff probability, and I'll be damned if the only 15% on there is the damn Eagles making the playoffs. Colleen has gotten more mileage out of this than any reader with any comment ever, and I just want to say that I'm really proud of her, and I want to thank her for her work.

It's unbelievable. So if the Eagles went out here, they need losses from Minnesota and Carolina, I think. Do they also need a, no, they don't need to. I hadn't paid attention because I didn't think it was necessary. It doesn't matter. I'm just so into this. It'd be fun.

The full thing I'm into. I just don't really want to see the Vikings in the playoffs. They scare me, especially after today. I'd rather see the Eagles, I think, because I'm still not sure they're good. I feel like tonight is as much a product of the Rams as it is the Eagles, which we'll get to eventually. But I don't know. Can we? Oh, by the way, real quick, I looked up to see what else I had talked about, a 15% rule that we hadn't talked about in this podcast.

And the two things were this. Number one, 15% of teams that made the trades on the NBA trade deadline made the finals. And that was the Cleveland Cavaliers last year when they didn't look good. The other one, and I'm sorry to say this, economist said there was a 15% chance in April of a recession in the next 18 months. So we're going to have Nick Foles and a recession. That's what we're going to have. Yep, yeah.

Sorry, guys. Take the go with the recession. Take the go with the bad. Every Eagles fan will be happy, but they're going to be hurting in the bank account. Can we do something with a higher probability, and that's the Patriots not getting to buy? That's what we're going to start with. That is going to be the thing we kick off this show with. And that, to me, is more relevant than the Rams just because now with the Patriots

dropping below the Texans, there is a very real chance. if Houston wins out, that they will have the number two seed. And we're going to see the Patriots on a wildcard weekend for the first time. And how long, Kevin? 2009. Randy Moss was on the team. That was the bad Randy Moss year, right? No, that's when it started to go.

Okay, that was his last good year. He was good year. He was good. I believe Fred Taylor was on that team. Wow. He was. That was the aging veteran de Jure for Bill Belichick at that point. Sean Springs was signed.

Again, I guess there was more than one. He was really loaned him up on this time. The Tori Holt, I was in the Tori Holterra a little bit later. They got pasted by the Ravens. And they very well may play the Ravens in the wildcard round if that happens. So watching that Patriots game today, what I was struck by was not necessarily their struggles or how good the players individually looked. I know Brady wasn't great and Gruncowski did relatively nothing.

The thing that was most surprising to me was that it wasn't characteristic of a Patriots team. You think about how many penalties they had. in that game, how many pre-snap penalties. A couple holds were questionable, but a couple of them were not. They were getting pushed around by the Steelers' front forward in that game. So you have a ton of penalties. You have Tom Brady making that ridiculous throw to Joe Hayden that he was trying to throw it away and just came down in bounds.

And then you have just their offensive and defensive line getting pushed around. Yep. And them getting gashed on the ground. I mean, Jalen Samuels was doing whatever he wanted. They were scheming up the run game so well, Pittsburgh, with a lot of that counterststuff. And the Patriots just had absolutely no answer. And you just don't see that kind of stuff from them. Even when a team's going to hit them a little bit

every once in a while on a certain concept, they don't do it the entire game. They don't gash them over and over and over again. There just wasn't a lot of adjustments on offense, on defense. And now, both with how they look, again, individual talent-wise, how they look in terms of how they compare to normal Patriots teams and the little things. And then now a road they never have to take.

even if you think the Patriots are going to be fine they're the Patriots, they'll figure it out football-wise, if they don't make the buy, if they don't get the buy, we're going to have to see them go through a road that we have not had to see them go through in a long time. I know that we tack it up to Brady and Belichick and everything else,

but this is about how they stack the deck for themselves. They win the division every year, and they split two playoff games, many of them at home before they go to the Super Bowl. That is not what we're staring at right now. Yeah, the one thing I want to sort of address before I get into the nitty gritty here, is that the Patriots play a lot of home games,

and there's a lot of stats that are just because the Patriots are really, really good. So, for instance, the Patriots have never made the Super Bowl and they don't have the buy. Well, they have the buy all the time. Yes. So let's not read into that stat too much. They're 19 and 3 in home playoff games.

They're 3 and 4 in road playoff games. That makes sense because they're playing at home when they're the better team. And so there's two issues here, as I see it. We talked about this being more impactful. in the Rams loss because, and I think it's because the Rams lost was just the Rams not looking like themselves. They'll still get the buy. They'll still do all that. It's trending that way. They have a really easy schedule on the stretch. As much as I'd like to see the Bears not playing a wild car weekend. Yeah, Cardinals and they should win out. The Patriots have

two problems. They don't look like the Patriots. And now they're setting up on this road. They're going to have to go away from Gillette Stadium. They had 14 penalties for 160 yards. That's very, very unpatriot-like. I mean, I don't understand the Steelers for large parts of the game with what they wanted to lose it. Did you see the stat on Chris Hogan's touchdown? His 19 yards of separation from the nearest defender was the most wide open of any pass of the last two seasons.

But that speaks to how fluky it was and how that play didn't really line up with what we saw for the rest of the game. Yeah, no, but I do think there were a lot of holes. I mean, it was Ryan Hannibal tweeted out, even on the last play, the fourth down, essentially there was a dump off pass where Brady could have gotten more yards for the fourth down and make it more manageable. And he just wanted to go to the end zone. I mean, none of those balls are catchable. None of them were even in the vicinity. No, but I'm saying there was an outlet on the left side that he could have gotten.

He could have got a 15 yards. Oh, no. I have no idea what the hell was going on. This dealer's left opportunities for the Patriots and the Patriots couldn't take advantage. That's why I was so unpatriot, in my opinion. One thing I forgot was drops. They had so many drops, especially early in the game. Gordon had one, Edelman had one, James White had one.

Again, just something we don't normally see from Patriots teams. So now, even if you trust in Belichick's ability to figure it out, if the defense can get right over the next two weeks and be kind of stout in the playoffs like we've seen them do, if Brady can turn it on like we've seen him do after late season swoons, you're looking at a road where you're going to have to host either the Ravens or the Colts, both teams that look much scarier now

than they did six weeks ago at Gillette Stadium. That's a home game. After that, if things work out like they are right now, two things may happen. You could either go to Houston if they get the two seed and they win or you could host the Chargers.

Again, you'd have two home games, but the Chargers are a pretty damn good team and you would have to play the week before. And then if the Chiefs went out and the chiefs do what we thought they think they can in the playoffs, you would have to go to Arrowhead. I don't care what you think of those teams. That's a really tough road to get to the Super Bowl.

Okay, so there's a couple things. Number one, the last time they lost back-to-back December games was 2002. And I think that everyone, if you're interested in the Patriots, should really read the Michael Holly book. I'm sorry, I don't remember which one it was. It was either, there were three and they're really good.

But I think it may have been War Room, actually, where he discussed the two, which is also about Piole and Dimitrov, we discussed the 2002 Patriots team and how really that taught Belichick a lot about kind of how to build a dynasty because the O2 team, he made so many mistakes.

So that's what we're looking at right now. I mean, there's been some comparisons to the 05 team, but really, I mean, some of these stats and the run the Patriots are on this year, as far as low lights,

we're kind of looking at the O2 team. So that's obviously extremely concerning since that was the worst team of the Belichick. era. But I think... Probably after they won, obviously. What do you mean? Did they have a worse record in 2002 than they did in 2000? They didn't make...

Oh, yeah, of course. But they didn't make the play... They won the Super Bowl. They won the Super Bowl. They won the Super Bowl. They won the Super Bowl. That was the worst team. Yeah, I guess you call it the Brady Belichick era.

Perfect. That's, yeah, that makes sense. Perfect. Okay. But here's my thing. And this is something I wrote this a month ago. I thought about it ever since. The reason the Patriots win is because they're just good enough in every area and

every other team has just sort of, my comparison is a casino and they win on the margins. And they're just good enough at everything and they will beat you because eventually your luck will run out because some team, the Patriots understand how to build a 46 man roster. They understand, okay, maybe we can get away with in some years a less than good secondary, a less than good offensive line, a less than good pass rush, whatever it is, because we're going to be okay there and we're going to be elite at other places. They're so good at robbing Peter to pay Paul and that's part of the roster constructor of the past 15 years. My concern is that, A, they're not as good at some of those things as they used to be. And I think the other problem is in the era of

all in, it is really, really hard to be just good enough. Now, there's certain edges they will have. I mean, the chief's defense is simply, it's not good. Honestly, though, man, the Pittsburgh defense isn't that good. If they block like they did today against Houston and against Kansas City, they're done. That's what I'm saying is there will be holes, but it is harder than ever for the Patriots to be the Patriots because

the Chiefs, even the Texans, there's a lot of talent all over the AFC, and just being good enough might not be enough. Yeah. And what you were saying, though, about them winning on the margins, they didn't do that tonight. That's why exactly. And they didn't do that against Miami. Brady takes that sack.

the end of the first half against the dolphins. And it's totally weird to see him do something like that. Just lose his mind in one single play. They come away with nothing at the end of the half. And then they lose on a ridiculous lateral play at the end. It's just the type of stuff you never see the Patriots do. And they've done it two weeks in a row now. And I don't know if it's necessarily a trend,

but by doing it two weeks in a row and putting themselves in this top of a spot, they've really made their lives hard when we get to the playoffs. they're going to make the Super Bowl, aren't they? Yeah, probably. Everything is couched with that, that they can do it, that I believe that they can turn it around, but they're making it harder on themselves than they've done in a long, long time. And even though you can eventually convince yourself to just pencil them in, I think that that takes a lot more mental gymnastics than I typically does.

Well, I also think, and I wrote this in my column last month as well, we're not going to declare them dead until they are incredibly incredibly dead deader than anything that's ever been dead yeah I mean until they're eliminated from the playoffs I will some of the tiny voice in the back of my head will be saying they're going to win the Super Bowl even then somehow they'll find a way zombie patrons they lose in the first round against the Ravens I'm not going to count them out

all right let's get to stock up stock down and let's start with the king Nick Foles who, good Lord, man. I mean, Nick Foles played fine today. There was some impressive throws. He really found Jeffrey down the field several times. But a couple of those times were when there were two Eagles receivers behind every player on the Rams defense.

The Rams did not play well today on either side of the ball. And I just have no idea what's going on. The Eagles receivers were doing like the call off from baseball. Yes. It was like they were playing 500. It was amazing. They should have like, you know the old kind of old school baseball move where a guy would just flip his sunglasses down before he caught the pop fly.

The sunglasses are the slow wave. Either of those would have worked there. Both of those. That was how bad the RAM second day was. I honestly don't know if I've ever seen that before. When that play was unfolding and I watched that ball coming down, I was confused. It's like, wait a second, what happened? How is this happening?

There was a ton of that. And Alishon Jeffrey is running very open down the field. Talib and Peters both looked really bad. for the third week in a row, their offense just did not play well. I saw a stat on SportsCenter about 10 minutes ago. Do you know on passes, so

beyond 15 yards, Jared Goff was around 40 or 50% down the field on a completion percentage. He's at 18% the last two weeks. They're playing off coverage and forcing the ball to be in front of them on passes, and they're daring the Rams to run the ball.

With all those play action plays, all those all those jet sweeps, hand it off. We don't give a shit. Just hand it off. And that's what you saw today. They did the handoff on the jet sweep. They were using Gurley a ton in the first half. Teams are more or less saying, we are going to let you run the ball on us. You are not going to hit those chunk plays in the play action game. And when you see with the Rams, the biggest issue with that is when they go away from the play

action game because teams are taking that away. Two things happen. One, golf doesn't have the windows he typically does when he's using play action. And two, their pass protection breaks down. because the way they use play action helps them so much with slowing pass rushers down, creating angles,

it makes the offensive line look a ton better, and when they're not doing it, their drop-back passing game looks completely different. And that's what we've seen the last three games, and it's not going well.

So let's trace this back because we talked about this after the Lions Rams game. Yep. Did the Lions actually give a sort of blueprint for this? I absolutely think they did. I said that.

I wrote about it right after We both talked about it. I said just ignore all the window dressing because that's what it is. The Rams have such, it's not a simplistic offense, but it's, they have the same 11 players in the field and they rely so much because they don't have a huge variety of personnel packages on all of the window dressing and the eye candy as Robert Woods told me this week is what he calls it. They need that.

They need that to influence guys to be in positions they don't want to. And what McVeigh has done so well, and the reason he's had so much success, is that he knows the rules on defense. And he tries to manipulate those rules with all of these motions and all of these different bells and whistles. But if teams are not going to react in the way that he wants them to when they do that stuff, then this offense is going to falter. And that's what we've seen over the last three weeks.

It is so strange. I mean, we're getting, this is sort of the lowest of the low of the McVeigh era. I mean, and it's still not as fast. Last week they go without a touchdown, I think for the first time in the McLeigh era. Against the best defense in the league. I mean, that's on the road. And now it's back-to-back losses for the first time.

I mean, it's really, really interesting. I also thought it was interesting. You know the Eagles are the first team to beat him twice? That sounds right. I mean, who else would have? Nobody. The NFC West has been terrible. Nobody in that damn division.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised. It's fun. I didn't really think about it before the game, though. Nick Foals coming in to the Coliseum, which was where he had to take over for once last time. I was at that game.

I know you were. I didn't put that together until a little bit during the game when Alan Chris were talking about it was like, that's kind of a neat wrinkle. But I think today

I'm much more worried about... Did you just go double first name when Alan Chris? What was I supposed to say? I don't know. I've just... Michaels and Collinsworth? You knew what I was talking about.

Yeah, okay. I mean, they've been in our lives for a very long time. You think that's out of bounds? Okay, no, it's fine. It's personal preference. Okay. This game, I'm excited about the Eagles and I like that they're relevant.

It's going to be fun to see them play games that matter. But this game is way more about me starting to hit the panic butt a little bit on the Rams. Because we've seen it for too long. It's not just one game. We've seen a blueprint start to kind of unfold here. And I think that it's real. And McVeigh will adjust and as teams do. And I was there this week.

A lot of the guys were telling me that this isn't new stuff that they're seeing. just feels like the standard is so high that when they falter a little bit that people notice more than they would have last year, which I think is true. But I also think that this is real. And I think that what teams are doing right now is definitely something you can point to over the next four or five weeks here as a way to slow down this team and force them to do the things they don't want to do. Yeah. I mean, after the game, Sha McFay said we have to figure it out. We have to figure it out fast. And this is a really crappy time to be at your lull. Because I think that I think that, I mean, obviously, NFL, an NFL season changes very quickly. But I think for eight, nine, ten weeks, a Saints Rams,

NFC championship seem written in the stars. And right now, I would still pencil the Saints in, especially if it looks like they're going to get home field. And obviously they've, they climbed, they will climb one more step on the ladder on Monday night when they beat the Panthers. But, yeah, the NFC right now is, is much more open than it was three weeks ago. I mean, I'm excited about I think watching the Bears today and seeing how the defense played again for most of that game. And then even the way that the offense played, I mean, Trubisky throws, or there's a fumble that's a ridiculous one in the red zone. And then they do a stupid fake punt in the Packers off the field. I mean, that could have been a 21 point win.

And the way that these teams look right now, I think it's much more open than it has been. And that's exciting if you're a team that's roots for, if you root for anybody except for the Rams and the Saints. Yeah, totally agree. All right. All right. Let's get to our next stock up. just kind of the six-seed contenders in the AFC, I think that you can say about both the Colts and the Ravens today.

Super impressive win by the Colts. I mean, their defense played so well and just dominating up front and getting after DAC. And also, I mean, there were a couple drops in that game that Olawale dropped a touchdown. There was another play that Swain definitely should have had. But for the most part, Dallas struggled to move the ball. And that young Colts defense is starting to look much, much better.

And the way the Colts ran the ball in that game, boy, I mean, they more or less lined up and said, we're going to shove it down your throat for four quarters. And that's exactly what Marlon Mac did. It was impressive. 139 yards. And just the way they did it, man. I mean, just, it was right up the middle every single time. It was so fun to watch.

Colts are in their last eight games, are 7 to 1, outscoring their opponent by 12 points. Yeah. They're scary, dude. That offense is good. And the way they're playing up front. It's the argument, and I will see how it goes. Remember when Zeke Elliott was, as a rookie, he looked like, well, he was the fourth overall pick. It's really working.

We'll see what happens when the contracts get handed out. What Quentin Nelson does for that team, attitude-wise, that's what he does today, is when they're on the goal line and they're essentially telling him, you're going to block down on the nose tackle, you're going to ruin him, and we're going to run behind you and score touchdowns. And what he's given them, how well Ryan Kelly has played after he's gotten back there, and just every other element. I mean, Anthony Costanzo today said

that is the most fun I've ever had playing football. I saw that quote. And that's fun. I mean, that's what I've seen from that Frank Wright team this year, man. They have been so impressive to me in so many ways.

And when you can pair what Luck and Hilton did last week with what they can do in the running game this week, who boy, nobody wants to see them. Oh, boy. Man, they are a legitimate freaking threat. It is unbelievable.

So fast, but they have $114 million in some. salary cap space next year, and they have the Jets second round pick. So Chris Ballard hit a 600 foot home run in two years. So I'm excited about this Colts team, but I want to tell you what I'm more excited about. Are you familiar with the scenario of what happens if the Colts and the Titans tie in week 17? I think is it now by point differential or something?

It is the Cleveland Browns making the playoffs. Oh, wow. I saw so many different playoff scenarios today. I started getting confused. So what happened? What if the Colts have to do what next week? If they lose? The Colts would have to lose.

Everybody has to be 8, 7, and 1. Okay, so the Colts have to lose next week and then tie the Titans. That's right. That has to be the tie. Would you, I'd rather see the Colts in the playoffs. I would rather see a Colts and Titans tie that leads to a Browns. It would be more fun. But in terms of the good football, I definitely want to see the Colts play.

I don't care about good football. I know you don't. I hear about an all-time embarrassing game in week 17 that gets the Browns into the playoffs and Baker Mayfield. That would be fun. I mean, that would be really enjoyable.

I mean, he's playing so incredibly well. Rank these. If you're a three-seed, you'd rather see Tennessee than Cleveland. Oh, I absolutely. I don't know.

That might be a stretch. I think Tennessee's defense is pretty good. I don't know, man. You want to see Baker? Maybe not. I'm trying to temper my expectations here for Baker He was great yesterday The little half huddled down by the goal wide

For the game winning touchdown And just his reaction That dude is a blast My lord's just so much better because he's there We'll talk about the Cowboys later Yeah let's get to the other Sixth Contender that we want to chat about very briefly The Ravens aren't as good as the Colts

I firmly believe that But the Ravens are perfectly weird And they would be Just an annoying task for anybody who gets the three seed and has to play them. You know, my theory about how Belichick wishes, and this is a theory that extends to many good coaches,

Belichick would love to have a quarterback who's not Tom Brady for just like a season, just to see what's going on. If he had Lamar Jackson for an entire year, it would be his favorite thing ever. He could have had him. He could have had Lamar Jackson. Belichick really nerded out.

He's trying to extend Brady's win. I get that. I understand it. But Belichick really nerded out around the read-option Tebow time, which was, you know, they coincide. Tebow did not run the sort of classic read option, but he ran kind of a single wing, basically.

And so during that, when kind of 11 to 14, from the time Tebow started running the single wing to the red option time, Belichick loved, love, love talking about it and love talking about going back to the single wing and all that. And I just think when you have a guy who can run that much as Lamar Jackson is. Even hell, Josh Allen,

I think Belichick would love to scheme that stuff up just as a history dork. Jackson today, a lot of scrambles. He's really making things happen with his legs. Some nice throws. I was impressed with him as a throwout today. I know the numbers aren't great, but the conditions also were very poor.

If you watched Lamar Jackson in the rain today and you watched Eli Manning in the rain today, Lamar Jackson played just fine. So I just feel like he is going to be an annoyance. That is what he's going to be for teams that have to play him the rest of the way. And I feel like maybe we're underrating what the Ravens defense could do in a playoff game and puts them probably on the same footing as the Colts.

But Colts defense plays like the day today. The Ravens gave it to the Chiefs last week. Yeah, I know. I just feel like the Colts are so hot right now. And if their defense is going to play like they did today and the offense is rolling and they can do different ways, I still think the Colts are more dangerous. I agree. I don't know.

You know what? I don't agree. I'd rather play the Colts and the Ravens. I think. I'd rather play Lamar Jackson than Andrew Luck, no matter how weird Lamar Jackson is, in a good way. I mean, it is in the best possible way. I want this clear.

I think they're both good. And I think they're both much better. I think they would pace. If there was some playoff game, they would pace the NFC's sixth seed. All right. Oh, absolutely. I would much rather see one of those teams

in the 60 in the NFC. I mean, not to play the Bears, but just for if I was totally unbiased about this and I just didn't care, I'd want them as the 60s. That'd make the playoffs better, objectively. All right. Let's get to our last stock up.

The Minnesota Vikings in the post-John D. Filippo era, good Lord. Kevin Stefansky really gave a middle finger to the way that John D. Filippo is running that offense, man. The quotes afterward from all of the Vikings players and from Zimmer were just brutal. Savage. So it appeared they did the whole we simplified the offense. Running downhill out from under center.

I think Zimmer said something along the lines of, it's not that complicated. He really did not like John D. Philippo. So Mike Zimmer told Kurt Cousins to go back to playing like he was in seventh grade, unwaryed about complex plays. Interesting. I think that is what he needs to do is just play the game and let it unfold, Zimmer said. I mean, by giving him some easier throws and using more play action from under center,

like Zimmer said they did, and that's what they wanted to do. I mean, that's going to be the basis of their offense. It's going to be Dalvin Cook, and it's going to be play action throws from under center to those receivers. I know Thielen didn't have a big game, but they didn't need to. I mean, they ran all over them. And that digs had the big touchdown. I mean, that team, if their offense can figure it out a little bit, I am frightened of them.

So a couple of things. Because the Bears would have to beat them three times because they play in week 17. I kind of want the bears to punt that week 17 game, but now they can't. This is a weird history of playing week 17 and then playing in the wild card. Remember the Bengals and the Jets did it? No, when was that? It won the Jets were good. 2009 in 2010.

Okay. Yeah. When the Jets were good. That's before the Bengals were very good, though, right? They had 8-Ocho Cinco. Oh, okay. That was like the last gasp of that Bengals team. Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah. 2009. Okay, so here's the deal. First of all, this is a stat via the NFL. Stifansky put up 21 points in the first quarter. They had scored 21 first quarter points total in their previous six games. That's a good thing. That's where we're at.

from the Miami side, it was interesting. I read a lot of the dolphins coverage today because they just didn't seem like they were having very good time. And it was really interesting to read how basically everybody who covers dolphins thinks that they played a really undisciplined, sloppy, gross game.

And that basically most of, from the Dolphins' perspective, most of Minnesota's big plays were because Miami were basically running around like their heads were cut off. And so I do, and also by the, the way, Miami couldn't stop the run the entire year.

No. The 30th in the NFL in rush defense. This was really bad today. So I love the Vikings talent. We've talked about this for 17, 16 weeks now, 15 weeks. Probably longer because we had training camp. But I am pumping the brakes a little bit on the Stefansky hype train. I understand pumping the brakes on the Stefansky hype train.

I just know that the ceiling of this Vikings team frightens me. That's it. I take them go to the Super Bowl. I know what their ceiling is. The ceiling of this fighting's team. And just what is out there for them if they can run the ball like this and protect cousins a little bit better

because they're using more play action and then you combine it with that defense, that is a terrifying proposition when it all comes down to it. And I don't know if we necessarily saw that today. Again, like you said, just because the dolphins are not the right team to figure it out.

It's not a good mirror. But I still feel like they looked better today than I wanted them to look. Robert Mays, if you were Stephen Ross, would you fire Adam Gase? No. I wouldn't either. I would get a new quarterback.

I'd fire my entire front office, and I'd get a new quarterback. Ooh, out of my Tanenbaum. I mean, what reason is there to be in on the moves that group has made? Yeah. They extended Ryan Tannahill in order to get a little bit more cap space this year and push more guaranteed money into next season when they didn't know if they were actually committed to him. The types of deals they've signed are atrocious.

Think about the way they've spent money on wide receiver this year. I mean, obviously Albert Wilson got hurt, but Wilson and Mendoza, trading for Robert Quinn and his salary, he hasn't been any good. I mean, the deal they gave Kiko Alonzo. This team has not done a lot of the right things. Yeah, they made the playoffs two years ago by accident. Yeah, which good for them. If that's your kind of benchmark and that's what you want, cool, that's fine. Let's do that.

The Harold reported, they're looking at quarterbacks. The problem is they're going to draft too low. I think they would have to trade up. Yeah, you'd have to trade up. We've talked about this a lot now. I think that more teams are going to be willing to do it because it's worked. Yeah, like the Rams with golf. I know you were going to say that.

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They were so bad today that they had to bring in Mike Glennon. And I still have a lot of faith in Rosen. I am just so worried that what this season has been is going to ruin Josh Rosen. And that is completely unacceptable. just the situation, and I know Glennon was fine when he came in today and he moved the ball a little bit better. The game was not close

when White Glennon came in. It's not as if this was a first quarter pull and Glennon got him back in the game. I have to be totally honest with you, just transparent here. So I have not checked it on the Falcons very often since they fell out of contention which was understandable.

Week one. I didn't know Dion Jones was back. He is back. And how I found out Dion Jones was back because he's last seen returning a very bad Josh Rosen pass for a touchdown. So imagine my surprise

when at once I realized that Josh Rosen had a terrible pass and that Dion Jones is back playing. That's why you know. When the Falcons defense is relevant, that's how you know an offense is playing poorly.

It's not good. One of the bills writers, Nick Veronica, a point of Josh Rosen now has more career pick sixes than Nathan Peterman. It's been brutal. Again, I have a lot of faith

in Josh Rosen moving forward. I know it was a terrible day, but he was just getting, he was running for his life the entire game as he has been all season. I mean, it's been so bad, and I just don't know how you're going to put your guy in that spot with that offensive coaching staff and everything else.

I don't know. It's been really hard to watch as somebody who has a lot of faith and a lot of hope for Josh Rosen moving forward. Yeah, it was not good. The whole season is just a disaster. What do you do with Wilkes? Can you run? this back. You're so angry

at his hiring. Why wouldn't I be? I just don't understand. I just don't get why we're doing this with these one-year defensive coordinators that we're bringing in to lead staffs with rookie quarterbacks that you're going to drop in there right away. What is this?

I would try to hire a better office coordinator and give it another year. I guess so, man. I just feel like it's worth pulling the plug. I mean, is there any? I guess their defense has played a little bit better, but they didn't necessarily like that great today. So I don't know, man.

It's hard to watch. Who are you going to hire? I don't know. Who are any of these teams going to hire? Somebody. That's my, but that's, that's what I'm saying.

Do something. Make some sort of effort. They made it, they made a higher last year. They hired a defense coordinator who's been a defense coordinator for one season. I understand that.

But I mean, first of all, I think he was well respected. I've done, I did some reporting on sort of the Panthers adjacent. You know, like basically he's essentially,

credited with inventing Josh Norman when Norman was extremely Ron Rivera phrased it as he wanted to fight the system all the time and Steve Wilkes made him buy in. It's not like he was just plucked out of nowhere. I know he's been a good coach for a while and that staff is very well built and everything

else. We've seen what McDermott's done with the Bill's defense. I respect the work that they did there. I just wouldn't do that. I would not hire a guy who was a defensive coordinator for one season as my head coach in the way of the current modern NFL works. I just wouldn't do it. And now that you done it and you have a rookie quarterback who's looked at it like a mess for the entire season.

I just don't know how you're going to say, let's go out and get X and X an X quarterback coach from some good staff and just see if that'll fix them. I think the changes have to be more wholesale than that. I'm just saying you can try it for one year. You can give Steve Wilkes one more year. In one more year, Josh Rosen could be ruined. They've won three games. Yes, I know.

They're not going to go O-N-16. I'm not sure how three games should be the bar we need to clear to say this is going the direction. Yeah, I think John Gruden should be fired. Matt Patricia, Matt Patricia's won four games. Should he be fired? I wouldn't have done that either. I understand that, but I'm just saying if you're given the present circumstances, it's not like they're 0.16.

I'm okay giving it two years. I'm fine giving it two years. I still, it's on the table to me in a way that I don't think it is. most people just because I think that Pat Patricia has one more win with a much more talented team. It's Matthew Stafford. Matthew Stafford is set in stone. That's my, that's what I'm saying here. Matthew Stafford's made the playoffs

a lot. Matthew Stafford has set in stone though. Matthew Stafford cannot be ruined. You can't destroy Matthew Stafford's career if you roll with this longer than you should. But they brought back their offensive coordinator. They don't want to bring them to a higher level. They should not have done that. They should fire the offensive coordinator. That's fine. I'm fired that. coordinator, do something else. I just feel like the problems are more deep rooted

with the way that Wilkes wants that offense to work in the way that they built it. That's my concern. That's what I'm saying. If it's a problem with Wilkes, and again, I don't think Wilkes is going to be like a good head coach. I'm just, I'm fighting you on the idea of he's had one bad season. Let's fire him because I'm not normally like that. I want to give guys a ton of time and I want to let them see their plan through.

But I just watch Rosen especially in that game. And I remember what Greg Olson told me about Jared Goff after his rookie season. And he said that he only started seven games and we were happy about that because it wasn't enough time to form scar tissue. And I think that that's a really good way to look at young quarterbacks. And if they run this back with Wilkes and an offensive staff that doesn't know what it's doing and an offensive support system personnel-wise that isn't there, I think the scar tissue is going to form and you're going to ruin a guy that I think can be a good NFL quarterback. Yeah, I mean, I just think that you can build an offensive staff. If Wilkes is capable of that, I don't know if he is. If you say it's a structural thing, he just wants to run some really conservative offense,

which by the way, sounds like it might be the situation with someone like, I mean, actually, I give you a good example, someone like Joe Philbin, who actually was an offensive head coach, but I remember he would say, oh, I don't want to pass on third down. That would make me my stomach queasy. He would literally say things like that. That's fun. structure, when it's structural problem, that's where it gets into, maybe we should fire this guy. But if Wilkes is going to empower an offensive coordinator, I'm fine bringing them back for another year.

All right. We'll see what happens. Let's get to our next stock down. The Dallas Cowboys offense, it's tough to get shut out in an NFL game where it's not an absolute downpour like it was in MetLife Stadium today. It's really difficult to do. And again, some drops, everything else. But they did not look good. And their passing game, it seems like Amari Cooper may not be.

be the end-all be-all of what's going to fix it. Oh, he's not the best player in football? I guess not. Now, what a week that was for Amari Cooper is the best. I love how we just, we're so reactive now. We just have a new best player in football every four days. Yeah, it's great. All right.

So a couple things. Number one, as you said, Amari Cooper disappeared. Did you see Dak Prescott's passing chart? No, I actually did not. 24 completions for 200 yards. That's hard to do. hard to do a lot of action around the line of scrimmage

a little bit I'm getting some like Derek Carr PTSD from some of these let me take a look now I'm really curious it's it's I mean it's not insane he did have what looks like a 16 yard completion but it was it was a lot of stuff around the line of scrimmage it wasn't it wasn't all like week three

Derek Carr which is the worst passage I've ever seen but I'm just saying you know 24 completions of 200 six yards. We're going to need a little more from you. Not even just that many passes near the line of scrimmage. I think one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight passes behind the line of scrimmage. Which you should try to get Zeke Elliott involved in the passing game a little bit more,

but you should also do other things in the passing game a little bit more. Like, it was a rough game. It was a rough game. But it's strange because Amari Cooper, that was always, that was the Raiders, especially Raiders fans' complaints about Amari Cooper, where he disappeared. And when you don't have Amari Cooper,

who essentially was getting open down the field any time he wanted to. And if Scott Lonehan called a bad play, he was just with his hands checking out of that play and making sure he got open. We haven't talked about that enough. I don't think we've mentioned it

on this show before. Us or we as a nation. Both on this show. Okay. Did you see, Marcus Mosher tweeted this this week, just not even the Cooper thing post game, but all of the receivers past and present that have talked about

how predictable their route combinations are and how every single guy knows what's coming defense before they even do it. And the only reason that they can somehow overcome it is when they change plays at the line. Are we really going to do this with Jason Garrett for two more years?

What if that's just the perfect strategy? That's what he wants. Put him in the exact spot. The old rope of dope. Oh, man. I just don't understand how you can read that and be like, oh yeah, we definitely want to roll with this guy. The Cowboys making the playoffs this year

is probably the worst thing for their franchise. I agree. Well, only if Linnehan comes back as well. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's not going to happen. They're going to need to make some changes. But that's what I'm saying. I hope the inertia of whatever this season is, if they win the NFC East,

isn't too much where they say, you know, let's just run it back. This is fine. There's no way you can do that. Yeah, I agree. I mean, also, people seem to really, really dislike Kellyn Moore. Why is this relevant? He's the quarterback's coach, right?

Oh, I didn't. even know he was the quarterback's coach at this point. I thought he was still on the roster somehow. I was like, what are you talking about? Kellyn Moore. Is he like the number three quarterback? He got kicked right upstairs. Oh, wow. Look at that. I'm telling you, man, Jerry is the most loyal person in professional sports. You want to get to our last stock down very quickly? So I'm of two minds on this. It's the Seattle Seahawks. Yes. And does it matter? That's my question. Okay. So first of all, Janikowski embarrassed himself. That was awful. that was one of the just most apathetic plays I've ever seen in the history of watching football.

So let's describe this. He seemed to purposely miss time. I'm not really sure what it was. So they had the runback. The special teams run back for San Francisco. It was a kickoff, right? It was a kickoff. He could have pushed the returner out of bounds quite easily,

but he seemed to be running at a pretty optimal speed. And so he just sort of purposely mistimed and then made no effort once he ran past. How do you keep him on the team after he does that? He didn't, he didn't miss. He wasn't late. He was early. Yeah. So why not just sort of spin around and create an obstacle?

Yes. Just like put your hip in the guy's way, something. That actually happened when I played freshman football in high school. What did? There was a guy who purposely like missed a tackle and I believe he got cut. Oh, wow. You would cut freshman football? He was a kicker. Yeah, I think they were just like, don't come anymore.

Okay, that's fair. I was going to say, they really kicked the guy off the team. That's a harsh freshman football team. They just did it. They were just like, get out of here. I could understand that. I mean, I would tell the guy not to come back. That's really bad. Yeah. So the guy from freshman football and Janikowski. So outside of the Janikowski thing, I feel like the other concerns here were what was going on in the secondary for San Francisco.

I mean, the 49ers were throwing the ball all over the place. I mean, Mullins looked decent in this game, but there were also some wide open throws. He missed Kittle. Selleck was pretty open on his long touchdown. I mean, it just felt like everybody playing back there for Seattle did not know what was going on. And I know it's tough to play against the Shanahan team

no matter who's playing quarterback, but I still feel like this is a worrisome moment for a Seattle team that I think people figured as a possible contender in that conference after the last three or four weeks. I agree. also I kind of think that they were due for just a little bit of the stature. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I can say that.

Zach Whitman said this and I kind of agree that the Seahawks basically losing and not costing themselves anything and also costing the 49ers a really good pick. Yeah. Is actually a nice little play. A pure victory for the Niners. Yeah. All right. Niners today, 10 of 10 on play action for 162 yards.

That seems pretty good. It's very good. calling God Kyle Shanahan. It will always be true no matter how bad the rest of the team is. All right. So what do we do with Nick Mullins?

We just make him like a good backup? Yeah. He's the backup quarterback now. End of story. I don't, it's not complicated. He's a rookie. I mean,

I know he's a rookie. I'm just saying, is this some crappy team try to trade a fourth round pick and get him in a competition? I would definitely put the Kyle Shanahan factor very high in the list of why Nick Mullins is doing this.

Yeah, I would go ahead and put that every NFL team is incredibly stupid factor. I should never discount that the way that I do. You're right. So he has, he's a two-year contract. He will make $570,000 next year to likely be the 49ers backup, I would say. Hey, what's going to happen to Nick Folles is a $20 million option if he wins out? They got to move on from once. No, that's not real. I know. I'm just kidding.

I have no idea. No, but what are they, it's, they're not going to have the money to carry it. If he plays really well down the stretch here, some team will trade for him. I, that's, that's my thought. Some team will trade for him. He'd have to, he'd have to, he'd have to play really, really well. Yeah. If he plays fantastic and they win out and they look really good again for this next two games and then maybe if they sneak into the playoffs, I absolutely think that some team will trade for him because we talked about this coming into the year. We felt like the quarterback carousel wouldn't be as crazy as it's been in seasons past because so many teams look set at

quarterback, at least with the plan. I think it's going to be a little crazier than we thought. So I feel like some teams, Tampa, Jacksonville. The entire state, to Florida. Yes. So, I mean, there are Miami you can throw in it as well. I think the list of teams looking for a quarterback is going to be longer. And I think that he is going to be one of those options that a team looks at if he plays well here down the stretch. At a certain point, you can't deny it. I will say this.

Cap numbers. Cap numbers. Okay. So Foles is going to make $20 million next year if he stays. Okay. Or if that's optioned. Is that true? Yeah.

That's his deal. Oh, interesting. He has an option for $20 million. It's essentially a guard against him becoming the starter and being way underpaid. Yeah, that's it. I was looking at the wrong page. I'm sorry. So, Marcus Marriota, and this is fifth year option stuff.

Marcus Marriota, 20 million, Winston, 20 million, Bortles, 21 million. Keenum, 21 million. Carr, 22 million. Then you get into sort of the Matt Ryan, Phillip Rivers zone. But I'm just saying, if you think Nick Foles at 20 million is, I would, wouldn't, I certainly wouldn't do it. I would not do it to my team, but I'm just saying it's not, it wouldn't be the worst $20 million quarterback in the league. I'd rather have Nick Foles than James Winston. And Blake Bortles. Yeah. I mean, the-Falls or Case Kahnham. They're very similar to me. Yeah. I, I, Bortles, though, with Jags, the Jaggs, you just can't afford the $20 million. Do you know what I'd rather have? I think a team that signs Foles or trades for Foles would extend him. And they would get that number down. It depends on what you'd get that number down, too. Could you sign Nick Foles to a $15 million year contract? the same contract that a guy, like, let's say the Keynum contract. Let's say three years, 54 million.

Could you do that? I don't know. I wouldn't really want to give Nick Foles that much money. I can understand that, but I think it's on the table for a team to do it. I wouldn't do it, but I think that it's realistic. I think it's realistic, too. What a dumb league. What's the Keenham contract?

Let me just really pull this out. He's making 21 against the cat next year. So it was 18 this year. I thought it was three years 54. It's two years 36. Excuse me. No, it's two years 36. Yeah, and it's fully guaranteed?

No. Okay. He's, no. It's 25 million of it is guaranteed. So it was a big $15 million cap it this year, 21 next year. I knew it was $18 million a year over the deal. I thought it was a three-year deal, not a two-year deal. Man, John Elway seems to be the kind of guy is just going to somehow trade for Nick Foles.

I'm not sure that John Elway would do that lateral move. I think that John O'Away would trade up for a quarterback and make a big splash, but I don't think he's going to move from Case Keenum at 18 million to Nick Foles at 18-9. Hey, you know what else I think about John Elway? He has no idea what to do with the quarterback position. That's fair. All right, let's get to our challenge flags. I want to start off. I'm going to throw a challenge flag on any single person

that actually thought that Eli Manning deserved to be playing his way into the starting job for the Giants after the last couple weeks. That person should be ejected from the tri-state area for all time. Why in any way, shape, or form would you want Eli Manning to be your quarterback next season? Just trade for somebody. Trade for anybody.

It's not as if you're going to be dropping this guy into a Josh Rosen situation. You have Sequin Barclay and Odell Beckham and Evan Ingram. Pat Schumer is a real offensive football coach. This is not a scenario where you're worried about, should we go get a guy? Maybe we'll throw him in there before he's ready, everything else. You know who's not ready? Eli Manning isn't ready.

Watching that game today, and again, you can talk about the conditions, you can talk about whatever. I don't know. The Titans seem to move the ball okay. The Ravens seem to move the ball okay in a downpour. it was one of the ugliest quarterback performances I can remember from this season. You know that play where Goff did that ridiculous thing today

where he somehow just tried to push the ball forward and it didn't work out? Guess who else did that today? Eli Manning. I just don't, none of this makes sense to me and I just can't believe anyone would think it with any sort of seriousness. So, Robert, you're a Simpsons fan at all?

I've watched a Simpsons. I'm not a fan like you are, though. Yeah. You got a nice little Simpsons contingent. We got your Danny Chow's amongst us. Yeah, I'm not like that. In terms of my comedy nerdness, I go different directions. Sure.

It's a Simpsons football episode where Homer is the coach and Bart is a player who is eventually named quarterback. Homer cuts almost all of the players. He refuses to not start anybody but Bart, even though Nelson Munts is much better. And it becomes like a running joke. Like, you know, he keeps giving him the game ball even after he sucks. What I'm saying, I think it's not. It's not hard to figure out where I'm going with this.

Everybody involved in the Giants organization is Homer and Eli is Bart. Why? Just why are we doing this? I just don't understand it all anymore. Basically, the guy who was the coach last year, who got them to the playoffs two years ago, who was a bad, bad, bad coach. But he got fired after one bad year largely because he lost, I don't even know.

The owner's support, somebody's support, because he had the gall to bench the quarterback. Eli, it's not as if Eli Manning has like $15 million in dead cap on his deal next year. It's $6.2 million compared to a $23.2 million cap hit. You save $16 million if you move on from Eli. I understand the optics. I understand that he won two Super Bowls for you. Peyton fucking Manning got cut.

Peyton is above this. Remember when Peyton Manning got briefly bent. bench for Brock Osweiler when he was healthy? It doesn't, I'm sorry. The end comes for all of us, and we are here with Eli Manning. Give him a really nice send-off, make it classy, great retirement ceremony. Eli comes up, he was wearing a giant blue tie. He's sitting there.

He gets teared up a little bit, and he says, I just want to thank everyone for my time in this organization. It's been the greatest 15 years of my life. I can't just tell you about the family that I've met here, and I will never forget every single moment from how great this was. and he will walk off and he'll just say, you know what?

Good Freeline, man. He had a great career. I don't think he's a Hall of Famer, but he showed well for a decade and a half. And we're moving on. I just don't understand why that's so fucking hard. His retirement speech will be emotional because he'll finally have enough time

to spend with his fake memorabilia, which is something near and dear to his heart. Oh, I just, everything about it is just such so baffling to me. All right, what's yours? Matt Patricia, who lost the Buffalo Bills today. Do I need to expand?

I don't think you do. No, no, no. A couple of things. Number one, they lost 14 to 13 to the Buffalo Bills. Again, Josh Allen had two deep passes. That's pretty much with Josh Allen's passing production in this game. Bringing back, yeah, to the Robert Foster pass. Robert Foster and Josh Allen's becoming one of the best connections in the NFL.

Briefly, I have no idea how I stumbled upon this. They're selling T-shirts that say the bomb squad. that they're talking about Josh Allen. Josh Allen had 13 completions for 204 yards. Yeah. He's, he had 13. So he's basically half of Dak Prestott's completions with the same amount of yards.

Yes. Crushing it. Okay. So Josh Allen had 100, what would I say 113 yards? Or 200, what, 200? What did I say? You said 213, I think. All right.

So, 213 yards for Josh Allen today. That yardage. 73 plus 28, 90, or 100, what's 73 plus 28? 101? Yeah. 101 yards of those 200 yards came on three completions to Robert Foster. I don't know if Josh Allen is good, but I do know that three times a game, Josh Allen makes throws that look like they're CGIed.

They go so deep. Energy, it's canon is so ridiculous. And all of them are to Robert Foster. It's a really fun connection. I'm only half kidding at this point. I'm having fun. Yeah. So a couple of things.

Thanks. Number one, Matt Patricia said the F word on postgame radio for some reason. It needs to work on his posture. Number two. Have some respect, Matt Patricia. I mean, we're all doing a job here. We're all doing a job. So what the hell is going out with the Detroit offense? I understand the bills are good, but the bills are on defense, excuse me. But Matthew Stafford, 101 yards last week against Arizona on 23 attempts, has not had 300, yards. And this is a guy who, by the way, we had sort of penciled in to have a bunch of empty, crappy

yardage and pass record. Oh, he was an empty calorie god. Matthew Stafford. That's what he was for years. So he went from empty calorie God to just God of nothing. He has not had a 300 yard game since October. In fact, he's been under 200 twice since his last 300 yard game.

What happened to the empty calorie meaningless yardage god that is Matthew? Stafford. 146 of Matthew Stafford's yards today. He finished with 208, came to Kenny Gallaudet. If you watch those throws, two of them on the same drive were being intercepted. I know that receivers help out their quarterback. If you throw a 50-50 ball, it's often based on the situation.

And sometimes that's actually a sign of good quarterback play. Knowing what's going on around you and understanding the coverage. These balls were being intercepted and Kenny Gallaudet had to take them away. Most of the other plays that Kennedy Gallaudet made were 80% Kenny Gallaudet, 20% Matthew Stafford. I think that's indicative of, I think the fact that no one else had more than 28 yards is indicative of that. That's what their passing game was today. It was throwing up to Kenny Gallaudet and hope that he comes down with it. Everybody, including Elon Manning, I think Elon Manning still has a career high passer rating because passer rating means nothing and then passing means nothing in 2018.

This is the number one tragedy of 2018's passing is that Tom Brady. can't get it on the flag football stuff. But the second is that Matthew Stafford is not here to be your stats, God. He did have a 106.7 rating today, which is hilarious. Yeah, but his rating on the season is, I think, less than 90. I mean, he was not good today. I'm just saying, this was not indicative of what that game looked like. It's down at least 10 points since last year.

I mean, he needs to be, Matthew Stafford needs to return to being our empty stats, deep passing. Yeah, it's off-putting. I don't enjoy it. It makes me fear change. Jim Bob Cooter is not a good offensive coordinator. No, that's probably going to need to change up a little bit over the next few months.

I would assume that happens. Over the next few weeks, or next week or Monday. By speaking of the bills, Brian Daibald, head coaching rumor churns on. I'll be honest, man. I think that their offense has some cool concepts to it. I think their talent is horrendous and the fact that they're leaning on Robert Foster,

and I guess at this point, when you're in an offensive rebuild, but not a team rebuild, you might as well go with no-name guys to see if they're good. But they do some stuff schematically. It's like, all right, I could be into this. It's just hard to figure out if they're good

or if any of those players are good because they're not, I guess. The bills are winning games. They are okay. They're okay. So this is basically, even though they made the playoffs last year, this is the second straight season they've let Nathan Peterman

basically derail a season. Yeah. I mean, their offense is not good. And it's completely random. And all that is is bombs from Josh. Allen, him running around a little bit, and Robert Foster, I mean, it's fine. It's fine. It's weird, but it's okay. Hey, I'm fine with it. I'm just saying that I'm not sure that this team is supposed to win a lot of games. I think that they're fine. Their defense is good. Their offense is not efficient at all.

They'll have some big plays every once in a while, but I'm not sure we need to be worried about the bill's ceiling and how they're not reaching it. They've won three or five. Good, good for them. I'm so proud of the bills. Just knocking off those powerhouse lions. All right, very quickly, to tomorrow's headlines before we get out of here. I feel like after the Chargers win, we could start getting the Phillip Rivers MVP talk a little bit. I'm not sure we're there. Holmes is still my pick, for sure.

But I think that there will be rumblings now if Breeze does not play well. Because what Rivers did down the stretch there, that is the signature win of the season in a certain way, just coming back from 14 in Arrowhead to do that on national TV. And I think a lot of people saw that game, and I think a lot of people were impressed with how we just cap that off. So

By the way, I knew he threw two bad picks in that game. Rivers was ridiculous in the fourth quarter. Those throws he made down the middle of the field that Travis Benjamin were unbelievable. They played the Ravens this week, so there'll be a little bit of a hype train. Yeah, that's a fun game. That's what I mean.

I think that we're getting there. I mean, this team now is in play for the one seat. It's kind of crazy that they're either the one seat or the five seat when you consider the drop-off there. I mean, that's how good them and the chiefs have been this season. So excuse me, I just yawned. You're fine. I've been coughing this entire show.

Keep it in, Craig. There's no secrets here. So I agree. I think that there's going to be a little bit of a, like, hey, the Chargers exists kind of weak from the media. Yeah. I can see like a really stale. I've been very aware of it. I know.

I mean like from like they're in L.A. Like there's going to be like really like kind of tongue and cheek stories about their fan base. I think it's going to be a bad week for really bad stories. I think that's fair, but I'm very impressed by that team. I think they're a legitimate Super Bowl contender. It's going to be one or two things. It's going to be like trying to make fun of the Rams fan base. Sorry, the Chargers fan base is not really going to work.

Or it's going to be like, hey, the Chargers are actually really popular and you don't realize it. We'll see about that. A story that has been written before and is unbelievable. The other headline that I think that we should throw out before we get out of here, is Rams panic. I think that's the other one that's going to start creeping up. I mean, you lose two games in a row.

You look bad, three games in a row. I feel like that, and then obviously what we let the show off with. But Rams and Patriots concern and Philip Rivers' hype coming after last week, I think, the three things we're going to hear the most about this week.

I love it. All right. It's football fever in L.A. That's all we got. As always, guys, thank you so much for listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.

We'll be back on Thursday. Talk to you guys soon. Thank you.