The Ringer NFL Show - The Saints-49ers Game Is the Future of Good Football, the Pats Fall (Again), and the Rams Are BACK (Maybe) | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: December 9, 2019

A little over one year ago, we witnessed what felt like a new era of football after watching the Rams and Chiefs score over 100 points in an epic offensive showcase. Today, the Saints and 49ers proved this new era was no fluke (0:40). Then, a Stock Up lead by a strong Chiefs win over the Patriots, as well as a huge day for rookie QB Drew Lock (9:20), and a Stock Down lead by a disappointing and bizarre Seahawks loss, before predicting tomorrow's headlines (30:30). Host: Kevin Clark Guest: Danny Heifetz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's the Ringer NFL show and the Ringer podcast network. I am Kevin Clark. Joining me a crossover episode from the Dannasy podcast, Danny Hyphus. How you doing, Danny? I'm fantastic. Thrill to be here. How are you, Kevin? I'm great.

Robert Mays had technical difficulties, but Danny, there's a lot to talk about. The Rams and the Chiefs around this time last year gave us one of the best offensive games we ever seen. It was the future of football. It was a Monday night game. We were just going to talk about it for the rest of our lives. That game did not carry over in the way we thought for the last 11 months.

But we saw that game again. in 49er Saints in New Orleans on Sunday. In the 10 a.m. window, it wasn't primetime, so it wasn't on everybody's television. You couldn't even get it in Los Angeles over regular cable because it was blocked out. But this was the game we were waiting for. First impression, Danny. I actually think in a way that this game was more impressive to me than the Rams Chiefs because this game didn't have like 12,000 turnovers, whereas that Rams Chiefs game was

the highs were higher, but the valleys were way lower. This game was incredible because I thought this was the best coach. football game I've yeah a regular season game I've ever seen yes I agree with that and so this was one of the things Robert and I have talked about a lot offline online the whole deal is how excited we were to see Kyle Shanhan be the head coach of a really relevant team this late in the season this is what we were waiting for this is his creativity on a grand scale against Sean Payton who is as good an offensive head coaches there is in the history of football it was unbelievable this was you know it's funny to me when everybody said that

the Chiefs Rams game was the future of football. That was right, but it was the future of good football. This is the way everything is trending. It's not going to happen next year. They're still going to be 13 to 12 games. The Super Bowl might still be the Patriots winning 13 to 3 like it was last year. But this, there are more Kyle Shanahan and Sean Patens in the pipeline that will exist in 10, 15 years than there are great defensive coaches like Bill Belichick or Mike Tomlin who are coming up or Pete Carroll who are coming up and we'll have that background and will be head coaches in five or 10 years. right. This is the future of good football.

A couple stats here that just blew my mind. First of all, Ben Fox and ESPN had this. This was the over under was 45 and a half. Both teams went over that. Both teams at the over by themselves. The last time that had happened, week seven of 2008, when Chicago played Minnesota. Where were you in 2008, Danny Hyfitz? Middle school.

Okay, this is upsetting. Let's move on. So did this do anything for you? obviously I think there's a lot of chatter about this game being an NFC championship preview. Did this do anything from your perspective to change how you feel about either of these teams, whether one of them is more of a contender than you thought? How do you feel about the Saints and the 49ers as contenders after that game? Yeah, no, I think that just like the Rams Saints last year was the NFC Championship game preview. I left this game being, like, I no longer have any doubts that this is the NFC Championship game

favorite. I'm no longer pretending that the Seahawks can contain. I know the Syracs beat the 49ers. No longer worried the Seahawks can beat the 49ers in the playoffs. I really feel like they're complete. And I'm not really worried about the Packers anymore. These are the two best teams. And it was so clear throughout. I mean, you mentioned the halftime thing. A number that really blew my mind for this one in halftime. One, the Saints scored 27 points, which was tied for the most of the Niners have allowed all season. Yeah. And they did that in the first half. And it wasn't enough to have the halftime lead because the 49ers average 14 and a half yards per play in the first half. And the number that stuck out to me, though, was that both Garoppolo and Drew Brees were

perfect on passes, or sorry, on plays that they had four man rushes coming against them. Yeah. And I think if there's one thing that's really a sign of good coaching is that if there's not pass pressure coming at you, they're just moving like machines. And I think that's the coaching savantness you're getting from both Kyle Schenhan and Sean McVay is, Sean Payton. and what we used to have from McVeigh and read last year is that. No, McVeigh's back, baby.

We're getting that later. McVeigh is back, but keep going. The machinery with which these teams are moving and the efficiency, like in the last drive, the Saints, Richard Sherman left for he pulled up with an injury. And then the Saints just ruthlessly moved the ball. I think Ted Giridon wasn't covered along the sideline, and he moved. And the second that there was even a little bit of a weakness, the Saints just moved and just right there and just got in the end zone.

And it was so quick. And it just, just because there were so many points really disguised the fact that these are two really good defenses. Yeah, that was the thing that made this different from last year's Rams Chiefs game is it these are, especially on the Niners side. This was a defense we were putting up there with the Patriots earlier in the season. The defensive coaching staff has gotten so much praise, rightfully so. But this wasn't the Chiefs defensive last year. This was not a team that was used to giving up this many points. So I think that was really interesting to me.

I also think, listen, we had the George Kittle moment now. We know what, if you didn't know how good George Kittle was, I'm not sure why, anybody who's listening to this podcast knows football enough to know how good George Kittle was. But if you needed the eye test, you need to see a marquee moment, whatever it was, he basically, I mean, he just, he was wearing a backpack of Saints players down the field. It was unbelievable how great that run was. He looked like a bucking bronch. He looked like a bull, like trying to buck someone.

Yeah. Kyle Shannon was talking to. after the game about how many plays he had ready to go. And then George Kettle will just, just, screw it. We're just going to get, we're just going to do it live. We'll do it live. And it gets what, essentially into field goal range. He gets the face mask.

The face mask lasted about 40 seconds. That was the visual proof of how frustrating it is to tackle George Kittle in the sense that Marcus Williams couldn't do it. No one could do it. And then it's like, you know what? Let's just hold on to his face mask for a while, even though that's 15 extra yards in crunch time on your own half of the field. I mean, that was unbelievable. Don't let it be lost that Marcus Williams is the guy who gave up the Minneapolis miracle.

I didn't want to say that. And I'm just being real. Like, I imagine it'd be like, I should have just grabbed his goddamn face mask and Stefan Diggs. And like, it kind of, look, I don't blame him. Like how many safeties think that they can tackle George Kittle one and one in that situation. And that's a tough thing to do. But Kittle, I mean, you mentioned this. He's the best tight end in football. Obviously, there's been a debate. Is it him or Travis Kelsey? The fact of the matter is, Kittle is as good of a blocker as almost any tight end. And he's as good a receiver as Travis Kelsey. He leads the whole league in yards per rat run in pro football focus.

He's the highest graded player in pro football focus, period. And that play, though, he's just this, he's impossible to bring down. That should be the new logo for the NFL. It should be like the Jerry West. I will say the Kelsey debate is interesting now because I think Kelsey is just a full-time quarterback, which we found out earlier today. But again, we will get to all of this. I thought this is really interesting.

Stats of LSC had this. The 49ers are the second team in NFL history to allow 46 points on the road and win. The Broncos in 2013 did that. By the way, that Broncos team was one of the best offenses in the history of the sport. Patent Manning throwing a touchdown in every other play. Here's what that tells me. The 49ers can win these types of games.

And that's the most important thing. When I asked you if this changed anything about the contention of either of these teams, I think the 49ers going on the road and winning this type of game, is one of the most impressive things I have seen from any team this season. When you couple that with the very strange stinker that the Seahawks had on Sunday night, and these games happen. It's such a random league. Every week we say, oh, you can't overreact to one week or whatever.

But I'm overreacting to the 49ers performance, which was unbelievable against a well-coached team, against a very talented team, to do that and play that kind of game when I didn't know if they had that in them, is one of the best statements any team has made this year. I knew the Saints were capable of winning this type of game. We've seen this so many times with Peyton and Breeze and even this era of Saints football. We've seen so many impressive performances.

This was the Saints marquee moment. This was the 49ers marquee moment for this year. And I think that that's going to be able to carry over in January. Now, the schedule, as we talked about, Cioxx loses game. That is huge for the number one seed or the buy at least, the NFC. West. 49ers have the Falcons next week, then the Rams and a Ciox on December 29th. That is one of the games in the season in week 17,

as long as there's something for the Seahawks to still play for as far as the division goes. The Saints have the Colts, the Titans, and the Panthers. Obviously, the division is not a concern for them. They're going to be fine. But from a by standpoint,

they have a 61% chance going to 538. Samson goes to 64%. And Seattle now goes down to 35%. So this was a big, big Sunday for playoff scenarios. And yeah, amazing game. It was just blown away.

Yep. So let's move on to our first stock up. And it is a team who also won an impressive road game today against another really good coach. And it's the Kansas City Chiefs. You wrote a blog on the ringer.com about this. What were your initial impressions of this game? And what did you learn that you didn't know on Sunday morning? That the referees can actually give the wrong pouty yardage?

Yeah. That was special. I will say this. I feel like there's been a lot of talk about statements you can make this year and really how to announce yourself. And I think there's been so much, the bar is so high to be a bad refereeing performance in 2019. Oh, this pass interference call was thrown and then it wasn't overturned and X, Y, Z, all these things. But to actually not mark off the correct penalty yardage, that's how you stand out in a very crowded bad in 2019.

I'm hesitant to like lambast the referees because it's a really tough time for any sport. We can lambast here. Having said that, this game did no favors for anybody involved because Patriots fans absurd paranoia that the league in the world is out to get them and the referees are the conduit of Roger Goodell trying to harm their legacy. This game actually gave them fuel and now it's going to fuel their conspiracy theories. on Reddit for like the next 10 years because as much as the Patriots looked like trash fire for most

of this contest, they almost won this game. And that's the dueling. My two takeaways were, wow, the Pats have now the only team that is going to make the AFC playoffs, maybe even could make the playoffs, the Patriots have beat convincingly is the Steelers in week one. They have lost to the Texans. They lost to the Chiefs. The Texans game wasn't that close. They got crushed by the Ravens

and they almost lost to the bills. they came really close. So now on the other hand, they were five yards from tying this game. And if they were given those four points that they were kind of cost, they were five yards from winning this game in regulation. So really weird.

Really weird. Very, very, very weird. And it's hard to draw too many conclusions because of how strange the referee in this game was, but I really like Jeff Howles piece on The Athletic.com where he talks about how essentially, yes, the refs were terrible, but the Patriots need to be put in better positions to win these sort of games.

They should be winning these types of games. Patrick Mahomes becomes the youngest player to ever quarterback, to ever go into Foxborough and win a game. Before this. 21 game winning streak. Right, exactly. In Foxborough, but at 24 years old, Mahomes is the youngest quarterback to ever go into Foxborough. They had been 29 and 0 against quarterbacks under the age of 25 since 2001, which is the Brady

Belichick era. And as you said, 21 game winning streak at home comes to an end. They normally completely destroy young quarterbacks. The problem with this era is, well, first of all, right now, they don't have the offense they've ever had. But beyond that, there's just really, really good young quarterbacks. And I'm quite frankly surprised that it hasn't happened before. Mahomes obviously put up a lot of points last year in Foxborough in that regular season game. Didn't win that game, but now they do.

Again, this was a strange game. they should have had just about enough offense to win. It should have been a classic Patriots win where we're kind of just saying, what the hell is that? How do they do this? Instead, it's a very nice win for Kansas City. What it does essentially,

I mean, if you're just looking for a bottom line, it basically tells you that Baltimore's going to get the one seed, and that's pretty much it. The one thing that was interesting to me here was that the chiefs, I mean, shout out Steve Spagnolo, who was the defensive coordinator for the Giants when they beat the 18 and 0,

now 18 to 1, New England Patriots in 2007. And what was interesting to me was that they kind of kind of did two things, not to oversimplify, but they either blitz the shit out of Tom Brady or they double Julian Edelman on every play. And there was very little breakage from that. I think they actually doubled James White in a couple plays. And they really, really, really let those young receivers like Myers and Nikiel Harry and guys, they really let them, like, just try to beat one-on-one. And like, yeah, it's like Bashad Breeland and Kansas City's like lesser-heralded guys. Kendall Fuller's great, but, you know, other than him and Tyron Matthew, it's not a great

secondary, but they've been playing better. And it really works because Tom Brady is throwing, He entered this week with 30 throwaways under pressure, according to Pro Football Focus. It's by far the most in the league. And just he's throwing the ball away more often because he's old, doesn't want to get hit. And it's working. Like, like, his internal clock is kind of lower than it's ever been in his career to get the ball out of his hands. And the blitzing's really effective. And the way to beat that is you have your receivers to get open early quick, which a lot of times kind of means you have to know where to go.

It's the blitzing is actually more effective. Like, for so long it's been, well, you can't blitz. Brady because it won't work because he's too smart. He's not really surrounded by people who are capable of getting open quick enough that you kind of can blitz, Tom Brady again. Yeah, it's a good point. I think that, you know, blitzing Brady becomes very horror movie, kind of, let's not go back to the late kind of thing.

But it's, it's a very interesting time to watch Patriots offense. And again, we've said this 50 times on this podcast that all, whether it's Mahomes, Jackson, whatever, the Patriot season will come down to three or four, huge third downs, fourth downs against those quarterbacks. And I'm withholding judgment on the entire franchise until I see those plays on January 13th or January 20th or whenever those two teams meet. I think it's really interesting that with the one seed basically gone, the chiefs barring some sort of collapse or the Texans jump at them, even though the Texans have the tiebreaker.

These two teams will meet in the divisional round. and I think it's going to be one of the best playoff games in years. I mean, the last game was, too. So we'll see. Before we move on, let's see a quick break. This holiday season, immerse yourself in all your favorite holiday classics with a new home theater system from Sonos. Enjoy speech enhancement mode,

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to learn more and complete your holiday shopping. All right. Next stock up, Tennessee Titans. They found a quarterback, Danny Hyfitz. Let's talk about it. Is it any shock that the year everyone gave up on Ryan Tanhill finally breaking out is the year that he broke out

or just need to get away from Adam Gase. Wow, great question. So you have the change of scenery angle, which I'm always into a quarterback change of scenery angle, even though it never seems to work, I can just, I'll just buy into it all the time. He gets away from Adam Gase, as we discussed. And again, health was such a big thing for him.

He was on the sidelines all the time. And I think that him being healthy, it's funny that he replaced Marcus Mariotta, who also could not get healthy because maybe one day Marcus Maraida will do this for another team next year. Hopefully he does. We all want to see Marcus Mara to thrive. But Ryan Taniel is healthy.

And the Titans offense is really, really good. From a team-building standpoint, this is a triumph. Essentially, John Robinson, the Titans GM, got Tana Hill in a pick swap, basically a fourth for a sixth in different years. And Tanna Hill is making around $2 million for the, for the team. for the Titans, which is basically what the Cardinals paid Brett Hunley. It's what the Raiders paid Mike Glennon. And the dolphins are picking up 18 million of that against the cap. This is a masterful team building job.

And I'm hugely impressed by it. We're not even going to go into just the roster building decisions of getting guys like AJ Brown who beasted today. I mean, John Robinson is on my short list. He's not going to get it, but he's in a discussion here if the Titans make the playoffs for executive of the year. The Titans offense is just humming 31 points per game since Tanna Hill was named the starter. On Sunday against the Raiders, they averaged 9.3 yards per play, which is the highest of any team this season. I mean, this is a good football team.

And whether or not they can make any noise in the playoffs and a stacked AFC is kind of besides the point. they're not there yet. But this was an impressive good football team who, if I'm, if I'm a buy team right now, I'm getting 10% more scared about the Titans than I was three weeks ago. The most impressive thing about John Robinson to me is that not every GM would stand by an employee growing a porn mustache from the 70s like Mike Varybel has. But John Robinson is like, you know what? No, you're going to let you be you.

But no, I will say the Titans offense, when you really dig into the numbers, they're absolutely mind-blowing. Like, the Ryan to handle stuff's not hype. Like, he entered, he started the, no, but he became the start on week seven. And since week seven, entering this week, so before the 42 points that dropped today, the Titans were third in points per game, second in rushing yards per attempt, number one in yards per play. Number one in yards per play, the Tennessee Titans with Ryan to Ann Hills since week seven.

All right. So here's the anywhere from a million-dollar question to a $60 million question. Diana Rusina vspian reports that they're talking contract. What do you do with someone like Ryan Tannahill right now? Well, I mean, so the baseline in any negotiation like this if you're Tannahill now is the franchise tag, right? So that's going to be, we'll call it, what, $30 million? Yeah, something like the 33, I think. Yeah, so I feel like a two-year deal, you guarantee some of it.

I mean, look, he's been, I would say that you kind of have to keep him because he's become the leader of this team. Right now the AFC playoff picture is really seven. teams. Like we're going to ignore the cults and the Raiders. They might as well not in the Browns. They might as well not exist. There's really seven teams competing for six shares, five of which we, unless the bills collapse. It's really Steelers and the Titans for the last spot. The Titans are playing well. I mean, the Titans might win the AFC South. If the Titans make the playoffs with this Tanhill playoff push, there is a certain intangible quality to the quarterback becoming the true leader of a team in a locker room. Taniel has absolutely

unequivocally earned that in Tennessee. If you listen to the way these guys, talk about him. He is the guy. And like, you know, they all like Marcus Mariotta, but I mean, this is the best stretch the Titans have had in years. And you can't let him go. You kind of have, I would give him maybe a short-term deal, but you have to keep down. Because the quarterback position is so unique, there are no real sleepers like this who pop out of nowhere and exceed expectations in this type of way. We've seen it for four or five, six game spurts. But it's actually quite rare. I'm trying to rack my brain because the one thing that I

keep coming back to, and I'm not saying it's going to be the same career path, they're very different players. But as far as just a mid-career hot streak that way exceeds expectations, and then they sign a contract based on that, reminds me a little bit of the 2011 Ryan Fitzpatrick deal with the bills.

Yes, I was going to say Ryan Fitzpatrick. Where it's like, what do we do with Ryan Fitzpatrick? And the answer in that scenario was six years, $59 million, $10 million dollar signing bonus. That was 2011, so he was 29 at that point. And so it was just a little bit, again, they're very different players, but as far as the sort of mid-career jump, it is in that ballpark.

The exact difference between them is that Ryan Tannihill runs the way Ryan Fitzpatrick thinks he runs. Okay. Ryan Tannahill, when he makes that amazing form tackle on Maurice Hurst to bring him down, Ryan Fitzpatrick thinks he can do that. Every time Ryan Fitzpatrick lowers the shoulder. an amazing tackle. That was an amazing tackle. Ryan Tannanhill is on my short list. As you know, I'm sure, Danny, for the first, I don't know, decade, two decades, maybe longer, they had, football was both ways. It was like soccer. If you played running back, he also played linebacker, et cetera. And I think that Ryan Tannahill is, is now in the discussion for a valuable two-way player who can not only throw, not only run, what he can tackle.

So what do you think about the Titans in terms of they were trying to build Patriots South? And then the Detroit was trying to build Patriots Midwest and the Texans are trying to build Patriots, Texas. And then suddenly those are the, I mean, the Texans and the Titans are at the top of the AFC South. And they're probably both going to make the playoffs. So what do you kind of make of the Belichick-co tree being slightly better than it would have been like two years ago? I think there's a huge difference between the personnel folks and the coaching folks, because there have been a lot. lot of failures on the coaching side. We've seen that over and over again.

The personnel part of it is very interesting to me because John Robinson is a good GM. Bill O'Brien, who the heck knows what's going on as far as personnel goes and what decision he's actually making, what decisions he has made, et cetera. Let's put that off to the side for a second. Thomas Dimitrov has built, despite obviously some struggles not only this year, but last year he has built legitimately great teams when you consider that they went to the Super Bowl and FC championship game that whole deal should have won a Super Bowl. Let's put that aside.

So I think that it's hard. I reported a story in August about this and kind of why no one can replicate the Patriot way. And the answer is they don't really try. And John Robinson didn't necessarily try because if you just look at his signings, he's signing people like Dionne Lewis for for real money. He's signing Malcolm Butler for real money. And the Patriots let those guys go. And they did it for a reason. I think it was interesting to me when Trey Flowers becomes, the Detroit Trey Flowers, becomes a free agent, not the Seattle one, that there were two Patriot way guys, Brian Flores and Bob Quinn, who were bidding for him in huge money. And the Patriots said, that's too rich for us, we'll get past rush elsewhere. And so what's interesting to me is just the different approaches these guys take. No one wants to take.

the approach of we're going to be the Patriots because they all acknowledge up front, they just don't have Bill Belichick. They cannot play the long game like that. They cannot put the guys in the best position to succeed like Belichick can. They can do good work and they can have good game plans and all that stuff, but they can't have that flexibility. The other thing with Belichick is he has so much juice not only inside that building, but with the fan base, etc. He can do things. Like the Chandler Jones thing is a good example, right? Or the Jamie Collins thing is a good example. The Jamie Collins. These guys. These guys. These guys are at the height of their talent, and Belichick says they're out of here.

And they get good value for them. And Jamie Collins case, you get him back after he makes $20 plus million and he's on a minimum deal and he's playing like a defensive player of the year candidate. But if Bob Quinn right now, even though he traded Quadra Diggs, we'll get to that later, but if Bob Quinn were like, I'm trading Darius Slay right now for his second round pick, if he did that in September, there'd be a revolt. He might lose his job. And I don't I just think that it's really hard to be Bill Belichick.

And so John Robinson's one of his best traits is not trying to be. That's really well put. I mean, there's 10,000 iterations of the Patriots being down 28 to 3 in the Super Bowl. There's 9,99 where the Patriots lose and everyone's like, hey, you probably could have used Jamie Collins in that Super Bowl. Right, right. Exactly. But also no one cares because Bill Belichick.

But no one cares because they won. All right. Let's move on very quick. quickly to the best quarterback in history of football, Mr. Drew Locke. It is a shame Mays is having technical difficulties. Mays is a, because of his collegiate affiliation, University of Missouri, he is a Drewlock stand. This is very emotional for him. Megan Schuster, one of our ace editors at the ringer, is also a Drewlock stand from her

Mazoo days. And I think this is a very important moment for both of them. However, it's a much bigger moment for Mr. John Elwood. away who gets a temporary reprieve from us dunking on his quarterback evaluation. What did you see from Drew Locke today? What do you think about the Broncos? Apparently, it's much easier to pass on the Houston Texans than Vanderbilt. That's what I learned. There you go. So the Houston Texans just did not show up for this game. That was unbelievable. John McLean from the beat writer from the Houston Chronicle basically said they knew to apologize for their performance because it was really funny. I made a joke

about their performance and a lot of Patriots fans and some Patriots media were joking about how this was a Super Bowl hangover for them because that was such an emotional win for them and I thought about it's actually kind of funny that they had that. There's a lot of reasons teams have emotional letdowns and let's not blame at all on that.

But that was a very, very strange performance from the Houston Texans in a week where you knew that either the two or the three seed was going to lose. You can make up ground. in the AFC, as long as you beat the Denver Broncos and Drew Locke and they couldn't do it. Vic Fangio looks like a good coach right now, man. Drew Locke, I don't know how sustainable this is, but I know right now that the Denver Broncos is like a much better team they did six weeks ago.

Drew Locke, I mean, I feel like he's just the forgotten guy of this draft class because Daniel Jones, I mean, he wasn't this time last year. We used to talk about him as a potential high pick and he just kept dropping and dropping and dropping. I do want to point out as a Giants fan here that Daniel Jones's rookie debut where the first two games were far better and far more ecstatic than this. We all, as the media members,

we all have to kind of, we're all suspended from making snap judgments and rookie quarterbacks for a while. Let me be the first to point out that the 48-yard pass that he threw to Noah fan was about three inches from being a pick six and that sometimes this being a game of inches

is very literal. And that if only the Texans hadn't showed up dressed like dodgeball linebackers, maybe they would have gotten their hands in some balls. So, uh, Drew Locke, I think Von Miller called him a bleeping rock star. I mean, this is a real, this is a real feeling around here. I don't, don't give me with your, it was almost picked off thing. Drew lock is a winner. Here's a deal.

And in all seriousness, the problem with, with rookie quarterbacks is we have so much evidence that like a three, four, five game sample. this can be thrown out so easily. Baker Mayfield set the rookie pass record last year. And this time, this time last year he was like a franchise quarterback, and now he looks like none of us can make a real determination. In January of last year,

Lamar Jackson against the Chargers did not look like a future MVP candidate. We're wrong all the time in both directions. So I just want to see a little more of Drew Locke, but this is a good start. I'll say this. John Elway catches a lot of heat, rightfully so, for like their inability. to just want they're just all they've been doing is wandering through the quarterback desert unable to find one

with the exception of like garret bulls who's like kind of kind of a whiff at left tackle the broncos quietly have a lot of really young talent that's very cheap uh philip lindsay's courtland sutton is fantastic this year justin simmons at safety is one of the better like breakout players of the year i think is the second highest rated safety on pff um they have a lot of talent at tight end i mean most of them been injured other than no a fan but no a fan's really great jeff you were min i can't i'd don't know how to pronounce his last name. There's like three years. But they actually have a lot of talent on that team and all of them very young contracts.

If Locke is good, there's actually a lot of talent there to actually become a good offense if they become that kind of team. Yeah, I agree. I listen, this is if you were to take the team six weeks ago and you would show me this, this is the absolute best case scenario. I'm not ready to start hyping up the Broncos as 2020 sleepers or whatever, but this is as good as it could have been relative to what it was a couple weeks ago. Okay, let's start with stock down. Boy, the Seattle Seahawks. You can react anytime. Is that our moment of silence

for Pete? No, no, no, it was not. It was not. It was, let's talk about the Seattle Seahawks who had a just unbelievably weird game. Well, you're the one who's point out that the Seahawks have literally never had a not weird game. They have not had a normal game in the history of their franchise. You were talking earlier about Sean McVeigh. Why don't you hit us for that? What really impressed me about this Rams win was that when they were just blown out of the water, like detonated two weeks ago against the Baltimore Ravens. I mean, that was, I think it was among the most complete dismantling of another football team I've seen at literally any level, including high school. Like, the Ravens scored touchdown on the first six possessions, six

six possessions, six touchdowns, and they allowed six points to the Rams in the whole game. That's as demoralizing as it gets. And Sean McVeigh basically said after the game in the post-compressed conference, he's like, look, we were humbled, that sucks, but we're not going to let the Ravens beat us twice.

We're just going to move on from this as quickly as possible, and we're going to start preparing for next week. Everyone can say that, right? Like, everyone can say, well, we're not going to let this effect this. But actually doing it is so much harder. Like, actually not. let, like, who knows why the Texans lost, but maybe they let the Patriots win bleed in. Like, you never know why.

But the Rams actually went out. They beat the Cardinals 34-7. They handed Kyler Murray literally the worst loss of his life because he never lost really in college or high school. And then they just dismantled the Cardinals. And even I thought that that was kind of like, all right, look, that's more the Cardinals defense being bad than the Rams' offense being back. Their lines still not great. And then they come out and they do this to the Seahawks. And it's like, you know what, no, this offense is back.

Like, I think that, look, the Sean McVeigh magic is a gun. It's not magic. It's hard. So much of it was their offensive line collapsed, right? I mean, they had Austin Blythe and they had, I mean, they traded for Austin Corbett. They had so many injuries. Brian Allen at center. Joseph, Nope, boom.

They were among the lowest rated guys in PFF. They have a combination of gotten a little bit healthier. And they've kind of had some stability now. They traded for Austin Corbett from the Browns, who was the number 33 pick in 2018. They actually have some stability in the line. And without exaggeration, like offense, especially Sean McVeigh's offense, quite literally revolves around the offensive line. And this is what we're seeing now with like this offense is back because they're blocking

is kind of back. And Robert Woods has four consecutive games of 90 plus receiving yards. Tyler Higby is getting involved now. Tyler Higby, I think has 20% of his career receiving yards are like the last two games. Like they're getting a lot of people involved. But really I think it's just Jared Gough is not great under pressure and he's not getting pressure nearly as much and they're getting the running game going.

Todd Gurley isn't fully Todd Gurley back, but this is what happens when you can block. Amazing things happen. Yep. So this was the first time since, and 43 games that the Seahawks had not scored an offensive touchdown. I mean, this is, that was a very strange performance with the Seattle Seahawks. And I think that Danny Kelly is more equipped to talk about this. I think he has a whole lot of emotion about the 2019 Seattle Seahawks.

But I think that to lay this kind of egg, on a day where San Francisco looks like legitimate, maybe the top NFC contender. I think that, listen, I'm not going to be, I'm not going to say any races over or anything like that, but I don't think that the Niners would have done that on Sunday night football. I think that they would have dismantled this Rams team,

which again, just got absolutely embarrassed by the Ravens a couple of weeks ago. So it's, the NFC West race is really, really fascinating to me because I think there's so much talent, there's so many good coaches. but I definitely have a favorite right now and I didn't have a favorite at 9am this morning.

So I think that's really interesting to me. You know, look, the Rams. The Seahawks point differential is plus 20. 49 is point differential is plus 168. Yep, exactly. And that's all you need to know about how these teams have gone by the season. But I think that from my perspective,

the Rams did exactly what you said. They could have just shut it down. You know, Bill and I made fun of the Rams. Rams on our the Friday pod. And I think that there was a feeling

that they could have just packed it because they're moving into a new stadium next year, you know, things aren't going all that well.

I guess Gurley's more involved, but I mean, the whole thing seemed to be going south. And, and, you know, you trade for Jalen Ramsey for two first round picks,

go all in this season and all of a sudden it's going south. That's the easiest thing in the world to quit. And I've been hugely impressed by Sean McVeigh the last two weeks. You know, I think that we are

temporarily canceling my was once a joke take, but now is real that he showed some Chip Kelly like signs as far as not being able to make adjustments once his first stick was figured out. This first scheme was figured out. And I think this is the performance

I wanted to see from Sean McVeigh. So congratulations to the ramps. Yeah, well, I think temporarily canceling is pausing. No, I like my phrase better. All right, let's move on. The Indianapolis Colts Jacobi Brissette

Tough one We had so many hopes for the Colts in this podcast We love their organization Chris Ballard might be the best GM right now in the game Frank Reich is one of the best coaches It's been a weird year There's been some big injuries But you can't

You can't be six and seven And you can't lose to James Winston and the Bucks I know we're talking about the Colts But James Winston through an interception on his first pass of this game, which was the third time this year. He's thrown an interception on its first pass of the game.

And the cult's still lost. That's king. That's king stuff. Yeah, this is a brutal loss. I do want to say this. I want to go back to where because I forgot to say it in my notes. Robert Woods might be the most valuable player in football,

apparently. This is like the Earl Thomas Lane Johnson thing where just his existence just change the entire way. The Rams moved football. Anyway, that's all I want to say. Well, in Dantasy, we don't call him Robert Woods. We call him. Bobby Trees.

Okay. We call them Bobby Trees here then. Okay. All right. So let's go back to the Colt. So, yeah, devastating loss. I mean, this team should be like eight and four entering this week because Adam Venetari misses kicks.

But it's disappointing because it's beyond the Adam Vinetary being bad to just, this team is just actually pretty under, really underperform this year. And it's upsetting to watch. Like, it's, the Colts fans are rightfully miserable because. Hold on. They lost their quarterback to retirement in August. And obviously, Andrew Luck was clearly not going to be healthy and ready to play and be Andrew Luck for the 2019 season.

But there was a pretty low, I feel like it was only people who had a pretty in-depth appreciation for who the Colts wore and what they could accomplish who had real expectations for this team. Yeah, but I don't think anyone on the Colts team or even a large portion of their fan base is like, well, you know, luck was out. So we're fine. No, no, no, no. I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. No, no, I know what you're saying. I'm just saying if you were to say, if they end up going eight and eight or nine and seven and you're looking at it from a preseason perspective, I think that that sounds about right.

From the preseason, yes. Yes. But here's the thing. Last year's cults started one in five. This year's cults started four and two. Yeah. So a month into the season, that was like completely over because they're like, holy crap, this is a team that is in better position than last year. And everyone on the team is like older and also kind of healthier. Cooker, their star safety, he was healthy entering the season for the first time and forever. Like, they had a lot going for them that was really great. Camoco Toure was one of the best defensive ends in the whole year and that he gets injured midseason. Justin Houston is, I don't want to say revelation, but he was certainly revelation against the Chiefs in that game, like was the MVP of that. They beat the Chiefs on Sunday night football in week five to go to start three and two.

Then they beat the Texans to go four and two. They beat the Broncos. And then it just goes completely south. they lose to like the Mason Rudolph Steelers. They used to the freaking dolphin. The way that this was done was pull your hair out of your scalp. We are in agreement on that. And one of the things, you give up 456 passing yards of James Winston, 542 total

yards. That's a massive disappointment. But what I was saying... Mike Evans was hurt for a lot of this game too. That's correct. But what I'm saying, the point I'm making here is that I am not putting the cold. in this category with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cleveland Browns who just fell on their faces this season and should be made fun of without reservation. Those two teams are my all-flop teams and the Colts, in my opinion, despite having a disappointing season from the expectations that I had for the team, I think Robert picked them to make the playoffs.

I picked them to be competitive for the playoffs. I think that they are a different category of disappointment. I actually disagree with you there, and here's why. I think that the Browns and the Eagles are more, like, there are more expectations versus what happened, but it's more like what we thought they would be. But those teams, like the Eagles had a lot of injuries this year. I know that's not really like a fun way to be like,

well, you know, this happened, but Lane Johnson has not hurt. Deshawn Jackson had a great week one, and as much as people kind of disparaged them, Like the vertical threat has always been key to the Doug Peterson offense. And Tori Smith in 2017 was great. Haven't been able to replace the deep threat since. And that's been huge.

They've had a lot of injuries in Philadelphia. But with this Colts team, like, they've been pretty battered as the season has gone on. But they still have been so close that I feel like it's upsetting. I guess that they're injuries to in Indianapolis as they've been going. So maybe I'm wrong. But yeah. Okay. Last stock down, Mr. Josh Allen.

Again, a maze favorite. He has some unique insight into him after speaking to him a couple weeks ago. He did not play well. Feel free to confirm. It's not great. It's not great. I feel bad because I feel like I've been very harsh on Josh Allen. But, I mean, coming into this week, he had thrown one interception since, like, the first week of October, like before Columbus Day.

So this was tough, but I'm hesitant to judge because we were just talking about the Rams who were blown up by the Ravens. The Ravens blow everyone up. Like the very nature of playing them, it's like a tornado hits you. I can't try. I can't look. I cannot in good faith be upset with Josh Allen for being blown up like everyone has been blown up by the Ravens. And everyone who, other than the Patriots, lose to the Ravens, play fine after. Yeah.

I will say this. Robert is the one who put this on here before setting with difficulties. I am not all that disappointed with Josh Allen. He has a 62 rating, one touchdown, no picks today. I think that actually speaks more. towards the season Josh Allen is having that we are considering today disappointment to go against a team that's going to be the one seat in the AFC

and to not perform as well as he has earlier this season. So I just think that it's actually a good thing that Josh Allen has these expectations because I don't think at the beginning of the year or two years ago we would have considered Josh Allen to be the type of guy who could beat a team like the Baltimore Ravens. So I you know, this is these types of games happened. the Ravens have won nine in a row.

They are going to clinch the one seat at some point. They have, I saw this, the Ravens set a franchise record for points in a season this week. Yeah, that was incredible. Their previous record was set in 2014 by Joe Flacco. I mean, so, listen, these things happen. Did anything else jump out at you besides Stavis White reading the Ravens playbook on the field as it blew through the wind?

Jadawis White should have been reading how Lamar Jackson's going to break Michael Vick's single season Russian record for a quarterback, by like 200 yards. Let me ask you a question about this. If the bills were able to look at some of the Ravens plays, if it wasn't just a joke, I still think that Lamar Jackson could make things happen. I think there's,

no, because you would be like, you'd be like, am I holding this upside down or not? Like, no, honestly, it wouldn't matter because it's, a lot of the Ravens best stuff is read stuff. You know, it's like the irony of it.

It's like the league in RPAs. I think between Mahomes and Jackson are the two players, I think, had the opposing team's playbook, it would not. It would matter, but it would matter less than every other quarterback because there's, A, no defense for a perfectly thrown pass, and that's, that's Mahomes as much as anybody. And then there's just, sometimes you just can't beat Lamar Jackson when he wants to make you look silly. Mahomes are actually factually correct on that. Josh

Hermesmeyer at 538 just wrote about how Mahomes, his out of pocket, off schedule, throwing once the play breaks down is, like, incredible, like 90 plus QB. There you go. I did. I did. I didn't even see that. I didn't even see that. But I'm glad that this theory I just made up is confirmed by science. You know what? There you go. There is science.

I'm not a scientist, but Josh Hermesmeier is a scientist. All right. Challenge flags. We're just going to get to this quickly. Baker Mayfield, Odell Beckham, all sorts of weirdness on Sunday.

So if you didn't see the story, Jay Glazer has the report. Jay Glazer is one of the best reporters in this business. He says that Odell, not happy in Cleveland. He's telling opposing coaches to come get me. Then there's a report that Odell is playing through sports hernia.

And then Baker Mayfield says the team's medical staff didn't handle Beckham's injury correctly. And then he should have had surgery in training camp that missed the first two games of this season. This is not good. There's almost no second layer of analysis there except to say this is going to take, this could take a turn into something even in an already disappointing Cleveland season that I didn't expect.

This was one of those things where I saw Baker's apology tweets before I saw what he had to apologize for. And as I was reading them, I was like, what, what happened? And I go back and I see the press conference. And it's like, look, everything Baker has kind of been in trouble for. It's the same thing. It's like, not in Toronto. I don't like to use the word.

Baker's had to apologize for is passion. Like, he's a passionate guy and he's fiery and, you know, he speaks his mind. When it comes to like another person's medical stuff, that's just something he should know not to talk about. And he apologize for it. Well, they'll move on. It's tough. Look, this is, having said that, this is one of the reasons people love him when they're on his team because at the core of it, he's standing up for one of his teammates that he cares about. And that is why people like him. I don't, it's a little early for me to say anything either way except to say that this could get, this could get ugly. And this is, again, even in a very bad Cleveland season that this could take a turn. And so, well, I, I hate to say we'll see what happens because that's such a terrible.

out, but in this case, we'll see what happens. All right. Anything else, Danny Hyfitz? I think George Kittle should be the logo for the NFL. You agree with me? I don't know. You already said that. I know, but do you agree with me?

You're not on record. I think that the logo of the league should be Ryan Tannahill, in a two-year, $50 million extension. Hey, tell us about the Dannysi podcast. When's it coming out? What are you going to focus on this week? Dynasty Football. Check us out.

We'll be coming out Monday night, Tuesday morning, whenever we get that puppy up because a lot of people got hurt today. Mike Evans, DeAndre Hopkins, Dwayne Haskins, a lot of people, unfortunately, Josh Allen's little banked up. Patrick Ramos heard his hand. So we're going to be running, Darius Geis, going to be running through a lot of injury placements for the fantasy playoffs. So check us out with Danny Kelly and Mr. Craig. Check out the Dantasy podcast. Danny Havits, thank you so much. We will be back this week with another podcast.

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