The Ringer NFL Show - Week 1 Recap: Bucs Win on the Road, Chiefs Offense Explodes, Steelers' Upset Win, and More

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz are joined by Ben Solak to discuss the Buccaneers' road win over the Cowboys. They discuss their concern level for the Cowboys offense, especially now that Dak Prescott is reportedly going to miss a few weeks with an injury (3:50). Then, Steven and Nora run through a few winners and losers, such as the Chiefs, Bengals, Patriots, and more (25:29). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz Guest: Ben Solak Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone. This is Chris Ryan from The Ringer. As many of you have heard by now, we lost a treasured colleague and friend over the weekend. Jonathan Charks passed away on Saturday. John was 34. He leaves behind a wife and a son, and we are obviously mourning his loss and sending all of our love to his family right now. If you go to the ringer.com slash Jonathan Charks, that's J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N-T-J-A-R-K-S. You will find a memorial page for John, which has links to his GoFundMe that benefits his family. and the amazing writing he did throughout his experience. I encourage you to go there, and if you can, please support the Charks family. Briefly, I will just say that John was among the first people that we hired to work for the Ringer, so he was instrumental in defining the voice and perspective of the site. He has as much to do with what this place is as anyone else.

And throughout his experience with Cancer, John communicated eloquently about the challenges he was facing, both through his writing and his podcasting. You could never stop John from talking about his passions. It's one of the things I loved about him. Over the last few months, whenever we would talk, whenever I would reach out to see how he was doing, I would try to keep it very John focused,

and the next thing I knew we would be talking about James Hardin or Better Call Saul. He really loved this stuff. He loved talking about it, celebrating it, debating it, illuminating it. We're going to keep putting out our pods and writing while we grieve, but we wanted to let folks know that John was in our hearts and that his family was in our thoughts.

Thanks for listening. bring her NFL show. Week 1 Sunday is in the books. I'm Nora Pintiati, and I am here with Benjamin Solac. Hello, Benjamin. How are you doing? Didn't you just feel it when you're watching 2 20 to 20 overtime games get underneath four minutes in the 1 p.m. slate?

It's, mm. That's some football, baby. We are back in action. It's delicious. And Stephen Ruiz is here. Stephen, how did you enjoy this, this football Sunday that we've waited so long for? I was a little overwhelmed.

There was too much football going on. I feel like I didn't like come to and realize what I was watching until like 4.30. That's very, I think that's a very honest way of explaining how you processed week one. There's always just like a lot of, I think I'm more stimulated on football Sundays than like any other concentrated period of time in my life. And it's always a little bit jarring when you, when you get back into it. Ben, did you feel like you were soaking it all in and just like buzz in every facet of your brain? Well, yeah. But the thing is, I watch football a little differently than the two you watch football.

Because you guys are like, I hope this game is good. And I'm like, I hope Hayden Hurst has more than two and a half catches. And so I get a series of smaller ups and downs than you guys get that exist over the course of the game, right? Like Cordill Patterson is over on rushing yards in the second quarter. And I'm like, bang, I'm happy with the outcome of the Falcons Saints game, independent of anything that happens next. the Saints come back and I'm like, it's great for the Saints. I've already finished my business with this game.

I'm chilling. So I have a different tempo to my watching than the Normies do. What you're saying is that Stephen and I watch football and we're here on the first Sunday the season going, oh my God, there's so many things going on at once. Ah, the Eagles look cool.

Oh no, what's happening in Falcon Saints? Ah, it's so much to process. And you're watching going, ah, the financial future of my life. That will happen. Financial future. But yeah, basically the nuts and bolts of that, yes, is accurate. Well, I think most of us can agree that it's very good to have football back.

The exception to that might be the Dallas Cowboys. So I think we should talk about first because we just watched Sunday night football in which the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ever heard of him beat the Dallas Cowboys 19 to 3. Tom Brady was fine. I would say we can talk about that later, 18 to 22 for 200. 12 yards, touchdown and a pick. The story of the game was that Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys offense

was completely held out of the end zone, looked absolutely abysmal. And within minutes of this game ending, Dak Prescott left the game before it ended with an apparent hand injury. And Jerry Jones, who just finds himself as he does at the end of every Cowboys game, in the midst of a scrum of reporters,

shares with all of us the information that he is already sure that DAC will be out several weeks because he needs surgery for an injury in the joint above the thumb on his right hand. That's HIPAA. That's HIPAA. Dack is a big proponent of HIPAA. You can't say that. You can't.

We set president here. We HIPAA in this building. It's also HIPAA to read his stat line from tonight. That's HIPAA too. Actually, this entire podcast is the HIPAA violation. I love that Jerry's a long distance. doctor now, right? Like the other 31 teams, a guy's knee bends 95,000 different ways. And three hours later, we get like, initial reports are that Ben Solac has torn his ACL. However, a second

opinion will be taken on Monday to see if he needs surgery. And Jerry's like, listen, I saw Dak jogging. It's very clear surgery is needed on his thumb. Don't we still not know what happened to Ryan Jensen? That dude hurt his knee in like July. I was there. It was a long time ago. There's still like there's too much swelling. We're not really sure what happened. Jerry's just like surgery three weeks.

It's done. David Bakhtiari's had like a mystery knee surgery for like a year. If he was on the Cowboys, we would know. We would have x-rays of his knee in MRIs. Do we think Jerry Jones has a future as like Dr. Oz or Phil or I don't, whichever one is more likely to make medical predictions. that they shouldn't be making on television. Maybe that's both.

That feels like an Oz who's currently also running for something in the state of Pennsylvania. Yes, which she doesn't live. Shout out my boys in PA. Who I believe is a Cowboys fan, which I actually only know because the guy who's running against him likes to make fun of him for being a Cowboys fan. So maybe there's an opportunity for synergy here. I don't know. We're full circle.

Anyway, Jerry Jones, who I suppose... We are forced to believe is correct in his assessment that DAC is going to be out for several weeks after getting surgery on the thumb. Was tremendously disappointing. He said real disappointed before Jack's injury and certainly disappointed after it was the Jerry Jones quote. Stephen, what were you tremendously disappointed by in this game? The Cowboys skill players. I think that's what the game comes down to. They just don't have the dudes anymore.

I know Michael Gallup didn't play. maybe he'll come back eventually and maybe he'll get to 100%. But if he doesn't, this is going to be ugly. This is like, I don't know. Like the Bucks defense is very good. And when Todd Bowles' game playing is cooking, like they're very hard to beat. But no one was open. The offense line was bad.

Dak was under duress all game long. Every throw seemed like a tight window throw that was contested. It was just rough to watch. It was one of the, on a Sunday with a lot of rough offensive performances, it was the roughest. Yeah. Yeah. There's a snowball that rolls down the mountain there

with the cowboy skill position that like the bottom of that mountain was this week one game where, okay, we're going to trade Amari Cooper because contract-wise, we don't really know what we're doing here. So we're going to train him for pennies too.

We've got to remember the Amari Cooper trade was why they were going to cut him and then they got a fifth instead of cutting him. It's like generally just bumbled and fumbled from the jump. But it's all right. We have C.D. Lamb and that's good. And Michael Galb's coming back from injury,

which last couple weeks have been like Gallup said to reporters, yeah, I'm not playing week one. And then over the course of the last seven days, the guy was going like, hey, Gallup's practicing. He might play week one. And it's like, Michael, Michael said, Michael, the man, said he's not playing in this game like a week ago. So that was going on.

They draft Jaylon Tolbert. Yeah, so they draft Jalen Tolbert in the third round and wide receiver out of South Alabama. He's a healthy scratch for this game. No injury. So the third round pick a wide receiver who they knew they had the gallop injury coming down the mountain. They signed James Washington, free agency.

he got hurt during camp. They didn't bring anybody else in the building because they were going to give Jaylen Tolbert more reps. And this whole thing starts with snowball where you're like, all right, no Cooper, no Gallup, no Washington, no Tolbert, and all of a sudden you're starting Dennis Houston. And I don't know who Dennis Houston is.

And it's not that like Ben Solac knowing a player should be the benchmark where the not they should be starting. But me not knowing who Dennis Houston has really freaked me out, man. I was worried about that. That was, I found that concerning as a draft person who generally follows players and how they get selected. All of a sudden, you just get a ton of attention on CD Lamb, and you're in a bad spot skill position-wise.

Same thing happened on the offensive line. We can't bring it back Leo Collins. He's got injury problems. They're going to elevate Terrence Steel that gets rid of our swing tackles. We have to draft Tyler Smith. And, oh, no, we have another off-season injury. There's Tyrant Smith. There's Tyrant Smith.

We'll just play Tyler McGovern. Goes down during the game. We'll now have to play Matt Farniok. And there's just no protection. Like, this, it's felt like a long. drawn out talent drain in Dallas over the course of the last like four or five months that culminated here in this game where there's just dudes on the field that are not supposed to be on the field and we've won against Tampa Buccaneers. And that's how you get a three point

offensive output. That talent drain, I think, was the story of the, yes, Cowboys offseason. The thing that always couched that was that DAC was there. And I mean, I thought that was one of the worst games I've ever watched Dak Prescott participated. I don't think, you know, Health is a different story, but I don't think that if you play 17 games, even with lessened skill position talent, even with lessened talent on the offensive line, the additional injury of McGovern, I don't think Dak Prescott plays that poorly every single one of a 17 game season. I thought that was like pretty obviously the low end of what he does. But if we take this, which I think is the only thing that we can do, as evidence that with this,

This surrounding him, DAC is not as likely as maybe we felt coming into the season as he was to be able to elevate this group. Like, DAC was what was supposed to be good about the Cowboys. Dak was supposed to be the thing where if you look at the NFC East, it's like, eh, I mean, the Eagles really seem like they're rising. Maybe they can compete. But man, the Cowboys have Dak. Dak's such a good quarterback.

He's such a smart quarterback. He's such a good processor. or if that doesn't matter, like we need to start thinking of this group as just in terms of overall roster talent. Like they're easily bottom half of the league, if not more than that. And the exception to that has always been the quarterback.

And it just didn't look like whether it's because of the surroundings or because he just wasn't playing well or we shouldn't forget that he also had a health issue that was sort of not well understood coming into the game where he said that he felt something pop in a foot earlier this week. and nobody really ever identified it, but that didn't sound great. Like, if for a bunch of different reasons,

DAC is not the DAC that we expect him to be, this is a pretty bad team. I mean, Stephen, does that sound like an overreaction to you? I want to wait like another week because I do think that the Bucks defense just played, like they played their asses off tonight. Sure. I don't know if any offense,

especially one that was shorthanded, was going to look good against that defense with the way they played. played. But I mean, if you're giving Dennis Houston five targets, you're giving Noah Brown nine targets, like you're not, you're not a good football team. You're just not a good football team. And last year, we considered this one of the stacked offenses in the league. And like you said, this is a bottom half, in terms of talents, a bottom half offense right now. And I think it's going to take some time for Michael Gallup, even when he comes back, it's going to take him some time to get

back to what Michael Gallup was, and I don't think that Michael Gallup was like, he's not some offensive savior. He's just a good role player, I think. Right. The thing with Gallup is that he's so good in these isolation routes, right? Back shoulder nine ball, over the top nine balls, deep comeback, you know, curl at the sticks, which if there's a complaint to be had with Kellan Moore, the offense coordinator for the Cowboys, which I think there is like over the course of good Cowboys games, it's mediocre Cowboys games and now certainly this Cowboys game, it's that Kellan Moore really just like is very, very, very, very confident in Dax's ability to throw with timing to throw against matchups, which is like, fine.

You got to play your offense your quarterback strengths. Once you're in the CD Lamb, Noah Brown, Dennis Houston world, it's like, right, it's time to create some offense somewhere else. Like a cool thing for the Cowboys, this game would have been a screen. They tried to throw one to Z, but also it's like maybe throw one to CD, right? Like they tried to do like a silly reverse play. like he more always has these like one-offs right these random like one single plays like bursts of huge creativity and then he goes back to being like and we're just going to run like a bunch of stop

routes we're going to run like isolation nines and ask dack to throw back shoulder like there was a second and eight back shoulder throw to dennis houston which is just like the timing location was a little bit off and it's like oh like dac is usually so accurate he's missing yeah but also like that route just requires so much chemistry so much detail that if you're asking your quarterback to throw it too undrafted free agent he hasn't played much with, you're making a mistake from the jump, even if that quarterback is DAC. Because the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

The probability is so low that you're going to get this contested route against Carlton Davis open that has no chance for Yak anyway, that it's like, man, let's run a pick route. Let's run a rub route. Let's do a little offensive pass interference and see if we can get away with it. Let's cheese this a little bit.

And so I think that, you know, DAC a little bit, Dax's strengths kind of wrote this, this, this, this script that ended up putting the Cowboys into an even worse spot than they were. It's like, Dac is so precise. Dak is such a good process or he'll be able to elevate with our receivers. And it's like, no, no, no, you actually kind of have to take the offense a little bit out of Dax's hands. Like, do some of the silly stuff. Do some of the stupid stuff. Like, you don't have the receiver talent to get this finely tuned cog of a machine working and this passing game flowing the way

you need it to. You got to do some stupid stuff in the edges. You got to do some stuff in the margins to get this done. The other thing that was really big for them is that last year they were so good running outside zone. Last year they were so good at running zone. They had multiple offensive alignment. They could get in. They could add dudes to the box and they had like Darwin and Dalton Schultz and they pollard and Zeke. And then they could get to their play action game. They do not have that right now with the office align personnel. And so they weren't able to get the running game working into the play action game. And so that takes away another like one of your most common cheeses is play action, right? That's how we like get quarterbacks to just like have easy

completions, easy buckets. They couldn't get to that game at all. And so, Dak played a bad game. Dak was inaccurate. This was a very, very bad Dak game. There were buoys, lifesavers that could have been thrown to him in terms of like Kellan Moore that were not. That then just were not proud. Yeah, they give you a piece of the blame pie to also give to Kellyn Moore. It's hard to score only three points, takes a village and more deserves a piece of that blame pie. Yeah. Yeah, I think they just need to give Dak more help. like you said. Last year it worked because they had so much talent around him, they could put so much on his plate and ask him to be that distributor, that drop back passer. This year it's not going to work.

You need to give him some help like Solac saying. Are you going to personally apologize for your ranking of Jack Prescott, Stephen? No. He will be dropping in the rankings, but no. It was one game. It was one game. And he was bad in ways that we, that DAC typically isn't bad. So I'm not really overreacting to that performance. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's, I'm, I'm actually with you there. If we take the health thing out of it, I don't think that there is, even with this collection of talent,

I don't think that there's any way that this is like the baseline Dak Prescott game for the remainder of the season. I just think that what him having that kind of bad game and with what they were doing offensively and the way that that Kellan Moore was calling the game with all of that compounding it, I think it shines a real spotlight on what we've sort of tiptoed up

to believing in the off season, but was even more clear tonight, just that this roster is really devoid of a lot of talent. What about the bucks? What did you see for Mr. Tom Brady this evening, Benjamin Zolak? Brady is 45 years old, just slinging the pill around the yard a little bit. Just hitting Julio Jones down the field.

Yeah, absolutely. Just hitting nine routes, just live in life, you know, yelling at his third string, second string left tackle for not blocking Michael Parsons correctly. Just doing Tommo things. Uh, Tomo. Get a little Tommy action.

Uh, in terms of the buck's offense. You didn't say Tomo. You didn't say Tom. I said Tomo, first, yes. And then I said Tommy.

And I'll say any iteration of Tom, my dang well, please. At this point, he's been to leave for long enough. He's going to find fun ways to say his name. The Pharaoh, as he's referred to in his pro football

reverence, the name list. The most interesting thing I found about the buck's offense was they're pulling a lot of dudes in the running game. And this was something that I think they finished with that dial a little bit last year, but it seemed like it was a lot more of the mainstay of the offense. They were able to get to the edge with lead lockers for Leonard Fournett, which like the book

on Leonard Fornett is a fascinating book. And do like top five pick and then knock it with the Jaguars. And then he runs duo here with the Buccaneers and he's catching pass from Tom Brady and everything. The nut graph for Leonard Fornet, the summary on the back of the book is, can you get him on a straight line? He's always going to rumble over somebody. And when you can run power and run counter and get pullers in front of him, you have the potential of getting Leonard front out on a straight line in a second level.

And that's when he's going to rip off some of these 9 to 10-yard runs, which is where he's really, really damaging. That's what was drafted so highly. And so I liked that. And it provides a flavor to their running game or the play action pass a game that they didn't really hit as much previously. So just adding a new dynamic to the offense. That to me was notable.

Julio looking like he's healthy was notable. Godwin looked like he's healthy. It was notable. This offense, obviously, they stole it. a lot in the red zone. They're going to have to work on that. But they look to be back to like threshing machine levels where it's just a slow wood chipper march down the field. There's not much you can do about that. So it was surprising to me that Godwin and Russell Gage were both active, both played.

Then it seemed like Godwin, I think, tweaked his hamstring at one point. So that is something to watch. I suppose those are unrelated injuries. It made me kind of nervous just for a minute to see that guy who it's like, didn't you just tear your ACL already back and then get banged up. So I think that's like a mild thing to watch. I did think it looked like the offensive line was a little bit shaky, but overall, Tomo doing Tomo things as as present company would say. Stephen mentioned the defense.

I thought they looked really, really good. Stephen, are we missing anything? What did you, what did you think of Tomo? Do you have any nicknames to add to this pile? No, but I think we have to talk about Julio Jones. The fact, beyond the deep catch that he made, which was amazing. The fact that they gave him two jet sweeps and they were both effective was just like, oh, man, he has his juice back.

He's on the TB12 diet. Of course he does. Everyone in the buck signed. They just rejuvenate it. It's funny how that happens. Stephen said there's nothing to investigate here. Nothing. Nothing.

I don't believe in Santa Claus. We need to get gate expert Jerry Jones to take a good, clear look at what's going on over there and then we'll really understand that. We'll really understand. Jerry, what's your prognosis there on Julio Jones? What do you think, Jerry? But I'm not concerned about the offensive line. Like, it wasn't bad in the ways we feared it would be bad, like the interior pressure.

It was just like, oh, Donovan Smith got hurt. And then the Cowboys started moving Michael Parsons over to go up against the backup left tackle and they got sacks and killed drive. So I'm not really worried about the offense. I think the offense is going to be good. I'm even more optimistic about the offense after tonight. Really? If Julio is that every game?

Do you think that's reasonable? Okay, that's really interesting. I am so nervous with Julio that I think I have this built in. Like, don't count on it. Anything you get from him is awesome and great. And it's like very cool to see Julio catching deep balls and running jet sweeps and doing cool stuff. It like, it makes me nervous.

So maybe that's why. I thought they looked fine. I wasn't like this is an amazing bucks offense right now. I thought the line was like, little shaky. But I take your point. No, no, it was definitely not like an impressive performance. I think you just see the pieces, the individual pieces. And once they come together, it's going to be like a fire breathing dragon. And if you had said, hey, there's no gronk, what's going to be the one area where it really hurts the bucks early in the season? You would have said red zone. That would have

been your answer. Like, Gronk was the guy for this team and they got within the 20. They didn't have him and they were bad within like the 2530. But to me, that's like some regression stuff. That's certainly the pressure stuff is Michael Parsons cat, man. Pretty good. It's just a sick freaking game. Holy smokes. So, yeah, I think that you play that game back a bunch of times. You're very

rarely going to see the bucks have to settle for what? Four fuel goals that they did when they got inside the 30 there? Yeah, to me that's a little bit noisy. And I also think that, like, critically, the bucks have the requisite depth to make sure they don't have to use guys like Julio

or Godwin with the hamstring tweak or Lennon Fournette, like that entire fourth quarter was Rashad White. The wide receiver depth chart underneath Julio is, it's Russell Gage and Scotty Miller. Like, Miller's been like a significant role player for them for a while. Russell Gage was a starter last year for the Falcons, right? If they, like, want to give Julio a veteran rest day on Sunday, they can do it and probably be fine, right? And so that's the thing is I think there's going to be a long-term view in the room for the health

of some of their older veterans, especially considering how last year ended. Yeah, I almost wondered. that was almost the feeling with Godwin was just like, did you need to do this? But if his injury is not serious, then that's not a big deal. Also knowing Chris Godwin, I would assume Chris Godwin was in Todd Bull's room saying,

hey, if I don't play in week one, I'm going to throw a hissy fit. You and I have a problem. Yeah. And so it's kind of, you know, how well can you manage Godwin's desire to get on the football field. That's actually how you wound up on this podcast tonight, Ben.

I threw a hissy fit, baby. It's how we do it. Stephen and I were just going to hold my breath until I get what I want. And Ben said, absolutely not. I'm going to be there. I'm finding the link to the Zoom. I'm going to click on it. I'm going to jump in.

You're not going to be able to get rid of me. Ben, we are going to let you go. Will you give us just like, I don't know, 40 seconds on the Eagles before you do? Go birds. The Eagles continue to believe they can stop the run with about four total players. They gave up over 200 rushing yards. to the Detroit Lions. They get Dalvin Cook in the Minnesota running game next week,

as well as Justin Jefferson, while they've showed an inability to cover guys downfield. I feel fine. Personally, I'm loving it. I feel great. Right now, the only thing I see in the future is Thursday night football, Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes,

and then there's just blackness after that, because I'm assuming I don't survive that game. I'm assuming that my little heart can't handle the experience. So if we even get to Eagles Vikings, Monday night football, ball to victory. I'm excited for that game. I'm excited for you, Ben.

I think you're going to make it there. And you should get that little heart checked out. That would be a problem. I can't imagine what it would look at. If I wore one of those fitness watches that tells you what your heart rate is during NFL Sunday, that would be, they would be very concerned about me at the Fitbit headquarters or wherever that information goes. I've always said that.

I watched Game of Thrones for the first time over the summer. And I get very nervous when people fight on television. And I never did it. Yeah. I made it through. Great show. But I really, like, there were so many times when I was like, I should really get a fit bit. Like, I should really be able to track this because I can tell that my physical state is so altered by what's going on here.

And that's what I imagine it was like for you, watching the Philadelphia Eagles. Yeah. Pull out a week one win. Very good. If we circle it back to the first question you asked me about how it is to watch football again, I did say to mayor at one point, I forgot how much I sweat during these. games. So I was just getting, I just get a little hot on the call. I was just feeling it. It was good. It's a good memory. All right. On that note, thank you so much, Ben. We hope you survive Thursday and have a football so that you can come back and join us next Sunday.

All right. I'll see you then. All right. Let's get to winners and losers. Let's start on a positive note. Steven, would you like to give me a first winner for the day? My first winner is the Kansas City Chiefs who blew out the Cardinals today. I don't even know how high that score when I turned it off in the fourth quarter. I had predicted on the Friday show, by the way, that it was going to be a low-scoring affair. It was not. It was not a low-scoring affair. Patrick Mahomes, what's surprising to me, he was, he led the NFL in, uh, EPA per dropback this, this week, but he only attempted three passes beyond 20 air yards. So we had been talking like all offseason long about how we, the chiefs were going to try to unlock their deep passing game. They just didn't have to. We saw like,

the first three years of Patrick Mahomes career, a lot of deep throws. Last year, he kind of figured out he had to throw the underneath stuff to open up those deep balls. This week, we got like mid-range Patrick Mahomes. It was all like 10 to 20 yards, just crazy tight window throws.

And here's the crazy thing. Like, I know a lot of people are criticizing Vance Joseph because they blitz a lot. I think they blitz them like 50% of the time. I thought the Cardinals' game plan and their defense wasn't that bad. It was just Mahomes is making,

these crazy plays out of structure. And it was like good defense. And he actually performed worse against the blitz than he did against a four-man rush. So I'm not faulting that gameplay. I think Mahomes has like raised his game to another level. And we're going to see this chief's offense be like a totally different thing compared to what it was like the first three years of his career and even last year.

So they win 44 to 21. And I'm sort of with you on the offense because it's kind of like, no notes. No notes, Patrick. 360 yards, 9.2 yards per attempt, five touchdowns. Nate Tice tweeted that they ran 66

offensive plays and they had 33 first downs. Like, that's not really how you, how football goes. That's just like not a thing. The questions over what that offense would look like without Tyree Kill. I mean, Travis Kelsey was very clearly the focal point.

That went just fine. I do. I am not willing to concede that blitzing wasn't a mistake, though. I mean, this was the first game in Patrick Mahomes' entire career where he was blitzed on over half his dropbacks. This is from next gen stats. He's the only quarterback since 2018 to be blitzed less than 24% of the time in general, obviously not today. And he has still generated more than twice as much passing EPA against the blitz than any other quarterback.

This is like we don't even really have to consider the results in this case to know that they made a mistake because this is a player who you do not blitz a ton and the Cardinals were just like, you know, it would be funny if we did blitz him more than anyone has ever done. Like I cannot sit here and tell you I think that logic has sound. I do not think that this was a good game plan. Although I take your point about. I totally agree. I totally agree. But let me give you some numbers. 5.5 yards per drop back against the blitz,

12 yards per drop back against no blitz. Like, I mean, what can you say about that? Like, it's not like when they were rushing for it. It was working. He was gaining 12 yards per drop back. It really, it's, it's, it is hard to find a counter for that specific example, other than just to say that it was all bad, right? Like, it's not like they were crushing up against the blitz. Nothing was working.

No, no, right. They were, he was like phenomenal against both. Any option the Cardinals took, he killed it. All I have for you is that blitzing Patrick Mahomes is bad and that the Cardinals somehow managed to be extra bad when they decided not to. Like, that's all I got. But if I'm a defensive coordinator and I'm looking at this game, God help me if, I mean, okay, so they have the Chargers next.

But God help me if somewhere down the line, I'm like, you know what my takeaway is? I should blitz that guy. That would be a good idea. it would not be a good idea. No, the best game plan is to pretend like you're sick and just not show up for work that day. Because there's the...

I don't have the words to describe some of the things he did. No other quarterback should try those things. They would get hurt if they tried those things. He had one pass to Travis Kelsey. He was like a deep over route. And Travis Kelsey was like completely covered. And the throw was just perfect. And the way Mahomes like threw it and let go of the ball.

It was like he was... He was aiming it within like an inch and it was like 30 yards down field. Just, yeah, like you said, no notes. He's the best quarterback in the league. Like I had Aaron Rogers rank number one coming into this week. No, Patrick Mons is the best quarterback in the NFL. Yeah, I think I'm with you on that one. It's like, I'm not a, I'm not a Ewing theory person with Tyree Kill in the sense that

I know that if you talk to defensive coordinators, that is like one of the, the top guys where they're just like, I don't want a game plan against you. Right. So this is in no way to say that they're not going to in some ways miss him or that he's not a very, very good player to have on your roster and that he didn't make their offense better a lot of the time. But they're just so experienced at this point. Like the reason they had to get rid of him is because they are in this mode now where

they're not really looking at like, okay, let's blow out our week one opponent, even though that's obviously what happened. They're looking at seasons as we just have to, hopefully, if we can get the one seed that's really valuable, so hopefully we can do that.

But they've got to be looking at, we just need to get to the AFC championship game, absolutely as many times as we possibly can while we employ this guy. It doesn't really matter how it goes if the season that leads up to that is incredibly dominant or not. and he's good enough that if you don't get the one seat, it's not like all is lost.

Because if you do that, you're just going to, you have enough of a chance to do that like five times in the next however many years. And then you're going to win a bunch of Super Bowls and it's going to be awesome. And watching Mahomes just operate this offense, even without the player who used to be their offensive focal point

other than the quarterback, obviously. Watching him do that really solidified that. the other thing that in a weird way sort of solidified that for me today was that when Butker the kicker got hurt, they had a plan. And there were so many kicking issues today where it just reveals like what an Achilles heel

it is for so many teams where if the long snapper gets hurt or if there is like a critical special teams injury, there's just sort of nothing they can do about it. And then you're looking at the chiefs and there's a sideline reporter going, oh, no, they had Justin Reed do it a couple of times in the preseason, and he practices it once in a while. And that's not to say that, you know, these are specialist jobs for a reason.

That's not going to say that it's going to solve the problem. But there was so much about how this game went, I think particularly when you compare it to just what we know about what's dysfunctional about the Cardinals right now, that made me be like, oh, yeah, the team with the really solid coaching staff that's done this for forever and the quarterback who's a wizard, those guys are pretty good. Good take, good take. Thanks, bud.

I would also add the defense. Like, the offense is obviously going to steal all the headlines because they scored a lot of points. The defense really looked impressive to me. They put Tyler Murray under pressure a lot. They got a lot from George Carlottis, the rookie. I think they got them on day two. Five pressures, led the team with pressures.

Carlos Dunlap got a sack. I forget who the other guy was, but they were getting after. Chris Jones had a really, really good game. He didn't get a sack, but he had a lot of pressures. They were getting after Murray. I think Murray was pressured on 40% of his dropbacks. That's a big deal.

If their defense is just like league average, I mean, this team is going to, they're going to waltz to like the first seat. Because I, we're going to get to the chargers later, but the chargers like, they almost charger it again. So I'm not totally sold on them. the Raiders obviously lost that game. I don't know if the AFC West is going to be as competitive as we think

if this is what the Chiefs offense looks like every week. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. We'll see you on Thursday. That's true in the game that might kill Ben Zolak. All right. I'll give you my first winner, which is another offense that wasn't quite as high scoring, but in certain ways was very, very impressive, which is the Vikings who beat the Packers 23 to 7, mostly.

due to the unbelievably good play of Justin Jefferson, who caught nine passes for 184 yards and two touchdowns, which is pretty good. I've been told that that is pretty good. That's my understanding. A big talking point from this game was that the Packers played mostly zone defensively, which meant that they didn't get Jair Alexander matched up on Jefferson very much. and after the game, Alexander told a couple of Packers reporters Matt Schneidman and Rob Domovsky that quote, all week, I was asking for that matchup, but then he said it wasn't about him. So it didn't seem like he was too upset, but it did seem like he was maybe a little bit. You never know if that's just defensive backs talking or if he was salty about that.

Matt LaFleur said that they would have wanted him to be matched up on Jefferson more, but they couldn't do it if they were committed to playing zone. I just struggle with that because the one the one snap in the third quarter where they actually did get them matched up one-on-one, Alexander Forston in completion, and drew offensive pass interference. So it just seems like you paid that guy a lot of money and he's very good at football and you might want to put him on the other guy who's very good at football. That is just me.

The Packers have had week one stinkers before. I'm really, really hesitant to. draw all that much on their side from this overall. But I do think that seeing this new Vikings offense perform pretty well. I mean, we think of the Packers defense is very good, generally, and particularly get, you know, their best offensive player in space making a huge impact is pretty important, particularly because let's say the Packers totally rebound and this becomes a two-team race in the division,

that's where this game is going to matter. It's going to matter less as like, okay, are the Packers sunk because they were terrible in week one? We know that that's not necessarily true. It happened last year. But even if they do rebound, it never hurts to win a game in the division.

So I was really impressed by the Vikings, particularly for what they were able to do offensively in the first game with Kevin O'Connell. What did you think, Stephen? Yeah. Like the deep passing game was really working. Justin Jefferson told us on this podcast that he was going to be the best receiver after the season. And week one, early returns looking pretty good on that prediction.

That's what I was most impressed with is their ability to produce those deep shots. And I think part of the reason why the Packers didn't play a lot of man is just it's hard to do when you play an offense. Like it's the McVeigh-Shannahan type of offense. Like those teams usually see a lot of zone because they're going to run the ball early. And you don't want to be playing man necessarily against run looks. and I mean, I get Jaya Alexander's frustration, but that's just the type of defense you're in. We saw it with Jalen Ramsey.

The Rams played a ton of soft zone on Thursday night. He didn't get to man up. And it's a shame that some of these defenses are going this way. I heard that that didn't count, though. Yeah, those don't count. We don't count. We don't count zone reps. Zone does not count as covering.

Like, I don't care. I don't care. But only man reps. But I just think that's what you have to do in this league. You have to play man coverage. You have to find a way. stick tight to receivers and the Packers just couldn't do it. And I think one way to explain it is maybe not playing in preseason, not playing their

starters was the issue because you're playing a brand of defense where you need a lot of communication. They play a lot of match coverage where they're passing off routes. And that was an issue. We saw the one touchdown that Justin Jefferson scored. No one was around him. The best player on the other team, just no one covered him. And maybe these teams need to start playing.

their starters in preseason a little more. I don't know. But I thought this across the league, it just seemed like teams were off. Yeah. I mean, there's always something to that. And then it's also like some of the teams that

rest their guys look totally fine or the teams that play really hard in the preseason and have starters take a lot more snaps. Can also look bad. I do think like it's hard to look at the past. and not go, okay, this is a team that notably doesn't have starters play a lot in the preseason, lets them take a light workload getting ready for the season, two seasons in a row. They've had these really bad week one outings.

And then also, you know, Aaron Rogers spent a lot of the offseason appearing on podcasts, which no shade, so did I. That said, you guys basically had the same summer. That's not good. I don't think that's a good thing. I worry about this. I do worry about it a tad. Enough that like, look, let's just put it this way.

If I were Matt Lafleur, I would maybe try something different next year. Yes. Just give it a whirl. Maybe it won't change anything. And clearly it didn't stink their season last year. So there's really no good reason to think that it would this year. I mean, that's at least how I feel. I was much more encouraged by the Vikings in this game.

then worried about the Packers. The only thing is they had Devante Adams last year. And I felt like I didn't watch the full game, but whenever I looked up on third down, like Aaron Rogers was, it was like he was looking for Devante Adams and he just wasn't there. And I think that's going to be an issue all season. I think the Packers are going to be fine. But when they start playing good teams and you've got to have those plays on third down

because those plays are going to come up against good teams more often, I don't, I just, I'm ready to write them off as like Super Bowl contenders just because. they don't have that go-to guy. And I don't think Aaron Rogers is going to be able to create that on his own. We saw, like when at the end of the Mike McCarthy era, when Aaron Rogers was going on that dip, that was the problem. He was trying to make too many plays out of structure. And he started to miss open receivers running down field.

And I wouldn't be surprised if that happens again. Don't laugh at what I'm about to say. I do think that when they get Lazard back, it might be a little bit better just because Rogers likes him and seems to trust him. And other than Randall Cobb, it seems like he holds most of the people he's playing with in contempt right now. So if he at least feels like the guy that he's playing with is, you know, just as good as Devante Adams or whatever he said over the summer, which is obviously not true. It'll help.

It'll help somewhat. I'm not too worried about the Packers. I'm encouraged by the Vikings, but not too worried about the Packers. Who are we worried about? Stephen, can we get a loser going on in here? Yeah. Yeah, this brings me no pleasure, but the Bengals are my first loser. That's a lie.

It brings me a lot of pleasure. I've had a contentious offseason with Bengals fans. No, but the Bengals, the Bengals offense in particular. And you hear that Joe Burr, they lost the game, 23 to 20, a crazy game. They probably should have lost it like three times. The Steelers probably should have lost it like three times. Steelers end up winning on a last, there was like two minutes left in overtime when they kicked it. I read that like I saw the box score.

Joe Burrow got sacks seven times. And I expected the offensive line to be bad when you looked at the underlying metrics. But he wasn't that bad. Only six quarterbacks were pressured more or less than he was this on Sunday. There were seven sacks, but he had 65 dropbacks. So that kind of like inflates the numbers. Right. And the concerning thing, though, is that it wasn't the new guys that were giving up the pressure.

The one guy that gave up pressure was Jonah Williams. And like the left side of the offensive line was kind of the strong suit of the past protection unit last year. And now all of a sudden that's an issue. An issue he was getting killed by Highsmith. Like T.J. Watt made a lot of plays. But it was High Smith that was producing the pressure most often against Jonah Williams. And part of the other reason that they took a lot of sacks was because Joe Burroughs, he just, he needs to get rid of the ball quickly. I thought he was trying to do too much.

He was trying to spin out of sacks. He got knocked out of field goal range a couple times. there was the first sack of the game. He had a guy wide open in the flat. He just didn't throw it to him and he took a sack. It was a rough game for Joe Burrow. Now, having said that, I don't think Joe Burrow was going to be that bad

because he was really bad. I don't think he's going to be that bad going forward. But there is one concern. They didn't hit on any of those perimeter deep balls that powered their offense last year. And I think that's because the Steelers adjusted how they played the Bengals. They played a lot of cover two this week.

and they basically forced Joe Burrow to make those deep outbreaking throws, which he doesn't have the strongest arm, which I've covered a lot. And he struggled making him. He threw a pick on one of them. I think it was his first pick. This offense is going to need like a plan B if teams are able to take away those explosives. And they were on Sunday at least, but the Steelers have a really good defense. But if that continues, I think that's something to watch going forward.

If they're not hitting those explosives down the sideline, I don't know if Zach Taylor has a plan B, but it's going to be on him to find one. This was not the most encouraging Zach Taylor game, I would say. There was some wasted seconds on the clock when he punted with some time left in regulation that they could have used in the end.

Obviously, he didn't challenge the chase catch that probably was a touchdown where he said he didn't think it was and that it's hard to see that part of the field. So it's entirely possible. that they could have won this game, even though they, as you said, it seemed like they should have lost it five different times. It's also possible that they could have won it if there had been one different coaching choice. Other than that, I'm not that worried about the Bengals

after this. I just think the ways in which Joe Burrow was bad were so uncharacteristic, particularly early in the game when he had all the turnovers. Bengals were minus five and the turnover differential in this game. The Steelers' Deals were. The Steelers' Deals, defense just like, it just seems like they freaked him out. It just seemed like he didn't, he didn't see the field clearly. And that's just not what happens to Joe Burrow. And I actually think it would have been scarier if it had been like, okay, they did all this work in the offseason to improve the offensive line.

And then they go out there and he's just getting pummeled again. And it felt like that was happening sometimes because it's still the Steelers defense and they're so well coached and they're really good and they're really good year over year. And because of the offense, we sort of forget how solid they are and how many guys are just really impactful there. But as you were saying, he was only pressured on 14% of his dropbacks. That's from true media. But he was sacked on almost 12% of them.

That's like really weird. That is not a thing that's going to repeat itself over and over again. That is a statistical anomaly. normally, if he's taking that little pressure, he would not be getting sacked all that much. So I'm willing to say that that's just not going to happen over and over again. And part of that is just it's an outlier. Part of that it's just the Steelers have really, really good impact players who are good finishers and who are explosive and who are super, super strong and athletic.

If we take that as not something that's going to be representative of what the Bengal season is going to look like, then it actually does look like they improved their offensive line. Because on a pressure basis, they did pretty well against a really, really good defensive front. And if that's true, then they didn't necessarily solve, but they helped the biggest thing that held them back last year. And I think that's much more important than Joe Burrow having a really weird game that I just don't think that he will have all that many. of this season. So I'm not that freaked out about it. But I get it.

Like I get it. Yeah, I really don't think the offensive line was that big of an issue on second watch. Like it seemed like it the first time you watched. Like one of the sacks was like an RPO that ended up getting busted. It was like a lot of weird plays. But like you said,

there wasn't a lot of pressure. And a lot of the pressure came on blitzes when like the past protection communication wasn't there. This was really like for me, this was more of a coaching loss than like the offensive line stunk again in the same way it did last year. It stunk in a total. different way. I don't even think it was that bad. And it's the DAC conversation all over again. Like,

I don't expect Burrow to be bad in these ways. He's not going to throw into coverage five times. He's not going to miss throws. I don't think he's going to get sacked as often as he did if he faces that little pressure. So I'm with you. The only thing I'm concerned about is the deep ball stuff because I do think that they're going to see different coverages. Burrow mentioned that in the whole season. That was a, he said it himself. He's like, we're not going to have those explosives again. We need to find other ways to do it. I'm confident in like the players executing those those plan Bs and Cs. I'm just not sure if Zach Taylor's going to be the guy that is able to fix the offense if it is broken. They're not going to they're going to face different coverages and not be able to have as

many of those explosive plays because too high is ruining the league. It is ruining the league. That's why it took like forever for turning it to baseball. It is. We need to ban too high. No more too high, no more play action, no more RPO's. Save it for the island, Stephen. Okay. All right. You mentioned communication issues on an offensive line and bad blitz pickups and coaching issues, which brings me to my next loser, the New England Patriots.

I'm sorry, that was just too good of a segue to pass up. You could have added in weak, weak, aren't quarterbacks, too, but you passed on that one. Are you talking about Mac or two or both? I'm talking about Mac, Tua, and the, the, the Bengals quarterback. All right. Well, so let's talk about Mac and Tua. Patriots lost 20 to 7 to the Dolphins. Mike McDaniel outcoaches Bill Belichick.

Tuas now 4 and O. Very, very impressive stats against the Patriots dynasty. Look, I didn't think either of these teams looked that great, but the Patriots certainly looked a lot worse. And if the main issue from the preseason was that they were trying to install a new offense and failing, a major reason for that being communication issues on the offensive line that's supposed to be coached by Matt Patricia, but they're not really coached by Matt Patricia very much because he's busy shadow coordinating the offense, except when the

quarterback has issues, he talks to Joe Judge. who's sort of also maybe the offensive coordinator, but isn't calling the plays and nobody's calling the off. And nobody's the offensive coordinator. And oh, by the way, both of these people don't really coach offense or haven't very much before. Totally normal. That was the central issue of the preseason.

And we're all going, yeah, but it's the Patriots. They'll figure it out. Well, they haven't figured it out yet is, is what I would say we can take away from this game. Because there were a lot of issues, but I would say, most severe one was they just looked like they were totally confused on the offensive line. They really struggled with blitz pickup.

That led to the strip sack touchdown that was against the blitz. Another sack was against a blitz. Max Jones threw a pick on another blitz play. They were rotating offensive linemen. Cole Strange and Isaiah win were going in and out for, Kajus and James Ferrence, which I think was because it was really, really hot in Miami and they wanted to spell them some reps and try to keep the stamina up. But that looked like a mess.

And I was looking at some of the like advanced stats about how the offensive line did and pressures and everything. And it didn't actually end up being that bad on paper. It was bad. It was really, really bad. They were blown up pretty regularly. and Mac maybe got hurt. He didn't talk to reporters afterwards

because he hurt his either back or neck is what the team said. Tom Pelliserra reported that he had some X rays and they came back negative for anything serious. So that's okay. But he was getting hit. And if those issues of who's coaching the offense and what's it going to look like

and are they trying and failing to install this new offense, if all of that is the type of thing that we tend to give the Patriots the benefits of the doubt for. I'm just saying that we should be chipping away at that because it really didn't look good and it didn't look good in the same ways that we were worried about it, not looking good. So I would be pretty freaked out if I were around that offense right now because not only is it seemingly causing them to lose games, it's making the quarterback look bad.

And that's your best asset as a team right now. So all in all, pretty bad. Would you agree? Do you think I'm going overboard with this? No, no. I did not have high hopes for this offense. And like there's no reason to change my mind after this performance. It was ugly in all the ways you said.

And like you said, he, Mac didn't get pressured a lot on paper. But like when he did get pressured, it was like the worst pressure possible. It was like a disaster. Yeah. On his blind side. Yeah, it was bad. And like the offense just didn't look smooth at all. Like there was this talk about them running like the Ram style of offense didn't look like it.

There was like the thing about the Rams offense is they have series play calling like one play sets up another play and that sets up another play. They have counters to counters. There was none of that in this offense. They never got. No, it was just they were just running to the outside more than they usually do. But it was all totally disjointed. Yeah. It was an ugly, ugly game.

It looked like a game that was coordinated by Matt Patricia and Joe Judge. Like that's what it looked like. And I don't know where this offense goes from here. And on the other side, like I do think. Dolphins defense deserve some credit. They played really well. And the pass rush looked really good. And the secondary was tight to routes.

But I'm putting a lot of this on the Patriots themselves because they're like, there were run plays that just didn't make sense schematically. Like with the numbers and who was blocking who. It was ugly. And I don't know how they fix it. Like who fixes it? And I think like you said, they're putting too much on Max's plate.

Like a lot of the talk during the off season was like, oh yeah, they had these inexperienced coordinators. But like Max is smart quarterback. He knows what he's doing. There's jokes about him being the actual offensive coordinator, but he's still a second year player who only started one full, one full season in college.

Like he's very young. And I don't think he's the guy that's going to help them sort out their past protection communication issues. Just because why should he? He's so young. Like, quarterbacks aren't given that responsibility that early. I'm very down on the Patriots after this game. Yeah.

I think there's pretty good reason for that. Can we get another one? winner? Yeah, I'm going to go with the Ravens. I'm going to go with the Ravens and not just because Lamar, Lamar looked good. He was tossing the ball down field. He threw three touchdowns. But everything that happened around the Ravens in their division, like I know the Browns won, but Jacoby Brissette, that offense looked horrible. Yikes. Jacoby Reset looked like one of the worst quarterbacks in the league. Yeah. Their running game is good enough where they'll stay in some games, but with that passing offense, that's not a, even with their defense being pretty good. Like, that

that is not a good team. Yeah, and then the Steelers, the Steelers obviously win, but then they lose TJ Watt for, it looks like it could be a long time. Najee Harris goes down. Mitch Trubisky, the magic ran out after one quarter.

The Matt Canada, it's like Matt Canada has all these like little gimmicks that he does to get yards. And like if he runs too many of them, if he runs out by like the second quarter, he's done. It's like we're gaining three yards. Yeah,

we're canning three yards for the rest of the game. So, and then obviously the Bengals lose. They lose a home game against a divisional opponent. So now, like, the Ravens are in, they're out ahead. They got a lead on the Bengals. Yeah. The offense was missing Ronnie Stanley.

It was missing J.K. Dobbins. I know the Jets, like, are the Jets, but their defense is supposed to be a lot better on paper. And Lamar was pushing the ball downfield, and he looked really good as a passer. Like, I know that the final stat line doesn't look amazing. Like, he threw a lot of completions, but he was, I think he had the highest A-DOT. across the league. It was like over 12 yards. So he was really chucking it downfield.

They got some explosive plays. And that was like the concern. The last couple of years, the explosive plays kind of went away. But they found a way to do that again. Rashad Babin had a long touchdown. No one covered them. But it still counts.

Devin Duvernay, like all of a sudden is emerging as like a legit wide receiver number two. I really like where this offense is going. When it gets healthy, I think it's never going to get back to 2019. But I don't think it has to because his defense also. looks amazing. The defensive line is, it might be the best defensive line in football.

Like McDonald, I think he's, I'm already convinced. I'm already sold. He's a good defensive coordinator. This is the best team in the AFC North. And I don't think it's close. Yeah, I, I'm with you on that, particularly because you mentioned the Jets defense, not being abysmal. I'm really with you on that.

I thought they had a kind of nice game and it was just, it's all for not. And it's going to probably continue to be all for not. because we have to see things like Joe Flacco dropping back to pass 59 times, which should be like, you should have to go to the hague for that. That's not, that shouldn't be allowed. That's not nice.

I was chanting play Mike White for my couch. But I thought, you know, their defensive line is pretty good. Sauce Gardner, you know, he looked amazing in the preseason. He looked really good today.

I think there's some real players on the defense. So while, beating the Jets in and of itself is not necessarily that impressive. I think it's legit that we saw the Ravens offense look good against the Jets defense. We also learned today, according to Adam Schefter and Chris Mornson, that the Ravens, at least, according to somebody with knowledge, offered Lamar a contract for six years, $290 million, 133 million guaranteed. somebody asked Lamar about this post game and he said no that that wasn't the offer,

which I don't know. It could always have something to do with what's guaranteed, what isn't. Based on those numbers, it seems like the issue would have been the contract length because other than Mahomes who did the really long deal, it seems like a lot of top quarterbacks would rather do five-year deals are shorter now to keep some control, that 133 million guaranteed number is actually pretty strong. It would just put him behind Cleveland's deal for Deshaun Watson in terms of total guarantees, which obviously is a bit of a different situation.

But it certainly didn't look like whatever's going on behind the scenes there mattered to him. I would not have expected it to. But it's still a good sign, I think, for them to just come out and look really, really good. because there is that that additional thing hovering over them of what's going on with the quarterback and the contract. Yeah, they're going to pay them right though. Like, I feel like this is, it's dragging on and maybe Lamar not having an agent is contributing to that. But they're going to pay him. And games like today are why they have to pay him.

They have no choice. And I see why Lamar is like demanding everything. Like give me fully guaranteed money. I would be asking for that too because what are they going to do? Let them walk. He's the best player on the team. He's a one-man offense. Like today was a perfect example of that.

They didn't really have a lot going outside of Lamar, just being Lamar. And it wasn't like, oh, I'm hitting the top of my dropback and I'm getting the ball out. He was, like, creating with his legs. He was scrambling. He was, like, changing his arm angle. It was a very creative game for Lamar Jackson. And it's going to get harder to not pay him by the week. I really think he's going to have a great year this year.

I would just say that. if, and I don't know if this is exactly true, but it seems like some of where Lamar's coming from is, is look at what just happened in Cleveland. Yes. And what I wouldn't underestimate is how like, kind of livid a lot of NFL owners are about the precedent that that kind of deal that the Browns did could set.

So the only piece that worries me, is if Lamar really cares about something like that, and I certainly wouldn't blame him, I don't know what happens, but I know that that would mean that they would be really, really far apart on what the deal would have to look like. And that's just a little bit scary territory

to be in when you have a bunch of billionaire owners who are friends with each other who want to prove a point. And... Yeah. They don't want that to him to... I don't want Lamar Jackson in that position because he's a wonderful player, and it would be really, really terrible if something bad happened here.

But games like this are going to go a long way to getting him everything that he wants and more and he certainly deserves it. Yeah, I don't think owners want that damn to break. I think the Watson contract is still like an isolated incident. Like he's like, oh, that doesn't compare it to what we're doing. But if Lamar gets a deal like that, yeah, the dam is breaking and all the quarterbacks are going to be asking for deals like that. All right.

Do I owe you another loser? No, a winner. I need a winner. Oh, I'll give you a one. winner? All right. How about the Chargers? How about the Los Angeles Chargers? Uh, so we, we talked a little bit about, um, whether the AFC West is sort of the Chiefs to own earlier. I don't know that the Chargers beating the Raiders 24 to 19 is necessarily the kind of statement they would have had to make to be like, oh my God, the Chargers could really unseat the Chiefs in the division.

But I do think that they are a clear winner from week one because we talked a lot this offseason about how they had a plan to get better defensively. And then you watch them go out against an offense that has a lot of talent. Glill Mac has three sacks. Defense overall combines for six. He and Joey Boso look like a really good just problem duo. They hold the Raiders to 64 total rushing yards, which notably was an issue the last time they played them. Devante Adams did some Devante Adams stuff. That's fine.

But overall, pretty good defensively and good in the ways that you would want it to be good. That was so clearly the thing that sunk the Chargers last season that just watching them face a good offense and have those things work, I think is a step forward if it didn't necessarily all together come in a package where you would go. oh my God, here come the Chargers. Yeah, and it was like a bit of role reversal because you had the, the offense started sputtering at the end. I thought they just took the foot off the gas. Like I thought Joe Lampardi, they were up a couple scores and they started doing run, run, pass every time they got the ball, very conservative in the fourth quarter.

But the defense came up big every time. It had to come up big. Got three turnovers from Derrickari through three picks, a couple red zone stands, very good game. and then without J.C. Jackson. So you're not really worried about Devante Adams carving them up. And he really did most of his damage early. But I thought that they figured things out as the game wore on.

And like you said, the defensive front stopping the run, that was A plus across the board. And then Justin Herbert, my God, he was pressured on almost 50% of his dropbacks. And it did not look like it. He still almost played like a perfect game with like a perfect statline. Just I cannot wait for Thursday. I think those are the two best quarterbacks in the league right now.

And he was good enough where even though the chiefs were so dominant and the final score was not so dominant for the Chargers, you still feel like, holy crap, I can't wait to see that game. Because if the quarterback is going to play like that and be able to get them out of situations like that, that's a toss up. That's like we don't know what's going to happen there. What do you do? Particularly because we're starting to get like this is, one of these things that I'm so fascinated to watch with

Justin Herbert this season. Because after his first year, so much was like, okay, the way that he's performing under pressure, the way that he's performing on third downs, like, this has to be an outlier. These are not sustainable metrics.

Well, we're starting to get to a body of work where it's just like, I don't know, guys. I think the regression would have come by now if it were coming. I'm not sure it's like coming down the pipeline somewhere. This might just be who this guy is. He might be a little bit different. So, and I think recalibrating those expectations is kind of like what the journey has been for me being like, oh, holy shit, this is actually that dude.

Yeah. It looks different. Like, it looks different when he plays when he throws the football. It really is just like a different, it's a different game. And that's why we all might not make it through through Thursday, just like Benzalach. Now I'm getting lost. Is it, do I, do I give you a winner? Do I give you a loser?

No, I have a loser. I have the next loser. Thank you for keeping me on track, Stephen. My next loser is the AFC South, the whole division. Let's go through this. They played Carson Wentz. They played Daniel Jones. And then the other matchup was between two AFC South teams.

And somehow they did not win a game. They figured out a way not to win a game when they had a scheduled game between two teams in the division. So the Titans and Texans tied 2020. The commanders beat the Jaguars, 2822. you and then the Giants won on a last second missed field goal by the Titans by Randy Bullock, 2120. Finally, the Titans don't lose a game, don't win a game. They're not supposed to win. It's a big win for me in Penn Solac. We were like writing off the Titans all year last year. But I want to talk about Trevor Lawrence and I want to talk about the Jaguars.

I'm shocked. It was not a good start for my Trevor Lawrence is going to finish as the top 10 quarterback this year take. But I will say this. This is what's most concerning, is that I thought Trevor was pretty good, pretty decent. He was pretty decent, and yet they still only scored 22 points, and they look like the Jaguars again. And that's concerning, like the wide receivers,

the investment in the receiver position did not work out. They were still not making those plays that they weren't, that they weren't making last year either. I think they dropped two catches in the one red zone trip that would have been touchdowns. They had another one. Yeah. They had some other drop, some other key drops on third down.

Like Trevor was throwing it downfield. He was slinging it downfield. They just don't have the bodies around him, man. They don't have the skills. And then the offensive line was getting beat up, which is, I mean, that's understandable going up against a good Washington defensive line. Although they were missing Chase Young, obviously. It's, I don't know. I just don't know if it's going to work out.

Like I know Trevor Lawrence. I think Trevor Lawrence is going to be good. I think Doug Peterson's a good coach. But this front office, like, I think that's the one thing I forgot when I was, like, started to get more optimistic about the Jaguars. It's still a team that was put together by Trent Balke. And it looked like that on Sunday. Yeah.

I think, I think it's a little disappointing. I would just caution you. Give a little time. Give it a few more weeks. It was raining. It was raining. It was, you know, that throws everything else. It's a light drizzle.

It was a light drizzle. I'm coping. Think about it this way. If like, okay, Jags receivers dropped 41 passes last season that cannot possibly take place again. It just can't. It can't.

It can't happen again. And if Etienne hadn't had that drop in the end zone, which was just like, it just makes you feel like they're cursed, but I don't believe in curses. If that hadn't happened and they say they win this game, maybe we feel slightly differently about this. I agree with you overall that the biggest issue here is just there's the front office is what the front office is and the roster construction leaves a lot to be desired in certain ways.

And unfortunately, one concern I do have for them in the longer term future is that while they added some useful players over this offseason, the amount of money they gave them is going to cause them additional roster building problems in the future. That said, I thought Christian Kirk looked okay. Yeah, Christian Kirkland. He had a lot of yards after contact. I think he had over 100 yards overall. It seemed like they had a decent connection. Like, I don't know. But that's like that's what it's kind of like the Patriots last year where you're like,

yeah, the offense is better and it kind of looks good. But they spend a lot of money for this and it doesn't look like they're getting their money's worth. That's kind of where you're at. Like it's not like this is like the Texans last year where they just like signed a bunch of cheap veterans and played a bunch of young guys. they invested heavily in this supporting cast and it is not good. Yeah.

Well, I would give it a little bit of time just because Trevor looked pretty good. And it's, I think the Washington could end up just being a really, really volatile team. Because like, Wence was thrown it back to the defense a little bit. But on the whole, I think he got more good Carson than bad Carson today. For sure. there's some pretty good skill position guys there, and that defense has, has dudes. So on a day when they're not, like, totally melting down,

and I'm sure they're going to have those days too, that's not a terrible team. Now, I don't think that makes them a very good team for a 17-game season, but they're not an abysmal team when things are working there. So I don't know. I'm not, I'm not, like, horribly offended by the Jax. Although I am horribly offended by the AFC South. That was terrible.

Yeah. I'm like, I've seen enough from the Titans, the Texans and the Colts. Like the Colts, one of these teams is obviously going to make the playoffs, but I mean, this wild card loss. Can we just fast forward to it right now? The Saturday, you know, the first kick on Saturday on Wild Card Saturday. There's going to be a lot of relegation jokes that have to do with this division. I still think it's the Colts, but geez, that was not pretty.

I will say the MVP comes from this division. That's so true. I also think I felt like watching more of that Colts Texans game than I would care to admit that I watched. I think the overused anecdote of the year like the Ryan Fitzpatrick went to Harvard. Chris Hogan played lacrosse of the year is going to be Jonathan Owens is married to Simone Biles. Because he was pretty good. And he's just going to there's there's going to be so many games where there's just nothing to talk about. and I think it's going to come up a lot.

So I'm calling that. I'm making that my AFC South prediction of the year. If I could replace that, just that as the division winner, I think I would. Now you have to watch every Texan game to keep track. I will not be doing that. All right. My last loser comes from the NFC South. I'm really disappointed about this because my loser is the Falcons,

who were so close to being one of the winners of this week until they allowed the Saints to go in the largest fourth quarter to come back in team history. I really think that if you just don't look at the game script, there is so much more to like than to dislike from this game for Atlanta. Drake London looked really good. I thought Mariotta looked pretty steady. The offensive line, when they were using a lot of play action,

looked totally serviceable. Corderle Patterson ripped off like over 100 yards. It just looked like what you kind of want to see from this Falcons offense especially, which is like, oh my God, all of these kind of weird but talented players can actually come together in something that's effective. Then they totally blow it, particularly defensively. And they were actually getting pressure on New Orleans early in the game, which is like unheard of from the Saints who had 18 sacks all of last season.

They had four early on in this game and it was like, I don't know what's happening here. They went totally prevent defense. It was so soft. It was so just like you could see it coming a mile away. The falconing commenced. They lose. And then after the game, when like, okay, whatever, you lost in week one to the Saints

who are widely considered a better team than you. And I know it fits into this team history of blowing lately, and games and that's a sensitive thing. But Arthur Smith comes out afterwards and is just so angsty about it and is like yelling at the beat reporters

saying you buried us in May go bury us again. And it's like, bro, like, why are you this mad? So it makes them a loser. I'm sad to say that it makes them a loser. They were so close to being winners, but they grabbed, what is it,

grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory? I don't know, but that saying was made for the Atlanta Falcons. That should be their like little like hashtag instead of rise up. It's pretty long. I don't know. Maybe they could translate it into Latin and it would sound like a cool, cool motto. Anything on the Falcons?

Anything on Falcon Saints? No, like I think they're going to be like the hipster film watchers team because they do like a lot of like college stuff. They're going to like do like a lot of pistol and. run option and they're going to lose every game like this. But the people are going to be like, look at this cool stuff. They're doing it. But yeah, they ran like every variation of play action that he could possibly run. Like we talked about earlier about how the Cowboys need to make things easier for

Dak Prescott and how the Patriots need to make things easier for Mac Jones. The Falcons are doing that for Marcus Marriota. You can't fault them for the. That's like all they're doing is just trying to pit all the easy buttons for him. I thought it was working for a while and then it stopped working. All right. We are going to close out. every Sunday with a sort of two-minute drill and share a story that's interesting or fun,

but a little bit under the radar, you know, doesn't rise to the level of a, of a falconing. And I thought for this week, we could just revel in the most wholesome moment of the week, which I feel came from Soldier Field, where the Niners and Bears today played a game that maybe they should not have played because there was an absolute torrential downpour in Chicago, and it was disgusting on the field, which was a soppy mess. But the bears pulled off a 1910 upset over San Francisco. And after the game, Justin Fields and a bunch of other bears literally turned the field into a slip and slide and just were like gliding on their chests into the end zone

and splashing around at all of the mud. and other than being like an occupational safety hazard, it was a very happy and pure moment for a franchise that just has not had a lot of them. If you have not seen the photos, you, Stephen, or anyone listening to this podcast, please seek them out. They're very, very good. I was surprised the Bears had reason to smile today.

What did you think, Stephen? Yeah, I have seen the photos. They're amazing. But I feel like this is going to be the pinnacle of their season. Because I don't think that I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't think that. Turn those frowns upside down or two the smiles upside down. I'm really mixing metaphors here. But yeah, I do have to say cool celebration.

Like I feel like if I try to do the Justin Fields, the slide on my belly, it would not have gone that well. Very athletic, very coordinated. I could see why he was a first round pick based on that slide alone. But I'm not worried about the 49ers. Like I know there's going to be doom and gloom all week and then he's going to be talk about Jimmy G and whether they should play him. That was not a real football game. That was in a swimming pool. Like the field was so bad. It wasn't just the rain that was happening. It's the fact that the field was just collecting so much water. They literally did a slip and slide. The fact that Justin Fields was able to slide as he was.

Like usually when you do a slip and slide at a party, you have to get a tarp. They didn't have to get a tarp. They just did it on the field. She did it on the grass. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, I feel like I remember the 49ers playing a similar game to this again like I think it was against the ravens in 2019 when they went to the super bowl had trouble scoring in that game too didn't end up mattering they went to the super bowl they were fine I think it's going to be the same like tray lansy threw that one bad interception there were a couple bad misses but for the most part like he was hitting on some deep stuff I really think their offense will be there's not going to be any issues if anything like from the plays I saw the the shots he took downfield I think that the ceiling is

higher for this offense and I'm not backing off that take after this week, even though it was a loss against a bad team. Yeah, I'm, I'm certainly pretty ready to just say, let's wait till we see it in different conditions. It did seem early like, I mean, I was surprised the Bears pulled this off because when the 49ers were up seven to nothing, I kind of felt like, okay, that's not that close because there was a portion of this game early where it was like, he could not, fields could not. drop back, could not do anything.

The 49ers had a lot of penalties and I don't know if he was just being salty or if he just sort of let this one slip. But Nick Boso was like, it's 15 yards for a team that can't move the ball. That's huge. And that sounds a little saucy when you just lost. But there was a good chunk of this game where that was very true. So I agree with you that it's not something to draw long term conclusions. Also, can we add Debo to the list of losers after like the offseason contract talk?

He was like, oh, I don't want to like be a running back anymore. Eight cares. Get right back in there, buddy. Yeah, definitely still involved in the back field. The 49ers have the Seahawks and then the Broncos and then the ramps. So within the next few weeks, I think we'll get some better, better tests for them. But for now, don't like to lose a game,

but everybody else in their division, other than the Seahawks who haven't played yet, also lost, so not that big of a deal. And at least we got some very cute slip and slide photos out of it. Stephen, we do not have a slip and slide here,

but that does not mean, I'm not leaving this pod, just so happy to have spent this time with you. Happy week one, bud. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me. And we didn't talk about the Panthers. We didn't talk about Baker Mayfield.

I feel like we should at least give a shout out to you. It was a gift to you. It was a gift, but I feel like we should give a shout out to the Brown's kicker. That was like one of the greatest game winning field goal kicks ever because it like caught the neck of the Panthers. Like they all thought he had shanked it and it was like a slider that caught that inside of the plate. Great kick. Great way to give the Panthers fans. Just a little bit of hope just to tear our hearts out again. I appreciate that.

You do it okay, bud? You know, yeah. Keep bounding to me and Ben. Ben's little heart. Keep pounding. And that is what we will do every Sunday of this season. This has been the ringer NFL show. I'm Norr Pinciotti. He's Stephen Ruiz. Next up on the feed is tomorrow with Sheal and Ben who will be doing a deep dive of week one. And then on Tuesday, Jason Goff and Austin Gale are up. I will be back on Wednesday with the island. Sheal will be back on Thursday. And then Danny Hypatts, Ben and Stephen will preview week two on Friday. Thank you so much to Isaiah Blakely for

production on this episode and to Arjuna Ramgapal for additional production supervision.