The Ringer NFL Show - Week 1 Was More Bad Than Good (Ep. 139)

Episode Date: September 12, 2017

The Ringer’s Robert Mays and Kevin Clark react to a wild Week 1 in the NFL, including how the Cowboys regained their NFC contender status Sunday night (03:30) and how the Seahawks may have lost theirs (08:00). Then, the guys discuss how the Raiders and Marshawn Lynch are the perfect mix of fun and force (10:00), why running backs won’t play a role in playoff races this season (20:00), and how some lesser-known Ravens exposed the bumbling Bengals (30:00). Then, Danny Kelly joins the show to explain why Le’Veon Bell struggled out of the gates against Cleveland (33:00) and Rodger Sherman helps the guys decide whether some Week 1 surprises were a fluke or not (42:30). Finally, Robert and Kevin point out some marquee matchups that we lost for this season this weekend (49:30), and how one glaring weakness could make for a long season leaguewide (51:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the Ringer NFL show, and I'm Robert May is here with Kevin Clark. Good news NFL fans. Direct TV has expanded NFL Sunday ticket this season. If you live in an apartment or you're an enrolled college student, now you can get NFL Sunday ticket without a satellite. Kevin, that was big on Sunday. I don't know about you because I really wanted to watch the Rams, so I'm glad that I could.

The Rams, Scott Tolzing against Jared Gough, what a matchup. And I'm really glad you were able to see it from anywhere in the country, Robert. I'm just so glad I wasn't locked in to Packer Seahawks. What a garbage game. I wanted to watch the best quarterback in the league and the best quarterback in the league and the best coach in league. McVeigh and golf. And it was really great for the entire nation to see that now because you don't need to a satellite dish for Sunday ticket. Greatness is important.

It's important that we appreciate it. And I'm glad that people got to see it. So if you want to see the Rams in all their glory, if they're out of market team, go see if you're eligible. Go online. Go to NFL Sundayticket. TV and use promo code Ringer at checkout to save 15%. We're also brought to you by mybookie. AG.

Kevin, people are always asking us what to bet on. Well, even though we've talked about it, we're not big gambers on football, but we can say now put it all on the Rams. Yeah, I mean, it's very clear. It's the right move. But where you bet is just as important as what you bet. And that's why we recommend my bookie. They have live in-game betting, the most rewarding player perks in the business, and a mobile

site that makes wagering super easy. If you join now, MyBooky will match your deposit with up to a hundred percent bonus. And again, you should totally bet on the Rams every single week because it's always going to be like this. They're always going to be facing Scott Tolzeant. So to do that, visit mybooky.ag. And use the promo code Ringer NFL to activate the offer. You play, you win, you get paid. To the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast network.

I'm Robert Mays. Joining me into the line. It's Kevin Clark. Kevin, how are you? I'm okay. I'm dealing with all the breakout stars we're sort of dealing with right now. I mean, you have all the running backs, Dahlvin Cook, Cream Hunt going back to last Thursday, and Mr. Sergio,

dip. He's definitely number one in my book. I'll tell you that right now. There's so much stuff to sift through. I mean, this couple days after week one ends is one of the craziest points in the entire season just because we're trying to figure out what's real, what's not? I mean, what are we being misled by? We're wrong about everything. Here's the thing. We're always wrong before the season, like everyone as people who just watch football, but we're especially wrong this week because it is overreaction week. Yeah, we're wrong twice in the span of two weeks. That's how it goes every single year. We even did the Sam Bradford thing last year.

Yeah, we can talk about that a little bit later. But we're going to break down all of week one from top to bottom, including some of the angles that maybe you haven't considered yet. I think that's the benefit of this Tuesday show, Kevin, as we can kind of step back, think about things for a second, and then be extra wrong. So we're going to be here every Tuesday. We would have missed Sergio Dip.

Yeah, exactly, which is completely unacceptable. We're going to be here every Tuesday all season to react to the weekend. Again, we'll be back on Friday to react to the weekend that will be happening. Welcome by Danny Kelly today, as we always will be. Hopefully, he can point out some weird, nerdy stuff that you did not see. But first, we're going to get to our four downs, which we thought were the biggest four stories from week one. Kevin, let's start it on first down. Might as well start with Dallas, right?

I mean, as just as simple as it gets, is a point to start any show. It's interesting. We've been talking, obviously, because of the Cowboys, a lot about this team over the past couple of months. And the way we've looked at it is, I think we both picked them to make the playoffs. But we both picked a certain or predicted a certain amount of weirdness surrounding them. There was a trepidation there for sure. Yeah, we didn't know what was going on with the Ezekiel Elliott suspension, obviously. We didn't know.

I was more optimistic on the offensive line than you were, but we both felt there'd be a small step back. And then the defensive line has sort of documented as a tire fire. And so what I saw on Sunday night changes everything for me. I mean, first of all, you have the Ezekiel Elliott situation where it looks like he's going to play the entire season. That changes a lot more than people think. Because Dak Prescott not only was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, but specifically last year, he was, I think, the second best quarterback off play action. His passer rating, I think, was third. I imagine we can go by any stat you want.

He's right there at the top of the week. He Brady and Wilson are the top three, which is, by the way, a very good group to be in. Yep. So it's a PFF stat, I believe. It is. I mean, that's where I saw it at least. And so when you have Zika Elliott, you get to sell play action. Everything flows from there.

The line looked awesome. I mean, I just, I think that even though we picked them to win the playoffs, excuse me, to make the playoffs, I feel like we shortchanged them a little bit. I would recalibrate a little bit and say that this is a surefire with a bullet NFC contender from what both I've seen with the Elliott situation and with what we saw on Sunday night. I saw a statistic. James Cratch had this, one of the giant speedwriters. Eli Manning didn't have a completion from more than four yards downfield

until basically the last play of the first half. I think I described that in my Monday roundup as just a fun house mirror when your defense plays against the Giants' offense without Beckham. It's hard to get a gauge, which we'll see. I think the defense looked good. I was really impressed with just the secondary pass rushers. No, Lawrence looked good. I think Lawrence is a good player, but Tapper made a couple plays.

They were getting after it. against the Giants offensive line, who knows what we learned. But to me, when we learned that Ellie was probably going to play for the entire season. And again, you know, we should mention that the temporary restraining order was granted last Friday. This is going to be an ongoing situation. The legal process will play out. You know, the timeline I've heard is maybe going to be similar to what happened with Brady. So he will play this season and then we will revisit this going into next year.

So if he does play the whole year, I think that they're the Cowboys. It was as simple as that to me. I wrote a ton about their prospects in the power rankings that I did kind of right after we learned that the suspension was going to be upheld. And I said that, well, there's all these moving parts, the line and deck and everything else. And when we learned that he was going to play all year, it just gets as simple as they're the Cowboys again. This is the team we saw last year. And I agree with you. I thought that Collins looked really good on Sunday.

And he's the new right tackle. Very talented. But again, when the pieces are moving, you don't know what's going to happen. and the defense, we'll see, but I was impressed in the first go-round. You know, obviously, we've talked about it a million times, but I'm pretty high on their secondary to see athleticism back there.

Anthony Brown was, I think, the top-rated cornerback in the NFL. He was really good, yeah. I was impressed by him. Yeah, the rookie from Colorado was also very good. You know, it's interesting to me, I had a conversation with Michael Lombardi a couple of weeks ago,

and he was sort of low on Dallas, in the sense he thought the schedule off the front was brutal. But you get Odell, an Odell-less Giants team. Then you have the Broncos next week. That's, depending on how you felt about last night, I'm not sure that that's an insanely tough game,

especially for a team like Dallas. And then you have the Cardinals without David Johnson. The Rams, I know that the Rams are, you know, are capable of beating the Colts by 30 points, but not that great. And then the Packers. And that was the tough stretch. The Packers looked okay on Sunday, but I'm not seeing, you know,

I think that we looked at this, the stretch from now until October 8th and said, okay, things are going to be a little different. You know, this is going to be a tough stretch. But, you know, I'm not seeing them going, you know, one and four here. No, I agree with you. And we'll see about Denver. I mean, they seem so geeked up last night.

The Chargers look very out of sorts, how quickly they use their timeouts. It seems like that coaching staff is going to take a while to settle in. Green Bay, I think Green Bay is going to be a tough game. I mean, they didn't look great on Sunday, but also that Seattle defense might be the best one in the league. There's no way to know. I mean, that's the tough thing.

I mean, Green Bay could be a monster and we have no idea because of how good Seattle is. That's the thing about this week. We have no idea. You know, it's exactly what I talked about a couple weeks ago. It's like the college football thing. Notre Dame plays Texas a couple years ago. We think that, you know, both teams are going to be great and they're both dog shit. So, I mean, it's just, it's, we have to.

I know it's a tough thing to say, but we got to wait a couple weeks, guys. So before we moved to second down, it was one kind of final point on that. From the NFC teams you watched on Sunday who impressed you the most. I mean, without a doubt, Dallas. I think it's Dallas for me as well. And again, with Green Bay, it's tough on two different levels. They're playing Seattle's defense. And also, that pass rush is playing Seattle's offensive line.

They looked really good. I mean, Mike Daniels and Nick Perry destroyed the game. But who knows if that can be a consistent thing against real NFL players? There's a couple of things that worry me that I saw on Sunday, just from my own prediction standpoint. I picked the Seahawks to win the NFC and then win the Super Bowl. I thought that the offensive line in Seattle, I'm not saying it would be. good. And I'm maybe not even competent, but I think they'd be a notch below that and just be present enough to have... They'd be a roadblock at least. They'd be an impediment.

Stand in front of trouble, right? Yes. And I thought then the skill guys, Russell Wilson, the defense would be able to carry them. I'm a little bit worried that maybe they're not, they're not at that baseline. Mike Daniels was just destroying people. Mike Daniels took over that game. I loved it. As a Mike Daniels fan, I was a huge Mike Daniels fan. I was 100% into it. He was tweeting about anime after the game. That was shocking. That's so surprising to me.

That's my boy. So yeah, I mean, I just, I'm not, I'm certainly not going to go away from my prediction. I picked the Packers to win the NFC North, so I felt, felt okay about that. But I just, I got a little queasy as someone who picked Seahawks to win the Super Bowl when you see just how bad that line's going to be. because I don't see, we keep hearing that the line is going to get better and better and better. And I haven't seen much evidence of that. So we'll get into some of the offensive line play talk a little bit later. I was disgusted.

And I think it's a point that we should hit pretty hard. But let's get into some more specific stuff first. So let's move to second down and let's talk about some of our other first impressions. And two guys I wanted to talk about specifically, you know, young quarterbacks and how they look is a big part of the beginning of the season and the way that we're kind of consuming it. So two guys that were of note in my mind this week, Jared Gough in L.A. and Deshawn Watson in Houston. Kind of on opposite end of the spectrum. Also in just the way the games went, I think we were surprised on both sides. Houston looks so much worse.

The Rams look so much better. Which of those performances, which of those games, just them being in there and doing what they did was more notable to you? Well, I think that from a general state of the NFL standpoint, it's Watson. I don't think the Rams are going to compete for the playoffs this year, and I thought the Texans were going to. And so what I saw from the Texans was obviously extremely discouraging. I didn't pick them to make the playoffs, but at least thought they'd be a fun team to watch with a dominant defense.

I didn't see a whole hell of a lot of it, quite frankly. I'm worried that they've, they plan this so poorly that now Watson's development is going to get hurt. You cannot have, if you think Watson's not ready, and clearly you thought that because he didn't start game one, you have to have a better option than Tom Savage because Bill O'Brien, as we talked about last week, has the quickest trigger finger in the world about quarterbacks. And then you get in a situation where, you know, he is Tom Savage.

It's not like he played poorly. He just played as Tom Savage. And then immediately you go to Deshaun Watson. And so I just feel like they could have done a much better job planning, having a more veteran guy in there tour, at least where he would be able to play a couple of games and then Watson can come in in October or whatever. I mean, I don't, I'm discouraged at how poorly the Texans handled this. And now Watson's in there so early, he didn't look great.

Maybe there's a situation where, you know, Bill O'Brien goes back to Tom Savage, just because he's done it so many times before. I saw an amazing map of Bill O'Brien's quarterback usage. And he, I mean, he switches all the time. He switches like you and I change shirts. I mean, it's, it's, why didn't he'll have if he changed a shirt. A couple times a day. probably. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that's about right. And so, no, I mean, I just, I feel like this could

have been handled a lot better. Watson has a bright future ahead. I really, really like Watson. I wrote about him in the preseason. I think he's a huge star coming in. But I just, I wish they'd handled this slightly better because at this point, I'm not seeing a whole hell of a lot from the Houston Texans. So this is why I think these two guys are linked in my mind. We saw it last year with golf. They wanted to keep him out. They wanted to keep him out. They wanted to wanted to keep him on the bench, they knew he wasn't ready. They knew they were throwing him into a bad situation. The team was bad, the coach was desperate, golf got in the game.

It lasted half the season and then golf got in the game. It lasted half for the Texans. And the one thing with all these quarterbacks I didn't want to see happen was have them go in before they're ready and have them go into an environment that was going to actively hurt their development. Were they going to complete 50% of their passes like Watson? Not that. Get killed.

Get absolutely destroyed. The fact that Tom Savage got sacked six times and then you thought, you know what we should do here? We should throw in the guy we traded a future first round pick for. He's not important two years from now. It's just that to me is so irresponsible to throw him behind that line and say, go for it, kid. It just is crazy in my mind. Dwayne Brown was important to this team before. If they're going to trot Deshawn Watson out there for the rest of the season, they should pay Dwayne Brown whatever the hell he wants.

Because this is on, you can't do this. I know not every front is going to be Jacksonville. Not every front costs like, I don't know, what a small island would cost you. But there still are going to be real defenses that you have to play against. And they have to play Jacksonville again. There you go. So to me,

I am just so worried that they're going to put Watson out there behind this line. He's going to develop these horrible habits and they're going to be hard to break. And what we saw in LA was fascinating because golf was. the same way. They threw him behind a terrible offensive line into a system that no one could succeed in. And he looked like, you know, one of the worst quarterbacks you've ever seen. Would you say that's

fair? Sure. I mean, he... Geno Adkins in a short week, by the way, Thursday. Yeah, and it's not just that they missed Wayne Brown. No one on this line is really playing. Well, I mean, Xavier Suafilo got absolutely dominated by pretty much everyone that wanted to. It's bad. And I think that the job Sean McVeigh had to do with golf, they were so far

behind the eight ball. And that's why Sunday was so impressive to me, even if it was the Colts. He just looks so comfortable. And he looks so within the offense and willing to just take chances and push the ball deep and everything else. But you don't want it to be that sort of challenge. You don't want as a franchise to put yourself in that precarious spot. And it seems like if the Texans are going to do this with Watson, that's exactly what's

going to happen. And if it goes poorly, no one would be surprised if another coach has to come in and fix this next year when Bill O'Brien was the one that made the decisions. I mean, when does Bill O'Brien lose his quarterback guru title? I don't understand how he still has it. Because he made Christian Hakenberg look good once. Is that the reason? In college, he made no, no, I think that, I mean, he did coach Tom Brady,

and I think Brady. Cool, I could coach Tom Brady. I think he was pretty good at it, coaching Tom Brady. There's an anecdote. Brady said he wanted to be coached hard, and O'Brien, you know, stood up to them. They had some tiffs in the sideline. So Bill Ombrian was a dick, so he's a really good quarterback coach now. That's good. I have a serious question, base. If Tom Brady were yelling at you, what would you do?

I don't know. I think that I would, I'd probably get a little scared, but I'm just not a confrontational guy. You wouldn't go back. You wouldn't go back at him. You'd be like Sean Payton last night with Adrian Peterson. I'd be a little bit more afraid of Adrian Peterson. That would be of Tom Brady, to be fair. Man, I know what you're talking about, but Brady can get after you, man. That's all. I'm saying. He's an angry man, but Adrian Peterson's also much bigger than Tom Brady, not like by height, just by like sheer bulk. Hey, Callais, can we just real quick talk about how good Colias Campbell was? He was fantastic. That was awesome. Having him get $30 million guaranteed at age 31 to go play a different role. I mean, in Arizona, he was an interior pass pressure. That's how

they used him. I think that was a big reason that he came to the success is that they didn't try to make him an off the edge defensive end. Yeah. To see him go to Jacksonville play more than 60% of his snaps on the edge and affect the game like that, it was impressive. And to see him just really shine outside of that setting in Arizona, it makes me happy because I've always liked him as a player. People love him as a human.

I mean, just with the presence he was in that Arizona locker room and watching him just kind of roll after getting a monstrous contract was enjoyable. I liked it a lot. I went to college with him. I didn't even think about that. Good guy. Yeah, I mean, it was fun. It was very fun.

I'm sure we'll talk about golf and Watson, a ton as we keep going here. Let's just hit on a team first before we go on. One of the things that weirdly I didn't really write about, and I didn't watch this game as much as I wanted to on Sunday. It was in a weird spot. But I went back and watched it yesterday. Raiders Titans. Yeah.

I just want to talk about the Raiders very quick. I just thought that they looked really good. I mean, again, if we're talking about the teams that looked the way we thought they were going to, Oakland seemed like they picked right up from where they left off last year plus a couple elements that they didn't have last season. They looked damn good. I just read this book on Jack Dempsey, the boxing champion in the 20s, and they told Nancy about early in his career,

he punched a guy and he knocked the guy out. And during the count, the guy retired from boxing, he was at like six. I'd like six, between six and seven, he yelled, no more boxing. I'm just going to fish from now on. I mean, fishing is great. I don't blame him for that.

It's very relaxing. I was thinking about that when I was watching Colomac. I mean, he's a force. And that defense is going to be competent enough. Everyone thought, okay, you don't have your first round pick. You don't have your second round pick on defense with the Raiders. They went secondary with both of those picks.

And so there were a lot of people at 1245 on Sunday who were saying Marcus Mariotta is about to throw 30 and 50 yards. He didn't do that. He did not have a particularly good game. I think a lot of that is because that front side. is getting more and more competent. Mac is really good. And then the offense,

I mean, Derek Carr does not look at a guy, even though Broken Likes can heal really well. It's not an ACL. It's not an Achilles. But Derek Carr looked like September 2016, Derek Carr. And that was exactly what I wanted to see. It was just fun to watch that offense kind of all come together.

And when I say that, I know their passing game was good last year. But Latavius Murray was the running back on that team last year. I mean, Cary's Latavius Murray got, you know, quickly it took for Delvin Cook, to just become the running back in Minnesota, considering they gave Latavius Murray like $15 million. It took 10 seconds.

Latavius Murray is not the guy you want to be the centerpiece of your running game. Watching Lynch and the style he runs with behind that offensive line, they were born for each other. Gabe Jackson and a clutch of Semi, love beating the shit out of people, and so does Marshaun Lynch. And it's going to warm my heart to watch it all season. And then you combine that with everything else.

Carr looked good. Car looked like Carr. Amari Cooper was doing. and stuff. Crabtree makes contested catches constantly. It just felt like Lynch was the last like chainsaw. You just need to drop in that thing. And it was really enjoyable. And the one other thing I want to say, and I'll let you get your point in a second,

but on the defensive side, the secondary looked fine. Mario didn't toss it all over the place, but the Titans didn't run the ball. It will. Eddie Vanderdosed, that guy they drafted in the third round. That was my point. It was coming up. Go ahead. Played most of the game and just looked like he belonged.

that was the type of non-high-value asset they needed in the middle of their defense to just bring this to a certain level. And they got lucky. I mean, they stole that guy. And the fact that he's going to play all season and it's going to be a force for them, that is exactly what they needed. There's a couple of things I want to talk about as far as the defense goes. So there were two separate things in the MAC versus the offensive line interplay.

Eddie Vanderdose went up against Jack Conklin and won a couple of times. and then the attention that Mac got when that was happening really changed the complexion of the Titans offense. And then when Mac was going against Conklin, he was able to, you know, a couple spin moves, draw attention. You know, there was always a second blocker on Mac. And so, you know, look,

there was this weird meme going around that Columac could get 30 sacks this year. That's not going to happen. We saw that Sunday. But we're going to see is Mac just sucking in entire offenses and letting the rest of the defense do the work. Marriott was fleeing the pocket all day yesterday. I mean, I think this can work in Oakland with the defense.

I was impressed by that. I mean, they were one of the teams that I just said, okay, they're going to be here. They're going to be here all year. On the flip side of that is what I watched Arizona do against the Lions. This might be over, man. I mean, this era of what the Cardinals were with Palmer, with Ariens, we might be done.

Might be. Yeah. I mean, if David Johnson really does miss the entire season, which. The reports are everywhere. Have you seen anything conclusive yet? He's out three months. Two to three months.

Jesus. And, you know, fantasy, whatever. You know, we know David Johnson's a star. Running backs have a mitigated importance in today's NFL. Not in Arizona. He is that offense in so many ways, especially when they're not clicking in the passing game. And if they're going to struggle like this

and they're losing DJ Humphreys for a couple weeks, their backup left tackle is not a backup left tackle. They needed him to be the, basis of what they do, and now he's just gone. Yeah. Okay, now if you're Arizona, what do you do? Because you have, I'm not going to say it's the core, but you certainly have a group, Ariens, Fitzgerald, Palmer. Now you have David Johnson, who is one of the most exciting young players in NFL out. You have a core that is ready to ride into the sunset.

It's week, you know, it's the middle of week one. I just don't see a path forward, not only for this season, but do you tear it down after this year? I just don't know what you do. I'm not sure you actively have to tear it down. It's being torn down? If Palmer retires and Ariens walks away and so does Fitzgerald, it gets torn down for you.

You have to start over. And I don't mind that they rolled with it again. I felt like they didn't really have a recourse not to you. He didn't want to reach for a quarterback if he wasn't necessary. But yeah, I mean, it looked about as bad as it could on Sunday. Palmer played as badly as he could. David Johnson is done for the season. It couldn't have gone worse for them.

And now I just think that it becomes a really tough year. You can't expect much. And when you can't expect much and you also don't have much hope for the future, it's difficult. I mean, it just becomes a really trying season for them if they look like they did on Sunday every week. I'm excited to have hyped up the Lions a couple weeks ago. I think this kid, I think they are like nine and a half win team.

And then maybe they sneak in the playoffs. we'll see what they do. Again, their defense against a team that doesn't have a quarterback that is completely lost, which Carson Palmer looked like. I want to see that. Robert, I have some news for you. Like 20 quarterbacks are completely lost in the NFL right now.

Yeah, that's a really good point. Every single quarterback is completely lost. But their offense, I thought they were going to be fun. They did look fun. I mean, that's something that I think we're going to see every single week is them to slinging it around. So we'll see.

If they can go from fun to notably effective, then it's going to be a decent year for them. And that F.C. North might be a really good division. Jim Caldwell, notably effective. Yeah, that's the best thing I could say about Jim Caldwell. I think that's why I was a little tempered there. I'm in on Jim Caldwell, but that also means a lot. Being in on Jim Caldwell is relative.

You can't be that in on Jim Caldwell, but as much as you can be in on Jim Caldwell and know that they can only win like 10 games with this team, that's how much I'm in with them. I love how many qualifications it takes to talk about the Lions in an exciting way. Do you know what kind of fear? Do you know what kind of fear goes through your body when you say I'm in on Jim Caldwell? And then you have to walk it back.

Yeah, it's the thing that courses through my veins every single time I see him on the sideline. But you don't say you're in on him. Yeah, I'm not that in on him. Someone's going to clip this and they're just going to clip the I'm in on Jim Caldwell part. And then, you know, they're going to replay it when the lions are two in ten. Yeah. It's going to be like those Skip Bayless videos that float around of him, changing like is Aaron Rogers take 50 times?

That's as possible as them going 10 and 2. I guarantee you that just because he's there. All right, let's move on, buddy. On Tuesdays, you and I are each going to do a short segment of our own that I think is just us condensed, like our souls right in five minutes. And this one is so up your alley. And it's going to be Kevin's craziest headline from the weekend. And considering the weekend we had, I really can't wait to hear what it is.

Okay. I have a couple of things. So normally I'm going to have one. there's a couple I want to hit on and then there's a big one. So any Sam Bradford headline, I'm not saying Sam Bradford's going to be bad. I'm just saying we did this last September and it ended

without a playoff spot. Okay? I just think it's a little bit premature. Bradford's problem is not. People say, oh, Sam Bradford's throwing dimes now, whatever. He's always been throwing dimes. He'd embarrassed the Packers last year on some of those throws. And so I just think we need to pump

the brakes on Bradford just a little bit. However, having said that, my number one crazy headline is the cover of Sports Illustrated, a publication you and I both have a lot of respect for. Publication I worked for. Uh-huh. And so

for me, the headline and the cover, backs in style, the ground games next generation breaks through. Okay. We're going to talk about this a little bit, but I do not believe there's going to be a critical mass of successful running backs this year that will play a role in the playoffs.

race. I just don't think the NFL is like that anymore. You know, you have, obviously, Ezekiel Elliott was so impressive last year, but as we talked about, you needed Dak Prescott on play action, you know, hitting Des Bryant, Cole Beasley, and Jason Witten. You have Kareem Hunt, who obviously had an incredible game. I'm not sure how sustainable that is. He's obviously a really talented guy, but we got to see how that Chiefs offense is going to perform down the line. I love cream hunt. I love Andy Rita. I love their ability to create amazing offensive personnel sets and scheme sets.

Having said that, it's been one game. Devante Freeman is listed here. Obviously, he's talented, but he's just one cog in that offense. And then Leonard Forenow with the Jaguars. I don't know what the hell is going on with the Titans, okay? But what I'm saying is, this narrative that the running back is back in the NFL, I'm not going along with it. I just think the NFL has changed so much. It is a different sport. It would be very very, very,

very analogous to if right now there were sort of a, you know, a group of four or five an NBA big men who had a good November, December, and all of a sudden, NBA, the Sports Illustrated says, okay, it's the year of the big man. Well, no, I mean, not necessarily because Steph Curry is going to start raining threes. LeBron's going to be dunking on people, and all of a sudden, it's not the year of the big man. So running back in general, I know people don't want to hear it. It's an outdated position to say any name. narrative around, you know, the running back is back. There's a cap on that. There's a cap on the running backs relevance. I'm sorry, you need a good running back to compete in the NFL, but,

but a good running back will not get you to competition only. I feel like this is going to be pumped up just because this class has so many useful, just cogs in offenses. And there are so many guys that we've talked with the quarterback so much for the last five years. Yes. Like, what else is there to say about Matthew Stafford? Weirdly, I think we're not going to talk about Christian McCaffrey that much this year, just because it doesn't seem like he's going to get enough work to be relevant in a fantasy rookie of the year kind of discussion.

He's going to be a better football player. He led the Panthers in all-purpose yards. Nobody cared. Well, that's fair, but he also got a lot of work near the end. Jonathan Stewart got a majority that carries in that game. But Fernette is not going to be that way. They're going to give it to him 25 or 30 times. We just saw that happen.

The 180 the Jaguars have made from Blake Bortles throwing one fewer pass than, one fewer passes than Drew Breasel. year that those days are over they're going to give the ball to lennifer that a lot they think they ran the ball 35 times they threw it 21 that's what we're going to see but again i think that it's just a blip i'm not sure it indicates a trend we're going to talk about this with danny a little bit later though just kind of the idea of older running backs younger running backs i don't really want to step on that but i agree with you that this is going to be something that doesn't carry through the entire season and certainly not into next year in a way i feel like last year was the year the running back was

back in a way that it wasn't before, just because David Johnson, Leveon Bell did so many different things. I mean, they were different kinds of running backs. Having a guy that just is your running back and happens to be pretty good, I don't know how notable that is. Remember how roasted we got?

Well, I certainly got it by saying that Levyon Bell was not the surefire number two pick in the fantasy draft. Well, I have David Johnson in pretty much every league, so it's going to be really fun here for me. It's pretty much over. I will now go on to do different things on Sunday than care about my fantasy team.

I'll actually watch the games that matter instead of the players I want to see do well. You can with DirecTV Sunday ticket. That's exactly right. And then I can go back and watch all the games on NFL Game Pass later. All right. So the thing I'm going to do on Tuesday, Kevin, is that I'm going to bring you my ringer of the week. I probably should have had you do this because it's weird that I would announce my own segment. I'm out of pocket right now.

I'm angry about this question illustrated. So anyway, my ringer is pacing around the room is a guy I really like and have for a while, but just was special on Sunday. And that's Brandon Williams of the Ravens. I mean, the entire Ravens front played excellent on Sunday. Michael Pierce, who was a street free agent last year and is actually a guy I thought could break out for them with more snaps this year because Jernigan was gone. He also had a great game.

But Brandon Williams absolutely destroyed that game. And they brought him back on a very big contract. You got $52,000, $33.8 million guaranteed. And he's a run stuffer. That's what he does. But he did so much more than that on Sunday. He was pushing the pocket. He was rushing from a three technique because Pierce was playing the nose.

I mean, a guy that got a monster deal and just not only did not drop off, but just came with a vengeance. And it was fun. I think that Ravens defense has a chance to be special. The Bengals' offensive line was a nightmare. But the Ravens defense looked so good on Sunday. They deserve some credit. What the hell are the Bengals doing? We're going to get to that little, buddy.

We're going to get to that a little bit later. Don't you worry. I just don't understand. it's like the people, you ever have like a friend who just drives around with low gas? Yeah, it was me when I had a car. It was you when you had a car.

You're my friend who drives. And then like every six months they just run out of gas. It wasn't every six months, but it was more often than I'd care to admit. That is the Bengals offensive line. You knew there was a problem. There was an easy fix for it

and you just didn't do anything about the gas tank, Robert. Yeah, that's very apt and a little too close to home. I'm not sure I want to expand on that anymore. I didn't know this hit. I didn't know this was a personal problem of yours. It's okay.

I don't have to drive anymore, so it never happens. All right, buddy, let's move on. Buying tickets to sporting events and concerts can be complicated and annoying, but there is a better, simpler way to buy with Seek.

Robert literally can't stop talking about their seamless mobile experience. Like, it's almost getting creepy. I buy a lot of tickets, man. I buy a lot of tickets, and you can buy them with just two taps. I don't understand why I shouldn't be talking about it.

It's true. and then you get to see your favorite team or musician in person. Seekkeek gets you closer to the action for a great value and saves you time and money by searching multiple ticket sites to compare prices and find amazing deals. Seekek also has plenty of concert, comedy, and theater tickets available to. And since Robert is such a big fan, our listeners will get a $20 rebate off their first Seekek purchase.

To get that $20 rebate on tickets, download the Seek app, go to the Settings tab, and click Add a promo code. Enter promo code Ringer NFL. Seek will give you. you $20 after you made your first ticket purchase. Download the Seekek app and enter promo code Ringer NFL today. Speaking of Seekkeek, that works while leading into our next segment because it's time to geek out with our good friend. The Ringer's own Danny Kelly. Danny, you noticed a trend

in week one and you wrote about it for The Ringer.com. It's regarding several top tier running backs actually fell flat in week one, which is apropos of a conversation Kevin and I were having earlier. So let's use that as a jumping off point and then you can explain why this happened in a couple specific cases. Yeah, so basically in week one, only 11 teams went over 100 yards rushing, which, you know, there's always a ton of variance when it comes to the NFL, you know, it just could be one of those weeks where no one could get their run games going. But, I mean, if it's a part of a bigger trend, that's pretty interesting to me because, I mean,

you guys know it, like, offensive lines are just so bad right now. And I mean, I just, I'm looking at this. And if teams can't run the ball, it's really going to change. a lot of like how the game has played this year. So I mean, it's just something to look at. Teams are really, really bad. There's only 19 total rushing touchdowns on the week, which translates to it, well, 304 total on the year,

which would be about 150, I think, fewer than last year. And the lowest amount since 1993 when the league had 28 teams. So just based on week one, it was kind of interesting to me how bad teams were running the ball. Yeah, and there were a couple that it was, surprising. I mean, Todd Gurley wasn't good last year, but the Rams were good on offense, so he didn't run the ball very well. But the one that was just kind of head scratching was, did it make any sense that Levyon Bell couldn't get anything going against the Steelers?

Well, I want to say it does make sense if you consider he skipped all of training camp and... That's fair. That is a good point. I did not really consider that. But even still, it just seemed like they would have been able to run the ball more effectively against a team that doesn't, on paper, outside of Danny Shelton, seem like a group that would be that good at stopping the run. Yeah, I mean, and I will look, the reason I think that it probably, you know, just looked a little bit rusty was because like Kevin said, it was he just got back to camp. And Mays, I was going to ask you about this. I mean, talk about like, what is what is the interplay between offensive line and running back? And so, you know, just do they need to have basically more chemistry in order to function, especially with a guy like Bell who kind of goes to the line, dances around and then picks his spots to kind of burst through?

Do you think that was part of the reason why he struggled so much on Sunday? Maybe, but that group has been together for so long. It just seems like they'd be able to strap it on and go. One of the things that I think yesterday was a good example with the Vikings and Cook. He had a couple big runs that he broke himself. His burst was incredible. But they didn't really get anything going for a majority of the game. They struggled to get consistent yardage on the ground.

The chargers were the same way. They just couldn't get much going, even though their pass protection was fine. And I think that that is the area that it's going to take a while for these newly revamped offensive lines to Joe. Pass protection is a little bit more individual than run blocking is just because you're comboing on pretty much every play in all these zone blocking schemes. So these groups that are pretty much totally turned over, that's going to take a while for it all to come together. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that I'm going to be writing about today that I think is really interesting is just the amount of guys on the interior these days that just really, really, really, athletic interior rushers that can kind of just blow up

run plays from the middle, especially stretch plays in zone for zone teams where they're just getting into the backfield almost immediately and it just kills the play. All right, Danny, I picked the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl. I didn't like what I saw on Sunday, FYI. I'm not sure anybody liked what they saw. I mean, I'm not jumping ship. Right.

I'm still in the hive. I'm still in the hawks hive. No one calls it that. Let's Well, no, it's mine. It's the Hawks who won in a Super Bowl hive. You're starting it. Yeah.

What are the Seahawks have like a Seahawks nation type thing? The 12s, I guess. They're just called the 12s. I'm not a 12. I'm in the Hawks hive. Anyway, okay, that's cool. Let's talk about Eddie Lacey in the run game for a second.

What did you see? Yeah, well, and that's, you know, and that kind of just goes to what I said about the interior rushers. It's like Mike Daniels completely destroyed the Seahawks run game all game long. He was getting pressure from the inside. pushing the center back into the running lane. And my kind of impression, and I've been sort of on Team Lacey all offseason,

like I think he's kind of the type of runner that this yawks like in the sense that he's a bruiser. You know, he's a big guy that's going to wear down defenses and he's going to look good in the fourth quarter and all that. But like they couldn't get going with him at all. And I think that part of that is because he's just slower to the offensive line than the other guys. And it just means the offensive linemen have to block for, you know,

another half second longer than, you know, with, say, Thomas Rawls or with Chris Carson potentially. So I could actually see the Seahawks going away from Lacey a little bit this next week. And, you know, at least until the offensive line starts to gel a little bit and open up some run lanes, like he's just not affected back there. He had, I think, five carries for three yards. He's just a little bit too slow to the line. You know, he's just not explosive.

And when Chris Carson was in there, the rookie, I mean, he was exploding through like this, Like he's getting skinny through the hole is what a lot of people say. It was exploding through these little gaps in the line. And that's exactly what the Seahawks need just because they're not. I mean, they just can't block for very long. I just want to say, I said I was in the Hawks hive about them winning in the Super Bowl. You said that's not a thing. No one says that.

No one, no, no, no. If you want to talk about things no one is a part of, it's Team Lacey. Yeah, that's not a thing. I have no idea. That's the thing, the weird thing to me, Danny, because that's signing, I was not excited about it. And I think that you bringing up Carson as a rookie is interesting. Peter sent to me as in a similar bow. We saw he didn't get used last night.

He was clearly pissed off. We'll see how that goes all season. I just think that playing running back is a young man's game now. And we've known that for a while. We know that they hit the wall at a certain point. But if you watch guys like Cook, Kareem Hunt, for net, they're playing a different sport. The bursts they have and how much you need and how different it is,

it's so noticeable when you see a guy run that doesn't have any tread on his tires. Tariq Cohen, I'm obligated to bring him up. These guys just look different when they have the ball in their hands because of how quickly running backs wear down. And I think that's why we're going to talk about the rookie class as much as we're going to. I think that's why it's going to stick out the way that it is. Maybe not because there's so much better than the guys we've seen, but just because you need to have that burst, that freshness to be an effective running back these days.

Yeah, I mean, it's subtle, but it's, it's, really, really important. And I, yeah, and I totally saw that with a lot of the rookies. I mean, just for the Seahawks, like Carson, he's noticeably faster to the line, which I think is, you know, it's going to make a big difference for an office line that just basically is terrible. So, yeah, it's an interesting sort of trend. And it's something to watch this year. And, you know, for as much as people made fun of Dalvin Cook for being sort of unathletic at the combine stuff, he looked fast. Yeah, he looks really fast. I don't know. Somebody had a screwed up watch in Indianapolis this year. And the Vikings were definitely the beneficiaries. I mean, he just looks

quicker than everybody on the field. God, you look fun. I mean, it just, it really is a noticeable difference. Hunt the same way. And I think we're going to see that all season. Danny, thank you so much for doing this. Obviously, we'll have you back on on Friday. And I'm looking forward doing this all year, but it's going to be fun. Sounds good to me. Thanks, guys. Coming up, our buddy Roger Sherman joins us and will help him decide what from week one was a fluke and what was not. Also, some things from week one are leaving a lasting impression on Robert and I will tell you what after a short break. Before we move on, I want to point out that for over 20 years, DirecTV has been the exclusive home to NFL Sunday ticket, the only way to get every live game every Sunday. And now, DirecTV has expanded the service. If you live in an apartment or you're an enrolled college student,

now you can get NFL Sunday ticket without a satellite. To see if you're eligible, go online to NFL Sundayticket. TV and stream every NFL Sunday ticket game this season to follow your favorite team no matter where you live. Use promo code ringer at checkout to save 15%. Again, that's NFL sundayticket.tv promo code ringer. Kevin, do you remember when we were telling everyone about MyBooky? No, actually. That's fine.

You blacked out during that part of the podcast. We're good. We're good. That's fine. It's totally okay. Because we're going to remind everyone again that if you're betting this week, you need to go to myBooky.ag. MyBooky has a rock-solve reputation.

They really do. And they do 100% cash bonuses right off the bat, so you're making money for doing nothing. And when you're gambling, I think the biggest question that you're wondering about is when do I get my money? MyBooky pays you in just two business days. So lay down some cash and win big guys.

If you listen to what we're telling you, and you go to MyBooky and sign up now, they will match your deposit up to 100% bonus, which is awesome. Visit MyBooky.orgie. And use the promo code Ringer NFL to activate the offer. You play, you win, you get paid. Quite often throughout the season, we'll be welcoming in various, for our staff members who are huge NFL geeks.

And today it's staff writer, Roger Sherman, who we love. Roger is working on an article about week one flukes and non-flukes, and we're going to weigh in on some of these. Roger, take us through some of the flukes or non-flukes that you analyzed and what your conclusions were. Well, one of the games that I thought was most interesting week one was the defending NFC champion Atlanta Falcons looking roughly the same level as the Chicago Bears who I don't think won the NFC championship last year.

They didn't plan. You'd be incorrect about that. They won it in my heart, which is the only place that matters. Yeah. So it's one of these weird games where you're like, are the, are the Falcons not up to the level that they were last year or are the bears surprisingly decent? I got the sense that the Falcons can come back from a game where they played slightly down to the level of their competition. I still wasn't very impressed with the fact that the Chicago Bears are playing Mike Glennon at quarterback, even though the game was close.

No one is impressed. No one is impressed. It was surprisingly close, but I have more faith in the Falcons performance to be a flute. than the bears to be a consistently good team. Yeah, I wrote about the Falcons on the ringer.com on Tuesday about how they modeled themselves after a elite British cycling team. Actually, it's a very good story. You should go read it.

The Falcons are interesting to me because a couple of times over the off season, we mentioned them as a team that we were sleeping on as contenders because what they lost was Kyle Shanahan, which is obviously an incredibly important piece. but I think a lot of times coaches and assistant coaches are overrated unless they have Belichickie and her Pete Carroll type power. So I think it's going to take Steve Sarkozy in a little bit to get the hang of this, but I believe in those weapons and I believe on the athleticism on defense.

And so I don't think that this is going to be a sustained thing, where they're always going to be beating the bears by just one possession. I feel like they're going to have their 40-point game within the next two games. I totally agree. I think that the spacing that Shanahan just inherently created is not there. Just the wide open throws, the ability to create those windows. So, he doesn't have that. He'll get more of a rhythm.

I think the weapons are fine. The one thing on offense that isn't going to change, I think it could be a problem, is West Schweitzer, the right guard just got his ass kicked by Akeem Hicks. Akeem Hicks is really good, but that's the only personnel change they made on that side of the ball, and it already has become a problem. So if you want to just keep an eye out on something that could short-circuit them in a way that isn't going to change that we didn't really think about. That's one piece.

The other side of that is the Bears' front seven can play. I mean, they just have talent in that area of the field. Hicks is a really good player. Leonard Floyd is going to have a nice season. They have depth there. I think that the linebackers are really good. So the fact that Atlanta couldn't get much going on the ground, and that kind of gave them problems in the passing game and the play action game,

I expected that. I expected the Bears to play decently well. I thought the game would be 2720. It wasn't far off from that. the offense is not going to be good, especially now Kevin White's out. I have no idea how they're going to have a passing game. They're going to have to throw it to Tariq Cohen 15 times a game, which they pretty much did on Sunday. So I think the Bears are better than people think, but I also think the Falcons are going to be better later in the season than they are now.

There were encouraging things for, I mean, Tariq Cohen is, I think everybody's new favorite player. He's so fun. I'm so happy. It's the best thing that's happened to me in a long time. So it was great to see him. But the Bears really almost did win that game. there was an 88-yard touchdown off of a miscommunication for the Falcons. They're going to be able to run the ball all season.

I mean, Jordan Howard, Cohen, Kyle Long didn't even play on Sunday. They're going to be able to run the ball. I think that I said it before the year. They're not going to be embarrassing. And that is a higher bar than they've been clearing recently. Can I still get into the Tarreek Cohen fan club? Is it too late?

Yes. Cohen, I will punch your ticket right now. Roger, in the last segment, I said, Seahawks hive and I got roasted. You can't really just hive everything. All right, buddy, what's another one that you aren't sure if it's real or not after watching it on Sunday? I know that a very popular topic of discussion is Andy Dalton. People have opinions on Andy Dalton.

And he, well, he didn't play well on Sunday. He threw four interceptions, which is half as many as he threw all of last season. He looked like complete dog shit. It was not great. The entire offense was just garbage. I like the Ravens defense. We talked about that a little bit. I want to give them some credit.

I also want to talk about how terrible the Bengals looked. I just want to say real quick, there's a debate. There was a debate this morning on Twitter about whether or not there is a quarterback crisis in the NFL or it's an offensive line crisis that then leads to a quarterback crisis. It's an interesting chicken and the egg thing because I do think those two things are related. Having said that, in Cincinnati, the answer is both. Yeah, the chicken and the egg showed up simultaneously for the Bengals.

They're both there, yeah. He just made so many bad throws. And it's it's it's not like he's been an interception prone quarterback the last few years. So I'm holding out a little bit of hope that he's not going to be throwing, you know, his entire team's hopes away every single week. But God, there were they were ducks. They were bad decisions. He threw one off alignment's helmet, which isn't good.

It was just a disaster on every front. I'm hoping it's a. fluke for him, but, oh, it wasn't pretty. I think it might be a personal fluke, but if that offense doesn't get better, if that offensive line doesn't get better, we're going to see more performances like this than we did, then we will have seen kind of 2015 Andy Dalton. It's going to be closer to this every second. Kevin, we've talked about this a bunch, just what the infrastructure for a quarterback does

and how much it matters. And when Dalton was playing really well in 2015, which he was, they finished number one in passing VOA, Cincinnati did. it was a perfect infrastructure. The setting was beautiful for a quarterback. They had a great offensive line. They had great weapons. The coordinator was very good.

They just had this overall environment that would allow a quarterback to thrive. And that is what Andy Dalton needs. He's not a player that can transcend whatever his surroundings are. And now we've gone not totally the other way. AJ Green's still good. But the offensive line is so bad that it's just completely torn apart whatever that that cushy environment was. And now we're seeing what happens.

I think that's the Kirk Cousins conversation in a way. What they had in Washington last year was so good that it becomes difficult to evaluate him. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if one or two of those pieces gets taken away, which it seemed like they did against Philly, that he's not going to look like Eddie Dalton did on Sunday, but he's going to look like a different quarterback. All right, Roger, thank you so much for joining us. This is a great segment.

We will look forward to reading your fluke or non-fluk piece on the ringer.com. Hey, thanks for having me. Before we get out of here on this Tuesday wrap of a week one, we want to offer our lasting impressions from the week. Kevin, we're going to do this every week. Just kind of the topic or the thing that's stuck with us for the next couple days after Sunday ended. Why don't you go ahead with yours? The NFL has a superstar problem. We talk about the quarterback problem, the offensive line problem.

These things are all related. But there are a concentration of one superstar teams and the NFL is having a bad string of luck with those guys. David Johnson is now ruled out two to three months per Adam Schaefter. That's going to ruin a lot of marquee man. including this week with the Colts and the Cardinals. By the way, the Colts are without Andrew Luck, meaning this is one of the most unwatchable games in years. It is going to be ugly. The next week, you'll have Cardinals against the Cowboys. That was supposed to be a Monday night marquee matchup, and instead you're getting unwatchable Drek. A week later, Colts at Seahawks.

Nobody wants to watch that game. That will be the Sunday night game. It will be Scott Tolzeen against the best defense in football. The NFL has a lot of reasons to get very serious about player health. It is the most pressing problem, perhaps in the history of the NFL. One of those reasons is that they have a shortage of young superstars in the game. There are a breeze. There are Brady. There's Rothesburg. There's rivers. They're all aging out of the NFL. We don't know who will replace them. Who will be the superstars of the game in five years? I'm not sure, but if they keep getting hurt, it's a big problem for the league and it's screwing up the primetime schedule. And that is maybe how the NFL who won their $14 billion a year may act.

It is a huge problem and something the NFL needs to address. Robert? I'm not going very far away from that. We talk about unwatchable direct. We talk about player safety. The one thing that kept popping up for me over and over and over again on Sunday was how bad these offensive lines are. There were so many units that couldn't even function.

It's not as if there's one or two bad players that lead to a sack here, a sack there. There were offenses that couldn't actually be viable teams, feel viable units, and make viable offense and make viable games. because of what the offensive lines looked like. Think about Seattle. Think about Cincinnati. Houston. There were just so many that popped up

and ruined games before they could even begin. In a place like Houston, we talked about Twain Brown. He may be back. Brian Bilaga was hurt for the Packers. They had some problems with Cliff Averill as a result. But there are teams that planned for this. The Bengals planned for this.

They let Andrew Whitworth and Kevin Zaitler go. The Seahawks, they didn't plan on George Fank getting hurt, but they signed Luke Jockel. That was on purpose. we talked about this for the last three or four years. What are the reasons that are leading to this? Spread offenses. Lack of OTA practice time.

All of those things matter. But I was talking to an NFL offensive lineman this week, and he brought up a point that I hadn't really considered, and that's that the lack of continuity is really tearing these teams apart. I think the Bengals saw that. You let guys walk, guys sign in free agency. There were a time, you know, 10, 15 years ago when lions could play together for five or six years. That doesn't happen anymore.

What Pittsburgh has, what a team like Dallas sort of has, even though there's some turnover, that's become rarer and rarer because there are not that many good offensive linemen. So not that many are getting retained, not that many are getting resigned. And it's led to a level of play that is a lot of times unwatchable. That's what Seattle's offense was. That's what the Bengals offense was. It's not going to get solved this year. I don't know when it's going to get solved. I do know that it's going to get a lot worse before it's going to get any better.

Well said. All right, buddy. That's it for today. We'll be back on Friday to get you all set for week two. As always, thank you so much for listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.