The Ringer NFL Show - Week 10 Recap: Miracle in the Desert, Pats Upset Ravens, Winners and Losers | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

Kevin and Nora start by discussing Kyler Murray’s game-winning Hail Mary touchdown to DeAndre Hopkins to defeat the Buffalo Bills (2:45). Then they talk about the New England Patriots' Sunday-night upset win over the Baltimore Ravens (13:55). After that, they pick out their winners and losers (25:45) and answer a couple of listener questions (1:09:18) Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined by Nora Prince of the idea to discuss Kyler Murray, DeAndre Hopkins, Lamar Jackson, the Seattle Seahawks, and much more. Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show and the Ringer podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm at a surprisingly great rate. That's like drafting a player that becomes an all pro, the real deal. State Farm agents provide personalized service so you can customize your insurance to fit your needs, like a GM putting together their very own roster.

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It is during our NFL show, part of the podcast network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined by my buddy, Noel Prince, how to go on. Kevin, what a great day. What an exciting day. I'm so happy to be here. I was going to ask you how your football was. I don't think it was pretty good. The only low point for me, I groaned.

I groaned out loud alone in my living room when I heard the Eagles are still in the first place at 3, 5, and 1. That was it. I was watching the waning seconds of that game. And the announcer said that, and I said, ah, come on. I'm torn because I love chaos. But I will tell you, and I think we'll talk about this a little later, there was a part of me that was so excited to just go, okay. The Eagles are getting a little bit healthier, and they'll probably wrap this thing up, and they'll win six or seven games, and they'll lose in the playoffs, and we'll call it a day, and we can just be done.

But it's still 2020 chaos rules. I'm done with them. And I want the NFC East to go to some sort of island, just get away from us, handle their business behind closed doors. And then on Saturday night, a wildcard weekend, just show up, tell us who won. That's all I need. Just go somewhere else. Figure it out on your own time. Figure it out.

It's like when he kicked out of class and figure this out. somewhere else. I never got me out with the NFCS. That's never something that may have had to me. I think we may have had different school experiences. Got a badass over here. Another, another pod. Another pod.

We're going to start with the obvious, which is one of the plays of the year. One of the most fun plays I can remember of the first successful Hill Mary in five years. Kyler Murray throws it up to John Dr. Hopkins, 51 yards in the air. It's a 43-yard touchdown on record. This was an amazing play. the Cardinals beat the bills. Nora, there's so much to get to here. I mean, first of all, if you didn't, when that ball was in the air and you saw it going to Hopkins,

you have to remember that this is a guy who had a 1500 yard season with Brandon Whedon, T.J. Yates, Ryan Mowellon, Brian Hoyer. Okay, so he's a miracle worker. And so I was not surprised when he came down with this ball. He's a guy who, I mean, he's famous for having almost, like, mastered the art of having good hands. Like, I was watching a Peter King interview with a heated. two years ago where he was saying that he used to catch flies. That was how he trained his hands and sort of understood hand-eye coordination. And he used to study how flies move so he could do it.

Like, if anyone was going to come down with this catch, it was DeAndre Hopkins, your reaction was what? Which, like, by the way, we've all been with that friend who's, like, grasping in the air, trying to swat a fly and just being like, dude, you're not, you're not going to get it. You're not DeAndre Hopkins. That's what I'm going to say the next time somebody does that near me, Like, are you, last I checked, you were not DeAndre Hopkins. So why don't we give this? I kind of want to see DeAndre Hopkins do it now. I would love to do that.

It's a cliche at this point to just name things that would be more exciting than the Pro Bowl, like Daniel Jones running a race. They're not having the Proble this year. So now it's just, it's the Hypothman's catching insects. Right. So my hypothetical dream Pro Bowl includes Daniel Jones running against air and DeAndre Hopkins swatting at flies. the thing we have to talk about here is that the Hail Mary took place with two seconds left in the game, right?

But with 37 seconds left in the game, we had another insane play, which was Josh Allen throwing what was at that point the go-ahead touchdown to Stefan Diggs. So this was just this was the game that we don't want to take place on a secret island far away from everyone, right? Like this was just one of the most fun football games that we've seen pure unadulterated, just like injected into my veins football. And it puts both teams in a really interesting situation, right? Because the Cardinals are now six and three. They're in a three-way tie for the lead in the NFC West. The bills are seven and three. They're going into a buy.

They're one, they're half a game up because they're a game ahead in the win column on the dolphins. They have the, the bills have the buy. The dolphins play the Broncos. Drew Locke looked terrible today. And then the dolphins have the jets and the bangles. The bills have the buy. And then they have the chargers and the 49ers. So this is like all we can ask for, right?

because it was a really exciting game. A lot happened. And it has pretty significant playoff implications on both sides. And obviously, since both teams are in tight races for the division, there's still a lot of time to see where it can go. But this is one with a pretty significant ripple effect. Yeah. The ripple effect here is amazing. And it's one of those plays where we might look back on it in seven weeks and say there's a, there's a playoff win that happened because of what happened to it.

Whether that's NFC or AFC because of just what these teams. teams are like, okay? From a football standpoint, this was amazing. You know, Tredavius White, Micahide and Jordan Poyer were, we're basically wrapping DeAndre Hopkins up. And I think that, you know, the old Tom Jackson NFL prime time does knock it down thing applied. But I also think that he's such an athlete that, you know, mossing, as they say, was an option here for Hopkins. Now, I think that this, there are some things. This was luck. This was, this was, you know, time on the clock and and all that stuff is there's 98 things that had to go right and and they did but it was also Kyla Murray and DeAndre Hopkins and this is why you get these guys this is why you trade for

deandre Hopkins this is why you have a guy like Kyle and Murray who can just throw these balls down the field and be so accurate on these long passes so this was the intersection of luck and talent and I think that it is a good entree into how good this this cardinal team can be okay if you throw that ball 100 times. It's not going to have a high success rate, but there is, it is extremely explicable that it happened. Kaila Murray to me is becoming a super duper star in front of our eyes. He's becoming one of the best quarterbacks in football. I think that there are certain things. If we hadn't seen Lamar Jackson last year, and I think that spoiled us a little bit, from a running quarterback perspective, he's doing things that should not be done in the field.

And I have the same experience watching him now as I did watching Lamar last year, which is this is not supposed to work on a football field. Okay. And this is every coach, every defensive coordinator, if you said to them, this is what a quarterback will do. They said, not in the NFL. Nope, nope, not in the NFL.

And he's doing it. Okay, like he is so quick. He's making defense to like they're working at half speed. He had 245 yards, say one touchdown, one reception. The interception was weird. It was kind of ricocheted off of a Larry Fitzgerald. I don't even know how to describe it.

It basically went through Fitzgerald's body and went up into the air and was picked off by Jordan Poirer. If Larry Fitzgerald didn't have such good hands, it would have just been a drop. He was so good. He was so good at getting in position to then and then it kind of ricocheted off or whatever and kind of actually kind of way would shout out of a cannon up into the air. It was like a little lob. The confidence that he moves around in the football field right now,

Kyle and Murray understands that he's great. And I think that there's going to be the next seven weeks are going to be amazing. Now, you pair that with the throws, the ability for Jenner Hopkins, not only make difficult catches like that, but routinely make difficult catches. You know, PFF tracks that data. There's a reason that Dandra Hopkins is able to do this stuff. This is the team that we were expecting to see from a talent perspective.

And I think in a weird NFC year right now, I think they are capable of beating anyone in that conference. So I would agree with most of that, except that I think this is better than the team that I thought that they would be because they are, I thought they would be spicy. You know, I thought they would have some fun wins that we didn't expect. This is the best case scenario with that talent all getting cashed in. Right.

Because it's working in so many different ways. And I think the Bill's defense actually, which has not been what it was last year, it's gotten incrementally better recently. And part of that's health. They have Trey White back. I think the number one thing that they tried to do was keep the edges set, keep Kyler as contained as possible. And actually, earlier in the game, they were doing. doing a pretty decent job of that.

But then what you saw was that they had to respect the passing game. They had to put a lot of attention on Hopkins. And then when they had light boxes, when the Cardinals had light boxes, they ran on them for 177 yards and 6.8 yards per carry. And a lot of that is Kyler. And then you see at the end of that game, he's rolling to his left. And as amazing as that catch is, and part of that's luck, part of that's incredible hands on Hopkins's part.

But the throw was spectacular too. And so this isn't a spicy team to me anymore. This is a fundamentally sound, really good team that is not just trying to make the playoffs and make a splash, but is a legitimate contender. Yes. If they were in the AFC, we're saying, oh, man, features looking bright. Can't be at the chiefs. Can't be, you know, maybe not on the deos level, whatever. This is a team that can win the NFC.

And it's because they have one of the best quarterbacks in football, or it's impossible to game plan. and he can do it all. And this is the leap before the season. I said, I think Kyla Murray is going to take the same leap that Mahomes and Jackson did, but the infrastructure wouldn't be there. And then a week two or week three, I amended that take and said, you know, that's actually a little bit. That's almost not possible. Like if a quarterback takes that leap, he's going to have a good team.

And so it's impossible to say Kalamara is going to take that leap and they're not going to make the playoffs or whatever. And so I meant of that, thought the Cardinals make the playoffs. was actually disappointed in the first couple of weeks and they started dropping games they shouldn't have. But for the last month or so, they've cashed in on what I've seen. And so I think that this sets up an NFC West race that is, and we'll talk about the Rams here in a second,

but every team in the NFC West has more wins than any team in the NFC East. Okay, that should be obvious. But if you have three teams with six wins, at some point, these sort of wins that you can steal become so crucially important. And that's why Sunday is so important. It's not just that if you were watching that game,

you saw a super-duper star. If you didn't already think he was a super-duper star, but it's the fact that, again, this is a math problem, weirdest year of all time. I like, you know, the Rams are, the Cardinals are squarely in this race,

and this is just amazing. Congratulations to the Houston Texans on their second round pick. And David Johnson. Oh, that's true. Can't leave him out. The thing that just bothers me so much is this is someone,

DeAndre Hopkins, who can create something out of nothing. Like, that wasn't necessarily a joke I was making about him having 15,000 yards with, with T.J. Yates and Brandon Whedon and Brian Hoyden and Brian Hoyer. I mean, like, he can do anything.

And now he had Deshawn Watson, and you should keep that partnership together for as long as you possibly can. Bill O'Brien, aside from Jordan Poyer and Javius White and the guys who were surrounding John Drey Hopkins, no one was a bigger loser than Bill O'Brien, the Texans franchise, all that stuff, who it's not like

they shouldn't have seen this coming. This is what he did every single week for five years. I have a question. Now that Bill O'Brien is no longer involved with the Houston Texans organization, does this stuff, does it still all stick to him?

Or do we feel like there's a transitive property of reputational damage that's going on here? I think that it's the whole organization. I would say that we got a reader question that we're not going to get to, that was, should the Texans rehire Bill O'Brien

just to fire him again? Which I thought was innovative. I think that Bill O'Brien was a symptom of something larger, which is just there's just not a lot right in Houston right now. There was a report that maybe Jack used to be retains GM power through next year. I certainly hope not. I hope that they hire the right people

and the Deshaun Watson, who's locked into a long-term contract and figure this out. We can do Bill O'Brien, week and all that stuff. But I just, this, this is why you have DeAndh Hopkins on your roster. I just, I don't know. I don't know how to split this. Let's give a little bit of props again, because as you said, the bills could have easily won those games. Defon Diggs is one of the best receivers in football. Speaking of newly acquired this year, wide receivers, Defundig's been an absolute home run. Josh Allen, you know, 78 yard drive with 34 seconds remaining to have that

touchdown. I thought it was a nice, nice day for the bills. They should have had a huge win, but they got Hopkins, as they say. All right. Next headline is a game that is in the running for one of the weirdest games of the season. It was a disgusting storm. Nora, are you feeling that disgusting storm where you are right now? Yeah, so it's actually really funny.

So Foxborough is about 40 minutes south driving by car. I don't know exactly what the mileage is of Boston, where I am currently. And the game ended maybe 15 minutes ago. and right about when it finished, I started to hear outside, oh, whoa, it's raining. And then started to process, wait,

if it's starting to come here, that means that what we just saw towards the end of the game, I don't know how long it'll take for that system to get over where my apartment is in downtown Boston, but it's coming down. So the Patriots beat the Baltimore Ravens

23 to 17 in a game that you know we were talking before this as is also in boston by the way and he was feeling that system but this is shocking if you just see the score but gets less shocking the more details you know about it coming in so lamar jackson goes in the rich eyes and show and says essentially says they're being predictable and the defense are calling out their plays and if you were to have a nightmare coach to go against when you're having a predictable offense or or an identity crisis or whatever it is, it will be Bill Belichick. And so I guess that was the argument going into this.

I thought it might be close. We talked about this on Bill's pot. I thought the Ravens were going to win, but I saw a path to where it was a competitive game. I didn't see this picker game coming. I thought the Ravens would be better. Greg Rowan, sorry, buddy, you cannot put the ball in Mark Ingram's hand

on a direct snap on fourth and one. Like, give the best running quarterback in modern NFL history. I don't know. I mean, like, he has the Russian record for a reason. And I just don't understand how that offense got so stale. Now, I think that a large part of last year was running the same plays from different looks and being able to block it up front and having one of the best runners to ever play the quarterback position behind it. I think that was a pretty good recipe. I felt like that could have progressed. It hasn't. The Ravens are six and three. They're banged up. They've got divisional opponents going forward. This is a mess. Nor, what did you think? It's, there's so many caveats you can give. It's sloppy out there. It was so, well, but the sloppiest thing out there was the Baltimore Ravens. Right.

And the penalties and the snaps and all that stuff. That's where I'm going. The rain didn't help, but man, they would not have been. The Patriots did not fumble. They Patriot, well, that's because they practice with, with what football says we know. Right. That was a joke. They do.

They do. do practice is what football is. The reason they didn't fumble is because they deflated the balls. And Bill Belichick controls the ball. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Glad we're on the same page with that. I'm joking, by the way. They actually, they don't deflate the footballs now. They do practice in the rain. Okay, go ahead. I think you're going to say they do control the weather.

They do control the weather. There's nine million things that you can say, and judging by my Twitter account, Harbaugh is saying a few of them about very, things that can explain why this went wrong for the Ravens. I just think that I was ready to bury the Patriots, frankly. I don't think that they have a good team. And they got much better secondary play. Chase Winnovich has been on this very strange journey where sometimes he plays, sometimes he doesn't, sometimes he's good, sometimes he's bad.

He had his best game today. Kyle Dugger made his first start and made a pretty, good contributions. So the Patriots were getting better play on defense than they have in a lot of games. Obviously, this is the type of situation, bad weather that you expect them to be well prepared for. I think that I thought the Lamar Jackson comments about having their plays called out, those tend to get a little overblown, not just from him, but whenever there's a quarterback who says stuff like that, just because I think it's not as if the other teams are, you know, saying, oh, this is exactly the play that they're about to run.

Generally, it just, it has to do with tendencies and we hear defenses do that stuff all the time, right? Like, they're all yelling at each other. They're all getting organized. They're all saying like, oh, oh, it's run left. Go over there. Go do that. And I think we're all used to hearing that. But then when somebody comes out and says, I think we're getting predictable, I think

they know what's coming. It sounds like, oh, the opponent has completely the answers to the test. I do think you're right that if your average opponent can. can sniff out some idea of what's going to happen, then Bill Belichick is going to be able to figure out pretty clearly. So with all of those things in mind about what wasn't going the way that the Ravens would have wanted them to, the Patriots are a bad team. And to me, this result does not change the fact that they are a bad team, which makes

what happened to the Ravens look worse, I would say. So I don't see this changing the trajectory that the Patriots are on, but it does concern me for Baltimore. Baltimore's got a problem because that AFC playoff race is crowded. It's really getting tight. They're not going to win the division. And Pittsburgh's going to run away with it. Tennessee is ninth right now.

And they're a really good team. So if you drop any game and if you drop a game to a bad team, which you say the Patriots are, and I tend to agree with you. That's just an unenforced error. They have Tennessee, Baltimore has Tennessee next week, and then they had the Steelers on Thursday night after that. It's a Thanksgiving game. That's massive.

Like the next two weeks define who they are because at some point, just because you have one of the best players in football and because you were amazing last year and she won the Super Bowl last year, and because I picked you win the Super Bowl, that doesn't get you in the playoffs, okay? Like, this is math.

and you've got to win these. Now, it opens up a little bit after that. They have the Cowboys, then they have the Jaguars, both in December. They have the Brown sandwich in between that and the Giants, the Bengals of the end. But they have to at some point show that the 2020 Ravens are a good team. I haven't necessarily seen that. I've seen it in spurts. I've seen it in plays.

But right now, they're a confusing, sloppy mess. And I think the biggest mistake we always make is we try. And listen, they're six and three. I'm not going to fire anybody here. But when I'm thinking about the elite teams right now, I keep throwing this Baltimore team in there out of habit because I've seen what they're capable of. And at some point, I keep getting more and more frustrated.

And I just, I don't know what I'm looking at right now. They are trying things that don't work. And so the Patriots, right? Like the Patriots are team with their back against the wall in a lot of ways. But you see them get there. And in some ways, these are two sides. of the same coin to me of them not being a very good team. But Josh McDaniels is drawing up trick plays and they're having Jacoby Myers throw the ball and they're just pushing the edges and not that

Cam Newton was bad, but they're kind of trying to be this like post quarterback team, which has something to do with the weather. And then you look on the other side and you see the Ravens do stuff like run a direct snap to Mark Ingram and it just goes horribly, horribly wrong. And And at a certain point, if you are the type of team that needs to be able to find those little edges and little advantages to win, then you got to be able to execute some of those things. Or the alternative, right, is you can just be a good team and you cannot need to rely on those little things. I think we are squarely in the territory with the Patriots where they're going to have to have some of those things. They have to have their coaching advantage. They have to have some of those things go right.

and they can squeak out wins because of that. And that's why I think sometimes we talk about, oh, well, the Patriots still have Bill Belichick. They still have the infrastructure. Right. And the reason that matters to me is because they're still in a good position to be competitive in the future in the sense that they haven't hamstrung themselves with financial decisions, with bad contracts.

Newton obviously was incredibly cheap. They actually have salary caps based. next year, which considering the situations that a lot of teams are in is crazy. They haven't traded away draft picks like left and right. You can argue with the decision not to be sellers at the deadline. I think some of that has to do with just not getting offers that they wanted. But when I hear, well, the Patriots still have Bill Belichick, I hear, yeah, next year. And they're not screwed for the future.

And that's because they're a soundly run team. And they'll still win game. like this in the meantime, but that I don't know what it means. What I think is a bigger problem is that the other team that played tonight just doesn't seem to have those types of advantages right now. Right, and they should. And they should. Right.

And that's, I think, the point I'm trying to make is because those are smart people. Right. They have a good head coach. He's just worse than the other head coach. And there's a couple things to get mad at here. Number one, we got to figure out the spotting situation with these referees. It was an awful spot that cost the Ravens essentially a punt. Okay.

The Patriot should have had to give the ball up. From an injury standpoint, Nick Boyle is out for the year, and that's, you know, the tight end in that offense can be really important. So that's obviously huge. That's on top of Clay's Campbell, Jimmy Smith, L.J. Fort, Tavon Young, Ronnie Stanley. like this is at some point it's not it's not 49ers level it's not even you know it's eagles esk which we'll talk about a little bit later in this show uh but the depth that they've had is really getting pushed right now and if they don't have all the advantages we thought they did which

was they had two of the best coordinators in football really good head coach the offensive line all of these things they had last year if that doesn't carry over this year and they start to lose their depth. At some point, I don't know. I knocked them from the perch of really good NFL teams. All right, let's go to winners and losers. And our first winner, speaking of the NFC West, and by the way, the Cardinals and the Seahawks play on Thursday in a huge NFC matchup, it's the L.A. Ramps, who beat the Seahawks on Sunday. I wouldn't say it was expected by everyone that they would win this game, but the Seahawks were quite undermanned out two top running backs, two top cornerbacks, offensive lineman. Kyle Fuller, not the defensive back. The backup offensive lineman was going against

Aaron Donald, but the Los Angeles Rams dismantled the Seattle Seahawks. What did we learn? So one, Jalen Ramsey on D.K. Metcalf, a lot of anticipation and Ramsey clearly the winner in that. I bring this up first because I really want to read you a tweet from Jordan Roderick who covers the Rams for the athletic that contains a Jalen Ramsey quote that I just really love. And this is a, we love Jalen Ramsey here. He said, I think it went well. I played a lot of man against him. And I felt like my coverage was really good.

My technique was really good. And I should know this is not part of the tweet, but D.K. Metcalf had two catches for 28 yards in the game. Okay. Then Jordan writes in the tweet, Ramsey also noted that the two Metcalf catches were in zone. Semi colon. Also wanted more focus on his teammates during postgame because it was a

quote, team effort. So I just, I saw that and I just cracked up because I absolutely love me. By the way, his two catches were in zone, but we should really put this on my teammates because they're wonderful. Here's an explanation for how he was able to get those catches, but also it's not about me. It's about them. And also those catches might have been on them too. But it really should in part be because, so Darius Williams, who's been really, really

good for them. And I don't think people are talking about a time. really good opposite Ramsey. He's been, so he had two interceptions. He's been really good in his own right, but he's also let them play Troy Hill at their star position. And I think we're probably going to talk more as the season rolls on about how that secondary is really good. I mean, I think we talk about their defensive line, Aaron Donald's a ton, which probably brings us to the Seahawks who I give them credit for trying to figure out ways to manufacture pressure, particularly. against Goff, who's incredibly pressure sensitive,

the way that they're trying to do it is by incorporating their secondary more in their pressure schemes and blitzing with Jamal Adams, who had two of their three sacks in this game. The problem is it's just leaving them incredibly vulnerable on the back end, and they're not getting enough pressure by doing that alone to knock Jared Goff into bad feeling the pressure, Jared Goff. So I don't know what you do. I mean, I give them credit for trying.

like I said, but it just seems like Russ didn't have a good game, but their defense is still such a liability. And if he's not scoring 40 points, then the formula is not looking too hot. So the Rams are running a very risky game this year with their contracts. And, you know, again, we've joked about it,

but it is generally what got us into the 2008 financial crisis. So just put it all, just put it all on the credit cards, figure it out. The New Orleans Saints would like a word, but. Mortgage it. Mortgage it. We're fine. Borrow more. So they have three active deals over $100 million, four over $60 million.

And when you have that, everything has to go right. But there's a reason you have those big deals. The Jared Gough deal is a really bad deal. We're going to set that aside. But that's kind of what you pay for a veteran quarterback. this league. But when you pay Jalen Ramsey that much money and you pay Aaron Donald that much money and they perform like superstars,

it can be worth it. And if Jalen Ramsey is capable of taking Dekamak to the point that he was not targeted in the first half, not targeted. He was out of the game. He was out of the game. Might as well not have been in stadium. And Aaron Donald was sucking up double teams

and was allowing Russ to get pressure because of that, because of how much focus was on him. And I saw a stat from from turf show times that since Ramsey was acquired and they've only played twice since then. Russell Wilson has zero touchdowns and three interceptions. And obviously that's not tons of injuries on the Seahawks side. We're not going to we're not going to do the Russell Wilson has a Rams problem thing.

Although, although there have been, the Rams had this, there have been 17 times in Russell Wilson's career. He's been held without a touchdown. Five of those are against the Rams. And that goes back to Jeff Fisher. They've always played them tough. It's never been, even in the franchise that does not play normal games, those RAM games are particularly unnormal, okay? But I do think there's something to just how this Rams defense is currently built

that can keep the Seahawks offense on tilt a little bit. And so I was, as someone who went on Simmons podcast on Friday and talked up the RAM, especially as sort of an NFC contender, and listen, I don't want to make this a theme where I, I just throw every good NFC team as a team that can win the NFC. But that's what's going to happen because there's just not a good team, great team in the NFC. And even with the Saints,

who I've talked up for the last week because they thought they were a complete team, well, Drew Breeze had to remove himself from the game, said he was an incredible amount of pain, you know, couldn't play the second half. Like there's just so many questions that, yes, when the Rams play a game like this, I'm going to throw them in the Super Bowl conversation.

I'm just going to keep doing that. Okay. And that doesn't go all the way down. I'm not going to throw Nick Bowles in the Super Bowl conversation. I'm at Nagee. But I am going to throw a pretty complete team who has a win over a really good Seahawks team into the Super Bowl conversation. Should we do like an NFC round robin? Should that be the playoffs?

Would that be better? It might be kidding with this year. I mean, we're doing that right now. And we're learning nothing because the Packers beat the Saints and then the Bucks beat the Packers and then the Bucks lose to the Saints. It's getting complicated. Yes. Now I've lost it. Now I don't know who's good.

Oh, great. I'm back to where I started. So I just think that there's something here with this Rams team. And I think that, you know, Andrew Whitworth, he gets carted off. He's one of the best veterans in this league and a great, well-respected locker room guy, as well as an awesome tackle, obviously. But he told Jay Glazer that it's not as serious as initially thought. It was an MCL and PCL tear.

by the way, this league, where we, it's, oh, it's fine. It's just an MCL and PCL tear, which I googled. It's like six weeks, something like that. But listen, I'm not a doctor, but that's what I, I saw the diagnosis. I googled it. I got six weeks. The Seahawks right now, they start 5 and O. And now they're just kind of slailing a little bit.

Again, they've had injuries, but are you getting concerned about them? I'm not getting concerned about them in terms of can they make the playoffs and are they, can they win any game against this mishmosh of the NFC? Because that's just what we're looking at, I think. And even dating, they're not a team that's been hit super hard with COVID stuff, but one of the things that I was thinking about a lot last week was just the idea of how much time we spent over the off season and right in the lead up to week one, just thinking like, this is going to be a weird friggin year, man, and there's going to be a lot of strange stuff. And then the first month or so of the season was pretty normal.

And I think at least in my case, it kind of lulled me to sleep a little bit, where now all the weird results feel purely weird. And it's informative to revisit that preseason frame of mind a little bit and just go, home field advantage is dead. Teams are having to take weeks off from practice and just do everything via Zoom. there is a lot that's strange going on. And even if those aren't specifically the things that are going on in this game, I think it's worth taking a step back and going a loss like this doesn't mean that they're not competitive, but it means that they haven't found it. I think in some ways, even though it didn't work very well,

I was oddly encouraged to see them just start playing with various ways to try to create pressure because it's better than just giving up and doing nothing, which a couple weeks ago I sort of felt like that's where they were. I'm not sure that Chris Collinsworth's vote alone can save Russell Wilson's MVP chances. He might get it in early. You might get it in early. That's true. He should send a spy or someone to investigate the status of that.

But I don't, I'm not, I'm certainly not bearing the Seahawks. but I don't think that they are maybe cream of the crop in the way that we felt like they might have been several weeks ago. So the flip side of me just lumping everybody who's ever played a football game into the NFC Super Bowl conversation is that I think it's way too early to make any strong declarations if you have sort of the ear markings of a talented football team. And Seahawks had that. Now, there were things that worried me today.

I think Russell's decision making was a little bit off, especially on the end zone interception. I think that punt, either there was a cowardly punt there on fourth and one at the Seattle 42, did not love the cowardly punt. So I think that there's some things here that concern me,

but I think, and I'm sorry, it's not like a broken record, but this is just an Occam's razor season. And everything, the simplest explanation is always going to be the most correct. And if you still have Russell Wilson and,

no, I still think Pete Carroll is a very good coach, and D.K. Metcalfe and some talent on the off the side of the ball. and enough solid defenders where they can make plays in a year where defense increasingly matters in very weird terms, I think that you still have a chance to make the Super Bowl. So I think that they're going to be helped by the fact that, okay, are they complete? No, but who in the NFC is right now?

And not even right now. Who will be? No one. And so I'm not ready to throw anybody into the ocean here. I will say, I am with you on the MVP thing. I don't, I just don't understand what happened to Patrick Mahomes here. I just don't understand how this, and part of this is us and all the media and all this stuff, but Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback in football.

And I think that's going to remain true. Now, if maybe there's some defenses that are so bad that they propel a player like Russell Wilson into the conversation, we'll see, we'll kind of see how that goes. But if you're going to give it to the best quarterback, the most valuable quarterback, which is what this award has become, I think it's going to go to Patrick Mahomes. I don't think in week 17,

we're going to have much of an argument about that. Unless it's Kyler Murray, which would take a little bit more from Kyler. That's all. I'm saying if current, current projections hold. Well, it'll take more from

Kyler in the sense that Mahomes is just otherworldly, but Kyler would also be new and we love new. I know. We are fickle, fickle people and that's always worth remembering in this discussion. Patrick Mahomes has

25 touchdowns of one interception this year. Right. And Russell Wilson has 10 interceptions and his back-to-back multi-turnover games. Like Patrick... Yes. Patrick Mahomes just doesn't make mistakes anymore. But again, we are fickle, fickle people and we become bored so easily and I just don't trust us.

I don't have I'm totally sure who gets a vote and why. Yeah, I don't have a vote. I think I could get a vote. I like signed up. I think I get emails sometimes and then I don't respond to the emails. I don't get the emails. I don't get the emails like turning your phone.

Not like Chris Collins was a situation. I think like there's organizations I would have to join and I don't, I've never joined them. If the old George Carlin bit never, never join a group with a name, you know. Maybe this is a conversation for offline. All right. Let's talk with the dolphins who are now three and no since Tua took over. Very exciting. Sorry, I'm still laughing about them.

That's great. Never joined a club that would have me as a member? No, that's not George Carlin. Okay. Who said that? I think it was, wasn't it Groucho Marx? Classic. Talk about the dolphins while I figured.

I'd talk about the dolphins while I figure out. Yeah, it's Groucho Marx. All right. So the dolphins are the best team in the AFC East, I think, is pretty. pretty clear. It's pretty clear. So the dolphins have a plus 69 point differential. You're very into newness is one thing I'll say. I'm not, I'm not dismissing this argument. I'm not dismissing this argument. I'm just saying that we, the, with, if not for a 41 yard

touchdown with two seconds left today, they would have gotten a really good win in there. The bills would have gotten really good win in Arizona. Okay. This is not, I don't think this is a newness argument. They have, they have the, by far the best. point of Regal and the Division. Yes. They have a takeaway in each of their last 15 games. They will not continue to keep getting a defensive or special teams touchdown every week.

I admit that that may regress to some degree. But two has been really pretty good. I think a really wonderful surprise, really fun to watch. And they just don't really even need him to do all that much. Zavian Howard's been fantastic. They just function. really at a high level in all three phases. And if you really look at it,

I actually, one, they have an easier schedule than the bills. And I think after this week, I think they will win the division. Okay. So we should back up because we got so off track because of the quote. The Dolphins beat the Chargers this week.

Oh, yeah. 21. Battle of really good top six quarterback from the 2020 draft. Tua now has five. touchdowns, no interceptions. And, you know, listen, it was not a perfect game, but Tua starts his first drive at the game in the one-yard line after the special teams play. And one of the things in reading the Dolphins beat writers, I was bringing Dave Hyde, the great columnist down there. And one of things he was saying was just, you know, this is so unusual. It's probably been, you know, what,

25 years since the Dolphins had a good coaching staff. And since the, the, the quarter of was put in position to where he didn't have to do a ton. And every quarterback that was drafted by the Dolphins, starting with John Beck, I don't know, before that, but they were going to fail anyway because they just weren't very good, but they also were just not put in position to succeed. I mean, Ryan Tannenhill obviously could have done much better if he was put in position to succeed.

And so now you're seeing that with two. where he doesn't have to do a lot. He is capable of doing a lot and has done a lot. And what the thing Dave said in his column today was, the Dolphin fans might be through the looking glass. Like, that's how they're looking at it because competence is so rare down there. And when I watch this team,

knowing this team having grown up, just a couple hours from Miami, I understand what this looks like. It went Jimmy Johnson and then nothing. And now it's Brian Flores. And I'm starting to think, I think this is definitely a playoff team. they, you know, listen, there's seven playoff teams right now.

And there might be eight if any game that matters in the playoff race is canceled, according to a vote that was taken last week. And I think they're only going to get better. I think that they are, you know, this is not going to be one of these math problem teams that gets a seven seed because they accidentally won 10 games. They're going to win 10 games or 11 games because they're worthy of that. And I just, I'm, I'm proud of what the dolphins have built because I think that there are a lot of people, coaches and GMs who would have screwed up that two-year rebuild. But do you even, so given that, do you even think it's that spicy to say that they're going

to win the division? Because they, if they, no, I don't. I don't. I just don't know if they're better than the bills right now. I don't know. If they played right now, I mean, obviously, they have not played with Tua. They will. But I don't, I'm not ready to make any declaration until I see more of the Tua dolphins and more of the Josh Allen bills. Don't know if you've noticed this, Nora, but Josh Allen. there are many different Josh Allen's. Hard to get a sample size on the bills when there's just a couple of different Josh Allen's.

My dad texted me during that game and he just texted me, I'm not a doctor, but I think Josh Allen is clinically insane. It tracks. There's just a... It doesn't. He's not medically qualified to make that statement,

but I relate to the feeling. All I'm saying is that I think that there's a case, the bills came extremely close to having a good win today. And this narrative is completely, it's not flipped, but it's completely different. And so I'm going to refrain from making any AFC East declarations. I think that they're both playoff teams. They're both very good. I just want to see a little bit more from both.

And I'm going to give, listen, they're a half game behind the bills. Right. And they're playing the. Drew Locke. They're playing Drew Locke. And the bills are, the bills are going. then they're by. And so this time next week, they will be

tied in the division. But they play in week 17, and I think we'll know a lot more in a couple weeks. The bills have the Chargers. They have this Chargers team, by the way, in the 29th. And then the 49ers, then the Steelers game. There we go. Right. And again, the Dolphins have

the Jets and the Bengals after the Drewlock Broncos. And Drewlock is going to be like begging Xavier Howard to have three picks. he does that doesn't he yeah but he dances

and you like the dancing Ted Carras and bad snaps today you don't love we don't love to see that hey

so I am a Ted Caras supporter the funny thing about it though was that in it gave me this flashback to September of 2019

when the Patriots beat the Steelers decisively in week one and everyone's like the Patriots are going to go 16 and O and they're the greatest team and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we were all trying to nitpick. And the one thing that everybody came up with was Ted's snaps were a little errant sometimes.

And it was the funniest thing in the world because now we obviously found out later that season the Patriots had a lot bigger problems than that. But everyone was just sitting around going. You mean Tom Brady just loading his shit into a moving van every five seconds? that could, yeah. That was one of the problems. Some real estate transactions, that was part of the issue. But it was a very funny snapshot of just everybody on the Patriots beat, including myself, being like, well, they really beat the Steelers.

The defense looked good. The offense looked good. But that Ted Karras's snaps. This might be a real problem. But again, I think Ted Karras is a wonderful. wonderful person and I hope that they figure it out. All right. Let's talk about speaking of AFC, speaking of spicy AFC teams, I guess you would, you would characterize, characterize all of these is spicy. It's the Raiders and the Browns, both of whom won in very different ways on Sunday. We'll start with the Raiders who absolutely demolished the Denver Broncos who are increasingly clear a bad team. Josh Jacobs, 112 yards, Devante Booker, 81 yards.

The one thing I found amazing about this one, in the first half, according to the SPN, Jacobs gained 52 over 66 yards before contact, and the whole game was over five yards before contact per rush.

So this was a makeshift offensive line for Las Vegas. This was, again, one of these games where you wouldn't be surprised if injuries played a role, and it just didn't. There We're playing bully ball out there, and this is the team that Gruden and Mayock kind of promised, and I thought it wasn't going to come maybe for another year or two. But they're firmly in the playoff race. I have predicted that they will be the odd team out. But at some point, they just keep racking up wins. Nora, what did you think? Yeah, well, they're obviously in the wild card discussion only really because of the chiefs. But they're fun. They're always going to be super variable to me. I don't feel like we're, I don't know that I'm ever going to. going to feel like I'm going into a Raiders game and be like, yeah, I know what those guys are going to do today. So it's like, oh, okay. But they're super fun. I do think that some of the

stats here are a little inflated just because, again, Drew Locke was like, let me, please, please, please throw the ball to the other team. I would really like to do that. That would make me really happy. And he didn't look totally healthy. I think something health-wise is maybe going on with him or he was at least gimpy for part of that. So we'll have to figure out what's going on there. But I don't totally know what to make of them week to week, but I do think that Derek Carr's playing pretty well. And he's actually thrown deep a little bit more than we're used to him doing. And part of that's the personnel. But if that's coming together, then they're really fun to watch.

And I hate that answer because it's such a cop out. I do feel a little bit nervous about predicting big things for a team that's just like definitely wild card or bust. But they can, they have a really high ceiling because of how much offensive talent is there. Yeah, yes and no. I mean, I think that Derek Carr has played well this year, but I think once you get into the playoffs, there's just a lot better quarterbacks. And again, John Gurdon has been a good coach this year, but you get into the, the playoffs are just better coaches. So I think there is a ceiling. I would say I would push back

a little bit when you said they're kind of variable. You never know what you're going to get. With the exception of the chiefs, and I guess the Steelers, that applies to everybody in the league right now. Like, I don't know, like the bucks, they were, they were kind of struggling in the first quarter today. I'm just going like, yeah, I guess. I don't know, 2020, right? And so I think that there's, there's a, you know, they are of 2020. I guess you could say. I would say, I would say that, uh, let's move on, actually let's move on to the, the Browns here. And we'll get into the broader discussion. So the Browns, uh, win a awful game. They could have won by 10 points had Nick Chubb not pulled a reverse Todd Gurley and stepped out at the one yard line.

Uh, no, nice comeback game for Chubb. Miles Garrett was basically the player of the game, stuffed to Sean Watson on fourth and goal at the two yard line, not ideal play calling from the Houston, Texas. Uh, but this was, that's what they need to do. Baker Mayfield does not look good at this point. And producer Isaiah dialed up a fake reader question earlier today, which was, would you rather have Jake Luton or Baker Mayfield? We will not be answering that question. But yeah, there's, listen, this is not a perfect team, but they are a math problem team, which is they just keep winning. The Titans right now are ninth in the AFC playoff race. Okay. There are one, two, three, four, five, six teams.

with six wins. This is going to be a traffic jam. And we're going to see teams that maybe don't deserve to be in the playoffs get there because of a schedule break or because they happen to play a good team who had suffering a lot of injuries, whatever, because of the tiebreaker, the Raiders already had the tiebreaker on Cleveland. But I guess, you know, and this is kind of lazy analysis, but I guess you have to say, if you win 10-7 over the Texans, congratulations. You're one of the million teams with six wins, and that's what you got to do.

Yeah, horrible weather there too. I mean, that's an excuse a lot of the time, but like the rain was going sideways. It was against the Raiders, too. Maybe they should play better in bad weather. That's a good point. I met the Raiders Browns game. The Raiders Browns game a couple weeks ago. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. I was like, I don't think so. No. Yeah. And when you say that there's, so the six win teams, that's teams with exactly six wins, we should know. That's not like counting. That's not the above. That's not the above, right?

There's, you know, the chiefs don't have six wins. And it's kind of a, it's kind of a big drop-off after that. So at this point, the Browns and the Titans are fighting with the Raiders and the Ravens and whoever I'm penciling the Dolphins in to win the AFC East. So I guess then it would be the Bills. One of these six-win teams is not the Buffalo Bills because they have seven wins and you've relegated them to the wildcard battle. I just don't think they're going to win the division.

Is that so horrible? I'm just saying. Just saying. But so at that, my point being that we kind of know what, we know what the picture is. And not that not that somebody like,

I mean, the Patriots, the Bronx. Like, we kind of do know that those teams aren't going to be there. Can I ask you a question? Are you doing this Dolphins bit to overcompensate for saying they shouldn't start Tua? No. Is this your attempt to jump on the Dolphins Bandwagon? No, I have always been on the Dolphins Bandwagon. I was very nervous about a decision that I felt like was going to potentially upset the, I don't want to say upset the Apple Cart because I just don't think that I would ever say that.

I like them so much and I didn't want to see them make a mistake. I have been proven wrong in the idea that it could be a mistake. So now all that's left is just liking them a lot. You know, I bought dolphin stock early. Well, that's very nice. No, no, I was just going to say, as someone who is on the bandwagon, I will let you on.

Drag me. I'll let you on. I'm not owned. I'm not owned. All right, let's get to... Let's get to losers. We have to start with the NFC East. The Philadelphia Eagles, oh boy. They lost to the New York Giants, 27 to 17.

I do not. I do not want to obscure all of the Giants' accomplishments. They won this game. They looked impressive for some stretches. So, first of all, the broadcast, the Fox broadcast says that Dave Gettleman told the broadcasters on Friday that people keep telling him. people, of course, that the Giants are the best two and seven team that they've ever seen. So first of all, the Chargers are a better two-win team.

I'll just say that right now. Like right now. Like right now. Literally right now. Right now. So I don't know what that is. And I don't know if that's Dave Gellman trying to force some optimism or he's just trying to make conversation or whatever.

But that is not true. Okay. and whoever's telling Dave Gettleman that needs to stop telling Dave Gettleman that. Okay. That didn't happen. I don't mean to think. I bet it happened. I bet it happened.

Who is going to save, who even says things like that? Are you ever, like, talking to someone and you just have no idea what to say? And so you just try to just like. So you just say that's a great 20-20 Giants are the best two and seven football team I've ever seen. No, I've never done that. Give them a compliment out of sheer anxiety. Okay. So I can see people's.

saying you're better than your record. Yeah. You're great for all the things, all the adversity that you've faced this year. But I'm just really questioning who Dave Dettlement is spending his time with if that's what they're telling him. I bet, knowing what I know about the people kind of in football circles, I think that it probably happened. Like, you know these people.

You know these people. It's people who are just like, the people who are. just like Marty Schottenheimer is actually the best coach I've ever seen like those types of people will just say whatever I'm not really reacting to like contrarianism or somebody being a sycophant or anything like that what I'm reacting to is the cataloging of two and seven teams like I find that so odd well these are football people so they have in their head just a laundry list of great, the great two and seven teams of our era. Because it's not like, hold on, and then we'll get off this because it doesn't matter at all.

But it's not like saying a team one, it's not like saying a two and 14 team. That's finite. That's a season. That's an end result. It's having a mental list of teams that after nine games were two and seven, which is so weird. I don't think that there, if someone said you're the best two and seven team, I don't think that person could name another two and seven team is my guess. I don't want to call Dave Gettleman a liar because I'm sure he's very nice.

Someone's lying. Someone's lying. Someone's lying. Yeah, exactly. I think it was the person who told Dave Gettleman that who was lying. Okay. So Daniel Jones does another one of his runs where he reaches 19 miles per hour on next gen stats. He's one of the fastest players in league because he can get that, he gets that much open space.

Turns out a lot of people would be that fast if they were in the open field like that during an NFL game. Now, he's averaging over eight yards per carry. Michael David Smith said he's going to be one of three players to do that. Michael Vic did it in 2006. And then Beattie Feathers in 1934. So Daniel Jones is in good company with Beattie and Michael Vic. So this was, again, I don't want to detract from the Giants who played a nice game. James Bradbury.

I saw Jordan Rannan had this. James Bradbury was picked on. No one had more targets. Go to him. And he played a great game. Bad strategy by Philadelphia. So listen, the Giants have some talent, all that stuff. Daniel Jones played fine. The Eagles are a mess right now. And a lot of that's injury. They got someone named Matt Pryor was playing guard. I don't know if he's going to the Eagles Hall of Fame. This is the, the the worst case scenario, and the absolute worst case scenario is the leisure quarterback, right? But short of that, everything, they just don't look like a cohesive team. Like, I just don't know anything that's going on right there. Wentz looked a little better. You know, I think Chris Long made this point that he played a little better under pressure today. But he's still, he has no chemistry with his receivers.

The receiver situation is dire at this point, even though I thought they'd have a little more talent this year. you know, uh, shield Capati did a piece this week about basically how, how, how Wents has gone wrong in the last four years since he was going to be the MVP in December of 2017 and towards ACL. The answer is basically he lost his pocket presence. He doesn't know how to move and operate back there and then he can't hit intermediate throws anymore. And that is the numbers back that up and the tape backs that up. And I just wonder where this is headed. And there again, we joked right at the beginning of the show, but they're three, five and one right now. They might win this division.

They shouldn't get a banner. They shouldn't get to celebrate it. They shouldn't, obviously, they shouldn't get a host to playoff game, but they are because of whatever. This is an awful football team that is not going to get any better. And I just, I hate watching this team. I don't know, I don't know how else to say. You know, I was reading Mike Sealski, my buddy in Philly, and he was basically making the point that, you know, Jaylen Hertz is coming in to just the worst times. It feels like there's just inconsistent play calling.

Maybe the coaching staff's lost a feel for how this team should operate. And I don't know. I mean, this is bad. And there's a lot of injuries. There's a reason I didn't pick this team to make the playoffs because I just thought that the injuries were too much. But at some point, you can beat the damn giants. The injuries also are not what they once were. Now, they've lost a ton of practice time and they're still missing a lot of guys.

But they've got Gottert, Alshan Jeffrey, Miles Sanders. they've got some of the linemen. It's not as bad as it was. And I going into this kind of thought that we were going to have the easy, easy conclusion of, okay, well, the division stinks, but the Eagles are starting to get healthy. And talent ultimately will win out. And those are some really bad rosters.

So congratulations. The Eagles are probably on the right path. And obviously, there's still the division leaders at 3, 5, and 1, which remains hysterical or depressing, depending on how you think of it. But I don't think that health is actually as much of an excuse as it feels like it is for them. And again, maybe lost practice time is hurting them in other ways. They lost some guys who are essentially tent pole players.

That's Brandon Brooks, who's one of the best players football last year, whether that's, you know, obviously Zach Kurtz has been banged up pretty much all year, even though he's been pretty bad when he's on the field. André Dillard, who apparently was dominating in camp, he was out for the year. And so they've had some longer-term injuries that have probably screwed with the depth a little bit. Yeah, but it's not like the other teams in the division are A, in great health or B, even if they are relatively healthy, rolling out A-plus rosters week to week. I'm not saying that you can't count health as a reason that the Eagles are not. among the top

third of the NFC, but it's just... They suck because they suck. I was trying to add some context to it, but this team sucks. Yeah, not very good. There's no analysis here. Can I ask you a question, though? Is it about the Eagles?

Sort of, sort of, but it's better than just talking about the Eagles. So, I was asked, I tweeted something about this because I was thinking for a second I was wondering if the Eagles had the best celebrity fans, which really just boils down to the fact that I really like Ryan, Philippe, and Jake Tapper. Bradley Cooper.

Who, right. But I was thinking, absolutely, first and foremost, really should have said his name first. But I was thinking about it more. And I realized that part of the reason I think that is because they've been put through the ringer so much that. you get to see those people in those like vulnerable fandom rooting moments

which are much more charming I think than just oh I root for the Patriots they win all the time or whatever and I think a lot of time when we see like famous people rooting for sports teams it's oh team X1 and look who was in the locker room celebrating the win so I think seeing those guys like tweet and agony is very funny to me even though I

wish them happiness so I'm redacting my own take that the Eagles might have the best celebrity fans and turning it into the take of it's very funny to see famous people who root for the Eagles tweet about the Eagles. You started that sentence with, let me ask you a question. I didn't think that's not ended with the question. I did my whole own thing. I know. I'm happy you did because I had nothing there except to say, I do like the Chief Celebrity

fans because I feel like, and there's nothing against Eagles fans, I'm sure they're super into it. But there's a more, a higher percentage of Chiefs fans who are just like way, way to the Chiefs. As far as celebrity fans go. Like Paul Rudd when he was in the locker and told this story before, I think, was on, it was after the Raiders game where they won the division a couple of years ago. And like, he's talking to Mitch Morse and he's just like so geeked up on meeting Mitch

Morse. It's like that level of fandom. And it's, you know, I remember like he got a hat at one point and he's like, no way. And it's like, it's a hat. It's a Chiefs Divisional hat. It was very endearing. It was very endearing. Yeah.

But that's, that's, that's, there's. There's a little bit of Midwestern wholesomeness bias going on there, I think. I don't know that Ryan Philippe wouldn't be really excited to hang out with the Eagles. I don't know. Never seen him in a locker room. I've seen Eric Stone Street. So there you go. Also Chiefs fan. Paul Rudd and the other guy, the guy who does Fox stuff. Rob Riggle. He's around too. So there we go. All right, it's time for hurry up. I'm so in the zone. Box First Panthers, Nora. Norah, go.

All right. So I think we, the bucks have just been so variable lately. And I think we just have to acknowledge that that's what happens when you have a quarterback of a certain age. He's going to be really, really,

really, uh, sensitive to pressure. And I think we just need to, to treat him like the delicate flower that he is. And the Panthers were kind enough to do that. Steelers bangles, stills,

and defeated. What do you think? Uh, the Steelers are kind of boring. Am I allowed to say that? You're allowed to say that. I understand where you're coming from. I think that there's, you know, not playing the Chiefs.

I wish we could see that kind of marquee matchup. They beat the Ravens a couple weeks ago. I understand the impulse to say that. I just think they can be exciting. And they will be. I think when they play the Chiefs in the AFC championship game, you'll think they're more exciting. The Chiefs will win, but it'll still be a good game.

Jaguars Packers. Who would win in a tackling competition? You or J.K. Scott should have, thrown his body towards I think it was it was coal or just falling down what he did was that was a compromise

that he should not have done you don't want to be caught in no man's land 49ers versus Saints in serious news obviously James Winston starts the second half Drew Breeze was hurt with the rib injury he said he was an incredible amounts of pain we don't have an update there obviously

that is a huge development for the season we will update you and you'll get an update on Monday but there will a x-ray and MRI. We just don't know a lot right now. Lions versus football team. So the Lions won, but if that win saved Matt Patricia's job, who we found out via Kaelin-Kaylor and Bleacher Report this week,

caused the toasting of mimosa. Mamosis. Did they really win? Matt Patricia is an awful coach. And no further analysis needed. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, we did it. We got to the Patricia point. I'm really glad you snuck in Matt Patricia's not a good coach. And Kaylon Taylor is a very good. Cailin Taylor is significantly better at her job than Brad Patricia as it is. I'm glad that we can go beyond a two-minute rule to shout out Kaylin.

We were talking before we were recording about how often we think we're about to, like, have a beef or we're mad about something and then we just forget about it and never like internalize that as a beef. and when I read that story, I started thinking about the number of people that I would be mad at enough to toast mimosas against them. And it seems like a sort of casual thing, but that's like, that's high-level stuff. Just so the listener knows,

we were discussing how we both have the same personality trait is that we're mad at someone, we eventually forget why we're mad at them and then we just become on good terms with them. I don't know if you're at the same. I don't know if that's, 100% where you are, but that's definitely where I am. I just always, if I'm mad at someone, I always end up thinking,

eh, like the best revenge is living well. And then I get over it. And then... The best revenge is just completely forgetting why you needed revenge on someone and just moving and just being busy. And just saying, oh, geez, I forgot it. I forgot to take revenge. You know?

It is, have you ever forgotten you were mad at someone and then not acted on it? Because I've done that. I well I'll say this this is why I picked the Ravens win the Super Bowl I forgot I was mad at them for last year yeah that counts I was good

one time I don't want to tell the story yeah okay once I ran into an ex-boyfriend who I don't like and I just forgot and I was like oh hi how are you like good to see you hope all as well and then later I saw one of my friends and she was like don't you hate that guy

And I was like, you're right. You and the Ravens. This was like five years ago for anyone who's ever been in my life who listens to this podcast, it's not you. Do we need to do a hurry up style two minute, Nora, Nora life stories? Dear God, do we not need to do that. All right, we're going to do reader questions. Or we could do more hurry up. Whatever you want to do.

No, let's move on. I would really like to move on. Lorenzo, how long do you think the NFC East is going to stay this bad, aka will they be a normal division next year? Great question, Lorenzo. Nora, what do you think?

Wow, okay, there's a couple parts of that, though, because will they be a normal division? I think they will be a normal bad division next year. I don't think they will be, like, quite so historically awful. But the Eagles, the Eagles are in a really bad salary cap situation. Like, they and the Saints are just headed for a group. Everybody. Everybody's right.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There are a lot of teams. Some teams are under the cap for next year, although obviously that's before they try to sign anyone and they're projected to lose free agents and all of that. So it's a little bit of a mirage. Then there's probably a dozen or so teams that are already over by somewhere between one and 20 something million bucks for next year. The Eagles and the Saints? The Jaguars have $86 million in cap space next year. Shout out.

I'm looking at the table right now. Go ahead. And Jake Luton. And then I believe, like, you can say the numbers if you have it in front of you. But the Eagles and the Saints. So there are eight teams that are over the cap, okay? The Steelers and Falcons are both $20 million over the cap. The Eagles are $60 million.

over the cap and the Saints are $95 million over the cap. Although part of that, I assume, the Breeze who is retiring and they're just stretching out of contract. Although there's dead money there. Yeah, that doesn't help them. That actually makes it worse for them. And so we talk a lot about how you can massage the cap and teams are really smart about that. That is true to an extent. It can be true to a $20 million extent. Let's ballpark it. It is not as true to a 60, 70, 80, 95 million dollar extent. So beyond the issues that exists for the Eagles already in 2020, there are going to be some additional ones coming down the pipeline.

The Cowboys should be better because they'll figure out their quarterback situation ostensibly. Washington probably a little better just because I think Ron Rivera is a good coach and they'll move in the right direction. They have young players. The Giants probably also a little bit. better. So yeah, I don't think they'll be a, they're not going to be the NFC West, but they'll be better. And this will be bad. I think Dak Prescott and at least some competence. I think if Dak Prescott is in the NFC East and healthy this year, they can at least eke out seven, eight, nine

wins. I think that that was the big thing. And I think the Eagles at some point will just figure out how to win games again. I don't know. So I think there'll be like a regular old nine win, 10 win type thing. By the way, next year, Breeze, $36 million cap hit, dead cap of 22.6. So it's all right. It'll be fine. It'll make it work. They always do. That's it. They've done, this isn't their first rodeo, as I'll say that. Not the first rodeo. All right. Okay, but the horse is on fire now. It's what we need to understand. Anyway. It's, uh, it's going to be interesting. Um, all right. So. next question, Andrew Gradero,

Ringer Staffer, and Bill's fan wants to know why do bad things happen to good people? Because life's not fair. Yep. That's it. That's all. Nothing to expand on there. That is correct. That is a correct assessment.

Brandon Gilmore asks, Hail Mary jump ball to win a game. Megatron Calvin Johnson. Randy Moss or DeAndre Hopkins. Oh, wow. Okay. So this is basically, I think I'm going to Megatron.

Because that's basically height, height versus hand size. Mm-hmm. So, and, and. I just want the tallest guy. Yes. So I understand that. So Calvin Johnson is six foot five. Okay.

Randy Moss is six foot four. I'm going to take Moss because I think that the ball, and this is true of Johnson, too. but there was nothing like the fear that Brandy Moss put into the heart of defenders. Nothing. And so you have the extra nerves there. I think that I think they'd be terrible to try to have to bat down the past and head of Rany Moss in the end zone. I think that's a tough beat.

So I would go there. Having said that, that's actually really interesting. I thought about this as a height versus hand size kind of thing. But to you, it's a kind of physical geometry, like, size of human versus psychological. Being tall enough and scaring people. Those are the two things I wanted. All right.

Let's do tomorrow's quickbait. Let's do tomorrow's quickbait. What do you got, Nora? Maybe I should just write this and make it tomorrow's clickbait. But I'm going to do some, like, Bill Belichick weather conspiracy theories. Oh, yeah. I think I've actually seen some people because it cleared up right afterwards. Right.

And it was coming down for a lot of the game, but it was coming down the hardest when the Ravens were trying to make their final drive. Yep. Perfectly timed. People are saying. I think there's going to be some real bad Ravens takes. And I think that people are going to try to fire Greg Roman this week. The media is going to say get Greg Roman out of there. I think that there can be some adjustments here.

I saw some of the narrative already starting essentially in his other stops. He's had great first years and then kind of regressed from there. I think we're going to see a lot of that in the media this week. I think the Ravens can still bounce back, but it did not look good tonight. And I think that's going to, I think there's going to be, you know, listen, Nick Wright was on Snow Newsday two weeks ago and had two Lamar takes. Number one was he's the honest of the NFL. Number two was that they should trade him for Trevor Lawrence. And I kind of think that the more this goes, the more it lends itself to two takes.

That's how the take game works. Okay. So I think you're going to see a lot of Ravens here. But it's such a brutal take because we've seen teams get so much more aggressive about like replacing rookie quarterbacks after a year. But if someone like, like, it's Lamar's team like, I'm just, that's a spicy take for a reason that's not happening. I'm just, but I'm putting myself in that mental space. And let me tell you that one. I would not forget about that.

That's, that's, you're holding that grudge. This has been the Ringar NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. On Tuesday, Ryan Chazier and Cole Wright are with us to give us a player perspective. Wednesday, Warren Sharp and Chris Vernon.

We're back on Thursday. And then Joe House and Warren Sharp on Friday. Have a great week, guys.