The Ringer NFL Show - Week 11 Recap: Bills Defeat the Chiefs, Chargers Survive the Bengals, and More

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Sheil, Steven, and Diante return to discuss, debate, and share their expert takes on some of the biggest games from an exciting Sunday NFL slate. Chiefs-Bills (1:34) Bengals-Chargers (17:58) Ravens-Steelers (27:00) Falcons-Broncos (42:38) Seahawks-49ers (48:26) Bears-Packers (58:45) The guys then survey the league and offer superlatives and awards to the players, coaches, and teams who made newsworthy contributions to the Week 11 headlines (1:07:22). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee Producers: Chris Sutton, Tucker Tashjian, and Mark Panik Production Supervision: Conor Nevins, Arjuna Ramgopal, and Daniel Comer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby. I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league. Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction. We've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get podcast. And also don't forget to follow us on social media. That's at Ringer NBA and check out

the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history of podcasting right on the Ringer NBA YouTube channel. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here with Deontate Lee and Stephen Ruiz. We thought this week 11 had a chance to be one of the better weeks of the season. I think it was the best week of the season from the one o'clock window to the late window to the night game Bengals Chargers. It delivered in a big way. We're going to talk about all of it. I mean, this show might go four hours, six hours, eight hours. I don't know what these guys have to do in the morning, but I'm ready to go. I'm not even going to exchange pleasantries. We're going to get into it with the lessons we learned in week 11. Then we will plant our flags

and then we will do our awards. Deonti Lee, start us off. What is the biggest thing you learned in week 11. You know, we talked on Thursday, and I feel like we've been talking for weeks in recap shows as well about what is it going to take for a team to take advantage of some of the mistakes that Kansas City is making. What is it going to take for a team to finally get over the hump in these clutch situations? And I think I walked away from Sunday's game between Buffalo and Kansas City feeling like the bills are one of the few teams that have just enough defense and obviously a force of nature at quarterback to be able to take advantage of the slim margin for error that Kansas City's been playing with all year. And so much of this was just them not losing those third and longs that Patrick Mahomes is so routinely turned into first and tens this season. I think that last week against Buffalo was a great example of him using his legs to extend, find guys deep down the field. I think that from Buffalo's perspective, they were able to take some of what Denver did well in terms of keeping him hemmed in the pocket a little bit better.

They had some spies. They used some stunts and twists. I thought this was a very live legs game for Von Miller. and he played really well opposite of Greg Rousseau and AJ Epinessa. I thought that that rotation did really well. They got a good pocket push. And then I think on the back end, and this is something I think that's uncharacteristic of Sean McDermic defenses,

and I think that maybe this will be a little bit of a key into how he'll play them if they meet again in January. We saw more man in obvious passing situations from them. And when it wasn't man, it was much more aggressive, matchy types of coverages. These were things that they were doing in 2021 when Trey White was healthy. and Jordan Poyer and Micahide were still healthy and at their best, or they were just sticking the routes in the midst of that playoff run. And I think that you saw a little bit of that today.

And if that's the way that this defensive backfield can play on passing downs and really be able to clamp down on some of the speed disadvantages that they may have, we obviously saw Xavier Worthy get loose a couple times. I think that's a product of them trying to play tight coverage. But once that was out of the picture and they played very disciplined up front in terms of making Patrick Mahomes have to beat them from the pocket, you saw just how little air there was in their defense. And that's not what we saw when they played in the AFC division around last season.

We saw a lot more soft zone. And Patrick Mahomes, and no second and third quarter was really able to just kind of have his pick of what he wanted in the middle of the field. You did not see those kinds of throws today. And so much of that, I think, is a credit to what Bobby Babich and Sean McDermott wanted to do defensively in terms of denying routes and making Patrick Mahomes play with a little bit of discomfort. Yeah, I talked about the Travis Kelsey index. and how that kind of is the signal for how healthy this offense is

and how healthy it's been over the last couple of years. And he had four targets for eight yards today. Noah Gray was the team's leader in targets. Him and Xavier Worthy tied for that at four or five apiece. And this is usually a defense that Travis Kelsey kills. Like he has in eight games, he has 641 yards against it, 54 catches in eight games. And no Matt Milano, so this will be lining up pretty well for him to have a great game

because they don't have a guy in the middle of the field. I think they just opened up Matt Milano's practice window, so they should be getting him back soon. This is a concerning result for them. I know we said on Friday that the Chiefs could afford to lose this game. And they can. I still think they're going to get home field advantage. But when you look at how they match up with Buffalo,

I just don't think it's a great matchup. Buffalo is the one team that doesn't seem to be intimidated by what Kansas City represents. And the fact that they've won a bunch of Labardi trophies are in, they're going for a third straight. I'm concerned about the offense. I'm concerned about the offense. I don't think a Rishi Rice-type breakout like we saw at the end of last year is coming.

And I don't know who it's supposed to come from. Is it Xavier worthy? The guy can't figure out the sideline. I don't know how he's going to lead a team's passing game in January. I can't figure out the sideline. It's true. Patrick Mahomes took blame for that throw after the game, saying he could have left it inside a little bit.

But yeah, I mean, they only had one completion of 20-plus yards all game long. That would have obviously been a second. second one. That was a big play. I mean, he's open. I thought schematically, they actually were doing some nice things specifically in the first half of this game where I thought, okay, they're figuring some things out. This was actually, if you look at offensive success rate, a 93rd percentile game for the chiefs, which shocked me. So even like, and I know you're tired of hear me say that, but it's just about, it's the explosives. It's been the explosives all season long. It's not a matter of you're going to shut them down completely and they can't move the ball. They have Patrick Mahomes. They had that

drive to get back in the game, but you're just like, whoa, he just, you know, wow, he just kind of put him on his back, went right down the field, and they scored a touchdown there. But when you can't produce the explosive plays, which the Chiefs couldn't hear, you know, you're going to be in a lot of these close games. They've been in so many close games this season. This wasn't a one-possession game, but they lost, and seven other wins have been one-possession game. So in those games, the margin fair is going to be so slim. It could be a call here, a penalty there, an injury there, and that's how they've played all season long. We're going to have to ban shield from citing the chief's success rate.

I'm tired of hearing the success rate thing. If you're not getting explosive plays because defenses are taken away, like, of course you're going to have a high success rate. Defenses are letting you have that high success rate. Well, no, not of course you're going to. There are plenty of times in offense. It doesn't have any explosive plays and they have a terrible success rate. What are you talking about?

Well, yeah, that's a good point. But defenses don't play other teams like the chiefs. They would rather die by, you know, death by a million paper cuts and let the chiefs have explosives. And now, I don't know, they're struggling to even do. I know they have the high success rate, but they're not going on these long drives where they're putting up points every week.

It has to be a concern at some point. Success rate doesn't give you points on the scoreboard, and I think that's the concern with them. And then, like, this week, we saw the third down magic from Holmes kind of run out. And it speaks to what Deonti say. Like, the bills were able to play man coverage. And it's not like they were able to play man coverage because they have, like, these great cover corners now.

it's because the chiefs don't have receivers that deter you from playing man coverage like they used to have in the past. Until they find one, it used to be Kelsey. Rishi Rice emerged as another guy that could do it in January last year. Right now they have nobody because Kelsey is not on that list. It might have to be DeAndre Hopkins,

which is a big concern for a team that's trying to win a third Super Bowl in a row. I'm with you. You know what? I'm actually, I'm kind of glad that she brought up the success rate thing because I actually think that helps tell the story of the game today. And then just what we've been talking about with Kansas City all year long, they didn't have a problem moving the ball on early downs, especially on the ground.

I actually thought that what was happening on early downs for Kansas City was pretty reminiscent of that Monday night football game. They played against the Saints about a month or so ago where the Saints just wanted to play a lot of cover one, a lot of match quarters, which means you're going to be giving up running lanes on the interior unless you've just got all-world space eaters on the inside. And their guys are decent. Obviously, they have some guys that can play on the interior, but they're not those types of players. but I thought that it was smart on Buffalo's behalf to say,

we know we can't sell out to stop you on early downs without giving up a bunch of explosive plays. What it's going to take to be able to win on first and second down, if we're going to load up the box, if we're going to blitz you, opens us up in ways we're not comfortable with, for them to not get impatient and not start blitzing the run and not start blitzing in these second and manageable situations

to try to force a third and long. I think spreeks really well to how they crafted together this game plan. and then on those third and manageables, and this is really why I feel like this game says more about Buffalo than maybe it does about Kansas City. The fact that Kansas City was able to move the ball pretty well on those third and manageable, and Buffalo was never put in a discomforting position out in the second half speaks really well to them being able to take away what they know Kansas City cannot do or cannot win without, which are explosive plays. And trusting the fact that if our pass rush gets home enough and we keep this guy in the pocket, their wide receivers can't do anything unless Patrick Mahomes is creating space for them by extending.

And this was, I think, just a masterfully crafted game plan for them, in spite of the fact that Kansas City was able to move the ball on the ground and with the short passing game. Yeah, I think it's funny because it was a good defensive game plan. I came away from this game thinking the Bill's offense was the story, honestly. So it's funny, we can look at the same game and view it a little bit differently. I mean, if you look at the Chiefs, every game they've played since the beginning of last year, of their three worst games defensively, two have been these last two games against the Bills,

one in the playoffs last year, and then this one. I mean, this Bill's offense can score on anyone. This is a fantastic Chiefs defense, and the Bills, with the addition of Amari Cooper, I thought he had two big-time catches in this game. We talk about explosives. I mean, he gave them two explosives on catches that maybe other guys don't make.

They had six plays of 20-plus yards in this game. That was the big difference from the Bills offense, from this game to their playoff game last year, where that was just like death by a thousand cuts. This was no, we can still pick up big chunks and then that last drive. I mean, it's so funny when everyone watching the game knows exactly what the stakes are. They're getting the ball with 753 left. If you give that guy on the other side the ball back and they have time and they're, you know,

to score a touchdown, he's probably going to do it. They get the fourth and two. They don't kick the field goal. They stay aggressive and Josh Allen delivers an unbelievable play for the 26-yard touchdown. So it's like this lesson against Mahomes that you're basically usually going to lose. If you have a chance to win, try to win. Make sure you try to win. Don't get conservative in that spot.

So in addition to what you mentioned with McDermott, with the game plan stuff on defense, I think just the way he managed that because we can look at it and say it's easy. Of course you go for it. I don't think every coach is going to go for it there. I think some of them are going to turtle and kick a field goal. And I thought he did a good job, Ruiz, not taking the ball out of Josh Allen's hands there. No, and that's usually a situation where it goes the chief's way.

Like, the chiefs always make the stop there. Mahomes gets the ball back. He drives down and he wins the game. But instead, Josh Allen takes over the game. He runs it in for the touchdown. And then Mahomes throws a pick and the game's over. It went the complete opposite of how it usually goes. And I think Joe Brady deserves a ton of credit for what he's done with Josh Allen.

Tony Rowan mentioned it during the game. Like on early downs, they run a different offense than they run on late down. I thought he might be a listener to the pod, Ruiz, because what? Was it you or Dionne? One of you just made this point last week. So, Tony, if you're listening, thank you. Just, you know, rate review, subscribe, unsubscribe, all the good stuff. Sorry, had to get that in there.

All that good stuff. Wherever you get your points. No, but, yeah, he separated those two offenses. On early downs, they're basically like, we're throwing screen passes. We're doing RPO's. We're doing all that stuff. We're not letting Josh Allen hold on to the ball. Because, like, when Josh Allen makes his mental mistakes,

and they happen on first and second down, that's when it sets the team back. When he's playing that chaotic style, throwing those yolo balls on third down, it's not really that bad of it. It's not that big of a risk when he does that. That's why I wasn't really concerned about the interceptions last year because a lot of them came in third and long situations. If you look at the EPA, he didn't really even cost his team a lot of points by throwing those interceptions. But I think Joe Brady has found the perfect way to silo those two versions of Josh Allen, which Josh Allen, I think, said like a month ago, there's two versions of me. Sometimes you've got to let the dumb one out. The time you let the dumb one out is on third down. And Joe Brady has done a masterful job of recognizing. that and building the offense around. I will say this is the first time I think Kansas City has ever had the third down magic thing happened to them. Because if you look at a lot of the data coming out of this game, it looks like what

a Chiefs game would look like in reverse, right? The bills on early downs, it's kind of ho-hum, you know, because I think that Kansas City did a really good job of winning at the line of scrimmage, stopping the run. That's been a lot of the reason why Buffalo's looks so good coming out of that two-game losing streak earlier this season and just rolling everybody else is that they've kind of found that run game and been able to put. protect this offense. But I think that even with that not working, the fact that to Stevens point, you can get into this third down world where let's open it up and now we're going to give you

these mesh routes. We're going to give you a bunch of stuff over the middle of the field. We're going to try to keep our wide receivers on the move because we know that our quarterback, when he doesn't want to be sacked, when he doesn't want to be pressured, you can't pressure that guy. And that's what it looked like on Sunday is that at any point when he decided, all right, I don't like my look. My first and second read aren't there. Okay, the pocket is making me uncomfortable. And he was able to put his foot in the ground and get up the field. You immediately felt all the danger that that opposed to Kansas City's defense. And this is not a defense that very often is put in a position where you're watching saying, uh-oh, the quarterback's about to make a play on you.

Oh, it looks, you know, they're in rhythm or he's really punishing you for every mental mistake, or every time you're out leveraged or a guy has an advantage, even the one-on-one balls that he threw out to Amari Cooper today. All of them look good. And they were. weren't able to convert on each of them, but they all look good. And I think that just having these different pieces in the offense that Josh Allen can reliably come to allows those creation mode, those improvising moments to have that much more impact because it's not out of necessity. And that's the thing that we've been hammering all season long is that when they don't

have to rely on that out of necessity, this offense looks unbeatable. And this was one of those weeks where when they needed it, they got what they needed in order to beat a Super Bowl contending football team. I'm going to keep grinding my axe against Andy Reid's play calling this year. I thought, and this is totally reductive, and I'm probably making more out of this than it needs to be. But I thought it was very funny that, like, the bills brought on an extra offensive lineman that ran this play action pass that like sprung open, a wide open receiver for like a 30-yard catchdown field. And then the Chiefs bring on their extra offensive lineman.

And then they run a play-action pass, and the extra offensive lineman is the checkdown. I'm really sure to them. You're doing too much, Andy. You're doing too much. And I have to say the tackle by Taran Johnson on that play, he tackled that guy. Like, he was like a slot receiver that offensive alignment. And, like, that's a credit to Sean McDermin. I think that's, like, one of the most underrated things about him is, like, they play so much nickel.

And you know what that means? These defensive backs have to tackle. And they always tackle. And they're always willing to tackle. You saw DeMar Hamlin flying around. He saw Taran Johnson's always flying around. Rasul Douglas was making plays in the backfield, like, getting in there, sticking his nose in there. Like, he's got all these DBs playing like their linebackers.

and that's very hard to do. It's an incredible job he's done with that defense this year. Again, this was supposed to be a reset year where you're losing these veterans who have been in your system for years. Jordan Poyer, Micahe, Tredavius White, they're all gone. You're bringing in new guys and look at how well they've played this season. Bill's improved to nine and two. I'm just happy with the result because it makes the rest of the season more interesting.

As we said on the preview show, if the Chiefs would have won this game, I mean, the one seed would have been all but over unless they completely collapsed and went like three and four down the stretch. Now the Chiefs are nine and one. The bills are nine and two. Chiefs would lose the tiebreaker to the bill. So they got to keep playing.

They got to figure this stuff out. Maybe they just lose a couple one score games here down the stretch. And the bills have a legit shot at the one seed here. All right. Take a break. We come back. We talk about another game in the AFC with two very good quarterbacks. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandule.

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Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook. Fandul.com. Gambling problem called 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Halt.com. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. I'm up. Bengals Chargers, Sunday night football. I thought my Bengals were going to complete the comeback.

They had so many opportunities. Two missed field goals down the stretch. A miss to Jamar Chase down the right sideline. Chargers escape with a 3427 victory. My lesson, and I don't know, either you guys are going to agree with me or you're just going to completely crush me on this, I don't think there's a whole lot separating those two teams from the AFC heavyweights. I think in a one-game playoff, the AFC is wide open.

I mean, they're flawed teams, but think about the teams we just talked about. We know what the chief's flaws are. We talk about them every single week. They don't blow teams out. Every opponent is in the game against them. And as much as we like the bills, you're telling me if the bills have to welcome Joe Burrow to Buffalo in a playoff game, you're feeling really confident that the bills are going to beat them. So I don't know if the Bengals are going to get in the playoffs now. They're four and seven.

The margin of error is slim. They still get a game against the Broncos down the stretch. That's a team that they have to jump. So they still have a shot. And then you have the Chargers who like, I was saying irresponsible things about the Chargers in the first half. I was like, are they the best team in the AFC right now? They looked unstoppable there. And then they have the stretch in the second half where you're like, what is happening?

Did somebody else go and overtake Justin Herbert's body here? Are they actually going to lose this game with Jim Harbaugh? They're not supposed to be capable of chargering again. But the point is, I think there's like a version, an A plus version of both these teams that can be very dangerous in the AFC. And I love how the AFC playoff picture is shaping up. The Chiefs are not a juggernaut. The bills are right there. We're going to talk about the Ravens.

and the Steelers in a minute. We're going to talk about the Broncos as well. This is wide open with a bunch of quarterbacks. If they show up on a given day and they play their A game, they can beat any of the other quarterback. So Ruiz, am I crazy? Yeah, you're crazy. You're getting mesmerized by the quarterback play.

You're just watching and you're ignoring the other 52 players of the team in these situations. Guess what? Those other teams that they're competing with, they have great quarterbacks too. And the rest of their teams are also good. They're not throwing to Will Disley on third down. They're not relying on one of the worst.

What's the Italian offensive landman just mentioned? What's his name? Padunzio. Caliando. Well, that's a good point. You're throwing a Caliendo. Come on. That's a good point. But the bills aren't doing that and the Ravens aren't doing that.

No, I just don't really believe in the charges. If the Bengals got there, I would think they can compete with any of these teams. Really? You think the Bengals have a higher ceiling, just sealing than the Chargers? Yeah, because they've been there. They have the experience. They have the coaching that's been there, too. I just, I don't know if I trust the Chargers.

I think we saw some cracks in the defense in the second half. That inexperienced secondary would scare the hell out of me in the postseason. Greg Roman calling the offense would scare the hell out of me in the postseason. All of my hopes in the charges would be based on the fact that Justin Herbert is good at football, but he has to throw to people, and I think it's going to get harder as they face harder teams. You know what's funny about your take shield is I think I came in after the Chargers beat the Browns and said this team is going to win a road playoff game. And I'm looking at the AFC playoff picture right now, and obviously it's subject to change.

But if it ended today, they'd be on the road against the Texans. And I think I'm picking the Chargers to beat the version of Houston that we're watching right now. So I do think that there is, I do think it's entirely possible that these teams can end up playing spoiler. Obviously, for Cincinnati, the road is a little bit longer. And they're going to need a lot of help now after losing to the Chargers, getting this tiebreaker, I think, would have gone a long way for them. They've kind of got to play light-top football the rest of the way. but I think that we come out of this, we should come out of this feeling like,

A, you were 100% justified to not quit the Bengals at any point this season because for all of this defense's issues, and it looked like in the first half, they weren't going to be able to stop a nosebleed, just what they're able to do in terms of creating an explosive offense at a moment's notice. You just can't, you can't let that go.

You can't act like that doesn't exist. And you saw that in the second half. I mean, T. Higgins splitting the bracket coverage to get a touchdown. Ridiculous. You get Jamar Chase down the field. He was able to spread the ball around. Everybody you felt like that he targeted today, made a difference making play.

And I thought that Joe Burrow in the second half, after looking like he was going to have a lot of trouble in the pocket, how he was able to escape and extend and then find guys on his second, third, fourth looks. That was good of quarterback play. And I think emblematic of the way he's been playing all year. There's really no reason for either fan base outside of maybe Cincinnati just from looking at your wins and losses to feel bad about where. the team stand right now. Yeah, I thought, like, the entire game for both quarterbacks was just emblematic of the stress, the playmaking stress that both of these offenses put on them. Like, we saw brilliant stretches of play from Justin Herbert in the first half and brilliant

stretches of play from Joe Burrow in the second half. And then at the end, they both kind of cracked. And they, like, Justin Herbert missed some throws. Sheel, despite his very creative use of the passive voice when he said, a throw was missed to Jamar Chase. Did I say that? Joe Burroughs name on it. Yeah, you didn't mention that Joe Burrow was the one that missed the throw.

But no, Joe Burroughs missed a couple throws at the end of the game there too. But, like, I'm not putting, I'm not putting, like, those misthrows on those quarterbacks. You're allowed to miss a couple throws. Every quarterback in the league is going to miss throws when you're asking them play after play after play after play to make up for a bad, not a bad offense, but a flawed offense and a flawed offense is set up for both sides. The Bengals are now one in five in one score games. They lost to the Chiefs by one. They lost to the Ravens by three. They lost to the Ravens by one.

And then they lose this game in the final two minutes, two missed field goals. And they lose this game to the Los Angeles Chargers. I mean, this is going to be. What happened to the It Factor? I thought the Bengals won because the quarterback's it factor. They won all those close games. What happened? I mean, I never said anything about it.

The quarterback did set them up for two field goals that they missed. I guess those, you know, those don't count. I don't know if those are part of the it factor or not. but MVP quarterbacks finish off the drives. Oh my God. You had the five drives in a row where they didn't score, he fumbled. Stephen A. Ruiz. I see, now you put me, I like Herbert.

You put me, I just said such a nice, I said I was saying irresponsible things about the chargers and then you try to corner me. But he did if we're talking about it in reality. I mean, he fumbled. He missed two third down throws and he took a sack on five possessions. Like that was not a good second half for Justin Herbert. And then he comes back, gets one more chance after the missed field goals and makes two big throws to Ladd McConkey on that.

final possession. So I'm just like these two like these two going on the road in wildcard weekend is so exciting to now now they only one of them is if we look at the odds. Only one of them is likely to do that, but maybe just a road playoff game with these guys. I feel like we've come a long way from some of these Saturday afternoon wild card games we had to watch back in the day. You're assuming that Burroughs going to make the playoffs. No, I just said one of them. I just said it's probably going to be one of them. We need both of them. Like we need to find a way to get Russ and Boonex out of the playoffs. And Boonex has been playing well. He's doing well for rookie. blah, blah, blah, all those caveats.

But I don't want him wasting one of my Saturdays. You mentioned coming a long way. I was not raised to be a Chargers fan as a San Diego native, but I've got to say for all the Chargers football that I've had to watch in my lifetime, then being on the local broadcasts, this is the first time the flow of the game has gone that way for the Chargers in a long time. I am used to them missing the pair of field goals in the second half and having the quarterback take a bunch of pressure

and miss maybe the one throw you need. you know, on your defense, not be able to get a stop when you need it. So I know there are probably a lot of Chargers fans, and we've been hearing about it all year, especially as they've gotten hot over the last month and a half. This is the first time I've seen a Chargers team that I'm looking at and saying just by style of play, they give themselves an opportunity to win every single football game that they're in.

And that's exactly what we were talking about at the beginning of the season when we were doing preview shows. It's not really about the 1 through 53 for this team. It's Justin Herbert being who he is. Jesse Mentor squeezing blood from stones with this defense. And I think you got to see what its upper limit was in the second half. There's not much that that defensive backfield can do against wider receivers as talented as Jemar Chasing T. Higgins. But they've done pretty well to give themselves a fighting chance.

And when Justin Herbert is dialed in like he was for the first two, two and a half quarters of this game, it's tough to get this team out of here. And I think the same will be true of them when we get to the postseason. Ravens next week for the Los Angeles Chargers. That's going to be fun. and in a few weeks, they get to play the Chiefs again. And I feel like when they played the Chiefs the first time, they didn't know who they were.

They were running the ball on every early down. They weren't cutting the loose. Herbert was still hurt. Yeah, and they still lost 17 to 10 in that game. So those will be good measuring sticks to see if I'm nuts or if I'm, you know, maybe on to something, then maybe they could give those teams some issues in the playoffs. All right. Ruiz, what do you got?

What's your lesson? My lesson is that the Ravens are a poorly coached team right now. like they came into this game leading the NFL in penalties and penalty yardage and then they committed 12 more penalties and basically lost the game because of the penalties. They've been busting coverages on the defensive side of the ball

all season long and they allowed, you knew what the Steelers were going to come in and try to do and they still allow the Steelers to complete a couple deep balls and stay in this football game. There were fumbles, there were bad penalties. There were there were misthrows by Lamar on out-of-structured plays where it didn't look like he was on the same page with his

receiver. There were miss kicks by Justin and Tucker who, I mean, it's not even wash-watch at this point. He's washed up. Like, I don't know another way to say. And it pains me. It hurts my heart to see the goat go out like this. But he's not helpful for that football team right now. But these are all the common symptoms of their losses over the years, these inexplicable

losses, which they keep on stacking. You heard Lamar Jackson say it after the game. He seems so frustrating. He's like, we just keep giving these games away. He included the AFC title game, which I totally agree with. I thought they were the better team in that game. they kind of just played their C game, which tends to happen with his team.

It feels like it happens with them more often than any other team. And to me, that's a sign of bad coaching. I know we give Harbaugh the benefit of the doubt. And I do think he's a good coach, but it's been a while since they've, you know, performed solidly in these games year after year after year. It just doesn't happen anymore. And we talk about Lamar's failure to win in the playoffs,

but what about Harbaugh's failure to win in the playoffs? Like, he's losing those upset games too, and he's the coach. He's supposed to get this team ready to play. And when they lose, it seems like they come out flat and they are not ready to play. And they lose to an opponent that they're better than usually. Yeah, four losses now for the Raven.

They've all felt the same, to your point. They lose by a combined 17 points. They still haven't lost a game, I don't think, by more than one possession this entire season. Yet this is why those losses earlier to the Raiders and the Browns mattered. Because now you got four losses here and the bills are nine and two

and the chiefs are nine and one and now this Ravens team which I'm with you could potentially be the best team in the NFL. We've said that it stretches I think through the first 11 weeks but now you're going to have to go on the road

potentially two times, maybe three times. I mean right now they're not in first place. I think there's still the favorites in the AFC North if you look at Fandul and the betting markets but you're going to have to go on the road two or three times

and I'm with you like Deonté Deonté my thought watching this Ravens game was like are they capable of stringing together four games where they don't have one of these games in the middle there and lose it because that that's what it's going to take to win a Super Bowl. You have to win wildcard round, divisional round, championship round, and Super Bowl against all good opponents and not have these games where to Ruiz's point, you're having penalties, you're having three turnovers, you're having two missed field goals, 80 yards of penalties, like you said. I don't know that I trust them

to be capable of doing that right now, Deontay. I definitely don't trust them to do that right now. Everything that we saw on Sunday is exactly the reason why this team will probably flame out in the postseason again. And it really doesn't have as much to do with Lamar Jackson. Even though I thought that he played a pretty messy game, I think that he was pressing for things down the field when there were opportunities maybe to escape early. And I think that part of that is just him trying to adhere to what the offensive system is. And it's worked more often than not. And I think that in the preview show, one of the things we pointed out was this game and what

this team ultimately becomes against the best teams in the NFL really has little to do with Lamar and everything to do with the supporting cast and how they show up against the best teams. And to Steven's point, immediately fumble on the first snap. You know, and that, and as soon as it happens, you just shrug your shoulders and you're like, oh, that Ravens team showed up today. Okay, I guess that they're going to be in a dogfight against a team. They're more talented than all the way to the end. You get the missed kicks.

You have all the inopportune penalty. You have all the battling back and forth and the jawing and the after the play stuff. And it's like I understand that this is a physical rivalry. I'm not trying to take away from that. But you guys are playing like crap. And this team relishes. The team are playing against relishes in this. That's who they want to be.

And if they can get you to play that game, it's Advantage Pittsburgh. And they just hung around just long enough, banking on the fact that Baltimore would make the key mistakes it needed for Pittsburgh to be able to take advantage of. And that's exactly what happened. And now you're in a position where an unlucky play like Peyton Wilson basically just having the ball bounce into his gut on that jump ball to Justice Hill. Was that lucky or was that a great play? I couldn't decide. It was a great play, but it was unlucky for Baltimore. That's more of unlucky turnover because there's nothing wrong with the play outside of just the outcome for Baltimore, right?

But now that play has effectively ended your chances to win the football game because you gave this team a time to burn the clock and they're already in field. near field goal territory. You can't win football games this way against the best teams in the NFL. And I wish that I could square the version of Baltimore that we saw this week and the one we saw when they played Las Vegas earlier this year with the one

that just curbsomp Buffalo from wire to wire. I don't know which of these teams we're ever going to get on a weekly basis and it's frustrating me to no end. And to your point shield, it's not just playing road playoff games. They've basically positioned themselves to where you're going to have to see Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen on the road right now based on the way the things are going.

And that's not where you want to be, no matter how talented of a football team you are. I don't get why people are hesitant to just say like it's a poorly coached team, though. Like it seems like the coaching never gets to blame. And by the way, right now, the Seahawks have a better defense by EPA with Mike McDonald than the Ravens do. And we know that's a bad defense. Which makes no sense with personnel. Yeah. Yeah, it is a fair question.

It's a tough question because even in some of the. of those playoff losses, it's felt like a little bit of bad luck here and there. You know, before we had Greg Roman to push around, but now I think most people think the offensive coordinator is good. And I could also make the case, well, you know, shouldn't we have expected this team to take a little bit of a step back this year? When you lose a defensive coordinator like Mike McDonald, it's very hard to replace somebody like that. You had three new offensive linemen. And you haven't lost a game by more than one possession. So it's one of those like, is the coaching screwing them up?

Or would they not even be in some of these situations if the coaching wasn't good? No, they would be because they have Lamar Jackson. I'm very confident saying they would be in these games. Okay. Yeah. It's a fair question for them. And then on the other side, speaking of coaching, I was thinking, this might be Mike Tomlin's finest work.

Listen, I've said before put the 2019 season on like the Hall of Fame plaque. When you go 8 and 8 with Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges starting 14 games, I don't need to know anything else about you as a coach. I trust you with everything. You are a good coach. But this team is eight and two right now. They have a plus 71 point differential, which is better than the Ravens, by the way. So it's not like they're just winning a bunch of close games. Like they've blown some teams out. They've beaten the Ravens now. They've beaten the Broncos now. They've beaten the Chargers now. They're paying their quarterback's nothing. They made a mid-season quarterback change. Like, they might not be going to the Super Bowl or the

AFC championship game, but I do think their defense actually does deserve some credit for what they did today. If you just look at it statistically, this was the Ravens' worst offensive performance of the season. Most weeks, they're looking like a juggernaut. I think we said last week, like Lamar Jackson and the Ravens' offense specifically hadn't had a bad game.

And I don't think this one was all on Lamar at any rate, but the offense did not have a good game for the Ravens today. And the Steelers, they deserve credit for that as well. So, Deont, it's like, I'm running out of words to say about Mike Tomlin. I think he's running away with the coach of the year award. And every week where I say, all right, it's going to catch up to them. You can't just win like this,

this messy nonsense, throwing a couple go balls and your defense plays well and maybe something on special teams. And then they win again, and then they win again. And then they win again. The craziest part of it is that they might control their own destiny the rest of the way. They do right now. Yeah. In the division. They've got Kansas City on Christmas Day. They see the Browns twice. They see the Bengals twice. those are both teams that I think are vulnerable enough for a team like Pittsburgh to be able to win three out of four of those or split them. They're going to see the Ravens, which is basically going to be for the AFC North title when they see them on December 21st. Like we could be talking about this team going into Christmas Day weekend as like potentially the two seed in the AFC.

And we know this is not the second best team in the AFC. So the fact that they're even in this conversation speaks to how well Mike Tomlin manages games. I mean, again, we talked about it last week when they were closing out the commander's game. And I think the same thing was true of this week where you get to the fourth quarter and you could just see Baltimore pushing as hard as they could to get yardage. And Pittsburgh has just done such a great job of closing games offensively, getting the first downs that they need, getting the stops on third downs that they need forcing a key turnover. It's been that way for the last month, especially for like the last month plus when they're caught in these uncomfortable situations, they always seem to come out on top. stopping them. And so much of that, I think, is just their level of preparation and how they execute. I was just happy that Russell Wilson through his dumb interception in the end zone where he just lofted it up.

And then that Justin Fields came in and almost blew that. Oh, so we don't like over-credit the quarterbacks for turning things around. No, this is like they still have mediocre quarterback play. They just have great coaching, elite coaching, and a very good defense. and that's why they're winning all these games. Russell Wilson wasn't great in this game, I don't think. They didn't score a touchdown. Yeah, I don't, yeah.

And how many, we got to start calling those a Tomlin. How many games have they won without scoring a touchdown? I think, did they win the first game of the year without scoring a session? They won the Balkans game without scoring a touchdown that one year. Yeah, we have to rename those too after Tomlin. The Tomlin special. Yeah, they are really working around these quarterbacks. And they like Arthur Smith, he deserves credit too.

They have the 16th ranked offense by EPA for play right now with mediocre quarterback play, a running game that hasn't been overly affected, at least not early on in the year. Receiving, like bench, shadow bench George Pickens earlier in the year. Like there have been issues with this offense and they're kind of just working around them and keeping this thing together at 8 and 2. It's really fascinating to watch how they've done it. Like William still hasn't started yet. I forgot about him.

Like exactly. Exactly. They traded for a guy. They traded for a veteran who's effectively a non-factor right now, and it bothers them none because of how well they're able to execute in these games. I did like that idea of bringing Justin Fields in there for a clock eating, you know, just like, don't don't. Yeah, it was smart.

Yeah, don't fumble the ball. But yeah, I thought that that was, I mean, they did pick up the first down and won the game there. So I thought that was a nice little wrinkle that they had there. I have a little breaking fan duel gambling odds news. The Pittsburgh Steelers are now favorites to win the A.A. F.C. North, at minus 145, Baltimore Ravens, you can get at plus odds at plus 115. Ruiz, do you need us to take a break so you can go, you know, open your Fandual app because I know your eyes are going to light up. That surprises me because the Steelers still have a very tough remaining schedule.

That's kind of helped by like the things that are unknown because they've only played one divisional game. Like, I don't think there's much to take out of this. And then you still got to see, like I said, Cincinnati twice, you've got to travel to Baltimore late in the year. if I were if I were a betting man that would be that would probably be a bet to fade I think I would probably want to fade that a little bit you would take the raven if you all right let's just do it right now if you had to pick a winner for the a FACC North at the end of the season Deontay who are you going with I'm taking the Ravens I'm taking the Ravens too yeah they don't have to see Cincinnati again and I feel like that's a team that challenges them most in this division at least in terms of just like a one game sample and I think that the rest of the schedule for them if they can clear this Chargers game again game. I will say that's kind of an inflection point now for Baltimore in a way that's kind of uncomfortable. It's like they need to beat L.A. in order for me to feel comfortable about them, but I think they can beat the Steelers at home. And then you've got the Browns at home as well. I feel like they should be able to handle business, but this is also the Ravens we're talking about. And we spent the first five minutes of this segment saying how predictable it is that they'll just wake up on a Sunday morning and decide, yeah, we feel like B minus is about as good as we can give you in a game.

I'm looking at that week 15 game on the road in New York against the Giants. I know the Giants haven't looked good, but I remember the Ravens going up to New York and losing a winnable game a couple years ago to them. It could happen again. But no, they've gotten all the hard teams out of the way already. Like they played the Chiefs, they played the Bills. They played the Bengals like Deonti said. They already played their tormentor Gardner Minshew too. So they got that out of the way.

We're all making the video. Steelers just beat the Ravens today. Their favorites. And three for three, if we had to pick a team to win the air. AFC North right now. We're all picking the Baltimore Ravens, just giving Tomlin more material. All right, while we're at it, we just talked about six AFC teams. Ruiz, we should just honestly do this every week.

AFC, if you had to pick one team where you got to give up that nice hat you got on if you don't get it right to get to the Super Bowl from the AFC after what we saw today from the Bills and the Chiefs and the Steelers and the Ravens and whoever else you want to throw in there, who do you got? Life depends on it. depends on it. I'm sticking with Baltimore. I'm still sticking with Baltimore. I think they have the best team. I know they didn't look at today, but I remember that week four game and Buffalo has changed since then a little bit, but on paper, I think they're the most talented team. I think we've just seen

them be on the wrong side of some luck. Deontay, who do you got? He's sticking with the Ravens. I want to take the Ravens and I'm trying not to be a prisoner of the moment. I'm leaning Buffalo right now. Yes. I look at Buffalo's offense. It's hard not to feel like that team's got all the answers necessary to win playoff football games. I'm going Buffalo right now. This is subject to change if Baltimore can pull it together. But right now, I don't know if there's anybody in the NFL, save for Detroit, who looks as good as Buffalo has looked down the stretch so far this year.

I think you're being a prisoner of the moment. We've seen what happens when teams kind of shut down their stuff on early downs and they devolved back into that old version of the Buffalo offense. I got Ken Dorsey fired. I'm just saying, I think we talk about the Ravens having these episodes against teams they shouldn't lose to.

Buffalo is just as liable to put up one of these eggs too. I'm going to go on an NFL fan shop in order a custom made seventh in success rate, Kansas City Chiefs jersey. Hang the banner. I'm going to stick with the

Kansas City Chief. Still 9-1. That number seems to be dropping. I know. That's not good. I just pulled it up as I was getting ready to make the joke. I was hoping it was going to be top five. But no, it keeps going in the wrong direction. And it's now down to seven. But that's good. I'm glad we all picked a different team, which to the point is AFC playoffs. This is fantastic. Three people all picking different teams to go to the Super Bowl right now. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We will plant some flags from week 11. All right. We are back on the ringer. NFL show. I will start us off by planting my flag that Sean Payton is on my top five coach of the year list right now. Oh, no. Listen, he's arrogant. He's smug. He thinks he's God's gift

to football. He's got all these national media members in his pocket. They're talking him up at every turn. Reasonable people might find the guy pretty annoying, maybe quite annoying, you might even say, but the man can coach. And he was on fire again today. I know if you look at all their season long offensive stuff, it's like it's not the offense, it's the defense. I get that. At the same time, you cannot deny that this offense is playing its best football right now.

And he took a rookie quarterback who most people laughed at, and that guy's playing a lot better, a lot better than he was early in the season. And he's setting the player up for success. That is coaching. Set the players who you have up for success. Bo Nix today. 28 for 33, 307 yards,

four touchdowns, average pass only went 3.6 yards past the line of scrimmage. Now, he did rip some throws in the middle of the field, I thought today that were very nice. But again, it's a mix.

Bring him along. Hopefully you can make those throws, but also give him the easy throws. I mean, the Falcons had no answers. It was like a shock when the ball hit the ground in this game. These scored touchdowns, I think, on four of their first five drives.

This one was a blowout by halftime. I think they're offensive. line. I don't know. Every time I watch them, I'm like Boe Nix isn't under a lot of pressure here. Their offensive line, and I know the Falcons pass rush isn't good, seems to be controlling a lot of these games. So Sean Payton and the Denver Broncos, I mean, they got blown out by the Ravens, although, you know, I thought there were some things in the first half there where that game could have been at least a little bit more competitive. They lose on a blocked field goal last week to the Chiefs, and now they go up against the Falcons this week, and they completely blow them out

here. So Broncos are six and five in the season. I'm not saying they're a jugger or anything like that. But I think they're over, under for wins was five and a half, Deante, coming into the season. And they've hit that before Thanksgiving. You know, it's funny. I totally had this team mispegged. Like, I looked at this team coming into the year is like, oh, if you're really a good team, you crush this team, no big deal, move on to the next week.

And they have had weeks where they've looked like that. Obviously, I think the Baltimore game kind of looked like that at times, like, all right, we can kind of see that this is a fake good team. But then they bounce right back from that and they take Kansas City down to the end. And I'd say, outplayed them. if not for that black field goal, they win that football game. And then I look at this week, and now I'm looking at Denver maybe as it's not that if you're a good team, you crush this team. This might be the, if you don't have all your shit together, this team might beat you football team.

And that's how they're playing right now. And a lot of that is because of the development of Bow Nix. The rhythm he was in, how comfortable he was in in the pocket. I know Stephen and I have talked about this, Stephen, I'm sure you've been on podcast talking about this. Bo Nix was creating a lot of pressure for himself with his pocket management. in the first two months of the year, whether it's drifting or seeing the pass rush or not understanding where to go in his progression to be able to alleviate some of the things that defenses are throwing at them. You're not really seeing that right now. You definitely

didn't see that on Sunday against Atlanta. You saw a confident quarterback stepping up in the pocket, putting the ball in the middle of the field when you needed to, taking the easy buttons in the offense when it was there. And then that in conjunction with Sheel, what you were saying, in terms of just an offensive design that's not asking this guy to be prime Drew Brie's. He's not going to be a supercomputer back there. So don't design an offense for him to do so. I thought that last week was the start of maybe kind of accepting what Bo Nix is and just saying, hey, let's just design offense where if we want to take a shot deep in the middle of the field,

everything about this play is designed to get a middle of field throw instead of just making it a piece of the progression. And that's kind of a help, I think, Bo Nix get out, break the huddle with, confidence that he knows where he's going with the football. And I think that was reflected today. All right, Ruiz's blood has been boiling over there. Let's hear. What do you got? No, no, I made Sean, I made Sean Payton a winner in my winners and losers column today. So I gave him some respect. He was definitely cooking today. Like, I think he did, this is a good game plan. You talked about Nix's A dot. He had the second highest expected completion percentage of the of the week behind Jaden Daniels, who also had a sub for A dot. But it's a little prisoner of the

moment-ish for me, especially from Sheel, who said, you can't deny that the Broncos' offense is playing better. They are playing better, but they also are coming off of two straight weeks where they scored 24 points combined. Over the last three weeks, including the 38-point outburst on Atlanta, they're averaging about 21 points a game.

So it hasn't been that great. And it's still very much, like, the defense is carrying the load for the most part. And if that's the coach of the year candidate you're looking for, he's not even the best candidate in his own division. I would give that to I would give that to Harbaugh, who has a better defense who hired a better defensive coordinator so far, at least, if you want to give him credit

for that for Vince Joseph. And the offense has been better also. So I agree that Champ Payton did well on Sunday. I disagree with the fact that it's like been the case for the last couple of weeks and the fact that he's a top five coach of the year candidate. He's like, he probably isn't the top 10 though. I'll give you that. All right. So not far off. Listen, I got to plant my flag, you know, and sometimes what happens is you might have, you might be thinking you're going to say one thing in one segment of the show and then you get a great Sunday night football game and you got to switch some things up, but you say, I'm good with it.

This isn't going to last long. My stuff gets erased from the internet anyway as soon as a week after I say it. I'm not saying that's what happened here, but those are things that happen in the content business just letting people, you know, they'll peek behind the curtain here. That's all. I wouldn't know anything about that.

I definitely didn't do that with mine. All right. Deonté, what do you got? Where are you planting your flag? Oh, man, this feels unfair to say. Like, I almost, I thought about walking this back And then I looked at the data and I was like, oh, man, the data confirms what I'm looking at. Whether it's by injury and maybe he's not 100% or, you know, something that's just gone wrong with the offensive line,

Christian McCaffrey does not have the impact on this 49ers offense that he had last year. And I think that that is just the latest ingredient that just kind of punt, like really proves the point that something that's offense is just kind of broken. And I don't think it's any one person's fault, but it's also not any one. one guy who can save it, right? I was looking at early down runs and you really felt it, I thought, this week of how ineffective those early down runs with Christian McCaffrey were. So far this year, it's a 33% success rate. 10% of those are going for 10 yards or more, and he's averaging 3.5 yards per carry, right?

So by any other metric, you would look at that and say, like, that's basically a league average running back, which is not what they acquired when they traded for Christian McCaffrey and certainly not what he played like last year when you look like the most valuable non-quarterback in the league, arguably. and the numbers support that last season on those early down runs, 45% success rate. That's at the level of a passing offense. It's handing the ball off to Christian McCaffrey last year,

16% explosive runs and five and a half yards per carry. That guy was basically an offensive system unto himself because he was so affected when you put the ball in his hands. And I think that, like I said, whether it's just athletically, you can definitely see him catch the ball sometimes on checkdowns, and he's not bursting out and making a guy miss in the way we saw last year.

gave him these like toss and outside zone looks and he's not turning the corner on a very limited Seattle front seven one that we've seen be run on at will by the better teams in the NFL. And I'm kind of starting to look at it and say for all the conversation we've had about whether or not Brock Pretty has enough control at the line of scrimmage, which I think is kind of like a red herring argument or just a way for people to snipe at Kyle Shanahan for the results not being as good as they want it to be or people who are criticizing the offensive line, which I do think deserves its time in the light or Christian McCaffrey not being as effective. I just think that this offense is going through the normal attrition you see year over year

and the fact that all these pieces are not firing at top cylinder. I do think it's entirely possible that this team does not get itself back in shape quickly enough to get back in the playoff picture. Ruiz, I feel like you're Kyle Shanahan aficionado. This is another game in which they have the lead late and they blow it. This is from Nick Wagner of ESPN. They have had the lead in the final two minutes of regulation in four divisional games this year and have lost three of those games. And as Deontes is talking about Christian McCaffrey, I can't decide what I think about this team.

They're five and five now. I mean, like, it's not too late, but it's getting later. They go to Green Bay and Buffalo the next two weeks. They had a chance at the end of this game for their offense to put the game away. they didn't do it there and then their defense gives up an 80-yard drive. Other weeks, it's been special teams. Is there something to the Shanahan of it all at the end of this games? Is every game different?

Like, do you agree with Yante that it's just like they leaned on McCaffrey to fix a lot of things and he's not fixing those? Where are you? Because I feel like the state of the 49ers is a big question for me coming out of this week. Yeah, I mean, anytime Shanahan blows a lead, you're going to spark up that discussion. I don't think there was anything in this game where you could point to and be like, oh, he did this so they lost the game like you could. And some of the Super Bowls where I actually disagree with some of those those takes on the Super Bowls. But this one, he didn't really give you anything.

But I think over the course of the season, you have to say he's struggling to find answers to their offensive problems for the first time. And maybe, I don't know, maybe like since he became the coach. They had problems when they didn't have a quarterback because Brian Hoyer was the quarterback. Yeah, Nick Mullins era. Nick Mullins era. Yeah. I mean, even Nick Bowens was kind of productive. but yeah, he can't find answers.

And I think Deontes' observation on CMC's game today was perfect because you can see him still break the tackles. It's like the explosion after he gets out of the tackle that's lacking. He used to break those tackles and then run for another 30 yards. You're not getting that. You're getting like maybe four extra yards when he does that. And until they figure out how to get these explosive runs back into the offense and these explosive gimmie plays like the throws to the line of scrimmage,

they're not going to be able to reach last year. status and they need to reach last year status because the defense isn't where it was when they first started this run where the defense was like top five every year had the best pass rush, had a decent secondary, had a good scheme with Sala. They don't have that anymore. They can't rely on that. They have to be the best offense in the NFL to compete for Super Bowl and they look far from it right now. And it was kind of interesting during the game, Greg Olson mentioned that he was talking to Shanahan. I don't know what they were talking about, but Shanahan had mentioned that he actually likes to run against the single high looks more so than the two high looks,

where you would think it's the other way. That's kind of counterintuitive. But apparently Shanahan thinks like that's when you get most of the explosive runs. I mean, it makes sense. You don't have two safeties deep. You don't have two people on the last line of defense. So if you break through the second level, you have fewer people to beat for an explosive run. So I feel like he's kind of trying to get that back.

He recognizes the problem, what they're missing and he's trying to figure out a way to get it back. I don't want to count them out. He still has, what, eight weeks to figure it out? That's more than enough time for maybe the best offensive play caller of all time in the history of the league. But right now, it's not looking good. The two teams this week that only had one explosive, one play of 20 plus yards in their games were the two teams that played at the Super Bowl last year, the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs. I mean, it's unheard of, if you were to told me going into this game against this Seahawks defense, that their longest run was going to be a Brock Purdy. 13-yard run, and they were going to have one completion of 20-plus yards.

And that one went to Juan Jennings. It was for 22. It wasn't even a big explosive play. Like, again, we just had this conversation with the Chiefs. And it's not every week like that for the 49ers. But that's just like I would have never thought that that would be the case going into this game. And you just add all, it's like a different thing. Again, it was special teams.

It's the defense giving up the long drive at the end. It's having the ball. They get that big third downstop and fourth downstop. stop and you're like, oh, they got this, you know, and you're getting like, oh, man, the Seahawks just blew their season. And they can't put the game away. They have a tackle for loss on first down. They throw on second and 11. They throw on third and 11. Both are incomplete. And then Gino Smith goes down the field. And they've got injuries piling up. George Kittle didn't play in this game. Nick Bosa left this game. Trent Williams was playing with an injury. Deonti, to your point about McCaffrey, I think he spoke

to reporters after the game and said as much that I don't want to make excuses. But yes, I don't like feel like the same guy I have been in the past. So this NFC West is wild. The Seattle Seahawks keep their season alive. What a drive from Gino Smith, 80 yards doing the night night to the Bay Area fans at the end of that thing. And now you've got this AFC West where Cardinals are six and four. And you got the Rams, Seahawks, and Niners all at five and five. That sounds like a time for an impromptu.

Who do you got? Ruiz, who do you got in this wild? NFC West. I'm sticking with the 49ers. I'm going with the best team. I know it looks ugly now, but I think we're like one explosive performance away from all being back on the 49ers train.

And I do think if they get that one explosive performance, it's going to lead to a string of them. But I wouldn't be surprised at it this time next week, if we're talking about the first place Seahawks, because Arizona is only one game up on them, and they go to Seattle, and Seattle's actually favored in that game on the opening line by one point, but still, they're favored.

And if they win that, they have the tiebreaker. They're in first place. in the NFC West, which is crazy to think about, about a team that we all left for dead like two weeks ago. They had lost like five of six after that three and no start, and they could be in first place in seven days. Deante, you agree? You're sticking with the Niners or no?

Hart says 49ers. Remaining schedule says that Arizona has a pretty light pathway to win in this division. Yeah, that's true. I don't think that they're the better team, but I do think if I'm just looking at what the remaining slate looks like, the Rams have a halacious last two months of the year, basically. And I think Arizona, they see New England, they see Carolina.

You've got those two games against Seattle where even if you split them, you're still positioned pretty well in this division because they've already beaten San Francisco before. So I do think that there's so many opportunities for Arizona to be able to put some distance maybe between themselves and the rest of the competition in the division before we really get to the last two to three weeks of the year. So I'm up in the air. I'll go Arizona just because I think it looks so promising for them right now. And I'm not liking what I'm seeing from San Francisco at the moment. They could be three games up on San Francisco in two weeks time.

They have a buy and they have Seattle. Well, they had to buy this week. They have Seattle and then they have Minnesota. And we talked about the 49ers. I think they have the Packers. Yeah, I've got it right here. They go to Green Bay and Buffalo the next two weeks. They still have to go to Miami, who looks like a different team than they were early in the season.

They've got to go to Arizona. in week 18. They've got the lions at home. I mean, they've got the Rams. The biggest gimmie is the Bears at home. And it's like the Bears defense, you know,

with the way they're playing. That could be a competitive game as well. So yeah, they've got no gimmies like the Cardinals do on their schedule. But if it comes down to that week 18 game between the 49ers and the Cardinals, so I'm taking the 49ers. Oh, come on.

Yeah. Come on. Yeah. No second thoughts about that. It might not. It might not. Yeah. I do have this thing.

There's always one team that I stick with too long. It's probably the Bengals this season, but I stick with too long and I'm like, they're going to get it together. They're going to get it together. And I just wonder if I'm going to look back a month from now and go, all the signs were there for the Niners, you're from hell. Why didn't you believe what you were seeing? But I'm still Niners as well. I do feel like Ruiz said that it's a little bit here and there. I don't know that their problems are as big as some of these other teams that we talk about. Doesn't mean it's going to happen for them because they're five and five and have a tough schedule, but I'm still going to stick with them.

All right, Ruiz, what is your flag to plant from week 11? My flag that I'm planning is that the Bears' offensive issues, even though despite Caleb Williams' bounceback day, strong day, the offense isn't fixed. Nothing changed with the offense. We talked about this on the preview show a couple weeks ago with the Packers and the Lions game, how the Packers' defense, especially on early downs and stopping the run,

against teams that can go under center and do the play action stuff. They've struggled against that. And I think this was just a bad matchup for that Packers' defense and a good matchup for Chicago's offense, and we saw them have success on the ground that I don't think is sustainable. They ran for 179 yards. Caleb Williams had 70 of those yards,

and I thought that kept them out of the situations and the downs and distances that have been giving Caleb Williams problems for much of this year. Third and Long has been his hell down this year, and he didn't fall into those situations a lot in this game. But I thought the improvement from the offense was mostly about him,

and it was mostly about one thing. He sped up his processing time. He wasn't waiting around for receivers to get open. He wasn't trying to scramble around and wait for a receiver to get open out of structure. When his first or second read wasn't there, he just took off. And we've been asking for that the last couple weeks on the pod. Maybe he's listening to the pod too, along with Tony Romo. But I thought he was more decisive as a scrambler.

And I thought this was actually his best performance. I just don't know if it's going to translate to better offensive performances going forward for this Bears team, especially with their schedule coming up. I think in two weeks' time, we're going to be talking about how dysfunctional this offense is again and talking about how dysfunctional this coaching staff is again. And we can talk about that right now because Matt Iberflus gave away another game by being conservative at the end. So I want to hear about that as well. So the nine carries for 70 yards. This was more Caleb Williams scrambling, not like, hey, let's use him more in the designed run game

type thing. No, they did actually give him some design rushes. He had some like zone reed pools. But yeah, I think most of it was driven by. The most impactful runs were scrambles. Yeah, they were scrambles. He was hitting the ejector seat button a lot faster than he had been. I think I mentioned it on Friday. His average time to scramble was 6.44 seconds. And that led the NFL by like a full second. It was like comically high compared to the rest of the league. This week I don't have the numbers yet.

We have to wait until Monday for the numbers. But I'm assuming that number is much faster for this week. I think that the scrambles are reflective of two things. A, when you watch, even in watching the game today for how much better he looked, I would say the play action like sail route to Colcomette might have been the only play of this offense had. I was like, oh, okay, that's a design that allowed the game to be easy for its quarterback.

The rest of it kind of smacked of like maybe Thomas Brown sitting in the meeting room with Caleb Williams and saying, hey, man, somebody who's plays calls just aren't going to work. Sometimes the play calls are shitty. Sometimes the defense is going to cover everything. And I need you to be an athlete, all right? And I do. And I think that, you know, even in admitting that, I think they did a better job with doing some of the things that we tried to like mark as opportunities for this offense to make

things easier and simpler, not just on Caleb, but on everybody. They got the screens to DJ more early. I thought that they did a better job of targeting Cole Commet instead of trying to push the Keenan Allen button. I liked some of the things we saw from them in that in that department. I thought that using DeAndre Swift as a perimeter runner a little bit more often helped them out a bunch. So I definitely think that whatever, whatever happened this week on offense, a lot of it seemed to be focused on, let's just do the things that we know have been effective for us. And Caleb Williams, now your job is to either play with the instructor or take off. If the structure is not there, take off and make it work on your own.

And I think that that's why things looked a lot better for them offensively this week. Yeah, I think a lot of like their completions look like completions that Caleb has had before this game. Like, they were running some of the same concepts. It was just like he was running them on two times speed instead of what he was running them on for the past couple of weeks. So, like, I don't think it changed that much. I don't think the way that they moved the ball change compared to ways that they moved the ball in the past. So when they start playing Detroit, which I think they play next week and all these other good teams that they have down the stretch, I think we're going to see some of those issues fester again and come to the light. Yeah, I mean, there's only so much you can do, right?

It's not like they had a buy week or anything. Like the guy finds out he's the new OC on what Monday of last week. That's at least a step in the right direction because that was just tough to watch him standing in the pocket. And it was almost like he wanted to prove that he wasn't going to leave. But it's like, no, no, you need to like go make those plays because he was taking sacks at just. such a high rate. What did Rees, what did Iber Fluse do? All I saw was the blocked field

goal at the end. What did, what did he do that warrants criticism in your opinion? So Caleb Williams has the offense going on this drive to go ahead. They're down 20 to 19. He gets them to the 30 yard line, Green Bay's 30 yard line with about, I think it was about 15 seconds, 50 seconds left on the clock. And

Chicago has a timeout left and they decide not to take it. And Green Bay ends up taking a timeout with 35 seconds left. I don't know if they wanted to preserve, time or they wanted the booth to review a catch that just was made because Keenan Allen went to the ground and made a tough catch. But they're the ones that stopped the clock. Chicago was content to just take that 47-yard field goal from there and hope to make

the game winning kick on the last play. But Green Bay stopped it. But what did Ivor Flutes come back and do? They ran the ball again and settled for a 46-yard field goal, which was blocked. And then after the game, the Packers players were like, we noticed on film, Cairo Santos, the Bears kicker, has been kicking with a low trajectory. trajectory and we were going to be able to block one. And that's exactly what happened. And I would give Iber Fleece the benefit of the doubt. But against Jacksonville, they missed a field goal that was

blocked from a similar range when he kicked it low. So, like, he knew that he should have given his kicker a little more space. He had 30 seconds on the clock. He had a timeout. Caleb Williams was hot. He had just completed a couple of great passes in a row, including a fourth down back shoulder fade to a dunzee, which might have been the first back shoulder fade. He completed all year, because this guy's been way off on every back shoulder fate he's thrown this year. But yeah, your number one pick drives you down, gets you into field goal range, has plenty of time to get you to even better field goal range, and you punt on the opportunity and you get what you deserve.

Never concede control of the game when you have it, and that's exactly what the end-to-game operation was, was him conceding the control he had over the clock and what the kick situation could have been by allowing the clock to run. Green Bay burns their timeout, which effectively, which was his get out of jail free card. He could have taken that and said, hey, clock has stopped.

Let's take another chance to move the chains. At worst, we'll give you a checkdown in the middle of the field. And then if absolutely everything goes wrong, we'll take a time out there and kick the field goal. But to effectively say, hey, 30-yard line on the left hash, I guess that's good enough for us. Let's just hand the ball off, give you a non-competitive play call, and let the rest of the clock go. I don't understand why there was so much certainty on Chicago's behalf. half that they were going to be able to knock this down. So I get the idea of playing conservatively if you feel confident that you can knock down the kick.

But to me for this team, for what the last three or so weeks have been for them, I would have liked to have seen Matt Iberflux make a push when the offense is in rhythm in the passing game to just take a chance. Take a chance because you do have another time out. Even if you do take a sack, you can still find your way back in the field goal range, spike the ball, and then get your field goal unit on the field. This was not an all or nothing situation for them. I do think that's what he was afraid of. He was afraid of Caleb Williams taking a sack, which I guess is justified,

but you have to trust your rookie in that situation. And he got you to that point. He had been playing well. He wasn't taking sacks for the most part during the game. It was a cowardly move, and they deserved to lose that game. They go to four and six now on the season, and, who, they're upcoming. You're talking about the defenses they go up against Ruiz. They got Flores next week.

Then they got the Lions, Niners. Then they get Flores again. then they get the Lions again. It is a tough remaining schedule where you cannot lose a game where you get your field goal blocked on the final play. I think this may end up being a net positive. You got some better, Caleb, and you get one step closer to maybe getting a different regime in place.

Yeah. If they defend the Washington Hail Mary and they make this blocked field goal, they are six and four, and they are in, I think they have the six seed right now, if that was the case. They would be ahead of Washington. they would be ahead of Green Bay even. They would have the tiebreaker over both teams.

Instead, they're four and six and probably going to miss the playoffs, and Iberflees is probably going to lose his job. Yeah, the margins are very slim. All right, take a break. We come back. Let's get to the awards from Week 11. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. I didn't see anything about Darren Rizzy clogging it up.

So I don't know that that's going to make the awards this week. If anybody saw that reporting, let us know. Okay, yeah, I didn't see it. but the Saints did get a win there. All right, Deontay, what do you got? What's your first award for Week 11? This is the easiest job in football, and I'm giving it to Jared Gough.

I like it. They have the third fewest third down dropbacks in the NFL, and the teams that are behind them are the Rams by 5 in Arizona, who was on a buy this week. So they could effectively, they basically are the second lowest on the teams that have the same amount of games of them or that have played this Sunday,

and they're also third least on those third and seven dropbacks. And you know what their success rate is? It's a league leading 43 percent, which basically means that the design of the offense is so good that you don't even have to worry about being in these hard situations. And even when they are, they seem to get the plays that they need because Ben Johnson is dialing things up so well.

And I will give Jared Gough a little bit of credit that he's been better in these obvious passing situations as the seasons gone on than he was at the first, a month or so when he was turning the ball over and taking bad sacks. But you just look at how often they're able to just dial up these explosive plays. I mean, today's game against Jacksonville was non-competitive, basically halfway through the first quarter. I mean, they just marched.

I don't think that they had a drive in anything worse than a touchdown until basically the middle of the second half. I mean, they were just walking up and down the field at will. They looked so much faster than Jacksonville. They look so much more competitive than Jacksonville did. And I do appreciate the balance that they've struck with this offense because it feels like every button they push has an equal opportunity to turn into an explosive. Whether it's James breaking across the middle of the field on a play action pass or Amunra St. Brown getting a yak opportunity. Obviously, Jemir Gibbs, it feels like every time he touches a ball, he's faster than the last time he touched the ball and pulling away from guys.

And then they can still be that hammer team with David Montgomery and get multiple tight ends on the field. You can play more of the play action screen game, finding shallow crossers and checkdowns, which is a lot of what Goff did when he was in Los Angeles. So they just have so many different levers that they can pull at a given time to control a game. And it's evident when they play teams that are overmatched that they can basically just say, you know, what part of the playbook do we feel like tapping into this drive? Let's go into the two tight end outside zone world.

Oh, let's get in the gap scheme. Let's go play action. Let's go, you know, let's give our offensive linemen a touch or something like that. that. So, yeah, I think if you're Jared Goff, you've got to be every week going into practice feeling like no quarterback in the NFL has got it better than me right now. Sometimes I like to, like, the picture that I'm like a relative of the players. We, you know, coaches we talk about just, you know, checking in on the NFL World podcast. What are they saying? Are they saying about my brother goes, you know, 24 for 29, 412 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions, no sacks, no fumbles.

And those goes, I'll give him a little bit of credit for the performance. We're watching the games, man. He throws wide open dig routes from a wide open pocket. I mean, he does have the luckiest job in the NFL right now. There's no denying it. That's not taken away from how he's performing. I think he's performing well in the role. But we got to be truthful about what he's doing.

He's not doing much. They scored 50 points, and he averaged three yards per drop back a couple weeks ago. Come on now. Based on EPA per drive, this was the best offensive performance in the last 10 regular seasons to your point, Deonte. Their first seven possessions were 60 plus yard touchdown drives. Unheard of. And they were easy. This was not difficult at all. They were easy. Yeah. Then they kicked a field goal and they ran out the clock. Those were their possessions. Their nine possessions. That's wild. I've never seen a drive chart like that in my life.

They win 52 to 6 against the Jacksonville Jaguars. I did not have. eyes on this game. So I can't get into a big Jared Gough debate about this right now. He had to, listen, 412 yards in 24 for 29. And not every throw could have been that easy, 24 completions. I disagree. All right, so define easy. So like a league average quarterback could have put up the same numbers in this game.

Maybe not the 400, like I said, there are some throws that you got to give Jared Gosson credit to. I feel like if you drop Sam Darnold into this offensive ecosystem against Jacksonville, you're probably getting a 300 yard day today. That's a little too far. Sam Darnold's a little too far. But I'm the season, Sam Darnel, I do not think would be performing as well as Jared Gauph.

Oh, you might get an interception on top of that too. I didn't say it was going to be as clean as that line. But I feel like most starting, like you give Baker Mayfield this offensive ecosystem. He probably throws for 350 yards today. All right. Ruiz, what do you got? What's your first award?

I'm going to give it to Arthur Smith for doing the best Richard Sherman impression after the Russell. Yes. I meant to mention this earlier when we talked about him. That was one of my lasting images of the week. This was left over from my notes on the Raven Steelers game. But that Russell Wilson interception then was one of the worst throws of the season so far. And Arthur Smith just had the most horrified look on his face. And I haven't seen a look like that since Richard Sherman reacted to Malcolm Butler's interception at the end of that Super Bowl. So yeah, I thought that was one of the funnier moments of the week. It makes it funnier with the mustache. I don't know. He's just sitting there.

like all right one thing we can't do is turn the ball over because you think you're kicking a field goal this low scoring game and Russell Wilson tries to throw a jump ball to darnall Washington and sails it over his head and interception you're not that guy anymore pal man he thinks he's that guy still one of the funnier plays too from this game and a sign that Russell Wilson probably thinks he's a little bit better than he actually is at the moment he had a scramble on like a third and 20 play where he's running around trying to extend then he ends up just sliding for like a one-yard scramble play, like in front of a couple defenders. This guy might set the record for one-yard scrambles in a season. Every time he tries to escape the pocket, he ends up getting caught.

And I think that's the one thing that's really holding this team back. If you had 2018 Russell Wilson mobility with what he's doing as a thrower, I think this could be a team that wins a couple of playoffs games. But until you get that version of him, I think it's going to be tough, unless you get these crazy dark magic voodoo games that they – they seem to win. I was thinking they're kind of like a bobo version of some of those Seahawks teams. Do you guys use Bobo or no?

It's just like generic. Absolutely. Because I'm like, all right. Russell Wilson, he's not as good as he was those years, but he's kind of playing the exact same way. So you've got that. You've got the coach who I'm like, this is a very good coach who, you know, culture and all that's competitiveness, all that are.

You've got that Pete Carroll, Mike Tomlin. This Steelers defense is not good as like those elite Seahawks defenses, but it's a, you know, It's a very good defense. That's how they're trying to win these games. So it's kind of like it's some version that we've seen of those Russell Wilson Seahawks teams, but not as good at the same time as we mentioned before there, 8 and 2. So you can't complain too much about it. All right.

My first award, best comeback story. I'm starting with a serious one. Anthony Richardson of the Indianapolis Colts. They throw them back out there. Goodbye, you know, 44% completions. he goes 20 for 30. Goodbye trying to make every throw into a tight window. He has the second lowest percentage of tight window throws of any quarterback this week.

Average throw went nine yards downfield, not 14 yards downfield. He runs for two touchdowns. He passes for one touchdown. And genuinely awesome drive. 241 left. Colts get the ball at their own 30, down by five. 39-yarder to Alec Pierce down the right side. line rips he was ripping some throws in the middle of field in this game like just the talent was

undeniable he hits josh downs on one of them for 17 yards in the red zone this guy is just like when he gets near the goal line what he's doing to some of these defenders is wild it's it is very fun i mean jalen mills like that's that that that's a that man has a family type movie put on jail and mills was amazing on one of those touchdown runs So I just watch this and like, I still need the story on what the heck happened. I'm not saying he was perfect before. I don't think it was just about his play. Because if you're trying to develop a quarterback and he has this kind of talent,

like you, if you watched him today, even if you think the guy sucks and it's never going to happen for him, you still have to watch that and say like if he hits, it's going to, like there is talent there to work with. This is not a bum. This isn't a guy who doesn't know what to do or where to go or can't do anything. again, he was some amazing throws in this game. Now, he missed some layups. Like first series, third down, they run that little RPO to the flat and he misses that. Yeah, he's going to miss a couple of those.

But he goes 20 for 30. He's complete third and nine converting, third and 13 converting. So again, was it Stuyken? Was it Jim Mersey? What was going on with that? Was it just him tapping out? Like, I still need to know what the actual story was because the guy who is playing today is just like a guy who's so clearly needs reps and is going to have ups and downs,

but there were ups in this game that were pretty exciting to me. And I'm not like somebody who's been like, you know, he's the greatest quarterback of all time. But I don't know how you could watch that game and not be excited if you were a Colts fan. I don't know how you can watch that game and think that starting Joe Flacka was ever a good idea. Exactly.

But I do think part of it, we heard a little bit more reporting about it this morning from Schefter and from Rap Report. Both of them mentioned there were some, concerns about like his preparation and his punctuality and his work ethic. And he did mention after the game. I think he was asked by the CBS sideline reporter, like what did you, what did this game mean to you? What did you want to show in this game? And he said, I wanted to show my teammates that like my preparation is still what it was, I guess. So maybe there's some credence to that.

I think maybe that was the concern. Maybe not, maybe it wasn't the him tapping out. Maybe it wasn't the fact that they thought Joe Flacco actually gave them a better chance, which is a hilarious thing to believe in 2024. But yeah, there had to be something back there. Because like this guy, his talent is, it was 10 games. You don't give up on this talent after 10 games. Look, I mean, the guy was kind of immature. If we're taking the reports to be the truth, what we've heard, you know, in the coming, in the coming days and weeks since they made the decision to bench him and before they brought him back, it sounded like, hey, this is the youngest starting quarterback in the NFL. And sometimes those guys kind of do have to be hit with a little bit of reality to remember, like, hey, you can't.

tap out. And you definitely can't tap out until the media, I was tired. It just comes across wrong. And you definitely can't do those two things when you're completing 30% of your passes. I would say that to the point of preparation, again, if we are here to take, if we're going to take what we heard on face value as the truth, it did look like a quarterback that was a little bit better prepared for what he was going to see from the defense. I thought that even when the accuracy was a little bit scatter shot, the decisions were all great. I think even like some of the plays that you tried to make out of structure outside of like that crossbody throw, I think to Michael Pittman in the first half, which ended up being incomplete. Even with that, it's like, hey, you got the arm to do it.

I'm not mad at you taking a chance on a late, you know, laid in the down. But I thought that his accuracy, his decision making, obviously what he brings to this offense in terms of being a runner, both as a scrambler and on design plays. Like there's no argument that they were ever going to get better results out of this position with anybody other than the best version. to Anthony Richardson. I just think that this is probably the first time in a little while that we got anything that was close to what the best of Anthony Richardson can be in this offense.

See, those reports make me a little nervous and a little annoyed organizationally. Like, do you understand what your job is as a coach? Do you understand as an organization what you need to do when you draft a guy that young who hasn't played? Yeah, like why is this, why in year two when he's had this many starts,

all of a sudden it's, well, the preparation and, like, is there not a plan in place to get through to him? I mean, maybe you just weren't getting through to him. That's possible. I don't know the guy. I mean, he seems like when I watch him in interviews, that's all I know of him. Seems like a likable guy to me.

But I don't know. That just makes me a little nervous. Like, you should have got to know that, be able to anticipate some of this stuff, work with him, get through to him, it rather than kind of a mysterious benching for two weeks. Maybe I don't know, maybe I'm being naive. No, I do think it's kind of interesting that we didn't hear any of that stuff two weeks ago when he got benched initially. We didn't hear it until after the premise that Joe Flacco gave

them a better chance to win became ludicrous. And we all knew that that wasn't the case. So I do think the timing is kind of interesting of these reports. There you go. All right, Deontay, what do you got? What's your next one? My next one is a little less serious. I'm going to give the most explosive play award to Beyonce for this half-time show announcement for the Christmas Day game between the Ravens and Texans. Clearly, nobody seemed to, there was no inkling of this happening before it was reported. Right. Like, you usually get the, hey, you know, Netflix in the NFL or thinking about a big name for,

you know, kicking off this whole Christmas Day thing on this streaming platform. And I was trying to look at details. There doesn't seem to be any information as to what. kind of music we're getting out of Beyonce outside of like maybe performances from the most recent album. And I know that this is not, you know, the ringer podcast that talks about all the pop stuff. No,

I like this because for like casuals like me, I'm like, she seems too big for like, why is she doing this? She seems too big for this. Yeah. So A, I think that it helps when your husband has the ear of the NFL. I definitely think that that helps. You know, if you're trying to make, if you're trying to make

a big splash, trying to get a superstar to legitimize bringing this to a non-traditional streaming platform or broadcasting service definitely makes some sense. And then I think if you're Beyonce, hey, you thought you might be advocating for yourself or album of the year when you put out this country album at the top of, or excuse me, at the end of a 2023, you're coming into 2024. And you get to the Grammys and you're thinking about your rollout. And then Taylor Swift goes on the stage and says, hey, by the way, after I just won album of the year, I'm putting out another one. I think that you kind of want to get a jump and maybe

advocate for yourself a little bit, knowing that you've got a deep pool of pop stars. Obviously, a lot of huge albums in the pop world came out this year. Sabrina Carpenter, Chappelle Rowe, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, just to name a few. So I think that this is an opportunity to go ahead and make a little bit of a statement. And then if there's anything that I do know about that Knowles Carter kind of brain trust, everything they do is intentional. And I wouldn't be surprised if we got out of this. and there's either an announcement of whatever this act three is going to be for them album-wise

or something Christmas related. So those would be the things that I'm looking for. But I'm definitely going to give Beyonce and the Rock Nation folks their dose of credit for once again making a big splash in terms of halftime shows. I mean, I'm ready for a weekly music corner. After that, Ruiz. That was fantastic. A little buzz.

Now I'm going to sound cooler. Am I going to tomorrow when I'm talking to my kids? I'm, well, you know what I actually think is happening with this Beyonce thing. I had to I was a pink pony club great performance at the middle school talent show on Friday we were jamming out to that as a you know

in the Capadia film room on Saturday night so I feel like you know I'm just getting caught up on all this Ruiz is looking at me funny here he's like move on to my next award what are you talking about? I don't understand anything that either of you guys

just said for the last couple minutes I thought it was fantastic all right Ruiz what do you got what's your next one? My next one's going to go to Drake May and Matthew Stafford for the honorable quarterbacking award.

I usually give this award out, this badge out, on the midweek show, but I'm giving it out on a Sunday because I think these two put on the show, and it was one of the most enjoyable quarterback duels to watch. They're kind of similar in how they play. There are some differences, some key differences, but both of these guys were just like sidearm in passes,

throw in passes over the middle of the field, rip and throws. It was really fun to watch, but, I mean, Drake may look like he belonged. And I think any concerns about him I had about him having a little bit too much darnal in his game, have gone away completely for me. I'm all in. I think he's going to be a good quarterback.

I think he can max out as a top 10 quarterback, maybe even a top five quarterback, because of his ability to make these off-platform throws, which I think is a requisite for being a top-level quarterback in today's NFL. And the fact that he's scrambling, I think that's the most underrated part of his game. He's a top-level scrambler. We saw it again in this game.

He had a couple of scrambles for first downs. He had some scrambles in the red zone. And as long as he keeps doing that and not missing throws as often as people feared he would because of the footwork concerns, I think by next year he could be a pro bowl level player. I also have one from this game. And listen, I would love to be the person throwing cold water on the Drake May hype, believe me. But I just have a congrats to have a quarterback award to the New England Patriots. You didn't have to wait that long. You didn't have to suffer that long.

You got a little Mac Jones here, a little old. Cam Newton there, you know, a little Jacoby Brissette. And there was a few years, but at least, and you had like two decades before that. And now you have Drake May as a rookie with bad pass, a bad, bad pass catching group, a bad offensive line, and he's making it work. I thought he was awesome today against the Rams. Like, I don't know if he actually missed a throw all day. He was 30 for 40, 282 yards, ran for 27.

And it was a surprise when the ball hit the ground, when they had an incompletion. and it wasn't a drop. I mean, he was on fire. The one interception he had at the end, like the wider, I would love to see like AI somehow worked at that, hey, if the wide receiver was looking, like, would he have connected on that pass, however many yards downfield it was. He had, he got wrecked on a play and fumbled, but that was just like, I don't even that kind of reminded you what a big, like, physical guy this is because I don't, I don't know how many quarterbacks just get up from that one. So I thought he was so consistent just throwing the football every time he dropped back and through the football. It felt like I was watching. And it was another completion.

Like, I don't know how they only had that many points. They had some stuff in the red zone and it had some bad luck. But man, the first half, especially, I think he had 150 yards in the first half. And it felt like the Patriots were just outplaying the Rams. Then to Ruiz's point, you know, I thought the first half I was actually like, ooh, Puka Nekul and like Cooper Cup. And then the second half, Stafford just got on a heater and was doing his like back foot, drop this in the bucket in the corner of the end zone. type stuff. So I agree. That was sort of an underrated game that I had on the third screen, and I

thought both those guys played really, really well. So Patriots fans, yeah, you get Drake May, who knows, for the next decade, next two decades, whatever it is. I do have to say, throwing a touchdown to an offensive lineman, not honorable, in my opinion. That's not honorable quarterback. And throw to a receiver like a real quarterback, okay?

Well, with their receivers, you can kind of understand it. I'll do respect. That's good point. All right. All right. I've only got one more here. Best comparison to a Fox analyst and a 90s movie villain. Do you know, have you seen this tweet? Do you know what I'm going with you? No, I can't wait

for this. This is from Clem Report on Twitter. Had a tweet about Mark Sanchez and the bad guy from kindergarten cop. Have you guys seen kindergarten cop? Is that before your time? I've seen it, but I haven't seen it recently enough to get

the reference. I used to work with this guy at USA Today, this Clem guy. Oh, I thought you're going to say with the guy for kindergarten. I was like, too, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's working with Mark Sanchez. Me and him went to the AFC title game in 2008. I can't unsee it. So the older heads will know what I'm talking about.

But Mark Sanchez, when they do the intro to the game, and I think he was on that Rams Patriots game, right? I think that was his game when they do that. And I saw this tweet, I think a couple weeks ago, about how he looks, this look he's going with where it's kind of like a little mini pony. and kind of the slick tear. He looks like the villain

when I was seven years old and saw a kindergarten cop in the theaters. I did some Googles. I can see it. Yeah, I can see it. That's what he looks like. So one of the best comparisons

I've heard all year long and I cannot look at it. I do enjoy Mark Sanchez, by the way, on the broadcast. He's got the enthuis. You don't, you know? Okay, you gave me a look. I like the enthusiasm.

He gets excited. I like him. He's happy to be there. I never look at it. That's the first time I've ever heard of anyone say there. There you go. Mark Sanchez and the villain from kindergarten.

hurting cop. All right, Deontay, you got any more? I'm not a serious one, not a long one. This is the Get Rid of the Goddamn Ball Award. I'm giving it to Will Levis, who is second to last this year of the quarterbacks with more than 100 dropbacks of two and a half seconds or longer. And do you know who is dead last behind him? Deshawn Watson, who he all felt like was maybe the worst quarterback that we had watched in like 15 or 20 years played for the Browns. I can't watch. It makes it very hard to watch his Titans team when he's back there fumbling around with the football, messing up the progressions. I don't understand why the Callahan Brain Trust continues to try to run this borough-esque spread

offense around him. When they're not in play action game, all of it is not viable when Will Levis is back there. Not that it was any better with Mason Rudolph's playing quarterback either, but every time they ask him to hold the ball, something bad seems to happen. I can't watch them play in the passing game anymore this year if they're not going to get the wall out of his hands in less than two and a half seconds. He needs to find his Liam Cohen, or his version of that. Like, he needs an offensive coordinator who understands his weaknesses just as much as they

understand his strengths. Because I think offensive coordinators see the strengths. They see the big arm. They're like, we could turn this into something. And, like, I think, I think Levis is a guy that knows football. Like, if you talk to people that have been around him, like, he studies the game. He understands how the sport works. But he's his own worst enemies at time because he holds onto the ball.

And he gets worse as the play progresses. It's kind of like Baker Mayfield was in the beginning of his career. That was my comp for him coming out. That's a great comp. And then you put him in an office that kind of puts up guardrails that don't allow him to hold onto the ball. They force you to get rid of the ball. And then you see the best of his game come out. I think we need a coach that understands that, understands how to work around his weaknesses,

rather than understanding how to highlight his strengths. Just saying Mike McDaniel, you know, you've been playing around with these terrible backup quarterbacks if the Titans go and bring in another quarterback because this year just absolutely goes sideways and you need a young backup behind Tua. I think that you would like a quarterback like Will Levis that you can teach football to. You might be able to get that robotic, rigid level adherence to the system. And like Stephen said, with his talents, if you got him to buy in totally to an offense like that, you can probably get some viable quarterbacking. I'm not saying he would be a top 15 guy, but you can probably get something.

that's closer to, you know, kind of just a regular below average or a replacement level starting quarterback in the league. And that's not what he is right now. Will Levis to Miami. I like it. All right, Ruiz, you got anything else? Yeah, I got another award I want to split, the Cowardly Field Goal Award.

I was just going to give it to Gerard Mayo, who kicked a field goal from the two-yard line while down 21 to 10 in the second half. That's disgusting. That's so desirable. But then I saw the end of the Chargers' first half. And I think, I didn't see anyone talking about this. They had four seconds left.

they were on like the two-yard line and they kick a field goal in first down rather than giving Justin Herbert one shot into the end zone. It's four seconds. You can get a pass off. You can trust Justin Herbert to make that decision quickly. He's a great processor. And they take the field goal. It didn't come back to bite him, but it could have. I've tried to not go in on Harbaugh with that stuff this year because I don't, because I want to make sure I recognize all the other 90% of the stuff that he's doing that's really good. But he has been doing that pretty consistently all year long. I would have to look it up. But I can't imagine there's a team that has kicked more field goals from inside the opponent's five-yard line than the Chargers.

And so I'm looking at it like, all, well, were they trying to figure some stuff out early on? But still doing it in a game like this. It seems like a weekly occurrence with him. I'll have to look into that a little bit more. But yeah, I did notice that. Mayo had a few of those. They had like they could have kicked a long field goal or gone for it. And they did the old take the delay a game and punt it thing, I think, early in that game.

So, yeah, they had some stuff there. And while we're at it, let's call out the new. Jets for they had a situation fourth and two with the game on the line where they decided they were going to kick the field goal. But they, of course, first had to do the Aaron Rogers, try to draw them off sides. That's fine. But it was like the difference between a 35-yarder and a 40-yarder. And rather than take the delay a game, they were still over two minutes left.

Like you knew at that point you might need a time out. They take the time out to save the delay a game, kick the field goal. Anthony Richardson goes down, scores. they get the ball back and now they don't have the time out anymore. It's been, I mean, they are, they're operational stuff. And it's some Rogers and it's some coaching is just among the worst in the entire NFL. So that's a weekly occurrence. But we got through that whole show and barely even mentioned the Jets.

So that's a win as far as I'm concerned because they're out of here. They're dead until we figure out what they're going to do in the off season. I got one more award. I'm going to give this to the Kansas City Chiefs Defense, the good PR award. I don't know if you guys have noticed this, but they, slipped to number 15 in EPA and they're outside of the top 10 in success rate. Like those early season results

have kind of slipped since then and I think teams are starting to move the ball on them even if they aren't finishing off drives and if they're red zone performance luck which tends to be volatile week to week for teams. If it slips a little bit I think it could become a bigger issue than

we've realized over the past couple weeks. Wow. What a way to end it. Just the spags and the cheese defense. I was not expecting that, bringing it full circle from the first. Everyone asked like they have a top five defense, but like the numbers say they don't. Well, this was, yeah, this was not a good performance this week. That's for sure. The bills went again up and down the field on them, just like they did in the playoffs last

year. All right. That's it. Now we'll wrap it up. Did we go four hours, six hours? How long did we go? Now, we're at a normal time. We'll have more shows this week to talk about things that we missed there. Thank you to Deonti Lee. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. Additional production supervision by Connor Nevins, Arjuna Ramgapal, and our friend Dan Comer, Tucker Tashijan on the video as well. We'll be back later this week on the Ringer NFL show. Thanks to everyone for listening. We'll talk to you soon. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG dash help.

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