The Ringer NFL Show - Week 11 Recap: Chiefs Win Another Thriller Against the Chargers, and the Cowboys Blow Out the Vikings | The Ringer NFL Recap Show

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Nora and Steven are joined by Ben Solak to discuss Patrick Mahomes leading the Chiefs to another comeback win over the Chargers. They also talk about where this leaves the Chargers in their fight to make the playoffs (1:30). Then, Nora and Steven talk about their winners and losers for the week, including the Cowboys, Jets, Bears and more (26:02). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz Guest: Ben Solak Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Issa Kwanga and I'm Ryan Hunt. And we co-host Stadio, a football podcast, on the Ringer Podcast Network. If you like soccer or football or football, make sure you search for Stadio, a football podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Ringer NFL Sunday recap show. I'm Nora Pintiani. Week 11, can you believe it? Sunday is in the books. As always, I am here with Stephen Ruiz.

He tries to make this negative every time I say it to him, but I will persevere. Happy Sunday, Stephen. Thank you. happy Sunday. We got to watch two good quarterbacks play tonight. It was amazing. Proper football. All right. That's the key. And for the headline, which is going to back Joe's Kirk Cousins next week there, Chief. No, I'm not thankful for that matchup. Hello, Ben. I was attempting to introduce the show. You popped up there, buddy. If I can, if I can tell us some depressing quarterback play towards Stephen, I would take that

opportunity. I don't need no intro. I'm just going to hop right in. But enough about Justin Fields. Twenty-four points, goodness, great. me. That is here for the headline as always. And the headline is nothing other than the game that made Stephen happy. We didn't know it could be done. That is Chiefs Chargers. Herbert Mahomes five. Chiefs win 30 to 27. And if it makes Stephen Reeves happy, we got to talk about the quarterbacks here, right? Stephen, Pasha Mahomes gets the ball a minute and 46 seconds to go. He needs a touchdown. Is there any doubt in your mind that he's going to get it? No, not at all. It's like, It's like when you're watching Law and Order, like when the Chargers scored, when you're, when you're watching Law & Order and they like catch the guy, like within 15 minutes, you know that's not going to be the guy. Like, you know, that's not the end. Right.

I thought you were saying when you're watching Law & Order and the Chargers score, you know, the famous plot point on Law and Order when the Chargers score. There should be an episode about Joe Lombardi as far as I'm concerned. These crimes are heinous. Ben, what did you think of this? What was your reaction to seeing Mahomes and Herbert, who I guess in their history together, I've never not played a one score game, go back and forth. Yeah, this, I mean, like, it feels like at least twice a season,

we get a reminder that while we may, for the sake of brevity, say, you know, the elite quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, what it really is is the elite quarterbacks, like Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, and then Patrick Mahomes is just a different cat. Like, it's just like that there is no quarterback in the league. for whom there is such certainty that he's just going to win the football game. Like, at the end of the game,

he will throw the touchdown and they will. Like, you just don't, that he is on a different level than even the guys who are on a different level. It is a distinct reminder that this league has been his since the day he started for the Chiefs. It's going to continue to be his.

Nick Wright tweeted that Mahomes now 24 for 3 against the AFC West in his career, 14 and 0 on the road against the AFC West and has won 25 straight games in November and December. It's insane. It doesn't matter.

It's not real, man. Like, the division's head is going to be his for the next decade. Like, Chargers did everything right. Good game plan. Got a great quarterback. Like, truly true, they got a winning quarterback. They got a good head coach. I like the right coach.

They did everything right, man. Just doesn't matter. It's just, it's completely immaterial. It's just going to be Mahomes and Kelsey for as long as Kelsey's playing. And there'll be Mahomes and Skymore, who had a nice night. And then it'll be Mahomes. and Isaiah Pacheco, and it just doesn't matter.

There's nothing that's going to come close to this. There's no candle. This is the era. It's just going to continue forever into infinite. Amen. I would push back against that and be like, oh, it might look different when Andy Reedleys,

but now at this point, after seeing this season, I'm not concerned at all. It's going to be fine. It doesn't matter. It could be Patrick Mahomes calling the plays, and it will be fine. I also agree that like when Andy goes,

there will be a hiccup. I'll be curious to see but we learn about about Mahomes during the Hagueup, I have no shadow of a doubt that so long as, you know, who owns the chiefs, the chief ownership team, as long as they hire somebody with a pulse, the hunts, thank you, as long as they hire somebody with a pulse and a couple eyeballs

and, you know, who's called a football play before, they're going to be all right. Again, it's just a different cat. It's just a different level. Who's the worst offensive coach the chiefs could hire, and you wouldn't be worried about it? Urban Meyer. Matt Patricia.

No, that's too. far. Ben Solac. I'm down. Let's experiment. Ben would be great. Ben would be great. I'm always worried we're going to lose Ben to the NFL someday, but the chiefs

would be so excellent. I would intentionally do really long play calls just so that way it would be like, you know, it'd be fun for me. X Dragon, Z. Whipton, Nasty Buster. As many fun names as we can get in there. That'd be my chief objective is entertaining myself. What if Pat didn't like it? What if he shuts you off?

What if he tries to try to turn off the? I'm not anticipating Pat Mahomes is listening to me at any stage. Like I said, my objective here is to have fun being on a headset. He can get you to whatever you would like down there. All right. We may have lost the threat here slightly, but to the larger point, that final drive, our guy, Shield Capati is tweeting about it. That drive was made up, three completions, two scrambles,

defensive penalty. They marched so easily, 75 yards. if they'd only had a minute in 15 seconds, they still would have been fine. There was some conversation going into the game about, oh, well, Juju's out. They might have to lean more on the tight ends, a little bit more in the running game.

I'm just at the point where it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who's out there. He will make the most of it. He will figure out where the mismatches are. There's just so much that this offense can do with, Mahomes, a quarterback, but it just seems like they're sort of, their, their defense proof at this, at this point. Because as you said, Ben, charges played a good game.

They threw everything they had to throw, it seemed like. Yeah. The, the, the, the charges come out, right? And there's the, uh, they're going to, you know, try to force the, the chiefs to be incremental as we always expect. And the chiefs are kind of passing it dinket dunk underneath. There's a little Jody Fordson. Here's some Noah Gray for you.

The hand in the ball off quite Edwards, Edwards, Lear. Right. They had like the nice as they have a check a run. Okay, get a field goal. The charges are getting there. their bend but don't break ideas on. And then they got back to back three and outs to end the, the first half, right?

Three and out, three and out. And then the chiefs had a two play, 29-hour drive that just ended with the clock expiring. And it was like, all right, they've kind of figured out what they want to be. Like they're not necessarily pressuring too much,

but they're still keeping Mahomes in the pocket. He's not really killing them with the scrambles. They're getting good deep coverage. There's, you know, Mahomes isn't finding any intermediate windows. This is good. Like,

they're going to give up some run. They're going to give us some run after the catch, but this is okay. This is manageable. and then the Chief's second half drives or field goal touchdown, fumble in Chargers territory touchdown. Eventually the Chiefs catch up to you.

And the way that the Chiefs just decide when there's no Juju, no Mekyll Hardman out with abdominal injury, and then Cadarious Tony down during this game and the Chiefs just go, okay, we're just going to base Noah Gray and Jody Fordson. You know these guys you've never heard of? All of the snaps, right?

Like that, other teams don't get to do this. this, right? Like, every team would love to face the Chargers and say, oh, the Chargers love to keep extra defensive backs on the field. Let's run two tight ends. Let's run three tight ends, ends, right? Let's expose these guys for living in the nickel. Let's get aggressive and run the football extra tight ends and go to the play action pass. Every team would love to do what the chiefs did in this game. In terms of the game plan walking out and then the adjustments they made as they even lost more wide receiver's entry. Other teams don't get to do this. Because when you put your third tight end on the field and throw him 50-yard bombs down the sideline, the ball doesn't

end up in his bread basket while he's like a corner's draped over him, right? The Jody Fordson catch in the first half. You just don't get to do that. Right. So this is what, why I say like if there were no Andy Reid, like I'd be interested, but I wouldn't be concerned because the horizon is so wide, right? The realm of possibility is so

open. So charges walked in a good game plan. I wouldn't be surprised if a Joey Bosa makes this game different in terms of the final score, but that's kind of the story of the Chargers. I think a Mike Williams makes this game different on final score. I think a fully helping Keenan makes that. I think I a, you know, known as your Adler leaving.

I think, you know, J.C. Jackson being fully healthy. I think, you know, this is, what's their tackle's name? But Sean Slater, right? Like, it's just, I got a lot of guys I can name that probably make this different game for the Chargers. But this is the hand they continue to be dealt. And it's, like you say, one score games and one score losses to the Chiefs. And that kind of defines the first couple years of Brandon Staley here. But Mike Williams coming back makes an incredible catch on the sideline and then immediately injured.

It was just a novella of what it is. to be the Chargers in 30 seconds. You just expect the worst thing to happen. And it always happens without fail. It always happens. Except that on some level, I always expect the best thing to happen. It's like, what are they going to figure out out?

At some point, they're going to figure it out. I asked both of you what you wanted us to focus on when we talked about this game. And Ben just said, weeping, limitation, gosh, I just want the Chargers to be good. That's all I want. Why aren't they good, man? It would be so much, the league would be so much better if they were good. They got good uniforms. They got like a nice stadium to watch games at.

They have a cool quarterback. Right. Just be good. That's all we want. Great players. Like, Echler is sick. Mike Williams is so much fun to watch. Like they went big spending on defense.

Be such a fun team to root for. It's just pain. When they win, it's pain. When they lose, it's pain. Everything is sadness. It's just sadness. Fourth down decisions. in this game. Yep.

Right. I think like, you know, we always talk about them when it's like late in the fourth quarter and does matter or did this not? As it was, uh, the charges had a fourth and one from their own 34. This markedly like we'd say fourth and one. This was fourth and like 15 inches up from their own 34. Yeah. Uh, late in the third quarter. They liked a punt on that one. You know, some models had it as a go. Uh, fourth and two from the three at the end of the

first half. This I think was the big one. Uh, fourth and two from the three. They're up by four at this time. They kick the field goal to go up seven going in a halftime locker room. They're a really bad short yardage running team. There's a lot of reasons for that. The offensive line injuries are a big part of it. Just the generally poor play guard is another part of it. The fact that they insist on Sonny Michelle being their short yardage back, despite the fact that Sonny Michelle has no interest in being a good short yardage back, big part of it. However, when they did, you said there's been a one score games, when they did beat the Chiefs, which you remember the first time Brandon Staley beat the Chiefs,

the first time we played the Chiefs, you beat him. It was going for it on fourth and nine in the Red Zone, man. I mean, they were living, living. And as Staley has gotten more faith in his defense and has seen, I think, his offense struggle in short yard of situations, he's moved away from fourth down attempts. I understand why he's doing that. Chiefs, man.

If you got, if you, if you're three yards out, I feel like I want seven. I want it real bad. The one in his own 34, I get it, right? It's just like, you're so backed up at that point. But the Chief's got the ball back and scored, which is always the anecdote that the nerds kind of say is you, you pun it, you're just giving them the ball with a little bit more yardage.

And for Mahomes, who cares, but a little bit more yardage, he'll pick it up, no problem. Yeah, I didn't hate the second one. The first one, yeah, you got to put them away when you have a chance, or like try to put them away. You need seven points. You cannot beat the Chiefs like this. You were getting the ball back to start the third quarter.

You score a touchdown there. You go out, what's that 24, 13, and you get the ball back? give the opportunity to go up 14 points, 17 points, 18 points. I don't know how to do math. You have the opportunity to go up two, three scores there. Like, that's just, I would not have been able to resist, even if the, like, seeing the models were that kind of tossed up on that one, I wouldn't have even have asked the dude.

I'm like, yeah, we go in three yards out. We're going for it. Just jump. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, my headset's not working. I don't know. I didn't hear you. We're going for it.

Justin, go. I don't buy the notion that he's doing this now, or he's like punning more often because the media. was criticizing him last year. Meant to him. Yeah, I don't buy that. He doesn't want to be called a nerd anymore. I buy the idea that the same

mentality that the media has is probably present in his locker room and that's something that he has to deal with. I think that connection is legitimate. Really? Because it seems like his players vouch for him every time they're asked about it every single time.

Right. There was like a keen. Keenan Allen was tweeting about it. Keenan Allen was tweeting from his couch when he was injured. That's a good point. Yeah. So I think like,

I whenever a coach kind of changes his stripes on something like that to me I always read like either ownership has said something which I don't really think that's that's the read on the Spanos family I know who ownership groups are yeah Dean Spanos has no idea what the Chargers record is right now we're scrapping the rest of the pod and I want Ben to just say who he thinks owns NFL team I got six maybe seven max Condoleezza Rice owns the Broncos not really craft Lewis Hamilton somebody's got them I know that they got them recently

anyway their minority owners it's the Walmart people the Walton Penner ownership group anyway I trust I trust

I think yeah so to me it's not the ownership or locker room and so I think yeah I think that's kind of

the read on why Staley's not doing it as much but this is a spot for me where like yeah the fourth inch of the 34 I understand

pontonite you immediately pay for it and that sucks. Fourth and two from the three. We're finding a very large man and giving him the football. We're trying to push. Yeah. Also, like, I know they've stunk at it, but come on, Justin Herbert, your quarterback.

Like, it's not, I mean, Herbert QVie sneaked and literally dropped the football tonight. So I think the main thing is the charges need to practice short yardage a little bit more. Yeah. There seems to be an epidemic of like large quarterbacks not having the best dexterity on quarterback's needs. Leverage, baby, low man wins. Her brain getting low.

It's too big. He would call it a Kyler, uh, Kiwi sneak. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, ideally I'm calling it. Under the legs. Yeah, just get below Rodney Hudson. That's good stuff. That's good stuff.

I will never discount the possibility that Twitter has gotten in people's heads. I think like I would have been that it's all, it's probably a little bit of, of many different things. Locker room. but I don't know. It's people don't like being called names online. Even the best of us tend to be a little sensitive. And he seems very online. I will say that.

Can we talk about Chris Jones? Defensive Player of the Year candidate, Chris Jones? Absolutely. Defensive Player of the Year candidate, Chris Jones. Stephen, you have the floor. He just took over the game at the end. He dominated the whole game all night long. And this is what he's been doing for this team.

And I think like the big story beyond Pat Mahomes is they had five sacks on a quarterback who never gets sacked. Yeah, huge. And like, I think this defense is playing as good as it did in 2019 when they won the Super Bowl. This is the best team in the NFL, the most balanced team right now. I would trust them against anybody on both sides of the ball. Who do you think between Jones and Parsons? Who do you think did more for DPOI today?

I still think it's Parsons. Yeah. And this is actually tricky because the reason they don't. give me a defensive player of the year vote is because I would be wildly skewed by coolness. But when I watched Parsons, like, Chris Jones obviously sick. When I watch Parsons play, I was like, I speak gibberish, man. I'm like, holy smokes, what's this dude doing? Like the speed with which Parsons win, the athleticism is unbelievable.

And so like that, that enemores me. And I would vote Parsons. But the Jones point is is so important because you, I think the story of what the chiefs have done on the defensive line is very nicely in contrast to what the the Rams have done and why we're not really saying Aaron Donald's name in the defensive player with your conversation this year. The Rams have a dearth of talent next to Donald and it's minimizing Donald's impact, right? They thought like, all right, we can get a little bit skinny here and a little bit skinny

there and Donald's good enough and our pass rush will be fine. Well, firstly, teams are getting rid of the ball extremely fast against the Rams. And secondly, they just don't have enough to penalize teams for double teaming Donald. The chiefs aren't elite anywhere else but Chris Jones, but George Carlossus, Mike Dana, Carlos Dunlap, they got just enough that if you really give all its attention to Chris Jones, they're going to punish you for it. Broadcast did a really nice job highlighting that. And then when you get your one-on-ones, then Chris Jones wins.

That's why it's so important, have an elite rusher, but fill the stables, make sure that you're balanced just enough. It doesn't have to be amazing, but Karloftus Dunlap by Dana, that's enough when you can get it done. Remember when they try to make him an end? That's like the dumbest thing ever. Yes. It was like for like a month. And they were like, oh, wait, this is the dumbest thing ever.

First month of the season last year. We were all like, what is this? Into a trade deadline. Yep. Absolutely not. horrendous. Yeah. Still mic it.

All right. We missing anything from this one? Do we want to talk like Chargers AFC playoff picture? Because since the entire AFC East wins every game they play that's not against themselves, the chargers are out of the playoff picture right now, which is like for a team, this talented to have failed to make the playoffs last year and failed to make it again this year, I don't think Brandon Staley should be fired. I think somebody's going to have to be fired because it's just bad. Like it's just inexcusable, right? Chargers are five and five right now.

At Cardinals next week, at Raiders the following week. Handle your business. Bad teams. win the football games. And then home dolphins, home Titans. put up a shut up time, man. Those are AFC playoff teams right there. Those are hugely important games for this Chargers team. They should be seven and five going into those games, assuming the Jets continue to, you know, fall off and the Patriots also don't feel very scary.

They should be very much in the wildcard hunt. But the dolphins and the Titans, man, they're going to probably have to win at least one of those two games before finishing off Colts, Rams, Broncos. Yeah. We, we, like, it's very nice that they play the Chiefs close every time they play the Chiefs. This team is absolutely good enough.

They have to make the playoffs. They have enough bad games. They just need to handle their business against the dolphins and or the Titans. And if they can't, somebody's head has got to roll in LA. The team is too talented to be missing the playoffs in consecutive years.

I think Staley survives this year, even if they miss the playoffs, because they do have the injury excuse built in. And I think he still has the fire Joe Lombardi card that he could play. He's got to play. He's got to play. He's got to play.

Yeah. He has to play it. If he waste this job on Joe Lombardi, I'll be so upset. I think one thing, one takeaway, Keenan Allen makes a difference for this team. The next two, just taking care of business, they absolutely have to. I feel decent about that.

Dolphins Titans is scary. It's just always something. It's just always something. I worry about that. I worry about, I just don't know what we have to hang a hat on that this team against good competition is going to come out with a win. The Tennessee game, they're going to lose that game. I'm calling it now. The Titans are the team of destiny and they're the anti-titans.

Yes. Dolphins Titans is terrifying from multiple, or like dolphins, Titans in order. They're two individually terrifying games for completely polar reasons. Completely different reasons built to exhaust you in completely different ways. And if you lose to the dolphins, because the dolphins just outscore you, it's an indictment on how you've built your receiver room versus how they have with the amount of speed that the dolphins bring that you don't have. And the way they let their quarterback just grip it and rip it in the way that you won't.

Where Tua is like leading the league in A-Dont and chucking a byline scrimmage, like going bananas. And Herbert just, again, like I tweeted during the game, like until the Keenan-Harpoon shot third and 18 to set up the go-ahead touchdown, Herbert had not attempted a pass behind beyond the sticks in the second half. they just lost Mike Williams and they were like, oh, back to being turtles, we can't have the ball down field. So you have that comparison with the dolphins,

which is like offensive indictment, offensive build indictment. And then you get the Titans the very next week. And the Titans come and just steamroll you with sizing with Derek Henry. And your six defensive backs on the field, you're getting punk to death. And it's indictment on the defensive build and the way you both have that personnel.

You lose those two games in a row in the way that it seems like you might lose them. Again, I think Staley is a good coach. heads half the roll because it's inexcusable. I do think they finish strong, though. They have three of the saddest teams in the NFL on the schedule, the Colts, the Rams, and the Broncos. If they sweep that, even if they don't make the playoffs, I think he keeps his job.

Right. So let's say they win the ones we expect them to win, and then they lose Dolphins Titans. That puts them at seven lost teams, so 10 and 7. I don't know. Does I get it done this year? You got to be better than the worst of the bit.

Bengles plus the worst of Bill's Dolphins plus one more team. It probably gets it done 10 and 7. It feels like it gets it done. Yeah. In before the Chargers dropped the week 18 game to the Broncos in 9 and 8. Oh, no. Russ's final revenge. Imagine if they lose to Miami and Tennessee and then they lose to Jeff Saturday,

then it's over. He's getting fired that Monday. my my official take on jeff saturday is he's like the grim reaper you lose to him no job you're playing for your job every time yep Jeff saturday just a death knell for he should get your job if he beats you like you should become the coach of like separate teams like he's he's the raiders coach now or you have to hire one of your like great players at the past who has just little to no coaching experience oh no all right speaking of which uh uh We're going to close out this headline.

But Ben, before you go, let's do a little whiteboard check in. I see Eagles 9 and 1 vibes sketchy. Yeah. What's the state of the birds in 30 seconds? Go. Didn't love entering the fourth quarter with three points against the Indianapolis Colts. Didn't love Dallas got it going down and the entire offense falling apart. Didn't feel great.

Domican Sue and Linval Joseph look awesome, though. So don't worry. Defensive lines fixed. We're just going to have all the best players from 2016. Just Sue Linvald, Joseph, Fletcher Cox, Robert Quinn. We get a time machine. Games over. Super Bowl Eagles.

So if Siriani ends up losing to Jeff Saturday, if this had gone the other way, who from the Eagles past do they have to hire to be head coach? So the obvious answer, Hank Frailey, who's the offensive line coach with the Lions, and it's just a darling man, who's like an ex-long-time offensive lineman for the Eagles. far too professional and reasonable selection.

Clear answer, though, is just promote Jason Kelsey internally. Kelsey had head coach. I love it. I love it. Immaculate vibes. It's too good of a hire, though. It's too good of a higher. They'd attempt three passes in the game and they'd all be screens,

just with the center leading, which is Kelsey's favorite player. You know who it is? Who's that? Carson Wentz. Pull him off the Washington team. Yeah. I think they'd be fine with it. Coach Wentz.

All right. Thank you so much, Ben. Great to talk to us always. Bye, friends. Get more out of your holiday week with Fandul, because new customers get $125 in free bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. These are my favorite bets for Thanksgiving.

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or visit www.8,800 gambler.net in West Virginia. All righty, let's get to winners and losers. Stephen, who is your first winner? First winner is Buffalo, 31 to 23 win. it was kind of a road game, kind of not. Buffalo's only going to play seven home games this year.

Yeah, it was closer. I don't know geography. Is that closer to Cleveland? I think it is. Basically, they're both Midwest. Buffalo's not pretty close. But it was a slow start. At one point,

the bills were averaging 1.3 yards per carry, or not per carry, per play in the second quarter. They had 12 yards midway through the second quarter. It was 13 to 10. And then all of a sudden, Jacobi Bresset fumbles a snap and the floodgates open from there. The bills just go on a run and the Browns really never get back into it. But there are still concerns about this team, even though it was a good win.

I think it's a good win against a decent Browns team on the road in weird circumstances. And I know there's concerns about the run game, but they got the run game going this week. And if they would not have gotten it going against the Browns, you can't stop anybody on the ground. It would have been a bigger red flag. But there's still like some short yardage problem. where they can't run the ball. And they have no answer for opposing wide receiver ones, is how I would put it. Like Cooper, they had no answer for him all game long.

So there are still some concerns, but I think you saw Josh Allen. There was some inaccuracy early, but he figured things out later. I think Ken Dorsey kind of figured things out. I'm more optimistic about this team compared to last week, and I was already pretty optimistic, even though they lost two in a row. but it's still the chiefs and then them. And then I think the dolphins are below them. This is still the second best team in the conference and the NFL.

Yeah, that's that's how I would power rank it too. I do think it'll be different when they get Trey White back just because that opposing number one thing is a big deal. On Cleveland side, I'm looking at the game book now and seeing that Josh Allen only got sacked twice. I don't have the pressure numbers. it did feel like that Brown's defense has been so toothless compared to what at least I was expecting of them this year. I felt like Miles Garrett, clowny, like the guys that you expect to be making plays were just a little bit more active than we've been used to seeing them this season today.

I don't know if that had to do if that was part of why Josh Allen looked off in the first half. The thing that was strange about it is that he was missing the like short. intermediate stuff, which is just not where he's typically, like, when we get those goofy Josh Allen moments, that's not usually where they happen. He's even going way back when he was a wildly inaccurate quarterback. Intermediate throws were not the problem. Um, so that's a, that's a, uh, funny area to see him be particularly shaky, but it did seem like he, um, it's like he's doing throwback games. Like last week or two weeks ago when they lost, it was like 2019 Allen. This week it was kind of like 2018 Allen early on Wyoming Allen he's just going back in time like soon it's like a

Benjamin button situation maybe oh I he figured it out I think that stuff went away towards the in the second half of the game um and then they were it was nice that they finally found a way to I hate this word but have some balance in the run game um both singletarian james cook had 86 yards a piece that's just so much more than they typically get from the non-josh allen based run game which is really good to have in a game where he needs to sort of figure himself out a little bit. I feel like we should give them a little bit of a pass for needing to shake some rust off because as we heard, Josh Allen was like shoveled out of his house by a farmer named squirrel winters to get to the practice.

Wait, wait, what? You didn't know. Oh. No, no. During the broadcast, they were telling stories about how the bills, because Buffalo got like six feet of snow. needed to have like, you know, local Buffalo residents helping them shovel out their driveways. And Josh Allen was aided by two local farmers, one of whom was named Squirrel Winters.

Where does he live? I don't know, near Orchard Park. So where I, I mean, maybe those guys are just like. I swear to you, this is true. Like, it's, I don't know what to say other than the facts and those are the facts. Yeah. that's that's an amazing story squirrel winters there would what was the name i i know it's squirrel winters it's actually to the staff add them to the staff like like i feel like i feel like i'm being punked here

and that can't possibly be true but that's what they said that's amazing that's amazing but i will say this can i give a shout out to jacobi percette they lost but i love jacoboby per cent he's like i'm confident that if he played in the 1980s he would be all pro he's got like a 1980s 1970s smoking cigarettes on the sideline type vibe to him. Like he should have like sideburns and like I've played in the in the 70s. He would have been like the greatest Raiders quarterback of all time. I love that. He actually when he was in New England, I feel like my memory is really bad sometimes.

So I'm sorry to Jacoby if this is not true. But I have a recollection of him wearing those sort of like, like 70s throwback sort of patterned. Like kind of bowling-esque. shirts, but cooler. They're actually kind of in style now. Not so much then, but it was a Jacoby Reset thing. I feel like he's a head of the curve guy. Yeah, Trendsetter. He's a nice dude. He made Tom Brady and Jimmy Garabolo actually. They liked each other. Yeah, he's, he's very easy to root for, which is not something we're going to be able to say about the Browns in two weeks. A thing that I think we're both dreading, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to.

My first winner, uh, the Dallas Cowboys. who beat the Minnesota Vikings 40 to 3. The Vikings now are hysterically 8 and 2 with a negative point differential. I was so deeply rooting. They started this game with a plus 35 point differential, and I was so deeply rooting for it to just even out to zero or like one by the end of this. There's still hope because that's just the funniest possible outcome. but the best, the calling card of why this Cowboys team has been really good this season,

first and foremost has been their defense and particularly the amount of pressure that they're able to get. And look, I think we all know the book on Kirk Cousins when heavily pressured. He was pressured on 63% of his dropbacks. That's career high, took career high seven sacks. Michael Parsons had a career high 11 pressures. they could never stay ahead of the chains in the early downs and the Cowboys defense was just absolutely teeing off on third and long.

It felt like every single Vikings drive. The game was over well before halftime. But it was another testament to how impressive that defense is and just how explosive Parsons who moved around like he usually does but got to play a lot on the edge, particularly because they were just, they had those third and long situations so often. just another testament to how potent that element is for them. And then I thought Dak had his best game of the season pretty clearly.

He was 22, 25, 276 yards, two touchdowns, 21.8% completion percentage above expectation. And he had some sideline throws in particular. There was the one to CD before the long field goal. There was a third and 14 on the wheel to Pollard that went for touchdown third and five to Noah Brown who made that great catch. All of those were just like the ball needed to be exactly where it was. So I thought that was that was in some ways more notable than how good they were defensively just

because the defense has been their calling card. But I thought this was sort of like a DAC coming out party. And if he keeps playing like that, you know, they can beat. anyone in the NFC, certainly. I am refreshing. I've been refreshing Twitter like every minute to see if Jerry Jones has stepped up to the mic and reminded everyone that the offense flows through Zique, but presumably this is the type of game that renders that a little bit absurd.

But it's just a huge win because by being the Vikings, the Cowboys have a pretty clear path to the number one seed if they can win the NFC East, which is obviously a big if, but they still have a game against the Eagles to play. And as Ben said, the vibes around the birds are a little sketch right now. So that's very much still up in the air. But this is a huge win because if they did manage to win the division, it goes a long way towards them potentially getting a by, getting a first round by. I would argue this is the second best team in the NFC right now. I feel like I trust them more than the Eagles who have, I would say one and a half, very big concerns.

I would say the run defense is a concern. I know they got Sue, but signing Sue at this point is not a good sign. The fact that they've had to make a move that. Hold on. Who's the best team in the NFC? I would put the, I would say the 49ers. When all I said it done, I think the 49ers will be.

Okay. Wow. Yeah. I think they're the most talent. Yeah, I think they have the most talent. And I think like they're getting healthy now. And the coaching staff is, it's the one I trust the most out of the three that we're talking about right now. Although I do like the Eagle staff.

It's just a young staff unproven. And then obviously, Tyler Shanahan has coached a lot of games in the playoffs. I'm totally with you on the coaching staff. I think if Dak plays like this, this Cowboys team beats the minors. And you could kind of see this coming. And the Cowboys always seem to have these games where they just explode on offense. And I thought that I thought people were. a little too low on DAC, and they didn't give them enough time to kind of get back into the

rhythm of the offense and the timing down, because if you watched the game last week, the numbers weren't pretty, but like you could see they were just missing by like a foot or like they were off by a second, off by a beat. And once they got that timing, you could really see this offense exploding like they did today. But I'm also like kind of enthused about the defense even more than I was before because they had kind of shown a little bit of a weakness against running games that were attacking the perimeter. We saw it against the Eagles. We saw it against Green Bay last week. The Vikings, in theory, on paper, have the type of offense that could exploit that weakness with Dalvin Cook.

And obviously, like, you have the wide zone running game, the offense that Kevin O'Connell installed. But it didn't work. And, like, is Kevin O'Connell beating the Zach Taylor allegations? Because right now, this team reminds me of the Bengals last year where they can't do the Sean McVeigh, early down, under center run game play action stuff. And they're really relying on her cousins throwing into Jefferson. Like we saw like Joe Burrow and the Bengals were very relying on those two receivers making plays on third down and deep down the field. And that's what we're kind of seeing with this Minnesota team. And it's a second McVe assistant that that's been the case.

No, this is not fair. We got to give this is not an O'Connell thing. we Kirk cousins his entire career has responded this way when pressured in the extreme the results for this team have been so largely better than they were last season I don't think I'm trying to give Kirk some credit Kirk gets all the criticism and I am leading that charge usually but Kirk's numbers are down like you we have to explain away why his numbers are down and I think Kirk has been Kirk like Kirk is he's Kirk he's Kirk he's always going to be that that quarterback. Why isn't it working now? And like the the main difference is that

O'Connell's there now. I don't know. I think one of these. I think Cousins is a known quantity and I think he experienced the thing that tends to bring out the worst in him in the extreme in this game. So I would certainly it's something to watch. Okay. He's on Zach Taylor watch. But I think for now he's beating the allegations. Okay, that's fine. Zach Taylor went to a Super Bowl now. I was there. All right, you want to give a first loser?

Yeah, my first loser is the Carolina Panthers. I actually wanted to make the Ravens the loser in this game. They win the game, but they only scored 13. I saw very little of this. What was up with Lamar? It wasn't really Lamar. It was the running game. They just couldn't get the running game going.

I thought the Panthers were on a lot of their runs. Like you could see when the Ravens were doing their typical stuff where they're like pulling guards and then they have. a bunch of fullbacks and tight ends moving around. The Panthers were attacking those plays. They were very aggressive with their front. I actually thought Lamar played well. It's just that there wasn't a lot there.

Like he didn't leave a lot of meat on the bones. There just wasn't meat on the bones to begin with. And it's the same old concern with this offense. Like the play calling, it's hard to fault the play calling when they have this receiving court that's so limited. Greg Roman, who I do think influences their roster and how they build the roster and the pieces that they have and the reason why they don't have a lot of receivers.

But when you combined Greg Roman scheme with the limitations of the roster, I think like this is the concern. It's the same concern we've had for the last three years now. I will say the defense looks better. I'm not sure if it's real because they have had an easy schedule and Baker Mayfield was bad today. But I do think like the turnaround isn't just the easy schedule.

They're not busting coverages anymore. very sound on the back end. Marlon Humphrey's playing very well. The defensive line is playing a little bit better now. I like this team as a whole. It's just like the offense, I can't get around it. And I think that's the factor. Without Rashad Bateman this year,

I really don't think they have a chance in the playoffs. After what we saw from the Chiefs and what we've seen from Buffalo, what we've seen from Miami, like I don't trust them to keep up. If it's just Lamar going one on 11. Sad. Sad, sad. Speaking of teams probably can't keep up. My first loser is the New York Jets.

If the Patriots beat the Jets 10 to 3, this game was absolutely disgusting. There were 10 combined socks, 16 combined punts. The game ends mercifully, even though overtime was threatening, when Marcus Jones returned a punt for a touchdown, a couple minutes before we would have gone to overtime. It was the first punt return touchdown of the year in the NFL. There was just absolutely nothing pleasant offensively about this game. And it was hysterical to see Bill Belichick get up to the winning coach's press conference after this game and look absolutely delighted with what it happened.

Like, this is the type of game where people make jokes about it setting the NFL back 40 years. and he gets up and he was like, we just beat the best fourth quarter team in football. We knew it was going to be like this, really good team win. Matt Patricia ran a quarterback sneak on second and two and then called a handoff that lost two yards on third and one at one point. Like,

this game was disgusting. But I guess it made Bill happy. The reason the Jets are the losers here is all that matters. for this team, I think, going forward, is internalizing the fact that they have to move on at quarterback. Zach Wilson just was, was, I don't know what he was doing. He wasn't playing professional quarterback.

He was 9 of 22 for 77 yards. And then afterwards, he, uh, said that he didn't feel like the offense led the defense down. They had two yards in the second half. Basically, every other offensive player was like, this is unacceptable. We can't do it. Um,

and then after the game, there was a report from Connor Hughes from S&Y that Zach Wilson was walking around the locker room, quote, like he isn't the problem, which, according to Connor's sources, upset a lot of people.

I thought it was in poor taste for him to wear a, I'm not the problem T-shirt around the locker room. I'm going to be honest. I didn't think that was a smart move on his part. Well, you know, I always said he was an Aaron Rogers protege. Look, there's actually a weird way where you can turn this into a win is like if this goes it is really

really hard for teams to move on from highly drafted quarterbacks yeah and if all of this goes far enough south that they they really take a look in the mirror and go we we can't keep doing this that will be for the better for the organization going forward because that roster overall is extremely talented the defense is so good they have done a really good job of of building it up. Garrett Wilson seems like they found a guy there. They've lost Vera Tucker and Hall. So there's there's some guys who won't be able to help them this year,

but who are going to be able to help the team going forward on offense. There really truly is a good core foundation there. They just don't have the quarterback. And the sooner they realize it, the better. So maybe this is a Jets win. Yeah. But it's not because they scored three points. It gave Darnold an extra year.

And I think like that kind of set them back a little bit. So like I do agree. Like knowing quicker is better. Yeah. And I it's a year and a half into it. And I don't think it's too early to call it. Like this is like Josh Rosen. It wasn't too early to call it with him.

It wasn't too early to call it with some other guys. Like it's when it's obvious, it's obvious. And this is obvious. Like he looks like someone who's playing Madden, but they don't know the buttons. Like they're just pressing random buttons. They don't know how the game works. Like he's not playing quarterback. right now. I don't know how you call plays for that. And I think LaFleur is a good

offensive coordinator. Like you could see it when you watch the film. Like you get like what they're going for. They just don't have a quarterback. They can trust. And I knew, I knew Belichick was winning this game after Navy won a football game on Saturday without completing the pass. They went 0 for one in the passing game. Belichick was like, all right. It was like that the Cam Newton when he like shakes his head, the gift. He was he was like, all right, I'm about I'm about to win with a punt return. Disgusting. How do they score 10 points when Mac Jones went 23 for 27?

And almost average 10 yards. What was this game? It was like, the play calling was on both sides, just an absolute masterclass in what to do if you don't trust your quarterback. From the Jets side, I don't know what else to tell them to do, right? Like for as bad as it is, I'm a little bit like, you know what? when you had Breece Hall, when the line was a little bit stronger when Beard Tucker was still playing, they got everything they could out of there and they designed an offense that

Zach Wilson just had to like keep his hands on the controller a little bit. And that's gone and and I don't know. I don't know what you do. The controller is not even plugged in at this point. It's not even on. The Patriots though, like Mac has very clearly regressed somewhat. This cannot all be on the quarterback. This is just he ran a quarterback sneak on second and two. What are they doing? I just, I don't have an answer for the play calling. That's progress though. Joe Judge was a part of a team that quarterback sneaked on third and 10. So this is progress. Right. They're moving in the right direction, I suppose. Like next year, next year we're going to get like a sneak on on first first and one somehow like on the goal line. They won't see it coming. Four dimensional chess. But yeah, I think I think like

it's got to be over at this point. And really the conversation should be, do we play Joe Flacko? Because they're in the playoff race. They can make the playoffs. Or Mike White. Either one. I think it's a conversation.

It's a tough one to have and it's admitting that you got the pick wrong and you're officially moving on. Like you can't bench him now and then go back to him in the offseason and be like you're our starting quarterback going forward. But like it's time. It's obvious. You're just delaying the, you're just like not wanting to admit that it's,

that what everyone sees, that it's over. They got six first downs. Six. You get. Brutal. All right. Next winner. My next winner is the Eagles, although it kind of feels weird calling them winners.

Like I agree with Ben. The vibes are a little sketchy right now. Even the last drive where they go down the field, they get the touchdown. This is like the drive you wanted to see from Jalen. It's right. Like when we were talking about him as MVP, we wanted to see him do this. But even the drive was a little sketchy because they get like the pass interference call. That was the big play on the drive, on the game winning drive.

They're down 16 to 10 late in the fourth quarter. And then they call, they don't call a dropback pass for the rest of the game. It's RPO or runs. So like I know people are arguing for Jalen Hertz as MVP, but it doesn't seem like the Eagles call plays as if they have an MVP level quarterback. It doesn't seem like they trust them. him right now. And I think they have to trust him if they're going to win a Super Bowl. It's hard to win a Super Bowl against these quarterbacks now when you don't have a quarterback that you're willing to put in situations where the defense knows he's passing and he's able to do it. And I

still think that's one box he has to check before we can like say he's arrived. He's this franchise quarterback who's going to definitely be on this team for the next 10 years. I'm still skeptical of that. And I know that he's played really well and he improves every year. And I think he's on that right track, but for this season alone, I still think it's a question. It'll be really, really interesting to watch. And man, the Colts were so close to winning this game. And I think it was very encouraging for the Eagles because like I said, the run defense is, it's a red flag for me. And the fact that they're playing Sue off the street this quickly and he's playing a lot of snaps, a lot of key snaps, but he played well today. And it seems like the defensive line is getting better.

And they dominated the game. They took over the game when the Colts had a chance to put the game away. They were up three with like four minutes left, five yard line, first and goal. Defensive line just completely takes over. They stuff a run, pressure Matt Ryan into a throwaway. And then Reddick gets a sack to extend the game and keep them alive. And then Hertz goes on the game winning drive. Yeah. I mean, the good news is that I think the sort of narrative element of they still put that drive together. They still got that that fourth quarter win. the good news is that I think the team feels that too. It's not just an outside thing.

Like players can get just as much energy from that as anybody. I still think, look, like they're nine and one, right? That's a really good team. There is something about the way that the Cowboys won and particularly just watching DAC make some of those throws where it serves as a reminder that even in a year like this, which has been so weird and so weird for quarterbacks in particular. particular. There is just something where if you can fall back on a pure dropback passer, there are moments when if it's really good, there's just no defense that beats it.

And I guess we're, you know, we'll find out if that's a thing that comes up once we get into the playoffs. Obviously, the best teams can do a lot of different things. But. And the question with them is, are the receivers good enough where it doesn't really matter that they don't have that dropback passer? And I think they answer to it. And I think for a lot of the season, they've made that. It could be yes, right? Yeah. I mean, it's hard to go up against a defensive genius like Gus Bradley. I mean, he shut down the chiefs earlier in the year.

Now he's shut down the Eagles. Like this, I feel like the league has come back around and gone full circle to the point where like Gus Bradley is a good coach again. The league came back to him. He found it. It's like Lovey Smith. Like people started playing Tampa 2 again. Now Lovey Smith is like kind of on the cutting edge. Everything cyclical.

All right. My next win. the commanders, or as as Kevin Durant would call them, the Manders, 23, Texans 10. Taylor Heineke is 4 and 1 as a starter. And not that it seemed like a particularly tough call, but Ron Rivera officially said that he would remain the starter when Carson Wentz comes off IR. That is very, very good news. Again, don't think that was a hard decision, but it's good that they've said it out loud.

the implication of that is that it probably, unless there's an injury or Heineckee really nose dives somehow, they're probably going to keep their second round pick next year because Carson Wentz won't hit his playtime incentives. And they are a 49ers lost tomorrow night away from being in the playoff picture. Now, I think the 49ers win tomorrow night. But for all of the, for all of the trouble. that has gone on in Commander's world this season and all of the Carson Wentz of everything, they've kind of turned things around.

And if nothing else, I think they have come to their senses about Wentz not being it. And Heineke's playing pretty well. And it's really tough in the division that they're in, but they've got a shot. Yeah, I mean, this team almost beat the Titans a couple weeks ago.

they were like a goal line stand away from that. They're seven and four with a win over the Titans. Like I think we're talking about them way differently. And the Giants, I thought, really dropped the ball today, losing to the lines. We're a week away from the Giants possibly being in last place. And Washington being out of the basement of that very, very competitive division. Yeah. I think this is a decent team.

And is Carson Wentz like playing for a certain amount of snaps going to be a thing every season from now on? I really, I hope it is. But like the draft pick gets like progressively worse every time. Like in two years he's going to be playing for like a six round pick. A conditional fifth. Heineke is just, I mean, he's, he's a better quarterback than Carson Wentz. Like when you watch them play objectively, he's a better quarterback than Carson Wentz. And I'm not, I don't even think he's that good, but just like the energy he brings to the team, it matters.

Those things matter. Yeah. And when you're talking about two quarterbacks that are going to be bottom five quarterbacks anyway, I think it makes sense to go with the vibes guy over the talent guy, the high ceiling guy. And it's working for them. And I, there's a decent team.

He also kind of in a weird way is a high ceiling guy. Like they have good enough skill position players. He is like, his comp is like Ryan Fitzpatrick. Right. Right. Like he's, he's going to go for it.

And if you're not going to beat people with talent, you got to do that. You got to like hope that you end up on the good, like skinny part of the curve. and that some breaks go your way. And you can't, if you're at a talent disadvantage with better competition, you can't be conservative about it. And Heineke for, you know, I think more for better, but sometimes for worse,

he's not going to be conservative about it. He's going to go for it. Yeah, like we saw him match Tom Brady, throw for throw in the playoffs two years ago. He has like the high ceiling to his game. There is a very, very low floor. And when it goes wrong, it looks very ugly. The same way it did for fits during his career. But there was also those games where he's hitting everything.

He gets on fire. And then all of a sudden he looks like a real quarterback. And we didn't see those games with Wentz. We saw the bad games. But we never saw this high ceiling. All right. Another loser? Yeah.

I just talked about them, the Giants. They lose 31 to 18 in a game that I thought it didn't look anything like any of the other Giants games we've seen this year. They've been all about getting ahead of the sticks, staying on script, running the football, not making mistakes, not hurting themselves with penalties. And then this game was just the opposite of that bunch of penalties. Daniel Jones turns it over twice. They can't run the ball at all outside of the quarterback run game. They actually were unleashing Daniel Jones early on in the run game and the Lions had no answer for it. But the traditional run game, like the Saquan Barkley runs, were not working at all.

The lines were just selling out to stop them. And I think that's the big question with the Giants. Or any team that plays like this, that wins like this, that is one dimensional and needs to run the football to play well, is what happens when they take away your plan A, do you have a plan B? And the answer for the Giants is it's still no. They don't have the talent. I don't think, I think Daniel Jones is better than people think. I think he's an average quarterback. But without the supporting cast, I don't think he's capable of elevating this team.

He's not that type of quarterback. And we saw it today. And they can't afford to play these types of games. They can't make mistakes. They have to play perfect on offense or it unravels very quickly. We saw that today. Aaron Glenn's taking a lot of heat this season and rightfully so, but they said like all those lines defensive players either before the game or after the game talked a lot about

how the number one thing was just key in on Seguan. And he carried the ball 15 times. He got 22 yards. So credit where it's due, that game plan worked. And it did, you know, the Giants didn't have a counter. It's funny to think I'm, they're apparently in the conversation for O'Dell Becker. The Giants and the Cowboys seem to be the real contenders. I feel like just a month ago or something, it was like, will it be the bills?

Will it be the Rams? And now apparently it's either the Giants or the Cowboys. I will intervene. If Odell tries to sign with the Giants, I will intervene. I will break up the contract signing. Do not do that. I can't imagine that this game would make him more enticed to do that. Although I guess I don't totally understand.

Does Odell no ball? He picked the Rams instead of the Packers last year. It worked out pretty well. We know his dad knows ball. It's grinding that film. All right. Final loser for me. The Bears lost 2724 to the Falcons.

To some extent, this is actually a good thing. Like the bears have been playing this perfectly in a certain way because they're continuing to lose games. They right now have the number three overall pick in next year's draft. And in the meantime, Justin Fields has made their offense exciting on a game to game basis. This was the fifth straight game where he had both a passing and rushing touchdown. But while he's been setting rushing records as a quarterback and it's clearly the most effective version of the offense, I think this game was the first one where we're, we could really clearly see the downsides.

Because he was carted off the field for evaluation in the middle of the game. And he came back, but it looks like he was in a lot of pain. He took four sacks. He probably got hit 15-ish more times as a runner. I think he ran 18 times total. A lot of them were designed runs. His arm was in a sling after the game. He said the pain was really bad.

You know, I think they're playing. Thursday. I would just rest him. Um, because there's obviously a delicate balance going on there because there's been a really strong correlation between how much they're doing in the design run game for the quarterback and how well the offense has worked. But if it's coming at the cost of his health, particularly behind an offensive line that is, is among the worst in the league, has not in some ways made some strides, but that's not the unit that you're building to. And, in a season where it's just so obviously not about this year. Like we're talking about the fact that they are losing these games while looking sort of

exciting as a good thing because they're going to have a really high draft pick. It's great that they've been exciting, but just don't push it because that that looks scary. Yeah, there's no reason. I don't think they play on Thursday, but they play they play the Jets. No, no, they play the Jets on Sunday. But that's like a defense. I wouldn't want to subject my quarterback to because they, run around like demons and they just fly

to the football. And yeah, I that's the downside. That's always the question with this. Like this is very clearly the smart way to play right now. Like this is how they've set up the offense to build it around his legs. But this is the problem.

There's, there's a, an expiration date on it. You can't, you can't play like this all the time. And that's why it's so pivotal for him to develop as a drop back passer, which we're still, it still looks, pretty rough. Like even today, like there were some good plays he made out of structure, the the third down completion where he had like 10 seconds to throw. But we want to see,

I want to see like in rhythm, on time. And we still haven't seen that. And until they figure that out, they're going to have to subject them to these hits to make him a viable, make this offense viable, make him a viable quarterback. It's tough. But I agree with you. Like, you don't want to halt this progress, this clear progress we've seen over the last month. And an injury, I know he was like grabbing on his left shoulder that looked really bad. It looked like an injury that could get aggravated. Like I wouldn't, just rest him.

Just rest them. Yeah. You're right. They're playing on Sunday. I don't know why I thought that had a Thanksgiving game. Obviously, you imagine that one of the priorities for next off season is going to be the offensive line. That's not going to do all that much in terms of stopping him taking big hits if he's running on designed runs. but at least one that should help your passing game be a little bit more stable.

You'll probably want to ask more of him as a passer if the protection is a little bit better, one, to see what you have, too, because presumably the results should be better. It's an unsolved problem. Like they will have to, and there's tons of teams that do this, right? like Buffalo certainly has been on a journey the last few years figuring out how much is too much of running Josh Allen. And Josh Allen is a particularly sturdy individual, right? So like not everybody gets to hang their hat on while the quarterback is just built like a tree trunk. So some of that's going to be okay.

They're going to have to figure out where the equilibrium is there. But particularly when he's going to take a beating in the passing game too, it's just, it just seems like if he's getting hit, if he's taking 20 big hits in a game, let's say, because it's probably somewhere in between 15 and 20, between the sacks. And I don't know how many of those runs he got out of bounds,

but it's probably 10 to 15 more there. That's a lot of hits. That's a lot of hits for a guy to be taking. And I think they need a like a Stefan Diggs type move. Like what the bills did for Josh Allen. He needs a receiver he can trust to separate. Because the one thing you notice about him as a passer is that if the window is not wide open, he hesitates to throw it. Like he kind of wants people to be wide open.

Well, that's their entire receiver group, right? Like that was the weird thing about the Claypool move, which is sure, like you add, you add somebody in the passing game who in theory is among the more talented guys in your room. But you're adding a contested catch guy whose major knock against him is that he doesn't separate. so they still don't have anyone who is going to have daylight on a defensive back and give him the confidence that, yeah, it doesn't have, it doesn't even have to be perfect, just like uncork the throw. So I just think it's all, I hate to be a downer about how exciting it's been to watch this bear's offense be fun, right?

But all of those things are reasons why it should be front of mind there. just just wait on it. It's cool that you're doing this now. It's valuable. It's meaningful. But it's not really about right now. And hopefully if they can make some moves like a digs type, obviously, you know, that's a high bar. But if they can try to add to this receiver room, particularly guys who are better separators than they have, if they can get fields.

some better protection. Then you take a step back, look at how it all fits together, and try to say, okay, we can do a little bit more in these couple of areas. So maybe we do a little bit less in these areas unless we feel like it's a really pivotal game and we need it. Because that's part of figuring out where that equilibrium is too, right? is like, let's save it for game on the line moments. And they could have game on the line moments this season.

But like it's just the bears are not in that situation. That's probably good for their long-term future because of the draft pick. Everybody chill out. Save Justin Fields. Would you say we're at the point already where you could, you would consider his sophomore season a success? Yeah. I would too.

Like I don't, if he doesn't play another down for the rest of the season, which he will, but if he doesn't. He will. Like they're not, I think that is sort of. No,

this is a hypothetical. It has nothing to do with the injury. But if like he like, his season ended today, I would say like this was, this was a good season for him. And he showed progress. He showed what he needed to show.

And I would not like after that first month when the results were really rough looking, I was ready to be like, I wouldn't be surprised if the Bears. had a different quarterback next year for week one. Like where we're at with the Jets right now. And I think he's turned that around at the very least. I do too.

They obviously, look, the more reps he can get the better as long as they're safe. So while I would certainly be really, really conservative with resting him while there's an actual injury, my argument here is certainly not like just pull him. No, no. start, you know, start doing a load management thing. Take precaution. I would take some precautions with the current health thing that he's dealing with and then take a real sober look at how much risk in putting him in harm's way as a

designed runner is worth the cost. And that's it. And then you get the rest of the season as further evaluation, further development. Right. Yeah. And you know what? He doesn't need the development as a runner, right? Like that's the stuff that's working.

So focus on the other elements, maybe a little bit. Now, obviously, if he's going to take a half dozen sacks on a regular basis, I don't know. Yeah, it's not like, don't tank, but don't necessarily try to, don't sell out to win games by putting him on the line. Because like, it's not in your best interest to win the games. Although I do think like building the cultures is important. But I think the development thing is a very good point. like put him in situations he's not comfortable in right now. Force him to like grow as a passer.

And I think that's the best for his long term development and his health. And now again, like this is, it's really complicated because what they're doing in the run game and what they're doing with the quarterback run game is helping their offensive line by virtue of what it's making defenses need to do to play against them in a way that's making, that's giving him a more stable platform. form to throw from and is mitigating one of their key weaknesses as an offense.

So it's tough. And there's a lot of different factors. But if it's going to look like this, he's taken too many hits. Yeah. It looked like Cam Newton at the end of his Panthers career. Like that's what that's the vibes I got, like the flashbacks I got was this is a quarterback that's that's hobbling right now. Yeah.

It's not what you want. All right. Let's close with our non-headline story of the week. Stephen, what you got? So we were just talking about the Bears. They are now in line to have the third pick overall. The top of the draft order right now is Houston at one, Carolina at two, Chicago at three, Los Vegas at four, and then we get three straight teams who have traded their first round pick.

The Denver Broncos traded their pick to Seattle. Seattle's in line for the fifth draft pick right now. The Lions would have the sixth pick from the Rams. Houston would have the seventh pick from Cleveland. And then if you skip two teams, Pittsburgh and Jacksonville, Philadelphia would have New Orleans pick, which is now the 10th pick in the draft.

This is maybe the funniest possible outcome for all these trades, them totally backfiring and those teams trading for quarterbacks and now being out of position to grab a potential quarterback of the future. And I would say like the saddest team out of any of these on the list, for me it's between the Rams and the Saints. which one do you think is sadder? I think the Saints is sadder than the Rams, but I think the saddest one is Denver.

Yeah, Denver is pretty sad. That's actually, it might be the worst trade in NFL history now that I think about it. Like, have you seen, like, there's tweets from Broncos fans that are suggesting

it's already the worst trade in the NFL history. And like, my first instinct is to push back, but when you see stuff like this, the fact that Seattle will now be drafting fifth if this continues, and I think it is going to continue.

Denver seems to be getting, worse. Is it the worst trade in NFL history already? I mean, I don't know if we're considering the situation in Cleveland as a potential as a potential additive to that list, but it's working out worse than I think even people who didn't think it was a good idea

could have possibly imagined. The interesting thing is if we'll seem this happened more and more often as the sort of like Rams all in approach is more and more popular or if stuff like this will cause any sort of rethinking about those philosophies that are more and more widespread across the league. I don't know. Obviously part of what drives that those front offices to behave like that is the belief that you can get proven commodities and draft picks end up going towards unproven commodities. So there might be people in those organizations who would say, I mean, yeah, the lions have the number six overall pick from us. And we would have, we wish that weren't so high, certainly. But who knows, there are number six overall picks who bust all the time. So we still believe in the philosophy. Or because as we were talking about earlier, it's certainly my belief that everybody's sensitive. It's the type of thing that ends up being high profile and sort of an embarrassment. And, causes kind of a wholesale

rethinking of team building philosophies. So it's an extreme example of it, but I actually wonder if it would feel if it's something that we might see more of, just based on how teams tend to behave. Yeah, it feels like teams are more aggressive now.

Like the trade deadline was the busiest trade deadline in recent memory. The offseason was obviously like the busiest in terms of blockbuster trades. My question, like looking at the top 10, there are a lot of teams that are going to need quarterbacks next year. And I would not be surprised if like four quarterbacks go in the top 10 this year. I haven't really studied the class, but like Houston needs one.

Carolina needs one. Las Vegas will probably need one. Seattle, probably not, but like there's still question marks there with Gino Smith in his long-term viability. Detroit definitely needs one. Davis Mills, he needs to be replaced. Like the Steelers aren't going to replace Kenny Pickett. But like, I think if he has a bad. end to the year, there will be at least some questions about them, at least thinking about a

quarterback if they fall off a cliff and like end up with a top three pick. I doubt that's going to happen, but it's in the realm of possibility. Then Green Bay after them, like, it's going to be, it's going to be an interesting race for like the quarterbacks in the draft. Yeah. I haven't studied them either. So it'll, that'll definitely be something that we should check it on. But it'll, particularly because a lot of those teams that have those top picks are pretty good. So, and some of them are in interesting situations where like, okay, I think we think Seattle's figured out what they're doing. Now, if they have a top five pick or something, it'll be really interesting to see how

that organization looks at that opportunity, right? Because it's an interesting one. I think Gino has certainly more than played himself into more. more time there. But do they trust that he is their true, like long-term franchise answer? I don't know the answer to that question.

If it were me, I would probably want to give him a real shot. But if you think that he's good, you also don't think that you're going to be drafting that high for a while. So it really creates when you have the movement so that so many of the picks are with other teams,

it creates these interesting situations because it's not just all like, oh, the Jags are picking first in the draft again. So it's sort of an interesting, you know, we've, we've done these all-in weeks, and it's a little bit of like an all-in, the inverse of the all-in. Yeah. I think Gino gets the Tannahill deal. Like, doesn't it seem like he has at least earned that?

The Tana Hill, Tana Hill had his one breakout year. It was a half a year in Tennessee. He signs like a deal that was basically three years, $28 million. It was basically like the same as the Kirk Cousins deal. So I would not be surprised if that happens. I do wonder though if Seattle. I think so too for the record. At least thinks about maybe selling high on Gino.

Like he is 32. Like it's not like he's a young quarterback. It's not like even if I think it's going to be hard for him to replicate this season again. He's played at such a high level. It's going to be impossible for him to match these heights. But like even 80% of this is pretty good. But I wonder like what the return is if they shop Gino in a trade. I think they could move up in the draft,

draft one of these quarterbacks like Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud, depending on how they feel about them. Like, as good as Gino is, I feel like it makes a lot more sense for Seattle where they're at in their timeline to maybe go after a blue trip prospect. Because there's an expiration date on Gino Smith, too. Like, I don't know how long he's going to be able to keep us up. All right.

Well, if we've gotten to Gino talk, that means that we've covered all of our bases for this. podcast. Stephen, thank you so much. A joy to be with you on a Sunday as always. This has been the Ringer NFL Sunday recap show. Thank you so much for listening. Next up on this feed, Sheal and Ben will have extra point taken their deep dive of week 11. That'll be on the feed tomorrow. Thank you as always to Isaiah Blakely for production on this episode with additional production supervision by our Juno Ram Gapal.