The Ringer NFL Show - Week 11 Recap: Detroit’s Comeback Against the Bears, Chargers Find Another Way to Lose, and Zach Wilson Gets Benched | Dual Threat

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Nora and Steven recap Week 11, starting with Detroit’s fourth-quarter rally to get past the Bears. Then, they move on to their winners and losers for the week, including the Browns, Chargers, Raiders, and more (15:56) before wrapping up with the take purge (1:13:40). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz Producer: Isaiah Blakely Social: Kiera Givens and Eduardo Ocampo Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, this is Jason Gough from the full go podcast. Me and the crew, we like to entertain you. And we're going to do more of that this football season because the bears should be more intriguing. There should be more fascination. Justin Fields, is this the make or break year? Is DJ Moore the piece that's going to put them over the top? You can catch us on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays,

or when we have an emergency podcast when we have breaking news. Make sure you follow the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Yadi. I'm Stephen Ruiz. And we are here to break down Sunday's week 11 games. Kind of an interesting slate this week. And we're going to start. That's one way to put it.

I thought it was fun. There weren't any, like the hierarchy of this week was hard for us. Picking which game was the clear and obvious, like the number one thing that we had to talk about. We ended up choosing the Lions Bears game where the Lions end up beating the Bears to move to 8 and 2. Stephen, what was your main takeaway from this game? The Jared Gough question, I think it's the question we always ask. And I think there's a question about- I like that you said that as a question.

Like the Jared Gough question? Right. Isn't it obvious? I don't know. He threw three picks in this game. And I think that's going to be the thing we talk about. And it should be. But I feel like it's just a part of this offense that you have to have that blind trust

when you throw over the middle. And that's how all of his interceptions were. They were all over the middle to, they look like plays where he was just throwing right at the linebacker on the bears. And I think that's just like one of the drawbacks of playing in this offense that does make things so easy for the quarterback at times. And it does inflate their production at times. But the negative is sometimes you're going to throw an interception right to a linebacker's chest. And everyone's going to laugh at you and be like, oh, how could you do that? But I just think like if you're not testing those windows in this offense, you're not getting the most out of like the play action.

part of it. And Jared golf is just going to have these games. This game, this three interception game, he did obviously come back and they scored twice after I think four minutes. They were down by 12 with four minutes left in the game. They erased that deficit. And I've seen like some suggest that it shows that Jared Goff like it bounced back. I don't think he played well at all.

And I think like the game winning drive was really sparked by the run game. The two biggest plays of the drive were David Montgomery runs. the final two plays of the drive were runs, including the touchdown. So I don't think he had like this bounceback moment. I just don't think like that first half and the third interception were these big red flags or like that much different from what Jared Gough had been doing because what he had been doing is testing a lot of tight windows. He was just insanely productive at them.

And there was always going to be a point when like there was regression. I think we saw that today. So, you know, in all fairness, just so. if any hardcore Jared Goff stands are listening to this. One of the picks was tipped at the line. Another might have come on a play that should have been an illegal contact penalty. Jalen Johnson also dropped what definitely would have been a pick six if he'd held out to the ball. So comes and goes in a couple different directions as far as Jared Goff testing those windows and paying a price for it or not.

But I'm, the thing that I take away from this, because I agree with you that this is just who golf is and we sort of know that this is going to be part of his game, is that it does strike me as a different situation than what we've seen from him in previous spots where he's struggled, which is just, I think, a product of the way that Dan Campbell coaches and the way that the Lions are right now, which it's obviously not good that he has a three interception game. But I just don't think Dan Campbell cares in the way that Sean McVeigh cared. And I think that's a really good thing for them because we remember what it was like in L.A. when, you know, golf was struggling.

McVeigh decided that he was just sort of too mistake prone and too dangerous to really trust with that offense. and everything got tight and everybody got uncomfortable and they started changing what they did or what they were trying to do just to avoid him making a mistake. I like the way the lions do it a lot better where it just seems like they kind of know that he has this in him. And like you said, that run game is really what

spurred them to be able to make this comeback. And you need all of the pieces that great offensive line, the play action game working the way that it can, and that running game, when it's all working together, that is when they are at their greatest strengths. So if they respond to something like this and go, oh, man, we got to make sure that Jared doesn't toss it straight to a linebacker. We got to change what we do. That's the worst case scenario to me. So, okay, does this result, does this win, does the way that it happened to make me feel? feel like with golf playing like this at quarterback, the lions should be trusted to beat the 49ers, be, you know, really beat the Eagles, be the true cream of the crop in the NFC. I don't know that I'd go that far. But I do think that it's a really good sign for them that they can just let it roll off their shoulders and win a game where they they lose time of possession by 20 minutes,

win a game where they had four turnovers, win a game where Gough has this performance. One, just because they have the other strengths on their team to be able to do it. But two, I just, I don't think that they freeze up. And when you have a quarterback like Jared Gough, who's probably, you know, he's probably going to do this again at some point. I think it's a good sign for them that they can can overcome something like this. Now, it's against the bears. Although the bears, I've seen the bears play a lot worse than they play today.

So overall, it's, you know, it's not perfect, but it's good that Detroit can win a messy game. Yeah, and I think we've seen this from Detroit in the past, this ability to come back from large deficits. Sometimes they don't finish the comeback, but they have shown that ability. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that is a big difference. And I think the difference for golf and how he's perceived in Detroit versus how he was perceived in L.A. is just expectation.

Like he was the number one pick in L.A. he was given that big second contract in L.A. And it didn't work out. In Detroit, he was kind of just like a throw-in into that deal. It was like, oh, yeah, give us a first-round pick, and we'll take Jared Gough off your hands. So I don't think there's that expectations built in. He hasn't signed a huge contract extension there.

He might in the off-season. I think that might change. expectations and it won't be like, oh, Jared Gough's pretty good. He's better than everyone said. It will be like, oh, Jared Gough has to earn his money now. I think that's still a fair question, but I think like who this Lions team and who they've been, like I said at the top, this doesn't change my opinion just because Jared Gough three interceptions.

I think, if anything, them being able to win this game and score 31 points on a day when he did throw three interceptions is a good sign. he's going to have some of these games, like you said. He might have a game that looks like this against Philadelphia if they play them. I don't think it might not be three interceptions, but it might be a bad game. And I think if they can still hold their own on offense with that run game, with that offensive line, with Ben Johnson dialing up these creative plays, I think they'll be fine.

Here's where I think it really does matter that they were able to pull this out and get a victory. The schedule coming up, they've got the. Packers on Thanksgiving. Then they've got the Saints, the Bears again, the Broncos, the Vikings, the Cowboys, and the Vikings again to close out the season. I wonder

what the line would be for that Cowboys game. I imagine the Cowboys, depending on how the season plays out from here. I imagine that they would be favored at home. But I would also imagine that That's the only game where the lines won't be the favorite that they've got remaining. They're eight and two. They've got the same number of wins as the Eagles.

Obviously, we'll see what happens tomorrow night when the Eagles play the Chiefs, one of the biggest games the week. There's definitely a world in which Detroit ends up with the one seed. Because their schedule is a lot friendlier than Philadelphia is to close out the remainder of the season. And that makes a big difference, right? If we're talking about Jared Gough playing at home in a dome with home field advantage. And if they end up doing that, there's no one win that goes into it. But if you drop a game like this where it's sloppy against Chicago and it's a lesser opponent, but he makes a bunch of mistakes and they can't

overcome it. That probably, you know, that might have closed off their opportunity to be able to make that happen. And right now it seems not easy, but a definite possibility and something that, you know, we're always going to talk about this team as they go into the playoffs as a little bit of an underdog relative to the San Francisco's, the Philadelphia's, the slightly more proven teams and the teams that have different quarterback situations to varying degrees, but something that could really change that is is the one seed. And it's absolutely within reach in the large part because of this win. Yeah. Should we talk about the Bears and Justin Fields and the Justin Fields question? There's a, there's a question about both quarterbacks in this game. And Fields looks pretty good. He looked pretty good,

but I watched this on a second screen, but then I rewatched it before the spot. And it was a little worse on rewatch. And it was a little more of like the typical Justin Fields game that we saw last year, which like is still good. And it still proves that he is an offensive weapon when you build this run game around him. Good things can happen. You could score a lot of points and you could play a team like Detroit who's very good. You could play them tough on the road. But there's still that that little bit lacking in the past game where he's still a little bit too late on throws, where he still doesn't manage the pocket the best, where he drifts into sacks,

which is what happened on the last play where they get the safety. He had a guy open in the flat. It was the Bears ran this play that we've seen a lot of teams run throughout the league where it's like a tight end going out to block in the flat and then you have a running back behind him. And it's like a little screen pass, but it only involves one blocker. And the play's open.

The running back is open and it fields just throws it. They probably pick up like 15 yards to start off. off that game-winning drive. Instead, he kind of drifts into the right tackle and takes a sack and he fumbles and then you get the safety game over. And it's just a recurring theme with fields. It's like he's going to make that losing play in the fourth quarter. And we saw it again today.

Right. I thought he looked a lot better than he did earlier in the season, certainly. And obviously, coming back after missing four games, it's encouraging just to see a level of competency that wasn't there. You're right to point out that the most, the thing that you like is what he does with his legs. 104 yards on the ground. He made some nice throws on the move. Just that athleticism gives that offense a floor, although we didn't always see that earlier in the year.

And it was good to see it from that offense in this game. but it is that that's that's more what you're encouraged by than anything in the passing game. I mean, he threw for 169 yards. Nothing special. And then the strips act by Aden Hutchinson that ended the game was a tough break. And as you point out, he sort of drifted into pressure. The Bears have a pair of top five picks. It's looking like.

Fields does this. He is where he is. What do you think right now? if you were in charge in Chicago, how would you manage that in the offseason? If say, like, let's say he plays the rest of the season and it looks sort of like this,

where it's not the disaster that it was earlier in the year, but the pocket present stuff, the pure passing game stuff, doesn't move leaps and bounce forward. But it still works, which is kind of like what we saw at the end of last year. If he has, like, a similar end to last year,

like, that's what makes it such a tough question to answer, because if this was in a vacuum and the Bears didn't have two top five picks and they weren't on pace to have the top pick in the draft with Caleb Williams and Drake May coming into the league, then I think like you give Fields another chance because he is showing progress. But when you have this chance in this draft with two special prospects, like I know people are turning on Caleb Williams, but I still think he's a special prospect. Yeah, because he like Mr. Press conference.

Right, exactly. It's a different conversation, though. You have to look at it differently. It's a different question. And I just don't think if this is all he shows for the rest of the season, that you can afford to pass on these two guys, whichever one you decide to take. I just don't think you can do that. That's not to say, I'm not writing him off either.

I think if he goes to another place, new lands with like a good coach and a good offense, I could see him becoming a very good starter. He might actually help him in some ways. I think it would be the best thing for his career. There's just like a lot of baggage. But you're looking for better than like a good starter if you have two top five picks in a draft where supposedly there are two special quarterbacks. Right. All right.

Anything else in this game or shall we take a quick break and get to winners and losers? Let's do winners and losers. All right. We will be right back with that. This year, Fandle's got something you'll really be thankful for it because right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 money line bet. That's $150 if your team wins. wins. And with so many games going on, Thanksgiving is the perfect time to join. You can join in time to bet on some NFL action this Thanksgiving. On Thursday, I like the 49ers going on the road

and beating Seattle, laying the points there. I also like Detroit laying the points at home against Green Bay on Thursday. So if you want to join, you can sign up in time to bet on those games. And if you do, visit fandle.com slash ringer NFL and fill up your play with parlays and player props all weekend long. Fan duel official partner of the NFL. Must be 21 plus and present. in select states, $5 pregame money line wager required. First online real money wager only. $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt.

See terms at sportsbook.fandle.com. We are back on dual threat and it is time for winners and losers. Brought to you by Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Running backs? No. Ribs? Yes. Defense? No. Deodorant. Yes. Uber Eats is an easy win.

So let's talk about the other winners and losers this week. Stephen, you were going to start us off with some winners in the AFC South. Tell me what's going on. Yeah. So I'm going to start out with the Jaguars who beat the Titans 34 to 14. Obviously a big game for Trevor Lawrence, 24th for 32, 262 yards, two touchdowns, both of those touchdowns to Calvin Ridley, who has a big game, maybe the first big game since the opening week against the Colts.

this looks on paper like a bounce back game like a get right game for the jaguars offense but like when i watched it it was better but it was also better because it was against the titans like i think they protected trevor lawrence more and i think Trevor Lawrence because of that because he had better protection looked sharper but i don't like i think Trevor's been playing fine this whole time and then they did connect more downfield but i don't think this is like I don't think it's very different from what we saw earlier in the season. I think like the difference between this performance where Calvin Ridley catches two touchdowns and what we were seeing at the beginning of the year when they were kind of struggling is that

they got their feet down this time. Like it's these little margins. And that's what we've been talking about with this offense is like they can't seem to find the answer to these little nagging problems. And I think we kind of saw that. But if they go up against a good team, I think we'll see their weaknesses, the ones we've seen over the past couple of years. I don't think the Titans are a team capable of exploiting those weaknesses.

Did you see them doing anything in particular different to get Ridley open? I know that was something that I believe our pal Ben Solac. I forget if it was in his Sunday column or on a pod was pointing out just that there's not a whole lot that they're doing to try to activate him at the line and just get him open. did you notice anything like that that went into him having a more productive game than we've seen since that opening day? I think maybe they were just more intentional about it. I think this is like a coaching staff that is getting questions about it now from Jags beat reporters every week. I think we saw it.

It seemed like they were under center more. I don't have the numbers on that and doing like more play action, which is like it's going to lead to downfield shots. And that was part of it. I think part of it also is just that like Calvin Ridley is very. good. Trevor Lawrence is very good. And like eventually those guys playing together is going to result in a game like this. I don't know if it's like some great fix. Honestly, and like the other part of this is the Texans who won 21 to 16 against the Cardinals, like not the greatest result, a five point win at home against the Cardinals where CJ Stroud on paper, it looks like

a step back for him after last week because he throws three interceptions. But this was like a very good game for him. He had a 52% success rate, which is a 74th percentile result going back to 2010. He was seven for 11 on third down. He averaged over a point of EPA on third down. Like, this was a fantastic performance. And honestly, based on the scores, you would think like the Jags had the better weekend. But I feel better about the Texans going into next week's matchup after Sunday than I do about the janitors because these two teams do play next week. That game is going to be exciting. That's an exciting, that's an exciting game for this, this here podcast because it's going

to go a long way, it seems, in potentially deciding the division winner. And that's why this is, that's why the AFC South is a winner for you. Because this is like the first time we're getting a top of the standings, AFC matchup, where it's not sad, where it's not like, oh, Josh Dobbs and the seven and nine Titans against the seven and nine Jaguars on week 18. It's not that. It's like an actually good game that we want to watch. Yeah.

You're not going to put it on Thursday night football. The NFC South is by far is like the south of this year. The AFC South has elevated itself and I'm excited about it. It's going to be a good game. I hope it's a good game. The funny thing about the Stroud game, I mean the three interceptions, what, that more than, did he have one pick before this or did he have two? I think he was two.

I think he'd thrown another at some point. So he more than doubled his, his interception total for his career. But he still played really well. Do you have a prediction for Texans Jags? Oh, man. I'm going to go with the Jaguars. I still think like Trevor,

I'm very impressed with CJ Stroud, but I still think Trevor is like a cut above him. And if you look at him. look at the rest of the rosters, I think they're equal. So I'm going to go with the Jaguars. I think I'm going, I'm going Texans. I don't blame you. I don't blame me either. I mean, look, Arizona, you could see how other than Stingley, I do still think that you can pick apart the secondary a little bit. Kyler, by the way, still looking pretty good, I think. there's a world in which, you know, they could have won this game and,

and I think still sort of relatively encouraging results for them. Yeah. But I do think that the defense is when they can just rely on, when they can figure out how to make it about just their ability to get pressure and make it about the defensive line as opposed to making it about some of the holes that do exist in the secondary, I think they can get by. now Trevor probably on a good day can pick that apart a little bit but I don't know I just think Strouds looks really really really good and Tank Dell is like a revelation and Singletary having two big games to a hundred plus yard games in a row is not something that they always were getting earlier in the year so they just they're a pretty balanced team it feels like this year so far has been about just Stroud being such a revelation.

But I think that undersells how many other parts of this roster have proven themselves to be stronger than they seemed going into the year. Including an offensive coordinator, Bobby Sloick, who doesn't get like the Kyle Shanahan PR boost. Like you don't really hear his name. This time last year, well, I guess it's because he's not a head coach. So this is a bad comparison. but like Mike McDaniel was like the talk of scheme Twitter last year and Bobby Sloak's doing I would say more impressive stuff with a rookie quarterback and a wide receiver court that's certainly talented but nowhere close to Tyree Kill and Jailman model. So like shout out to him.

Yeah. Shout out to Bobby Sloke. He'll get head coaching interviews this off season and then like once we go through that cycle, then I think he'll get the Shanahan magic pixie dust. All right. I have a winner for you. The Cleveland Browns, who beat the Steelers, 13 to 10. Not a lot of offense in this game. However, I think there are three things here that go down as wins for Cleveland.

First of all, good for DTR. Did what he needed to do. Threw a little on the move, kept everything super short. He was probably lucky to get away with it. Stavansky, it was very obvious the game plan was so conservative. And once Pittsburgh started sort of squatting on the short stuff in the second half, it was tough for him to do very much. But he still, he led a final drive that got them into field goal range.

Dustin Hopkins only has to kick a short one. And he was really, really, really jazzed up and even kind of emotional on the sideline. And I think that's great. Good for him. that said second win for Cleveland is that we have a breaking news siren Joe Flacco has entered the building because Flacko is signing with the Brown's practice squad according to ESPN with the intention that he will be promoted to the active roster. I assume the other intention is that he will start games. So. Flacco's starting.

Let me let me just stop this right now. You don't bring in Joe Flacco. Joe, I'm not going to mentor anybody Flacco for any other reason but to play football because he is not interested in any other thing besides playing football. It's so funny. It's so good. I'm just excited about this for content. I like, do you think that what do you think Joe Flacco is going to be like as a quarterback right now? Do you have any, do you have like anything to tether your?

yourself to that as far as analysis or making a prediction? He's going to be Joe Flacco. The Joe Flacco we've seen the last two years in New York. I don't know. It's just been the Jets, right? I'm kind of like forgetting the rest of his stops. But he's slow. He doesn't seem very interested in holding onto the ball.

Like that's the thing that I remember about his Jets tenure from watching him for the quarterback rankings because I would not watch him under any other circumstances unless I had to. And I just remember him being slow and not interested in creating and making plays whatsoever. He's 38 years old. He played three weeks last year for the Jets. And then he was demoted for Mike White. So we last saw Joe Flacco play football over a year ago and he was demoted for Mike White and he's 38 years old.

So forgive me if I'm not ready to be like predictive about how this is going to go. I don't have a prediction either. That said, it's embarrassing that the Jets didn't do this and let the Browns get away with this. The defense remains elite. Like, it's Kenny Pickett. It's the Steelers, but still, Miles Garrett was amazing in this game. That defense is just really, really scary no matter who you're playing. And if they can win against a Steelers team that is not good, but still wins games.

with DTR. There's no reason they can't do it with Joe Flacko. So wins all around for Cleveland. I'm forgetting who sent the tweet, but someone sent the stat out today that Tommy DeVito now has more multi-touchdown passing games than Kenny Pickett does in his career. Oh, no.

Wow. There was one going around about Tommy, like how many touchdown passing games. as Tommy Davido had versus how many touchdown passes, Zach Wilson has, but Kenny Pickett, that's rough. Yeah, this was the guy that was getting like MVP talk. Like, he's an MVP sleeper talk before the season. It's, I mean, at this point, it's getting hard to like separate Matt Canada from Kenny Pickett.

I think just both of them are just not cut out for the positions that they have. I think that's very clear. A two-headed monster. They're melding themselves together into one being. Right. I don't even know who's more to. of light. Like either one of them is the worst quarterback in the history of the NFL or one of them

is the worst offensive coordinator in NFL history or the more likely answer is that both of them are just kind of just not good. Yeah, a little like some from column A, some from column B. Yeah. Steelers are still six and four. They were, they were outgained. So they've kept that streak alive. But you know what?

Like credit to Cleveland for going and trying to get better at quarterback. It's obviously a hard thing to do at this point in the year. But cough, cough, New York Jets, there are teams that are not trying in this type of way. So it's good that they went out and did it. You know, I don't know. We'll see how quickly Flacco gets in a game. But they've got the Broncos and the Rams. Jaguars, Bears, Texans, and then the Jets. Oh, yeah, they have that, that, I mean, that's going to be

incredible. If that December 28th Jets game, which sounds as though there's at least a possibility that that that would be the one that Rogers would want to come back in if he comes back in, if it's the Aaron Rogers Jets against the Joe Flacco Browns, that's going to be electric stuff. I can't wait. That's all I want for Christmas. Which quarterback do you think would move better at that point? I don't know. How many, how many dolphin noises is Joe Flacco but listening to lately?

That's a good. That's a good clue. I'm going to save my prediction there until somebody can ask him that in the press conference. Joe Flacco doesn't have a tour to Killies, though. He just moves like he has one. Oh, that's incredible stuff. That's incredible stuff. All right.

You want to go for a first loser? Yeah. This is like an eternal loser, the Chargers on the spot. Like, I, gosh. I'm running out of ways to describe how they lose football games. I don't know where to start with this one because it was just ridiculous from the very beginning. I'll start after Justin Herbert's go-ahead touchdown with like it was around five minutes to go in the game. A fantastic touchdown throw, by the way, into a tight window, just an impossible throw to take the lead.

The Packers recover a potential sack fumble on, I think it's second in 10, setting up a third and 20. So they miss out on the fumble. The Packers recover it after Jordan Love gets stripped. Asante Samuel Jr. gets called for defensive fast interference on a pass that probably had no shot at getting completed. That gives up a first down. I think it was two plays later. Jordan Loves throws a short pass to Wix. He breaks two tackles, Michael Kendricks and I think Michael Davis. And that ends up being a chunk play setting up Romeo Dobbs for the game winning touchdown. What ends up being the game winning touchdown. But on that game winning touchdown, Kenneth Murray is getting aligned late in. sets a pre-snap pick on Michael Davis, which allows Romeo Dobbs to get open on the game-winning touchdown. Like, this was a, the, the charters just shot themselves in the foot. Time after time in this game, I don't know how they lost it. Justin Herbert played one of the better quarterback performances I've seen all season long.

Like, it might sound like I'm exaggerating, but three of his 11 completions did not hit his receiver's hands. The other eight hit his receivers in the hands and they just fell incomplete. I don't know how they lost this game. Austin Echler, actually I do know how they lost it. At one point, Austin Echler slips on a handoff. They're like seven yards away from the end zone. He slips on a handoff, gets up, fumbles the ball, the Packers are covered. That takes seven points on the fourth. Keenan Allen is wide open on the one yard line. Justin Herbert hits them in the chest. He drops that fast. They have to settle for three. Earlier in the game, Justin Herbert throws it to Keenan Allen.

I don't know if he's going to get a first down or a touchdown, but I think he's going to get close enough for it on fourth and short, but he drops the ball. That's more points. It's like a horror movie. Donald Barum on the first drive of the game, third down, wide open in the middle of the field. Justin Herbert hits him in the middle of the numbers.

He drops it. Quentin Johnson on the potential game-winning throw. Open, downfield. Justin Herbert drifts to his left. He throws a laser 40 yards on the line outside the numbers from the opposite hash. Hits him in the hands. He drops it on fourth and one of that drive. Justin Herbert throws it.

It gets batted down at the line. Game over. Every Chargers loss is like a game of Clue. It's like it was Donald Barham. In the Red Zone on fourth and one. Clue, it's like a game of Saul. Like they just find ways to like cut off one of their limbs. Well, there's just like a murder.

Yeah, that's what it is. One part of how they lost this game is that they gave up 420. four yards to the Packers who have not exactly been an offensive juggernaut. After and Brandon Staley was not doing too great when he was asked about this in the postgame press Godfrey. I can't I couldn't even, I watched this like five times. I couldn't really figure out what his deal was. It was like people were asking about defensive play calling and if there was more to why

they were struggling than just like not executing, which the implication was, you know, is there something going wrong? Not just on the players part, but in the coaching. And first of all, he said, he kept saying, I'm not here to talk to the fan base, which seemed a little testy. Like, I don't know that I would go there if I were on the hot seat. And then he just, he got really, really defensive about his defense and said, you guys actually like, we've never played good defense. That's not the truth.

You actually, like we haven't made any improvements. There were a lot of other things that caused us to lose today. It certainly wasn't our defense. It was the way we played as a team. Yeah. I mean, I guess. But at a certain point, like, I don't know that the move that I was. would make if I were Brandon Staley at this point is to really dig my heels in on this is

my defense and my defense is doing enough for us to win. There's more going on than my defense because I don't know, man. I mean, yeah, like it would also be good if there weren't really unfortunate drops and general discombobulation. But also your defense gave up 424 yards to the Packers who had not had a 400-yard game this season. And this is a week after they gave up 533 yards to the Lions. So I'm not sure that like mounting a vigorous defense of why it's not fair to ask him questions about the defense that's given up close to a thousand yards over the last two weeks is like the hill to die on.

But I don't coach the Chargers. So like my only defense for him is that Maybe he's frustrated because he realizes it's every like I don't think the big problem is the defensive play calling I think it's just that the defense is poorly coached at this point like it just seems like a poorly coached defense They don't tackle well they commit a lot of penalties a lot of third down penalties a lot of their losses this year have been the result of poorly timed penalties on third down that have given teams first downs on like game changing drives I think that's the difference and maybe for Staley, it's just him being defensive because if he doesn't have the defensive play calling, then what does he have left?

That's his last thing that he's holding on to. So I can kind of see why he got frustrated. It just, like you said, it doesn't help. Even if you're right in that moment, you're still wrong. Like, the public doesn't care. The people that are ultimately going to make the decision on him. I don't think they care if, like, well, actually, the defensive play calling was good,

even though, like, the execution and, like, the penalties and the tackling or the reason why we failed. I don't think they care about that either. The results are bad. And that's the only thing that matters. Right. And I also don't think that, like, I don't think that anyone is coming after Brandon Staley being like, your defensive system is what's ruining the chargers.

You are, you are making a mockery of everything that Vic Fangio stands for. Like, that's not the critique. The critique is this is a hot mess. And they can't stop anyone. And that has a little to do with play calling, but it has more to do with penalties and tackling and basic fundamental stuff that I do think reflects on coaching. Maybe not necessarily on play calling specifically, but like I just don't know that. I don't know that. And maybe that's the lost in translation thing where like that is how he got this job and that is what he came up on.

And so maybe he sort of sees everything through the lens of any critique of the system is, is that exact critique. But like, I just, I don't, no one would look at the 2023 chargers and go like, man, if they were a little bit savvier on the defensive play calling, all this would be fine. They weren't calling so much cover three. They'd be much better. No, yeah. I don't know.

I think it's almost a bigger problem for him that the problem isn't defensive play calling because you could just give that up and then everything would be solid. Right. Or just call it different. Like, call it differently, but that's not what's going. That's not what's going on. So I guess of his point is that that's not the main problem. Like, I sort of agree with him.

I just, this is not the moment to be like, never asked me that question again. Yeah. His response was actually like, I'm actually a lot worse than you're making me out to be right now. Like, our problems are way bigger. As of this recording, Brandon Staley is still the head.

coach of the Chargers, but that feels tenuous. Anything on this game from the backer's side? Yeah, Jordan Love. I think Jordan Love has been solid. I've been saying that for like a month now, and I thought this was an impressive game for him. He still has these little moments, which you're going to have when you haven't played any football. He's still a little bit, there's like accuracy problems. Sometimes he throws it off his back foot a little bit too much. Sometimes he throws it into coverage when he shouldn't. But like around that, he makes a lot of like throws that, I've only seen good quarterbacks make. I'm not saying he's a good quarterback, but he makes the type of plays that we've seen good

quarterbacks make. He has the type of armed talent and the type of physical ability. The thing that's stopping me from going all in on him, in addition to the accuracy thing, which I think is a big deal, is that he's not like this top level athlete. He actually ran the same 40 time as Aaron Rogers. He's not not the most agile athlete either. I just think he like kind of knows how to move. I think he's a playmaker.

I think he has that instinct. There's something there. I think Green Bay should give him another year if they're not in position to draft a quarterback. And I thought this game was another step in the right direction. Yeah. It's a good building block. And, you know, last week was encouraging there too.

So it certainly makes it seem like if they can have a little bit of a longer leash with him and give him some more reps and see if he can develop into something that that would be worth doing. That's another one. Aaron Jones did get hurt in this one. Apparently he avoided like a major knee injury. He might miss time, but at least it's not long term. Yeah. The two-headed him and AJ Dillon thing has just never, never really worked.

So the Packers with him healthy are a much more interesting proposition. So hopefully whatever develops out of that injury will stay relatively minor. I will give you another loser. The New York Jets who not only did not call Joe Flacco, an automatic L, they lost the bills 32 to

6. And this was the game. We finally found out what it would take to get Zach Wilson benched. He was benched for Tim Boyle in the third quarter. He left the game. Seven of 15 for 81 passing yards.

He'd completely, completed 46.7% of his passage, which was his lowest completion percentage in a game. And it was also his lowest passing output. So I suppose you can make an argument that this was indeed worse than anything that he'd done. But it is just interesting to see where the line was because Zach Wilson had had such bad performances after which. Sala would say, oh, you know, it could be worse. And we're sticking by Zach.

So we found the limit. Our pal shield Capadia posted on Twitter that after this game, the Jets have overtaken the Giants for the worst offense in the NFL based on EPA per drive and success rate. They had 115 total yards as a team today. That was the sixth fewest by any team in a game. This is just like, the Jets got. scammed. I'm sorry.

We've just got to say that it's sort of over because let's say that you can squeak into the AFC playoffs with nine wins. They have four. There are seven games to go. They have the dolphins, the falcons, the Texans, the commanders, the dolphins, again, the Browns, the Patriots.

That Browns game seems to be the one that Rogers who, but there was a report that he texted all of the jets a video of him working out this week, which is just like a chef's kiss detail. to me. Let's say that Rogers can come back for that Browns game. And let's, let's, let's say that they win it. Let's say that he outdules Joe Flacco in his, his jet's return,

and then they beat the Patriots. So that's two wins. So then I don't think even with the Dolphins' offensive struggles with the way that that defense is looking, I don't think that they're going to beat the Dolphins. Maybe they steal one against the Falcons or the commander. but you would need to win three of those games to get to nine wins. You would need to win three games and then win both once Rogers is back to get to nine wins at this point. I'm sorry, I don't think that's happening. Yeah, why did you waste your time doing that math? They played Tim Boyle today.

You just wasted your time going through these scenarios. Because I think it's worth doing because every week we're doing this like, well, you know, if they're in position and Rogers is texting everyone videos of him working out. Like, let's admit that this is not a serious proposition. These are not serious people. It's over. Look, he's 40 years old. He tore his Achilles in September.

He tore his Achilles two months ago. He's going to come back against the Cleveland Browns of all teams. He's going to come back against Miles Garrett and Zay Smith. Here's the thing is that, like, to me, that's not even the issue. I don't know. There are a whole bunch of reasons why what Rogers is saying about what he might be able to do. It makes absolutely no sense. But let's suspend our disbelief there and say that he is making a miraculous recovery and he could come back and that he would be good enough for them to win out in those last two games.

I just don't think that there's that they can be in the position for that to matter. at that point. And that is inextricable from the fact that Tim Boyle is the person who is behind Zach Wilson, that Zach Wilson remained the backup quarterback, that Trevor Simeon, by the way, is just like still on the Jets practice squad. And I have absolutely no idea what the purpose of that move was. He's the best quarterback on the team. Well, then what's going on?

Like, why won't they try it? And why won't they try making the call that the Browns made? And I just have no other answer other than Aaron Rogers. I'm going to throw a take out there. Trevor Simeon is better than Joe Flacco in 2023. I don't, I, without hesitation, I'm taking Trevor Simeon. Sad discussion, but I'm taking it. Why has he not gotten, am I, like, is he hurt or something?

And I don't know about it. There's just no reason. They haven't given it a try. It's two things. It's one, I think they're really committed to Zach Wilson and making Zach Wilson just kind of work. I think they just want to win a couple of games so Sala could be like, I told you, he's playing well.

The other thing is like there's this weird thing in the NFL where sometimes you, even though the second quarterback is worse than the third quarterback, you still have them as the game day backup just because he knows the system more. And I think that's what's going on with Tim Boyle. I think that's the only reason he's around. And maybe that's what's going on because Simian did join the team mid-season. He's friends with Aaron Rogers.

That's why Tim Boyle is around. Same reason why Randall Cobb's around. Same reason why Alan Lazzar is around. Same reason. It just you can't let one 39-year-old quarterback with half an Achilles run your football team and hold an otherwise really pretty good roster completely hostage.

To the point where the Cleveland Browns are out maneuvering you for Joe Flacco, and it's actually a bad look that that's happening. God, rough. Good news for the bills, though. Firing Ken Dorsey worked. No notes. Absolute 32 points. Josh Allen did throw an interception, but it was on, it was an interception for the

discourse. It was a Hail Mary right before half time, but he just needed to give us something to talk about. So we thank him for that. I'm kidding. Their offense looked the same. Exactly. They just scored more points. It was the same thing. Of course, like, which of course it was the same thing. They fired Dorsey, what, four days ago? But I just think that, you know, we'll see how it continues to go. But this is exactly the type of thing that seemed predictable that there would just be some positive

regression and they would get a little bit better in the turnover department and things would be relatively fine on offense. The defense continues to be really injured. Taylor Rap had a scary injury and was carted off in an ambulance in this game. So that's another tough hit on that side of the ball. but generally speaking, to me, this looks like the same offense. And so I don't quite know what that says about the decision with Dorsey, but we've already talked about that.

Yeah. I mean, just looking at the numbers, just comparing them to last week even. Last week, they averaged 7.1 yards per play. Today they average 5.6 yards per play. They had a 51.9 success rate last week. This week they had a 39.7 success rate. Run game, 68% success rate last week. 37% this week.

Last week passing success rate, 40%, 42% this week. So a little bit of an improvement in success rate in the passing game. But every other stat, they were better last week, and that performance got Ken Dorson fired. The difference was the turnovers and field position. In this game, Buffalo's average starting field position was the 38-yard line. Coming into the week, it was 27th. it was the 27-yard line, one of the worst in the NFL.

This would have been one of the best in the NFL so far this season. So we are seeing that regression. And I think the offense will be fine going forward, even if they did make, it's not a mistake firing Dorsey? I just don't think it was like a move that's going to make a big difference. I think we're starting to see that positive regression where looking back, I wouldn't be surprised if people are saying, like, oh, this was a move that saved their season when really it would have happened no matter what.

I did think that, and this is separate from that conversation, I thought their game plan was pretty good. It did seem like they were a little bit more focused on finding underneath stuff and playing a slightly more controlled style, which is something that, you know, was up and down and was related to some of the turnover struggles. So it'll be interesting to see if that continues or if that was just a game. game plan thing. You know, the Jets defense is still nothing to sneeze at for sure. But for the most part, yeah, I mean, narratively, this might end up being a whole thing. But all I see in that is just the regression that probably would have happened regardless. All right. So now we've done, we've done two winners and two losers. Do you want to give us another winner?

Yeah. My next winner is Sean Payton, who won the coach of the year race bowl on Sunday night football. He beat Kevin O'Connell. And now is the clear frontrunner. Can we revisit a conversation we had a couple of weeks ago when someone on this podcast claimed that Sean Payton was doing a good job and someone denied that? Okay.

All right. I actually don't think the Broncos are a good football team. Nor do I. I don't even think the offense was that impressive today. I think the turnaround is like mostly due to the fact that Vance Joseph somehow turned this from the worst defense over the first month to a decent defense over the last month. I think we're still seeing like the issues that we've seen with Russ. It's just that they have a professional coach now. They have a better run game. And then I thought we saw,

I don't want to say like Josh Dobbs turning back into a pumpkin because I think he still is playing well considering the situation. But we did see a little bit of the drawbacks of Josh Dobbs is reckless approach to quarterbacking at some at times. His chaotic approach to quarterbacking times it works like on the scramble for the touchdown at the end of the game or in the fourth quarter it works and like he's he scored like that two weeks ago against the cardinals but i i do think like within a month this is going to go from like a feel good story to like oh they still miss her cousins because they are kind of getting by on smoke and mirrors still it's still like we got to get this run game going we got to rely on josh dobbs's legs there's just like a there's a water's

edge to that. I just feel like, and I just feel like they're approaching it. And I think in a couple of weeks, we're going to be like, this isn't the fringe playoff team that maybe we thought they were. Yeah. Now, I mean, they have, they have two games against the Lions left and those will be tough. They do have some pretty friendly opponents because they've got the bears. They've got the Raiders. They've got the Bengals. Obviously now a different conversation that it would have been before Thursday and the Packers. So I still think that they'll have some, there will be some room in that schedule for them to try to put it together. It does seem like with Dobbs, the formula is just how much can they utilize his running ability and his legs and his athleticism? Because, you know, once the balls and his hands is a pure pass are too much, I do think that that's when it starts to get away from him a little bit.

but I'm still excited to see what the rest of the season ends up being for them, because especially given that slate of competition, I think they can, I think they can withstand this. I want to talk about Peyton a little bit more. Okay. So, okay, things that he is doing well, Russ has stabilized. So I think he's done a good job coaching the quarterback. What do you think of like, where else do you see his, and the defense is certainly

turned around in a really positive way? where do you see his imprint on this team? I think it's getting Russ to, and I think Collinsworth did a good job of like pointing this out on the broadcast today. It's like getting Russ to not think so much and just kind of lean into his old self. Because I think you could make the argument that Russ improved as a pocket passer over his last couple of years where he was more patient in the pocket evidence. He was more willing to go through his progressions. And while yes,

that's the right thing to do. That's the right way to play the position. It didn't really work for him. And he was better when he didn't do that, when he didn't follow the rules. And I think Champagne has kind of encouraged him. And I don't know if this has been like explicit. Like I don't think you said like play a little looser.

Like don't go through your progression as much as you have been doing. I just think he's calling plays that kind of forced that into him. Like he's calling deeper shots. And this isn't like an efficient down to down offense. It's a big play offense. And I think you saw that tonight. Like the big plays. those sparked the offense, like the throws to Corton Sutton where he just made these

amazing catches. I think that's how you get this offense going is those moments of magic. And I think we're not seeing them as consistently as we were when Russ was at the peak of his powers, but we're seeing them way more often than we saw them last year. And it's more like late Seattle era Russ these past couple of weeks. Whereas like at the beginning of the year, even, it was 2022 Russ, which was just not a viable quarterback and that offense just wasn't viable at all. I think that's what you could say about this offense.

Even if the results aren't like top of the top of the league good, they're a viable offense right now. Yeah. Well, and I think it reminds you that this is still a roster that has a fair bit of talent on it. I mean, you mentioned Sutton, who made a couple of just unbelievable plays today. And, you know, it was always going to be a really tough hill to climb in terms of of actually being the Super Bowl aspirational team that they kind of set out to be

when they made the rest trade. But it was such a disaster under Hackett and that whole thing went so badly that I think it's easy to lose sight of the fact that there are some real players on that team and there still are. Do you think? I mean, are you curious

if they're going to make a little run down the stretch? Like talk to me. about sort of the floor and the ceiling for coach of the year, Sean Payton's Broncos. I mean, I think they have a chance. Just because of the bottom of the AFC playoff picture just isn't inspiring. Once you get past Houston and even before Houston with Cleveland and Pittsburgh, I don't trust either of those teams to keep this up. I know Cleveland's defense is really good, but like we know defenses.

You don't trust Joe Flacco? I don't, I don't. You don't trust 38-year-old Joe Flack. or DTR or playing golf for you. I don't trust Pittsburgh. I don't trust the Chargers or a team like the Raiders or the Colts to kind of leapfrog them. And then like obviously the Bengals

remains to be seeing how that team will look going forward without Joe Burrow. I do think the bills are going to write the ship and get back into the playoff race. But that only leaves one spot. And it hasn't looked good enough week to week offensively for me to buy in and say that they can compete for the playoff.

that spot. If their offense was playing as well as their defense has been playing week to week, I would, I would say maybe they have a chance. But I don't know. I think they're going to be in it. I'll give them that. They've got the Browns and the Texans and the Chargers, Lions, Patriots, chargers again. So there's some winnable games in there. If they could find a way to win that Texans game, which seems hard, it would go a long way as far as any potential playoffs. push but we shall see. All right. Is it my turn for another winner? Yep. All right. The San Francisco 49ers. Uh, they win 27 to 14 against the Buccaneers. Niners moved to seven and three. They are back atop the NFC West. Since that three game losing

streak, they'd now had, uh, the, the big win against the Jaguars. And then this, this was a great game statistically for Purdy, who's looked dialed in over the last couple of weeks, I just want us all to remember. They had Trent Williams and things were great. And then he was hurt, as was Deba. And things were not great. And then now they're healthy again. And things are great again. It's funny how that works. Let's just, let's remember this. Let's just remember this moment. Let's let it sink in and let's internalize what the independent and dependent variables that have been going for the 49ers are. But if that's the takeaway, then that's really good news for the 49ers as long as those guys stay healthy, right? Because they looked great in this game.

And, you know, McCaffrey had a really good game. Iyuk went off 156 yards in a touchdown on five catches. is there were just all sorts of moments where Purdy was throwing to a receiver where there was just no one in the player's remote vicinity as far as the defense. So the Niners are back to doing their stuff. And they've got the lead in the division again. And I know it felt like the sky was falling for that three game stretch. But that's another thing that's worth remembering. And that's for me as well as just

actually everything's fine. That's my 49ers take. Yeah, even like the defense, the problems that we were losing our minds about a couple of weeks ago, like about the run defense, it really just came down to them being really bad at like third and one, third and short situations. And like in every other situation,

the run defense was actually decent. Same with the offense. Like we knew it was going to be better. There's a reason why I wasn't like victory laughing my Brock Bertie takes after that little stretch because the team was going to get healthier. They were going to do this again because this is like they're too talented.

Kyle Shannon is too good. They have too many buttons to press. And with Trent Williams back, with Debo Samuel back, there are just too many different ways where they can beat you. And like I feel like this game, they scored 27 points. Brock Purdy has a perfect quarterback rating. If they wanted to, I feel like they could have scored another

20 points. And it just feels like they're this wasn't even like a great outing for them and their quarterback had a perfect quarterback rate. Nick Bosa and Baker Mayfield continued to not like each other. It was another thing that happened in this game. I missed that. I didn't see that.

What happened? Well, they just, they, they just, those two don't get along. I know that. Bosa, something happened after, like, maybe he was like making fun of him after Baker threw a pick, but then afterwards, somebody asked him if he consoled Baker after his interception and Bosa said, I didn't know, he was bitching to the rest. So drama. Did you see apparently Nick Bosa called Trevor Lawrence a one read quarterback?

And apparently like this has been a thing that several defensive players have said. Arden Key called him a one read quarterback and Trevor Lawrence was asked about it at the press conference. I'm sorry. Why is it so funny that it's Arden Key? I don't know, but you should watch the video because Trevor Lawrence is like heartbroken about it because he used to be teammates. Oh my gosh. Yeah. He's like, I can't believe Arden said that.

But he's not a run. He's not a one-reed quarterback. That's insane. That's an insane thing to say. That's really, really funny. That's like saying like to a tag of my load, like needs to get rid of the ball quicker. Right. I'm sorry.

I'm still not over the Arden Key poll there. I mean, I know that's literally what happened. So you didn't just, just, you're not using him as an example. He is actually one of the people who said that. Arden Key is such a perfect level of like, your average fan definitely knows who he is. but it's not like no offense to Arden Key. Like it's not like he's like important. It's just like a solid role player.

Like you know, you're happy to have him around on your defense. But wow. People are asking him about quarterbacks. Right. Like you know who it's I mean, obviously you've played with him. So that's why they would ask.

But you know his opinion on Trevor Lawrence. We really need to get us. Arden Keys. I can't wait until this. Sometimes it's like the fun thing about podcasting is something can mean a lot to you. And then you get to like put it out into the world and see if. the rest, like every other human being is like, what? That makes no sense.

But if anybody else thought that Arden Key was really funny, let me know. Yeah, Niners are good. Congratulations to the Niners. Loser? I didn't know who to give the loser to this. I didn't want to pick a winner from this game because I don't think the Dolphins played well on the offensive side of the ball, but they did beat the Raiders. So they were technically winners in this game.

So I have to give an L to the Raiders. They lose 20 to 13 in Miami. two has two touchdowns. He throws into interception. He loses a fumble. Aidan O'Connell throws three interceptions. First loss for interim coach, Antonio Pierce. I feel bad giving the Raiders and out because I think they played well on defense,

well enough to stay in the game. They played well enough for a team quarterbacked by Aidan O'Connell. They had a chance at the end. I just don't think Aidan O'Connell is, he's not the right type of game manager, if that makes sense. He's not accurate. I think when you have a, when you have that style of offense and you have that style of quarterback, when you're, when you're calling plays for that style of quarterback, he can't miss

throws. And I think he just misses too many throws. If they had a quarterback who was a little bit more accurate, maybe like a Jimmy G, not saying they should put him back in the starting lineup, but if he plays this game, I think this game is a little bit closer than even the seven point spread. And I think maybe Las Vegas wins it. Because this was not a good performance for this. passing game outside of a couple of, I would say, schemed up plays on early downs. On third down,

the dolphins were really bad. And I thought Tua in particular had a couple of plays that make you question how much progress he's made in terms of playmaking. We've given him credit in the past in earlier games, but he missed two third down plays when he was kind of moved by the past rush. His interception was just an overthrow where I think he was just him and Jalen Waddle weren't on the same page. but then he had a couple of other plays where he threw into coverage. And it just was a shaky performance for him. The run game, I thought was inconsistent. And we saw Devin A-Chane go out with an injury.

Yeah. I don't know. I just, I have more questions about this offense that I did before this game. And I was expecting them to have one of those get right games, one of those bounce back games where tonight we were saying, oh, the dolphins, look at them. Even though they are 7 and 3 and they took care of business, it just wasn't what I wanted to see. What I did want to see, though, was Jalen Ramsey dominate. in the way that he did two interceptions in this game and both of them were just jaw-dropping

interceptions. Yeah. That's the interesting thing is as their offense has been a little concerning lately, the defense is becoming a pretty feisty unit. I mean, I know the Raiders have not exactly been a juggernaut this season, but Devante Adams was Devante Adams in this game and ends up only with 82 yards on seven catches, which, which surprises me. just from what it looked like.

And this was one of those games that I do think the Raiders are going to have some of these where we remember that there are good players on that team. They just were, you know, there aren't enough of them, but also they were in a horrible situation to start the season. So I don't think the fact that they held them to 13 points. I don't think that that is just like, it's Aidan O'Connell and the Raiders can't get anything done. I really think this Dolphins defense is becoming one of the better units in the league. And it's probably, you know, it's exactly the right time for that to happen for them because I do think that that some of the offensive stuff is worrisome, especially as you mentioned, A-chain was hurt, comes back, leaves almost immediately.

apparently that's that's it sounds like that's not anything to be terribly worried about um but uh hill also was um shaking something out at at one point was a hand injury apparently yeah still ended up with um you know big game 146 yards 10 catches uh he's i forgot exactly what the number is, but he's, he's over like 1,200 yards in the season at this point, um, on, obviously on pace for a huge year. But the injuries are popping up. Two hasn't looked great. There are just a number of things to be worried about there.

There's obviously, you know, the more defenses see from this group, the more they put on film, I do think that all of that in the aggregate ends up working against them. just a little bit. But the good news is that on the other side of the ball, they do look really good. So if this becomes, the Dolph is becoming a defensive team, I don't think helps them.

The ceiling of this team is not that. It's scoring 70 points against the Broncos. But it can't hurt. Yeah, I think the one concerning part about Tua, and the reason why I'm bringing them up, is because this is another defense. Patrick Graham is, like, another defensive coordinator who's known for kind of trying to disguise things

and make things tougher on the quarterback, free and post-snap. And we've seen when Tua has struggled, it's been against these defenses, it's been against like spags. It's been, well, last year was against Brandon Staley, not this year so much. But we've seen them kind of struggle against teams that show you one thing before the snap

and then show you one thing after the snap. And until they show the ability, it's not just on Tua. It's on Mike McDaniel to kind of, I guess, Tia better plays to avoid those situations for Tua. It's on the running game to be better. It's on the offensive line to give Tua more time in the pocket. Like, it's on a lot of people.

It's not just on Tua, but Tua is the guy whose performance gets affected the most. And so he's the guy that we talk about in these terms. But I do think that's an issue for this team is going up against defenses coached by good play callers. defenses that can match the level of play calling, you're getting on the other side of the ball from McDaniel. Right. All right.

Let's close it out. My final loser, the Seattle Seahawks, who lost 17 to 16 to the Rams. Last second when Jason Myers's 55-yard field goal went wide right, this came after Gino Smith, left the game in the third quarter with an elbow injury. Drew Locke came in and could not get a first down through an interception, gave up the lead. Gino came back in with 90 seconds to play. Definitely encouraging that he looked like his arm was fine. He looked like he had enough arm strength he could throw normally.

And he got Myers in position for a long field goal, but he got got him in field goal range. But they missed the kick and they lose the game. And the issue here besides the fact that, you know, You want to see the Seahawks team put up more than 16 points. But the big issue is that this makes Thursday night the game that they have against the 49ers huge. On the ram side, it does mean that they still have, they've got a prayer maybe now that they have Stafford back that they could try to make a run and squeak into the playoffs. but for Seattle, if they lose to the Niners on Thursday, things start to look like they might be taken a little bit of a tumble. Because after that, they've got Dallas, they've got San Francisco again, and they've got the Eagles.

So, one, Gino looked fine once he came back, but you're still talking about a quarterback who's dealing with some health stuff and a really tough schedule. and then they also had Kenneth Walker go out with an oblique injury, which is something to keep an eye on and tough for them for sure. And if they, I'm not saying I think this is going to happen, but there's a little bit of a concern about the fact that they genuinely could. And this is a team that was leading the division, leading a really good division, just a couple weeks ago. But they could fall out of the playoff picture.

And if that happens, we're going to look back and go, They lost to the ramps twice. And that's basically why that happened. Because they're now a game back in the West. They need at least three, maybe four more wins. They do finish the year with Titan Steelers Cardinals as their last three games. If they sweep those, they might be in on that alone. But beyond that, they probably need a win against one of the top contenders that they're going to end up playing before they get to that part.

if they don't get that, there will be some of questioning about their ability to compete anyway. But there's at least, you can't say that it's guaranteed and automatic that they've got a postseason slot, which a couple weeks ago that that felt really like it was sort of a slam dunk at this point. So I think this loss could end up being pretty costly. Yeah, and this is one of those games where you wonder, you wonder about Pete Carroll and how far, how much further he can take this team. Like there was a moment at the end of this game where they get into field goal range, they're on the 39-yard line with 23 seconds left when they take a snap.

No timeouts left in the fourth quarter. And they run the ball. They're on the 39-yard line. There's still, what is that, a 56-yard field goal from there? They end up getting two yards on that run. and they settle for a 55-yard field goal after a spike. Right. So instead of like trying to throw for a chunk and try to make that a field goal that's manageable,

I think 55 for Myers is manageable, but it's not a game. But more manageable. Yeah, they settled for it. We've seen this before. We've seen plenty of teams get into the fringes of a field goal range and just kind of shut it down on offense. So this is typically how it ends. It typically ends with them missing a field goal.

And I think if Myers is 10 yards closer, which I think is certainly in play with a Gino Smith dropback, given how that drive was going, I think he makes it. And instead he has to attempt a 55 yarder and he misses it by, it was like a couple of feet, maybe like three yards. Yeah, I have the distance. Rough game. For sure. The Walker injury, Pete Carroll described as legit. So it's not funny. injuries are funny, but I just, I don't know what that means, but it sounds like he might miss some time.

So that's, that's a tough result as well. Um, we'll see if the Rams put it together down the stretch. Obviously with Stafford, it's, it's just a whole different equation there. He wasn't like awesome, um, but he gives them a chance to win. Shall we take another break and then come back and close things out with a little take purge. Let's do it. All right. Well, thanks again to our sponsor, Uber Eats. With Uber Eats, you can get groceries, alcohol and everyday essentials. in addition to food from your favorite restaurants. In other words, get almost, almost anything with Uber Eats, official on-demand delivery partner of the NFL, order now,

alcohol in select markets, and 21 plus to order, product availability may vary by region, C app for details. All right, we are back. Stephen, you said that you had a take to purge from this week. Yeah, I think we're headed for the most insane eventful coach hiring cycle in the history of the NFL. And I don't think we're ready for it. I don't think people are prepared for what we're headed for. Okay, let's assume that, do you think it's a safe assumption that Bill Belichick won't be the Patriots coach next year?

Yes. I don't think it's like 100%, but I think it's right. I agree. Yeah. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that Jim Harbaugh is not coaching Michigan football next year, given everything that's happened with that team. And he's had quotations with the NFL. We have Ben Johnson potentially being hired.

We have Mike McDonald potentially being hired. Listen to the list of teams that could be hiring this offseason. The Chargers, the Patriots, the Raiders, Mark Davis, the commanders with the new owner, the Cowboys, if Mike McCarthy disappoints in the playoffs, I could see Jerry Jones hiring a new head coach. Sean McDermott, if it goes wrong, the bills could be hiring a new coach. The Bears maybe with the top pick in the draft. And then the Panthers with last year's topic, if Frank Wright goes. Justin Herbert, Josh Allen, the Patriots,

Mark Davis is in the mix, the commanders with a billionaire, a new billionaire owner who wants to make a splash. Bill Belichick on the market. And Magic Johnson. And Magic Johnson involved. Like, I can't wait. I don't know what's going to happen.

Like, Bill Belichick could end up coaching the Cowboys. Can I just say one sentence? Yeah. And I just want your reaction. Yeah. Bill Belichick coaching Josh Allen. Ah! Oh my God.

It actually, like, it, would it be beautiful or would it be just like an abject disaster? We would find out. Can I read you one sentence, which is Irvin Magic Johnson's tweet from after the commanders lost to the Giants today? Let me hear it. Wow, exclamation point. My Washington commanders turned the ball over six times today and gave the Giants 24 points off turnovers. We lost 31 to 19. I mean, he's furious, right?

Yeah. He said that that my was very pregnant. There was a lot of meaning to that. My Washington commanders. Yes, absolutely. I also think, wow, exclamation point is, that is a charged exclamation point. Magic Johnson does not really think, wow, exclamation point about that. And I'm on to it.

I'm on to you, Magic. I'm reading these tweets. I love reading his tweets. I love them so much. much. Do you think Magic Johnson knows who Tommy DeVito is? Like, do you think he watched the game today? Yes. And how do you think he feels about him? I think he's, I think he's, I think he thinks that that DeVietz has a little something, something. And he would like to see that same type of fire. A Brock Party type. That was the best moment of the, the 20, 23 cycle in the NFL was a Brock Party type. I mean, it turns out the

commanders are right, he's going to win MVP. We're the idiots, not them. Yeah. There's really on to something. That's really interesting. It is going to be, I'm really curious when the first firing is going to happen because it seems like, I mean, Frank Reich seems certainly in danger. Staley, obviously is a situation.

Belichick, I do not think is happening in season underp. pretty much any circumstance, but you never know. And Rivera, obviously, is the other one where it just, it seems like when and not if. And I wonder if not that you can go ahead and make a hire, but I wonder if anyone will be encouraged to make a move sooner rather than later just because they'll want to get like a jumpstart on things and they'll want to, you know, there's also so much behind the scenes maneuvering that goes on. And once somebody's out of there, you start putting feelers out and start seeing what might interest someone. Because you're right to point out that,

that, you know, we should think not only about the coordinators and someone like Belichick, but the Harbaugh name is really, really interesting too. Um, be excited. My take purge for you is also from the Giants commanders game, which is that Tommy DeVito is ruining everything. The best possible outcome for the New York Giants at this point is to lose games. And then they're messing around and beating the commanders. They're messing around and like sacking Sam Howell a bunch of times. Where did this come from?

This is the worst decision ever. I can't believe they're letting Tommy DeVito. ruin the tank. They should sign Joe Flacco. It should have. Unbelievable. He did the Italian thing. What are the Italian fingers?

I don't. It's the, it's just, it's talking with your hands. Oh, I, I thought there was a name. There's not a name.

But you guys know what I'm talking about. My last, my last name's Prince Iati and I don't, I don't know what the name for it is. It's the thing with the fingers together. I'm trying to describe it. Okay, I'm going to Google it.

This is some real, this is some real end of podcast. stuff. Italian hand gesture symbol name. The finger purse. The finger purse. Okay. That's not what you were expecting.

No. Okay. I guess there's an Italian phrase. I think you would say it, Machiavoi. What do you want? I do not speak Italian. So I'm sorry that I just definitely butchered that.

That could be the name. Sounded pretty good to me. I don't think it has a name. It has an emoji. It doesn't need a name. That's true. But he did it. Yes, Tommy DeVito did do that after he threw a touchdown, which is, which is amazing.

It's amazing that that happened. I'm thrilled that that was a thing that occurred. It's just that Tommy DeVito should be, you can't mess up the tank with Tommy DeVito. That's not a thing that's supposed to be possible. And yet somehow, some way, he made it happen. and I wonder if the Giants will end up regretting the fact that they actually won this game at some point. But we shall say. Yeah, it's, it's, I can't blame them.

It's, it's good process. Like, a win is a win. A win is a win. Yeah, everybody feels good. Everybody's happy. Oh, no, I was going the other way. I was saying, like, you start Tommy DeVito. You expect to lose.

It's not their fault that they, like, I can't blame them for starting him. What? I agree with that. I just, I'm just, I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just sort of flabbergasted. Anyway, all right. An interesting week 11. Obviously, the biggest game of the week yet to come on Monday.

Chiefs Eagles, Ben and Sheel will have you covered on that game in Extra Point Taken, which will be up next on this feed. That's their deep dive into week 11. This has been dual threat. Stephen and I actually will not be back on Thursday. We are taking a break from the midweek show this week just because of the Thanksgiving holiday. But we will be back next Sunday to breakdown week 12. Thank you, as always, to Kira Givens and Eduardo Ocampo for their work on socials.

And Isaiah Blakely for producing this episode with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ramgapal and Connor Nevis. Must be 21 plus and present in select states, Vandal is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler, or visit Fandul slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 1-800 next step or text next step to 533-42 in Arizona, 1-888-78-7-7-7-7. or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut, 1-8009 with it in Indiana, 1-800-5-22-4-7-0, or visit KSgamblinghelp.com in Kansas 1877770 stopped in Louisiana, visit MD gambling help.org in Maryland, visit 800 gambler.net in

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