The Ringer NFL Show - Week 12 Recap: Bills Fall to 6-6, the Jags Take Control of the AFC South, and the Broncos Have Won Five Straight | Dual Threat

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Nora and Steven start recapping Week 12 by talking about the Eagles' overtime victory over the Bills. They discuss more questionable late-game management by the Bills, how the Eagles continue to find ways to win, and more. Then, they discuss their winners and losers of the week, including the Jaguars, Steelers, Chargers, and more (18:40). Lastly, they wrap up with a take purge centered on NFL referees (1:14:41). 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

Hey, this is Danny Hyfitz from the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. For all your fantasy football needs, check out the Ringer Fantasy Football Show with me, Craig Horek and Danny Kelly. That's the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. Your NFL show feed, I'm Nora Piteotti. I'm Stephen Reed. It is Week 12. It is Sunday night, and we are here to break down all the action from Week 12, starting with one of the biggest games of the week, which was the Eagles, Bill's game that ended up going to overtime. really entertaining game.

Philadelphia ends up beating Buffalo 37 to 34. And that's our headline. And I think the headline within the headline, the headline from the headline game, Stephen, is that Sean McDermott comes out of this game for the bills under the microscope for some decision making. What do you think about how he coached this game for Buffalo? It's always hard to judge defensive play calling before you,

get to like watch the all 22 just because you can't see what's happening downfield but from from that angle that we did have on Sunday it seemed like it was more of the same things that have gotten this defense into trouble in the past in these situations where they need to close out a game against a good team with a good quarterback and they revert to this like soft zone a conservative style of defense where you you kind of know what they're going to be in before the play and I thought that was the difference of the game. I thought in overtime, they just made it so easy on the Eagles. And Jalen Hertz, in the passing game, just being able to throw underneath and just pick up yard and just keep picking up like five and eight yard chunks at a time. It just never felt like

there was resistance from the Buffalo defense until it was too late. And then they finally show some pressure at the end of overtime at that drive. And it kind of like ends up with them being three for three in the run game against Jalen Hertz on that quarterback draw with Jason Kelsey kind of sealing the edge and it's a touchdown game over. Like, I don't know. It just felt like they made it easy on this, on this offense, easier, easier than it had to be. You know, obviously you learn a lot from going back and watching different angles in

the broadcast copy, but from how they film it on TV, the thing that always strikes me is that when they are zoomed in and when they are looking closer at like around the line of scrimmage, you'll see an Eagles receiver catch. a pass or, you know, go in motion or something or take a hand off. And you can't see anyone else around them on the screen. Right. And it's just like, dude, what are you doing? Like, they played a pretty good first half.

They did a really good job of controlling. The Bills did Philadelphia in the first half of this game. And then credit to the Eagles, I guess, for making adjustments, but they kind of widened out in the run game and that opened up a lot of the shot plays, opened up a lot of the big passing plays. and the bills had no answer. And, you know, it is sort of funny that the play that ends up actually losing them the game was being too aggressive, I suppose, the all out blitz on what ended up being the game winning touchdown by Hertz. Which you could hear like all of the Eagles players saying it after the game.

They read it so easily. And they knew immediately, I think it was Jordan Milato saying, oh, we quarterback drought. Like we have this play absolutely ready for the situation. I knew he was going to score. I knew it was going to be great. And Hertz didn't end up getting contacted by a bill's defender until he was at the goal line. So, you know, I think the sort of soft zone thing where they end up letting Philadelphia drive 75 yards in nine plays to go win in an overtime is a bigger deal than a bad call on what ends up being the deciding play. but it really doesn't seem like they have it situationally, which to me does fall on the coaching

because it's not the thing that we've been talking about where they're super banged up defensively. That's inevitable. That's luck. That's excusable. This does seem like coaching to me. And the other thing that seems like coaching to me was just the conservatism at the end of regulation where he uses a timeout to ice Jake Elliott on a kick that, I mean, credit to the guy for making a 59 yarder in the rain. But like, I don't know how much coaching strategy really should need to go into how you're going to affect him on what should be a low percentage kick.

Right. And not thinking or at least seemingly not thinking about the fact that you've Josh Allen, quarterbacking an offense that's collected over 500 yards or is going towards 500 yards once you get into overtime. And it seemed like he'd already decided that if they had, you know, 20 seconds and one or two timeouts, if they had an ice to the kicker, it seemed like the decision was just, we're not going to try to go win this game in regulation. And if you don't do that with Josh Allen, I don't know who you do. I mean, you do it with Patrick Mahomes, sure.

But like you have a six foot five like alien just robot who's playing a really good game and has a really big arm. I know the weather's bad, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it just it doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like he's got his finger on. the pulse. It doesn't seem like he's just sort of at the controls in a way that's working out. And I thought that was really disappointing because, I mean, this was a great game. This was a really entertaining game. But with the bills losing this game, they're six and six. I mean, they're probably toast. You know, never say, say never, but the New York Times playoff predictor has them with a 15% chance to make the playoffs. And that's down from 60% five weeks ago.

And I wish this team was going to make the playoffs because they're a lot more compelling and a lot more interesting than some of the AFC teams that are going to sneak in there. But I do think that, you know, the underachievement of that probably has to fall at the feet of coaching. I mean, yeah, it almost has to. And it almost feels like McDermott, by firing Dorsey a couple weeks ago, has put the microscope on him. I think, like, if this season had gone south and Dorsey had been the O.C. for the whole time, I think it's very easy to go into the offseason and kind of paint the picture that they're an OC away. They can find consistency on offense.

But now that he's made this move already, if nothing changes on offense. And like, I know they looked better last week against the Jets, but this week, even though they scored more points, it felt like an old Bill's offensive game. Like it was Josh Allen just creating magic.

It was Josh Allen making plays out of structure. Scambling and making, yeah. It didn't feel like, Tony Romo was really forcing the narrative that like the bills had made things easier for Allen. But by the end of the fourth quarter, you could no longer do that. He was like, pump faking five yards past the line of scrimmage at a couple of points during the fourth quarter. So he could create first downs for that offense. But it comes down to the defense and it comes down to another wasted performance by Josh Allen

where this should have increased his MVP chances. It should have gotten them back into the MVP race. Now, like you said, they have a 15% chance. you're not going to win the MVP not making the playoffs. So I think he's almost eliminated. I know it hasn't gotten to that point based on the numbers, but we're only like two weeks away from it happening. It's kind of sad that he's going to fall out of this. Yeah, well, and I think, you know, I'm with you that what we're seeing from the offense is

maybe Josh Allen having a little bit of a fire lit underneath him because he does seem like he's playing with a little bit more energy than he was maybe a few weeks ago. But primarily we're just watching regression. But I also think that from McDermott's perspective, that's kind of unhelpful, because even if the narrative that the offense has gotten better since they fired Dorsey is not right, I don't think that that's good for him if the results continue to be overall bad. And there's parts of that where, I mean, I don't think that it is on, it doesn't. lay at Sean McDermott's feet that Tyler Bass missed a kick, had another one blocked. It is partially at his feet that they had 80 yards of penalties,

but some of them were really sketchy. I mean, I think it was it was like 11 penalties on the bills in the first half and won on the Eagles. And some of that was just preposterous. They could have won the game in overtime if Alan and Diggs hadn't miscommunicated or had whatever went wrong on what looked like the little choice route there happened. And then if Elliot hadn't made a 59-yard kick in a super sloppy day where that should be hard, like all of these things, there was some real, there were some real unlucky breaks in this. But it's not the first time that they've let one slip away, that they've made some, that they've, that they've, that they've, that they've,

not helps themselves out defensively. So it just all adds up. And I do really think it's a bummer just because I do think that there are parts of this team that are really good and deserve to be in a better position. And I would like to see them in the playoffs. And it just doesn't seem like that's going to happen at this point. No. And I do think we should give some credit to the Eagles for this.

They did win the game after all. Yeah. And I know there's been a lot of criticism for Brian Johnson, the first year offensive coordinator for Philly. but it feels like he does find answers as games go along. And I feel like that's what you're getting from both coordinators, both first-year coordinators in Philadelphia. Shonda's side, I think does that on the defensive side.

I was skeptical of him coming into this because of past stops. Like in Chicago, I don't think he did a great job. But he's been good this year. I think Brian Johnson, I don't know if he's been good, but I don't think he's been as bad as Eagles fans have made him out to be. I know there were a lot of complaints about the QB draws. And the QB drawls ultimately won them. the game at the end.

And I think just not going away from what is a core part of their offense just because there's a lot of noise outside of the building. I think it's a good sign for that coaching staff, for a young coaching staff to not fall for that. And this team just shows it doesn't matter if they're not firing on all cylinders. They get to win these games. Yeah, they're just so resilient. This wasn't the best game for Jalen Hertz as a pass.

I think he found things. It eventually worked for him. He found things in the run game. I think he made plays out of structure in the second half. But it was, I think he had 33 yards at halftime. And they're only down 10 points because this team is so complete. It's just, they're just going to keep winning these games. Yeah, that's what I think.

I mean, especially because right now they're pretty banged up defensively. And you could see how gassed they were towards the end of the game, right? like Davis, I think, was, he was the one who sort of was chasing Josh Allen and fell out of bounds and was getting up and just panting. And I think the broadcast thought he was injured for a second. And it was like, no, he's, he's fine. He's just like gasping for air over there. And it was that type of game. But whatever style it seems like they wind up in, maybe there's something to be desired in how they come out at the beginning of the game and maybe that's game planning, maybe that's sort of like play call sequencing, maybe that's some combination of a bunch of

things. But they find the answers and they are good enough and they have good enough players and they are balanced enough that it's never out of hand when they find it. And I mean, they have the best record in the league. Like to me, this is the best team in football. And again, that's why, you know, not to keep harping on it, but like it's, it's just, I find the bills so disappointing because they are a team that I think can hang with the best team in football and make a game like this out of it. And it feels like if they were just a little bit savvier and a little bit more aggressive, then maybe they would have come out with a win here and been able to really sort of stake their name to that. but I do think that these were two good teams, but the Eagles are just, they're just a cut above.

Yeah. And like we're getting to the point where this is a historically ridiculous outcome for the bill season. They have a plus 100 point differential and they're six and six. First time since 2000. That's happened. It's absurd.

It's just simply absurd. There are so many chargers this year. Like there's not just one charges to you. There's like a charger in every division. There is really a chargering epidemic. There really truly is a chargering epidemic. I feel like something I enjoy about potting with you, Stephen, and is that we don't talk about the refs that much.

But I do feel like I have to ask you what you felt about the refereeing in this game. It was not good. It wasn't good all Sunday, but I feel like, I mean, I feel like it's affecting games. but I feel like it's almost been so bad that each team ends up with a horrible call on their side at the end of the game and it kind of evens out. I don't know. That's not a good thing, but it was bad and I think it's starting to affect games. And I think over the last couple of weeks, I'm starting to see like more and more people say, is this the worst it's ever been? And that's like something you hear all the time. But like this time it feels like it. It really does.

Yeah, it feels like it. And then also just the continued prevalence of gambling, the more and more that takes over the landscape. I think just all that stuff becomes a little bit heightened. Not to say that anything untoward is going on, obviously, but it just makes it all seem a little bit more like the stakes are a little higher. I don't know that this one evened out, though, just because. Yeah, definitely didn't.

There weren't any calls on the Eagles. And good, I mean, good for them for, you know, until that late drive when Jason Kelsey picked up a couple penalties. It was just like, there's just not that many games where you see one team have a totally clean sheet and another one be close to 100 yards of penalties. It just, there are certainly lopsided games in terms of who's sloppy and who is more organized and who's playing a cleaner game. But that says something about the officiating more. more so than it says something about the game. And I mean, there was a missed horse caller late on Josh Allen. Some of these things were pretty obvious.

And every time there's like a ref in the background of the shot, like staring directly at the infraction. Like there's no excuse every time. And there's like new issues popping up. Like I never remembered like the intentional grounding on like the miscommunications on option routes being a thing until this year. I never remember the total disregard of the fact that pass interference isn't supposed to be called on uncatchable passes. Like this year, it feels like that part of the rule has just been totally thrown out.

It's just gone. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. The intentional grounding stuff is is really weird, especially just because those route patterns are more and more common. And you would think that they would have thought of that prepared for this. but doesn't seem like it. Any final takeaways from Bill's Eagles before we move on to winners and losers?

No, not really. I want to advocate for Josh Allen still being in the MVP race. That's the one thing I'll say. I don't think he should be eliminated. As long as they're mathematically alive, he should be included. I'm for that. I mean, there are just things that he can do that nobody else can really do. And he's fun to watch play when he's having a game like this, even when it's frenetic.

They had over 500 yards of offense. And he's kind of their whole offense on days like this. And I just think it's exciting. So it's a bummer that it seems like there won't be a lot of meaningful January games involving that. But who knows? There's still a chance. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back and do winners and losers. score early this NFL season with Fandul, America's number one sports book.

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after receipt, see terms at sportsbook. Fandul.com. All right, we are back on dual threat, and it's time for winners and losers, which is brought to you by Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Blitz is, no. Beers, yes.

Fake punts? No. Fresh produce, yes. Uber Eats is an easy win. So let's talk about the other winners and losers this week. Stephen, will you kick us off with a winner? Yeah, I'm going to give you two, because I'm going to include the,

the Texans, even though they lost this game. The Jaguars beat in 24 to 21 in Houston. Last week, we called the AFC South winners because they were finally going to get a game at the top of the division that was like worth watching. And they delivered both sides of the ball. I know there were a lot of complaints about the refs, speaking of the refs on both sides. But I thought it kind of evened it out. And it like, I don't think it impacted the outcome of the game.

I think the Jaguars outplayed them from the beginning. I thought the Texans found answers in the second half, and then the game kind of evened out in the fourth quarter. But both sides of the ball, I thought the quarterbacks went up against defenses that were well prepared and well prepared to take away what those offenses do. And they kept finding answers. They kept finding plan B's. I thought Stroud, it took him a little bit longer to kind of find his footing in the game. Trevor Lawrence, it was right from the very beginning. but this might be one of the better

like divisional quarterback matchups that we're going to see in recent league history. I can't even like there are there are good ones in every division but this one's right up there with the best of them. And it's just so exciting because it feels like we're going to see it for for a long time. I'm curious what you thought about Stroud because he made some really amazing plays.

It seemed like I just thought this was such an interesting game for him because it seemed like the Jags defense did get him out of his normal rhythm a little bit. He had a 3.8 second time to throw. So per next-gen stats, about a third of his dropbacks took more than four seconds. That's really rare for anyone. Obviously, Stroud has some real ability to extend plays that way. And he threw two touchdown passes on dropbacks of over four seconds. but the Jaguar's defense seemed to do a really good job in getting him a little bit out of the rhythm.

And I thought it seemed like it affected him as it would affect pretty much any quarterback. But they still moved the ball. They still, you know, kept trying for those shot plays. So what did you think of Stroud? Yeah, he was hitching a lot. Like he didn't throw a lot in rhythm at all. There was like the first play of the game. And then after that for the next two quarters, it was like everything was out of structure.

everything. He was forced to move on almost every play. I thought the most impressive thing was his ability to maintain control of the situation within chaos. Like it never felt like he was in over his head and that he was going to make a mistake that lost the game for the Texans. He kept the drives alive. I thought that was very impressive of him. I thought Mike called well the Jags DC called a really good game. But I thought you could say that about both sides of the ball. I don't know. I felt like this was an even matchup and it just came down to who executed the best later on in the games. And I don't, I don't even know if that's true. I thought the Jaguars coaching staff like almost gave this game away late for some of the decisions they made. Like,

I was expecting like when you see a game like this, when you see a team that has been in the playoffs and has won a playoff game going up against a team that's up and coming, you expect the team with experience to not make those mistakes, but it was the other way around in this game. And they almost let the Texans back in the game because of that. The Jack are interesting to me right now because it feels like in the big picture over the last couple of weeks, their offense has gotten, gotten a little bit hot. Today, Trevor Lawrence had 364 passing yards and it's four shy of his career high. Calvin Ridley has had three touchdown passes in two games.

Like all of the big picture stuff that we had been wanting to see seems like it's heating up, seems like it's heating up at the right time. We've seen this team kind of pick up the momentum a little bit and the energy level towards the end of seasons before we saw it last year. So that's all really encouraging. Then sometimes on the micro level, I'm still like tearing my hair out because it seems like Press Taylor loves nothing more

than to call just like the same screen on third and long. And it usually doesn't work although one time it did spring for like a really long Travis at the end gain. So I'm sort of like maybe he knows something. I don't. I don't know. It still just seems inexplicable to keep calling. that on like third and 11.

So I can't decide whether I feel like it's actually gotten better or not, but I think the results kind of have to speak for themselves because Trevor Lawrence is playing incredibly well. And it does seem like the Ridley Kirk kind of won two is in a good place that's netting some bigger downfield throws and downfield completions. I think they had a season high, 180 yards on passing. of over 10 air yards. So I'm trying to be grateful for what we have,

even though still sometimes the play calling, just like, it's a trip. Yeah, that's how I'm feeling after this game. That's how I felt watching the game. But I do feel more confident in the defense than I did a year ago at this time. And I think we're starting to see, like Josh Allen had a huge game. We're getting to the point where like the Josh out,

which one is the good Josh Allen is a conversation again, like which one is the better Josh Allen between the two? Like at first it felt like the Jaguars one was going to run away with it. And then it felt like the Bill's one ended the conversation. But he was dominant in this game. Like it's a very good left tackle in Tunsel. And Walker came up with big plays, especially at the end of the game, kind of close that one out. I like what I'm seeing from the defense.

But like you said, the micro level play calling decisions, strategies at the end of games, still questionable. there was after um they kind of bungled the end of the first half i think there was a dunk peterson half time interview um silent interview quote that like i don't want to you know you're in the heat of the moment you're just going to say whatever it is but he was like no it's fine because we get the ball back to start the second half it's like dude that doesn't matter you still can score He said they got a do-over. No, it's fine. The Jags, credit to you, because you've been on the Jags are winning this division island.

Now have a game and a half cushion, avoided the sweep to Houston. I do still feel like these are super evenly matched teams, but just mathematically, Jacksonville needed this win to sort of still be solidly in that first play spot. And they did it. So credit where it's due. Yeah. Do we need to start asking, like, do we need to put Trevor Lawrence in the MVP conversation? I feel like that's got to be a theme throughout this episode is me asking the MVP questions. But I feel like over the last couple of weeks, I know the stats aren't there over the season, but if he finishes the season strong, I think he can sneak into the race and steal a vote.

I agree with that. I think he can sneak in. I don't think that he's, I think I would, I would buy stock in Trevor Lawrence and during the MVP race. Okay. Just because I do trust that the, I do trust even though I do think that Press Taylor is going to continue calling plays I don't like on third and long. And also like it is just always third and long for this offense.

It's always just like third and eight or third and 11 all the time. That's at least how it feels. But I think some of the stuff that they've done with the receivers, I think they are finding better ways to. get Ridley free off the line. I think some of the downfield stuff that's shown up is going to stay. I think the way that Lawrence is playing, you know, he's, he's never been the problem. So that feels stable.

I do think that he can probably have a few games like this as we get into the last few weeks of the season. And if that happens, people will definitely notice. And he'll probably be part of that conversation. All right, I got a winner for you. Although I have to say that the quarterbacking in this is probably a little bit less exciting than the game that we just talked about. But the Pittsburgh Steelers are my first winner. They beat the Bengals, 16 to 10. And I thought this was a really encouraging win because one game into the post-Matt Canada era, first of all, they gained over 400 yards.

It was the Steelers first 400-plus yard performance in over three years. they never, as our colleague, Sheila Kabatia loves to point out, they never once had one under Canada. And in the first game, they come out and do it. They outgained the Bengals 424 to 222. By the way, the first game in which the Steelers have outgained an opponent this season. So that in and of itself, I think makes you feel pretty good about the decision at offensive coordinator. But more specifically than that, I think if you just look at the game, that Pat Friermouth had, you can see proof of concept right there because Farramuth had a career,

career game, nine catches for 120 yards, and five of them were over the middle, these deep shot plays, which was exactly what was missing from this offense under Canada and felt just inexplicable why it wasn't there. So it's not exactly like, oh my gosh, how did they make this happen? it was there for the taking, but there's something really satisfying about seeing them just go and do it. You know, Kenny Pickett is not going to put the fear of God into anyone and they still struggled in the red zone. That's why this was relatively low scoring, even though they did have a lot of yardage. But I think that's a pretty obvious step in the right direction. And, you know, it's Jake Browning with the Bengals.

There's some of this stuff that I'm not going to go overboard about this. specific result. But they keep, you know, this is a playoff team. They keep collecting wins. And I think the, just the way that the offense looked was how you would hope this offense would look after firing that Canada. By far the funniest part of like the celebration over them getting 400 yards is the fact that they scored 16 points still.

The offensive explosion that led to 16 points against the Bengals who are like a bottom 10 defense over the last month. But yeah, they're going to make the playoffs. I think we need to accept that on a Saturday afternoon in January, we're going to have to watch Kenny Pickett play football. And it's going to be weird to watch that. But they're playing the Cardinals next. They play the Patriots after that who have just hit Rock Bottom.

I think this was Rock Bottom for the Patriots. We don't need to talk about that. We're going to get to that. They play Jake Browning again in a month if he's still the starter. They play the Colts, Garton, Mons. like the Colts are doing good things we're about to talk about them, but he's not playing good football. And then by the end of it, if they're playing Baltimore in Week 18, there's a very, very, very good chance that Baltimore has nothing to play for in that game. And that's just a cakewalk.

Right. This team. Yeah. It's not that they're going to make the playoffs. They might win 11 games. Tomlin is wild. I can't believe I just said that. Just a wild situation.

I mean, look, that is. that is happening. And I think that this is, this is really a win for us all because I found this a much more pleasant watching experience despite the fact that they only were able to turn it into 16 points than watching just the like frantic, always sunny meme like crazy motionness of the Canada offense, even though like a lot of it was the same. But they did the right things differently.

Okay. That's good enough. How about a first loser? My first loser are the Buccaneers. They lose to the Colts 27 to 20. But I feel like the bigger loser for having watched this game. Like from the outside looking end, 27 to 20 looks like a good game, especially in this season when offensive football has been hard to come by.

But these quarterbacks, man, this game was rough to watch at times. Like the Colts might make the playoffs. I think they have the final spot in the AFC playoffs right now if things ended. Yeah. But they got to think about making a change that quarterback. I know Gardner Minchew is doing enough right now. now, but he's still turning the ball over. I think he gave the bucks a couple of chances to win this game in a race,

a deficit in the first half that I don't think, I don't think that's going to work with this formula where there's still a run first team for the most part. There's still like an RPO, quick game handed off to Jonathan Taylor and just hope to score enough points where the defense can be solid enough to get them to a win. And it worked in this game just because Baker Mayfield was just as reckless as Gardner Minchew. but I don't think you're going to see that every week. And I'm going to make the bucks my loser in this one

because I really feel like that's the most talented team in the division outside of the quarterback position. And on paper, you should think that Baker Mayfield is the best quarterback in that division with the way Derek Carr is playing right now. But they're losing ground in the standings. And I feel like they missed their opportunity to win this division. And I think that would have been a big deal for this coaching staff, which is really holding on for dear life to this job

right now. I don't think Todd Bulls can afford another bad here. So this was a missed opportunity for them. The Todd Bulls hot seat is, I think, an underrated one. But he's got to be feeling the heat there for sure. The Colts are definitely in the muck of the playoff hunt. Their schedule is Titans, Bengals, Steelers, Falcons, Raiders, Texans. So there's some winnable games in there. You were not impressed, I take it by what you saw from Gardner Manchu? No, and I think the offense is well designed. I think Shane Steichen is what he was advertised as coming from Philadelphia. Yeah, I've been impressed by him.

Yeah, he finds answers. He's kind of like I said about Brian Johnson. He was kind of the original guy in Philly who just found answers as the game went along. And I think he did that. And another thing that's really standing out with him is his fourth down aggressiveness. It's easy to be the offensive coordinator for a team that goes forward on fourth down, but then you kind of go, you get your own team, you don't have the, the push to fall back on, and he's still going for it on fourth downs.

And I think that that's what won them the game. And this one, they go for it on fourth and inches late in the fourth quarter. They get it. And then they score touchdown game over. Right. I just think he's been really good. I think it seems like Jonathan Taylor has been coming on for them and giving them a little bit more balance. Again, I think that there's going to be some.

whoever ends up in the last wildcard spots in the AFC, there might be some iffy. There's going to be some iffy games, like you said. But they do seem to, they put up points. They move the ball. They also make some big mistakes. But at least, like, it's fairly entertaining. The Colts might not be super threatening.

But I do find them entertaining to watch. No, they are. I'm just bitter that Anthony Richardson is not playing. Because if he was on this team, it would be so much, it would be so much easier to root for them and to watch them. It would be so much cooler. But it's just like kind of disappointing that you know you're missing that layer of excitement that he would bring. This is a little, this is, this is mean and it's a hypothetical, but I do think it's an interesting hypothetical. If Anthony Richardson were still playing, is Frank Reich still the coach of the Panthers?

No. I just think that the one to, or producer Connor Evans pointed this out a couple weeks ago, and I just haven't really been able to stop thinking about it. I think the one, two of Stroud and Richardson would just be too much to bear. Yeah, and the Colts beat them. Right. The Colts beat the Panthers by 14 points.

And imagine, and Minchu had a very good game in that one. Imagine it was Richardson doing that. Yeah. For David Tepper, who apparently was just like caught muttering fuck a bunch after the Panthers game, which we're not going to talk about. But I thought that was a very interesting detail. Okay, I have sidetracked us. Anything else in this game?

No. Oh, burn the Buccaneers uniforms, by the way. Never again. Those pewter uniforms are just horrible. Bucks uniforms in general don't do a lot for me. I also don't care about the creamsicle, but I know that I'm in the minority on that, in that opinion. Speaking of uniforms and also speaking of games that, like,

I just, we're going to talk about, but I just don't want to talk about because it makes me sad. My first loser is the Chargers. Or it's myself, or it's all of us. But really, like, honestly, it's me because the Chargers lost 20 to 10 to the Ravens. They've now dropped three in a row. We knew this team was not good. Justin Herbert is, like, fighting for his life. But, again, we knew this already.

And yet, there I am sitting in front of my television. And Justin Tucker, of all people, has his first miss of a field goal inside of 50 yards come with three minutes left in this game when he kicked on a fourth and one that the Ravens obviously should have gone for. But Harbaugh went to kick the field goal instead of trying to convert. Seemed like, you know, an obviously bungled decision. Jason Garrett's up there in the booth being like, yeah, this is. is really good go for points and then you're like oh god if jason garrett agrees with this we're in we're in a bad spot here brandon staley is like he's the happiest he's been all season just watching an opponent miss a field goal and then jesson herbert gets the ball back he's down by three points

there's like two and a half minutes left and i bought in like i'm just stupid i bought in i was like oh this is going to be exciting oh my gosh like the chargers might actually do it and i don't you know, I don't care who wins it, but it just like, there's something to that, like, Justin Herbert is a really good player and it's sad to see them just continue to lose. So I think on that level, I was like, they can do this, they can do this, they can do this. Of course they can't do it. They can never do it. We should be smarter than this. I should be smarter than this.

I should be better than this. And then it's fourth and six. And they just don't even like make an attempt to block Arthur Millett. And he gets Herbert and the game's basically over. And, you know, in theory, if they'd gotten a stop, they could have got the ball back, tried again. But then Flowers scores a walk in touchdown, which maybe the Chargers let him score. That would have actually been smart. But, you know, by that point, the game is done.

So I don't really think that I learned anything that I didn't know before from this game. The Ravens could have had a better offensive output, but they're missing guys. and the Chargers aren't a good football team. They have a really good quarterback, but they know every which way to lose a game. And we knew that to be true before this game, and we know that to be true after this game. Yeah, like, I was talking to Eduardo, our producer,

a Chargers fan before this game, and he was saying, like, he didn't even expect them to get the pass off, and that's what happened, because that's what has happened every time they've had, they've been in this situation. Like against the Dolphins, they couldn't get a pass off. Last week, they couldn't get a pass off.

This week, they can't get a pass off. And I mean, I don't know what they should do about it. Like, their offensive line isn't good enough. I can't blame it on the play calling totally. I can't blame it on the quarterback. I can't even really blame it on the receivers. It's just tough. It's a tough situation all around.

I just don't think this team is as good as we thought it was on paper coming into the season. And that's before the injuries. That's before the bad decisions at the end of games. That's before the bad luck at the end of games, too. Not to give them excuses, but they're 0 and 5 in games decided by three or less. So, like, there are so many elements that are leading to this. I don't even know what to call it. It's not even like it's a disastrous season.

It's almost worse. It's almost worse that they're like hovering around 500 all year. If they were like one in 10 right now, we wouldn't care and wouldn't be talking about them. They wouldn't be in Sunday night games and have their misery just broadcast it to the whole nation. but they are. I don't know. It's just a rough year and I don't know how to explain it. It would take like two hours to explain it.

It would take a licensed professional, I think. I just, I felt like I'd accepted that they were not as good as they looked on paper, that they were not actually that team, but it doesn't matter what Herbert does. And which is not to say that Herbert's been perfect this season, but I think he's been playing well lately. And then I just let my,

myself get sucked into the moment. So I'm really, I'm struggling to come to terms with that, with that personal failing. Um, I liked the uniforms. I like the Navy blue. Best defensive performance of the year. Yeah. You know what? Call me crazy. Maybe there's something to it. What I think they should do is they should petition the league to let the offense wear the powder blues and the defense wear the Navy in the same game. Yeah. I agree. They would be denied instantly, but I, it doesn't matter. That's, that's the only way it works. that's how we fix the Chargers. So on the first play of the potential game winning drive where Herbert didn't even get a throw off on Ford Down, the first play of that drive was a like a running back draw.

And I think that was an attempt at like just playing dead. Like maybe if they think we're just going to run the ball, they won't pass rush us. I think that's what they were going for. That's the only explanation for that call. Yeah. They're offensive possuming. It's low-key smart. It's like the boy you say thing.

They do the trick place. I don't hate it. I don't hate it. It's creative. It's outside of the box thinking. Let's get back to basics. Let's get back to when Brandon's Daly was an innovator. I think this is actually a great idea.

I think they should fully commit. Their best play of the night was when they pretended to do like a drag to Keenan Allen. Then he throws the pass, like the lateral. That was their best play. So like playing possum is their best move right now. I think they have to completely commit to the bit. Like I think they have to be spending days. of practice, working on how to fall down without actually going down, like how to do the sort

of barrel roll thing where you don't actually go down, just any way to make your opponent think that you are incapacitated. And maybe they can, maybe they can steal some yards that way. I mean, J.C. Jackson's going to be like, that was my whole thing while I was here. And now it's the strategy. Never wrong. Just early. The Ravens, top seed in the AFC, up by half a game. Good stuff. Lamar Jackson, good quarterback. Got blitzed a lot, blitzed on 60% of his dropbacks in this game, and average 2.3 seconds to throw.

So getting the ball out very quickly in response to that. Again, they're dealing with some receiver injuries. So I think the offense was affected in a number of ways, but I'm not terribly worried. about them. You know, you hope they're healthier by the time they get into the playoffs. But that defense continues to be really fierce and definitely gave the Chargers problems, gave Herbert problems. And I think they deserve to be in that spot, the race for the number one seed, to have the buy with where they are health-wise, I think would be huge. It'll be huge no matter what. but the fact that they are putting themselves in that position

is really, really meaningful in terms of how it seems like it should shake out for them in the playoffs. I hate to bring this up, but this is the time of the year when, you know, we start to hold her breath a little bit about Lamar because he hasn't always been able to make it through an entire year. Obviously, some of that is just fluky, but week 12 has sort of been where it's happened. So knock on wood, cross your fingers, cross your toes, do whatever weird superstitious things anyone does. This team is fun as long as nothing bad happens. You know, I'm literally knocking on my desk right now.

I'm excited to see how far they go. I'm excited that like Keith Mitchell has emerged as this other guy who can produce an explosive run. And I think hopefully that leads to less Lamar in the run game. than we've seen over the past couple of weeks. Because I do think they've kind of up their usage of Lamar in the run game over the last couple of weeks. And tonight we kind of saw them use Lamar on the ground to kind of close out the game.

I know Dave Fowers gets the final touchdown or whatever, but it was based on Lamar's gravity. And they used him on the first two plays as a runner. And then another thing, like Kyle Hamilton, good Lord. We've been on the Kyle Hamilton trade all season. But like this was his breakout. and I think this was the first time America saw how freakish he is as an athlete, like just the things he was doing, the different types of things he was doing.

One play, he's blitzing, another play he's taking on a blocker and blowing up a bubble screen. The next play, he's running downfield with Jalen Guyton. It's crazy out of that body type. And then the perfect defensive coordinator for that type of player. For sure. Last thing I know I have to ask you about from this. What did you think of Zayflares as touched on celebrations? Oh, it was awful.

I was the same as Lamar Jackson. I'm so happy Lamar Jackson was like so skeptical and like he's just like, totally making fun of him. Just like, no, you're embarrassing yourself. It's so easy to go with the flow there because like you're so excited. You guys just scored a touchdown. It's like, yeah, yeah, no, it was great. But Lamar was like, no, that was trash man.

I do think it was better than the Chargers doing the Ray Lewis celebration in a game that they lost by 10 points. when they're about to go on a three-game losing streak and miss the playoffs. Very timely reference there. He's doing that like 20 years ago, man. Oh, goodness. I don't want to talk about the Chargers anymore. Let's move on.

Let's do something happier. Who's another winner? The Chiefs. And I only say that because they avoided a very embarrassing loss to the Raiders. And we would have probably led the show or probably led this segment with them being losers if they had lost. They fell behind 14-0-0 to start the game. But when you watch that game, if you watch it back, it was really just about Josh Jacobs,

Devante Adams, even Jacobi Myers, just making insane plays. And you kind of realized that, like, that would go away at some point and Patrick Mahomes would just take over. And that's exactly what happened. This is one of his more impressive games. It was another game where he didn't get a lot of help from his receivers and had to move around a lot, how to create a lot out of structure.

But there were no issues. There were no drops this time, at least. and I think that was the big difference. As long as these receivers are catching the football, I really think this offense is going to be fine. Because Patrick Mahomes is that good. He's operating at a level that I think is even better than last year. It's just that everything around them doesn't work as well.

But I do think the offensive line is good enough. And Isaiah Pacheco, we say this every week. He's just the perfect running back for this team. Because you have to kind of spread things out as a defense to defend Patrick Mahomes because he threatens every part of the field. And if you have a spread. out defense and then you just have this, I don't even know what to refer to him as. He's just like a barbarian just running through the middle of the line. Like, he's almost guaranteed to get an extra

two yards. He doesn't have to read the play out right. He doesn't have to read the box, right? Just run right into it. He just runs forward. I don't know how long this is going to last, but like, it's fun to watch while it, while it does last. Isaiah Pacheco is maybe my favorite back in the week right now. Were you excited to finally get your real bona fide Rishu Rice game? Yes. Yes. And I think like he's emerging as a player who when he touches the ball, he can go for 40 yards whenever he touches. And that's something they had been lacking. Since I would say even even during last year when they won the Super Bowl, they didn't have anything like that. Like they relied on Justin Watson to have to get their deep shots. And I think with Rice, you have a an athlete or he has like the type of pedigree, the athletic pedigree where he could, you could see him becoming something for them. And I don't think they had that on the roster last year. It's for, you know, for the deep shot. And then also just once the ball is in his hands, once the ball is securely in his hands,

the run after the catchability is, I think, different from the other players that they have. And so he had career highs and targets with 10, receptions with 8 and yards with 10. So curious to see if that continues. I just thought it was really nice to see them get over 30 points in a game. It's not to say that, like, there's really. any real fear that they couldn't do that, but they hadn't been doing it. And it's the Raiders, whatever. It's good to see them do it.

It's good to see them put together, you know, a bunch of strong touchdown drives. No drops, no fumbles, no picks. Kelsey had a pretty good game, 91 yards. All of the stuff that just hadn't quite been there. It's just good to see it be there. What did you think about Kelsey? Kelsey's performance? It didn't really stand out to me, honestly.

Like, he made some big catches, but I think, I don't want to, like, say anything too harsh about him, but I do think there is something missing from last year. I do think he's dealing with stuff. I'm not going to say he's washed because I've made this mistake two years ago. And I thought he was washed, but it turned out he was just a little bit hurt. And I think that it's going on right now. He's been banged up a couple times during this season.

Okay. So you think it's injuries. I wonder if he's a little bit on washed watch. Maybe not washed, but washed watch. I think it's on the table. It's like certainly a possibility at least. He plays an incredibly physical position. He's 34 years old.

He's had a lot of injuries. He's taken a lot of hits. It wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world for this to be the point in which he slows down. The question is like degree. Like how washed is he? and I don't think he, I don't think it's to a point where he's not like a plus player at this point. I just don't know if he's the needle mover.

He has been for that, that offense in the past. Does the sentence Travis Kelsey can you fight mean anything to you? Not at all. No. So it used to always be a Swifty thing to challenge Joe Alwyn when Taylor Swift was dating Joe Alwyn to a fight whenever like Taylor. looks really hot doing something. Everyone would tweet Joe Alwin, can you fight?

Which is a very funny thing to see transferred to Travis Kelsey, who's like getting into it with a couple Raiders defenders and like shoving people and is just like very obviously can fight. So that little midfield mini melee was to me deeply amusing. How's that going by the way? She's been in Brazil for like 10 days. So I think fine. Okay. This is kind of mean to ask, but do you think Travis Kelsey could name the official language of Brazil?

I'm not answering that question. Okay. We're just moving on. Travis Kelsey, can you name the official language of Brazil? It's not as, it doesn't roll off the tongue like the can you fight me, but it's close. Travis Kelsey can fight. I don't know if he can name the official language of Brazil. So my second winner is your Denver Broncos who beat the Browns 29 to 12.

I can't believe that I am the one doing this segment and not you. But I think Denver is officially in the playoff hunt at 6 and 5. A theme of this show, I think, is that just the final weeks of the AFC wildcard race are going to be messy, messy, messy. But they've won five in a row following a one in five start. And they have head to head wins against the Browns. and the bills who are sort of in that cuspy zone. And the remaining schedule is Texans, Chargers, Lions, Patriots, Chargers again. And then Raiders, there's some certainly winnable games in there.

The playoff predictor from New York Times says that their odds are at 35%. And that is up from 1% five weeks ago. So the Broncos have multiplied their odds to make the playoffs by 35 in the last five weeks, which is certainly an accomplishment. I think of you as the leader of this. The Broncos might actually have something trained, Stephen. Do you accept that characterization or do you reject it? You can like partially reject it.

Let me partially do it because this is going to fall apart at any moment. This trade is going to fall off the track. But for right now, it's going to come in along nicely. Sean Payton's coach of the year odds are now higher than Mike McCarthy's Andy Reid's. Okay, those are the only impressive names. It's like 20th. Okay, he's still very low. But I was trying to hype it up a little bit.

I was trying to gas him up a little bit. But let's check it on Monday. I'm just saying we're three weeks away from him being the favorite. So on the one hand, this doesn't seem like the most stable build in terms of what's contributed to this five-game winning streak. The defense, again, super opportunistic, which is important. But they're getting these turnovers on things like, you know, the messed up reverse that Sivansky called in the fourth quarter.

That was just really funky. And there's some luck in that. And heavy turnover luck does not tend to be consistent. They are running the ball better and better. They did that for 169 yards in this game. And Russell Wilson, especially when the offense is more balanced, which. Funny enough. Always the case in Seattle has been pretty steady. I do think they look confident. I do think that just like the vibes are way better than they have been, though that is a pretty low bar. Cleveland, different story defensively, but you are dealing with Dorian Thompson, who then got put into concussion protocol after three quarters.

and PJ Walker was pretty sloppy. So obviously, you know, you're going against backup quarterbacks. But there are some things that I'm not expecting to totally last, but also some things in terms of the gains they've made in the running game and just sort of hitting their stride with the offense that I do think are pretty repeatable. And we can trust going forward. So I'm interested. I'm interested to see if they can do it.

still not a likelihood, but they are in the race. I saw a Russell Wilson's own re-touchdown. And I was not expecting to see that this Sunday. Whenever we do these pods, I have like the EPA rankings up just like so I can quickly reference it. And I look at the Broncos defensive EPA ranking every week, expecting it to go down because they've been good for like a month and a half by now, right? They've been good for like two months almost.

And they're just 32nd. every time I look, hasn't punched. That's how bad they were over the first month. They've been good for like two months now. They're giving up like 20 points a game. It is really, really hard to give up 70 points and make the numbers forget. The dolphins are almost like the opposite of that. They haven't been good on offense for like the last two months.

But like that game is just like has them in the top five ever since. Get rid of that game. We should cancel the result. That was going to be my question. You often at a certain point in the season, and identify some games that we need to just like strike from the record. Normally, I feel like they're not games like that. It's like the weather was really bad or just something that that kind of made a game feel so weird and fluky in the moment.

And then we go back and go like, that was crazy. That shouldn't have happened to the way that it did. Like, let's get rid of it. The Dolphins Broncos game felt very real. Like it felt very Miami has announced itself as this offensive juggernaut. It like there was something that felt very like, I mean, it was literally historic. And that was a game that a lot of predictions and a lot of proclamations were based off of, which I feel like is not usually the formula for Stephen cancels a game.

But do you think that we need to cancel Dolphins Broncos? Yeah, because it wasn't bad weather, but they did get, the Broncos did get a bit of bad Vance Joseph. And sometimes, sometimes Vance Joseph is a little more volatile than the weather. He's harder to predict. You get a bad, but it's Joseph, you can give up 70 points, man.

I don't think that's allowed to count. You can't be as like... I made the rules. What do you mean? Because weather is not controllable. Who your coordinators are is like a little bit more... Have you seen Bance Joseph's game plans? Yeah, but that's, that's, that's it.

He's a wild man. All right. You are right to say that you do make these rules. So, um, Dolphins Broncos. It's canceled. The 70 points.

All of those dolphin noises. We take it all back. Yeah. What's easier to predict? Like a warm front coming in or like Vance Joseph deciding all of a sudden to cover Travis Kelsey all game long with Isaiah Simmons one-on-one in man coverage? Either one. Like you can't see either one coming.

I actually think the weather is more predictable than that because I do think you can see a warm front coming. Because they can do all the like atmosphere pressure stuff. I have a higher opinion of Weatherman than some NFL coaches. Have you seen those compilations of like Bill Belichick talking about weathermen

and how much he hates them? No, but I would love to see it. You should look it up. It's good stuff. You can find like a four minute YouTube video of Bill Belichick at various press conferences just saying like

just making sweeping generalizations about people in the weather industry being bad at their jobs. I have a lot of, simply no idea where we are in the podcast. No, we were just talking about the Broncos. That's where we are. The last thing I want to mention from this game on the brown side is two things, actually.

First of all, I do think that PJ Walker struggled enough closing this game out that I'm a little curious if we're going to be seeing some blacko soon. Probably more important than that. Miles Garrett was wearing a sling after the game. told Cleveland reporters that he felt a pop in his shoulder. So that's not great, obviously. And that affects the Brown's defense. That affects the defensive player of the year race.

Sounds like there are tests that need to happen there. And hopefully it ends up being insignificant. But that was a scary thing that came out of this one. Obviously, just given the season that he's having and how important he is to. Jim Schwartz's defense. Shall we move on to an L? Yeah, my next loser is the Saints. I'm going to give them an L just because Derek Carr exists

and he's on their roster right now. But they lose this game 24 to 15 in what was basically a battle for first place in the NFC South. This was like the opposite of the feel good AFC South title belt. They really are the evil twin. It felt like a passing of the torch. Like this is officially the worst and saddest division in football. It felt like they kind of like took those reins over last year, but they still had Tom Brady in the division, so it felt a little proper.

But now it's just chaos. And I have to say in this game, I thought Desmond Ritter played one of his more impressive games. Like the sat line isn't going to really show it. He only has 168 yards, throws two interceptions. But outside of that, I thought he kept the offense afloat early on when the Saints were really selling out to stop the run game. And you saw him complete a couple of play action passes over the middle of the field. And that really softened the defense for New Orleans. And then you saw Bejohn Robinson and Algeria kind of.

take over the game late in the second half. And I mean, I think the story out of this, it's not really Atlanta. I think Atlanta has been the same team they've been for the first two months of the season. I think it's the Saints and the fact that they committed so much money to Derek Carr for a quarterback who at this point, like he's worse than he was last year. And I think there are a couple of elements to that. I think the fact that he's in his first year in a system, which he struggled with in the past, Like even when John Gruden came in, he struggled that first year and then kind of broke out in the second year. And then a bad offensive line in New Orleans. And those are two things that he's just had trouble throughout his career overcoming.

So it was kind of easy to see this season coming from him. And I just think with the situation the Saints were in, in the offseason, with the money, how it's kind of spread out over the next couple of years. Committing to Derek Carr, I mean, that's a move. It's not like a move that's going to set him back two or three years. I think this is a move that, like, could set them back five years where their situation is so bad that, like, there might have to be like an intervention at some point with Mickey Loomis and how this team is being run. I don't know how this is viable. Like, how is this going to work in two years? That has always been the question.

I have never been clear on what the answer to that is. I do think that Carr is exactly the wrong type of quarterback, right, in that situation. Because now they do manage to lose these games. They lost this game while, you know, they outgained Atlanta. They had over 400 yards of offense. The scoring had to do with the fact that they were awful in the red zone. They were over five with two turnovers inside the 10. They are going to be good enough not to completely tear it apart.

And that is the problem with Carr for a team like this. But they always operate this way. We have years and years and years of evidence that they don't want to tear it down. I do think that like the sort of plausible deniability about the rationality of that has run out and now they're just hurting themselves. Then again, every team in this division has a losing record and they are certainly like they could turn around and be a playoff team. Who knows? What does that do? Right.

No, it doesn't justify it. But I do think that it's part of what we're talking about. Yeah. I don't know what to say for them. I don't know what they think. I don't know what's making people act like this. I have a question. And like it's easy to,

maybe it's easier to answer this now, but like transport yourself back to March and answer this question. Is Derek Carr, do you know for a fact that Derek Carr is a better quarterback than James Winston? Like meaningfully better. I think I do.

But not by a lot. That's what I mean like meaningfully. where it's going to make a difference in the fortunes of this team. Like, I don't know. They're five and six right now. If they have James playing, what are they four and seven, maybe? Not on, not for the, not for the saints. I think, I think Derek Carr on a better team.

If they were a better team, the amount that I would rather have Derek Carr than James Winston by would increase. But on this team, it's not that wide of a gap. And now, here's my other question after watching this. game and after watching the last couple of games. And I'm by no means a Taysam Hill guy. I am someone who has not understood why they keep doubling down on him and why they keep trying to play him.

But honestly, when he's out in the field, I think the offense is better. When they're doing like the Wildcat stuff with it. Like the offense is more interesting. I think it's more dangerous. I think it offers more threats to the defense that they have to worry about. I think defenses are relieved when Taysam Hill comes out and Derek Carr comes in. And that's something that I never thought I would be saying about Taysam Hill. because I've never been a believer in his whatever he's trying to do at quarterback.

But at this point, I think he gives that offense a better chance to win than Derek Carr, which is like very sad to say about a guy with that contract. But how much do you think like could they conceivably do that for an entire game and still have it be as as like how important do you think the element of just the change up is to that? Because I think it's significant. Yeah. I don't know if it's like the changeup part. I do think like there's an expiration date to that, like that type of offense just because he's not a good dropback passer. But I think like they would be improved in those areas where he provides obvious improvements.

Like I do think the run game would be better no matter what. Like it doesn't matter about the change of element. I do think the change up element really matters in the passing game. And I think that's where the difference would be. So just to put a bow on this, the two questions that we've asked each other about the Saints have been is James Winston. actually better than Derek Carr or like not meaningfully worse than Derek Carr? And would it be better if they just used Jason Hill more than Derek Carr? Sad state of affairs.

Not great. One last thing about this game. And this might be the most important takeaway from this game. I cannot believe the Saints ruined what was one of the better uniforms in the league. They're like their white throwback uniforms they wear with those ugly helmets. I don't even know what the point of the helmets are. There's like, it's a black Saints helmet that doesn't match this uniform, which was a throwback uniform. And then there's like little saints logos for the stripe.

It's very weird. The mismatching of helmets to uniforms and partially this is the league's fault because they won't. They're stricter about helmet restrictions. You can have more uniforms than helmets. the bad helmet mismatch that ruins an otherwise good uniform combination is one of the most unfortunate things that happens in just the sartorial choices of this league and its teams. It's really, it's, it feels like it's becoming more common and we should all be worried because it's really unfortunate. It's such an avoidable mistake too. It's so avoidable.

Just have good uniforms. Everyone should just have good uniforms. It's not that hard. Especially with the stage. Just wear your normal gold helmet. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe I'm getting too worked up about uniforms.

But like the football hasn't been very good this season. And the referee hasn't been good. So I had to like, you know, latch on to something. Well, speaking of which, you said earlier that the Patriots hit rock bottom again so that we should be done talking about them. I think differently. I think the Patriots have found a new rock. bottom and we should catalog all the ways in which that is true. Because I think that I have said that the Patriots have hit rock bottom like six different

times and every time I believed it and then they find another layer. They are my last loser. They lost 10 to 7 to the Tommy DeVito New York Giants. And this was coming out of a biweek where the Patriots had a quarterback competition between the broken flesh and bones of Mac Jones and Bailey Zappy, a quarterback who they cut at the beginning of the season. And they did all that just to wind up starting Mac Jones again, then to bench him in the second half after he threw an interception and double coverage,

which was the fourth time that they've benched Mac in a game this season. Mag Jones has been benched in four out of 11 starts. That is 36% of his starts. That is like, that is abnormal stuff. This does not happen. Like, when has this happened before where a quarterback just keeps getting pulled over and over again? And then they just put him back in there. I mean, at a certain point, like, just put him out of his misery.

This was also Bill Belichick's first loss. In his coaching career to the lowest scoring offense in the NFL, the game ended when the kicker that he drafted in the fourth round missed a 35-yard field goal to lose the game. I would probably be remiss if I didn't point out that a loss is obviously good for the Patriots in some ways because they're two and nine now, which puts them third in the draft order. But I do not believe that Bill Belichick, who is, I'm not sure that he even is coaching for his job because I just think that like, Shockingly, truly shockingly, this is a done deal at this point and they've got to do something else. But I cannot imagine that losing to Tommy Davido was really on his bucket list for the season or for the day. Oh, the other thing is that they had another instance of a player. In this case, it was Trent Brown this week, being benched for like a quarter the week after he stepped.

out of line in some ways. I think in this case, um, Trent Brown made a lot of spicy comments, including saying that he was the best player on the offense and that, everything that was going wrong was in his fault. Hey, I respect that move. If I was in his shoes, I would do the same thing.

They're losing to Tommy DeVito now. You got to like stand up for yourself at a certain point. David Andrews is getting up there and being like, I believe in my coach. We've just, just got to clean it up. And Trent Brown's like, screw these guys. I'm better than all of them. It's not my fault.

I think Robert Kraft needs to step in and protect Bill from himself at this point. Like these stats are getting sad. It's getting worse and worse every week. I'm at the point where I think, I think losing to Tommy DeVito is more embarrassing than getting fired midseason. If you're Bill Belichick. Yeah, but he's not going to like, then you're right that Kraft has to go do.

it. He beat the greatest show on turf rams. He held the 2016 Falcons to 21 points. He held the 2018 Rams to three, what was it, three points? Three points. He held the Jim Kelly Bills to whatever he held them to in the 90s with the Giants. And now he's

losing to Tommy DeVito. For Bailey Zappy scores a touchdown and that's the only points they get in the entire game. It is bleak. because the look the giant situation is bleak too like this is a team where

during the pream there's a Jake Glazer report that Brian Daibble and Wink Martindale aren't on speaking terms you coach the team together they don't talk to each other it's like you can cut the tension with a knife I also just like the idea of Wink Martindale being in a fight with someone is very funny to me

I don't really know why but that's probably like genuinely bad news for the giants. But I watched Shake Laser deliver that that report and was simultaneously like very interested in the information. And also just like it made me giggle. They do have kind of an interesting decision coming up because Trad Taylor will be eligible to come back in week 14. And they have a buy between now and then. Which is going to be an interesting like is the tank happening or are people coaching?

for their jobs because I assume they will go for it. I'm happy for Tommy DeVito that he got a win in front of his parents at MetLife. Very fun. But Trud Taylor is a better quarterback than Tommy DeVito. So I assume that they will play him if and when he's healthy. But it doesn't exactly coincide with their best interests. So that'll be an interesting one. That's all I have to say about this game.

It was just, I mean, it was 10 to 7. It was rough. It was cold. It was rainy. It ended on a missed 35-yard field goal. Like, this is a little bleak. I can't believe anybody watch this game. My boyfriend's brother and sister-in-law were there.

And they had a nice time. But they, like, the defensive coordinator for the respective teams? What do you mean? How do you have a nice time at this game? I don't understand. No, they had a good time. Like, they just had, they enjoyed the atmosphere. I don't know.

I don't know what to tell you. Tommy DeVito is not coming out of this starting lineup. The Italian hand fingers thing is enough to keep them in it. It's just like when you're chasing Caleb Williams and Drake May, like keep your eye on the prize. Tyrod's too good. I'm kind of, I'm kind of, I'm kind of into it. I mean, they've won two in a row. Like the, the, someone didn't get the memo.

Okay, okay. Let's be serious. Let's, I don't mean anything by that other than they have won two in a row and affected their draft position thusly. There's absolutely nothing predictive or value oriented about that statement. I want to be explicitly clear. Okay, good. All right. Let's take another break.

We'll come back. Get out here on the take purge. Thanks again to our sponsor, Uber-Rids. With Uber-Rids, 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. See app for details.

All right. We are back on dual threat. It's time for the take purge. It's the last part of the show. Steve and I believe you have one. Perhaps pertinent to the conversation that we were having about officiating earlier on during this very podcast. You could even say it's related to the uniform conversation we've had throughout this podcast. I'm requesting an alteration to refs uniforms

where we put their last names on the back of their shirts. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago where we don't know any of these refs names. These new refs, I can't, I don't know any of them. I used to know Ed Hockely. I used to know Jerome Boger. Like, I used to be able to complain about these guys. But now I don't know any of them.

We used to be a country. It's kind of like baseball. You know how baseball, like they have a problem promoting their stars? Same with refs. Let's get those rest names. on TV so we know who it's the only way to hold them accountable. I think this is, I have no notes on this take. I think this is a perfect take. I mean, zebras, the animal that referees uniforms are based off of. Do you know why they look like that?

No. It's to hide. They want to blend in together so that predators can't take them down as easily. And the stripes are visually confusing. And, they make it hard to differentiate one from another. And it's a trip and it's a trap to make them less individually accountable to lions in the Savannah and also to us. So I think this is a perfect take. I think we need, I think we need ref stats also.

I think we need like, you know how college players they get like the helmet stickers when they do something good? I think we need the opposite of that. We need like demerit badges whenever they make a bad call. So they have to wear it with shame the next day or the next week. I got a lot of ideas. Give them stickers. I was a very sticker motivated child.

Like I had like sticker books were the best way to get me to do something when I was very young. So I kind of relate to that. I think it's a good idea. They got it too easy. I'm pro sticker. No, I think you're right. I think there needs to be more accountability. I'm, I think this is.

I think we're just going to. going to go out on that. I think that is the perfect take purge. And I really think that the league should take it under consideration. I will say that my official take purge was that refereeing uniforms are cowardly because they are

based on a cowardly animal. I like it. They say it's a down year for offenses. It's a downier for refereeing. It has definitely been a down year for refereeing. All right. This has been dual threat on the ringer NFL show feed. I'm Nora Prenziotti. He is Stephen Ruiz.

Next up on the feed, Sheal and Ben will have extra point taken their deep dive of week 12. Thank you to Kira Givens and Eduardo Ocampo for their work on socials. And Isaiah Blakely for producing this episode with additional production supervision by Arjuna Rampaal and Connor Nevinz. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Fandual is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem called 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 533-4-2 in Arizona,

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