The Ringer NFL Show - Week 12 Recap: Chiefs Continue to Roll, Rams and Cardinals Get Upset, and Winners and Losers | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

Kevin and Nora start by discussing the Kansas City Chiefs continuing to string together impressive performances (4:25). Then they talk about this week's surprising losses from the Los Angeles Rams, Las Vegas Raiders, and Arizona Cardinals (33:05). Then they answer a couple of listener questions (1:12:44) and give their clickbait headline of the week (1:18:20). Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. Great show. Nora Prince Yati joins me to talk Mahomes versus Brady, the Saints Broncos mess, and the Raiders laying an egg. Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm is a surprisingly great rate. That's like drafting a player that becomes an all pro, the real deal.

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Your Prince, I'm having a card. Weird week of football. Weird week of football. Kind of a weird week of America and life and also. football. So right there with you, buddy. A lot of NFL COVID news. Some folks got fired separately. A lot to talk about. And so there's a lot to unpack here. We're going to start with the buck's first sheets, which was the game of the week. But we do obviously want to address just how weird this all was. We're going to get to Broncos Saints in a second. What do we find out this week? Number one is that the idea of a game without quarterbacks is more fun than the actual

game without quarterbacks. And that this is going to be probably even we anticipated the last month of the season and the playoffs. And I think that we knew this wasn't going to be fair from a competitive standpoint, but it doesn't have to be a farce. And what we learned this week is there's going to be a fine line over the next six weeks to eight weeks and in the march of the Super Bowl, whether or not what they do when, you know, with the final four and the Super Bowl is a separate issue that maybe we'll get into. I think when I look at the NFL's actions over the past week again, we'll get in. into this deeper later, but I just think that this is going to be probably the strangest two months in NFL history. Yeah, I think there was a lot of curiosity leading up to Saints Broncos where it was like, what is this going to look like? This is fascinating. This is unprecedented. And then they kick off.

And we kind of realize, no, it's just kind of a bummer. And a lot of people are in positions that are unfavorable and that they probably shouldn't be in if things were more fair. But that's not the world that we're living in right now. And like you said, we are going to get to it. I think we just want to indulge in a little bit of football and fun before we talk about that and talk about everybody getting fired. But we will get there because I don't know if you feel this way, but it kind of feels like that's the only thing in some ways. And we're watching these games and some of these results that are strange. And it's just like you want to throw your hands up. But we will do our best to not do that and to dig in and have some fun with Chiefs bucks. And then,

and talk about all the sad stuff. And COVID touched almost every game. I mean, even you talk about the Rams, the Niners, which was one of the most interesting games of the week. And, you know, the Rams cancer practice on Friday because of it.

So it's a competitive thing that touches almost every game, every single week. That will continue to be true because this league exists in a world with COVID. And that's, that's a long and the short of it. I will say that if you were, if you brought an alien down and said which, which guy had never played quarterback in the NFL before,

It would actually take him longer than you'd think if you watch every, every quarterback on Sunday. That's all. I can't do alien. I can't. We've had enough this year. I just can't have an alien. Okay.

An alien identifying Kendall Hinton? He'd be able to. I don't. That's all. I just, I can't do an alien. I can't add an alien to my 2020. Enough has happened already.

We're saving. I don't care about bingo. We're saving aliens for 2021. Strangely enough, there have been articles about like the New York Times keeps writing articles about how there are aliens and it just gets glossed over. by Broncos Bronx Saints news

The New York Times is just like Manhattan Knights Read it up, look it up Look it up It's in the New York Times All right Let's cover that on a midweek pod We have a good midweek show this week

And it's going to be It's going to be mostly aliens But some roster stuff too All right Chiefs bucks So the distinguishing characteristic of this season For 30 to 31 teams is that teams can look completely unrecognizable from one week to the next.

The chiefs are pretty much exempt from that. They look like the chiefs every single week. The bucks are not exempt from that. They look unrecognizable depending on the week and depending on the important. There's a general theme and a general direction that the bucks go in, but every week seems to be something a little bit different. This week we saw some continuation, some continuity. They're communication breakdowns in Mike Evans.

Brady has seven interceptions over four-game span. That's his most in nine years over four-game span. And I, there are some, there was some very strange moments in this game. We'll just start big picture. What did you learn? Well, I learned that we're not going to, I don't think we are going to be able to trust the Buccaneers

going forward at any point. Like I think this week, this is actually a big picture sort of feeling for a lot of NFC teams. this is the point where I am giving up and just saying, we're going to have to just go week to week with a lot of these guys. And there is a lot, like, we will do Tom Brady deep ball therapy, I'm sure, in a moment. And that's fine. Like, like you said, there will be some recurring themes. But I am swearing off going into these games with the Bucks, the Rams are another one, and just feeling like I know what I'm going to get.

Because I just think that we're not going to. And there are some things that we've seen on a recurring basis like some of the deep ball inconsistency in Tampa Bay, some of Brady's issues when their offensive line, which is getting healthier. They had Al-Mar pet back. But when that's not perfect, he's struggled. And his ongoing relationship with Bruce Ariens being something that we're seeing play out like a soap opera week to week.

but results-wise, I just think we don't know what we're going to get. So they're going to fight for a playoff spot. They're still in it. They're still a wildcard team because the Cardinals lost today. But I, Nora Pinciotti, I'm no longer going to sit down at the beginning of a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game and just be like, yeah, I think I know what's going to happen here. That's correct. So the Bucks are 7 and 5. Tony Romo after the game watched a very strange game and said, hey, I think this.

this might be the Super Bowl. Thought that was a weird reaction to that particular game. So first of all, Dan Graziano, Dan Graziano, I don't think you can hear it and be like, that's a normal reaction. We love Tony Romo. It was just a little bit out of left field

that he filled the silence with this might be at the Super Bowl. Well, in particular, because he had obvious contempt for the Bucs offense at a number of points. He hates the Bucs offense. He absolutely, he hated the Bucs offense for 60 minutes.

And then at the end, he was talking about communication breakdowns the whole game and at the end was like, oh, also, this is going to be the Super Bowl. And then he kind of walked it back afterwards. I don't know. That was a, there's a lot to unpack there, okay? As someone who says there's a lot to unpack all the time, there's a lot of suitcases here. Okay, we're checking luggage. We are checking luggage. So Dan Graziano this week reported that he's hearing rumors of tension between Brady and Ariens. And I don't even think, and this, Dan's a great reporter, and I believe them. And I also think that you don't even necessarily need

the report. You can just look at the staff. and see that Brady and Arians are just not doing, want to do things the same way. I mean, this is when you look at Tom Brady's deep ball numbers coming into this game, I think it was three of 36 for the previous five weeks or whatever. Just something's not, they're not on the same page schematically. And if they're not on the same page emotionally, then the whole thing is cooked a little bit. A couple of things here. Number one, Tyree Kill.

Do not single cover Tyree Kill with Carlton Davis. And I saw Jenna Lane say this earlier today. was, you know, the Buck secondary was always fearful of this type of game because they're not built for speed. Well, Bill for Speed, I have some bad news. It's 2020. I mean, there's a lot of speedy offenses and you're going to get exposed. Carlton Davis, by the way, this is the weirdest part of all of this because Tyree Kill gets 200 yards in the first quarter. Carlton Davis is pretty good. It's not like they plucked him off the street. And it was a bit of just a scheme bust to have him one-on-one with Tyree Kill. There was just no help there. And they should have learned on the first touchdown. second one, I think he just fell down. But it's not like Carlton Davis is some bum. Earlier in the year, he was playing an elite cornerback. Last couple weeks, he hasn't been nearly as good.

But he's a good cornerback, and the chiefs just clowned him, okay? Because that's what the chiefs do. At this point with Patrick Mahomes, anytime he doesn't score, I think he's being classy. Like, I think he's like one of those guys who's intentionally missing the net when it's open and soccer because why do we need an eighth one? Like, I've kind of, I've gotten to that point where when he doesn't score, I think it's on purpose. But, you know, this is just the Chiefs. And losing to the Chiefs is a bit exempt from real criticism. Even last week, we did the Raiders thing.

We were talking about how it's pretty good for the Raiders. No shame in this. This is just, you know, I think that the way it happened could have been pretty embarrassing for Tampa, but they closed it out. Close the gap, rather. Is it worry you? I saw Aaron Chats bring this up. Does it worry you the Chiefs keep playing close games? We talked about this midweek with Ryan Chazier.

Is there any worry that the point differential is more it needs to be? No, it really, like, the simple answer is just no. Because, so first of all, the Chiefs kind of screwed up three drives that they had inside the Bucks 20. They fumbled one and they settled for field goals, which to me, for the Chiefs qualifies is screwing up if you get inside the 20 and end up settling for a field goal. So this could have been a much bigger blowout. Mahomes, though, he had 462 yards.

And I saw it. So he was 92 yards short of the single game passing yards record, which was set by Norm Van Brocklin in 1951. And it just like made me feel like we're back in the Mahomes zone a little bit where we have to talk about Norm Van Brockland just to contextualize what he does. So the answer to your question is no. I think the chiefs are just fine. I also think we look around the league and most of it is in the NFC,

but there are so many untrust. worthy teams. I am not going to sit here and nitpick the chiefs. I think they are just fine. I think at this point they have about a 50-50 shot at catching the Steelers. That first round by that comes with getting the top seed is a big deal, but I would not see anyone beating them at this point. I think that at this point, I can be talked into it. Maybe things develop. And again, this is the type of year where if there's a COVID breakout or, someone misses a week of practice because of close contact, whatever it is, everything changes.

But right now, I'm looking at the AFC title game as the Super Bowl. And I know that sounds hot takey and I know that that sounds like kind of conventional wisdom from, I think you always heard that back in the 90s. It's like, oh, whoever wins, Niners, Cowboys, wins the Super Bowl. I kind of think we're getting to that point just because of how incomplete the NFC teams are. And yeah, anybody can get hot. As we've said, Tampa Bay has had really good weeks sometimes.

if Drew Brees gets healthy, this is also obviously Drew Brees not being healthy. If Drew Brees gets healthy, that changes everything. But after the report last week, I'm just, I'm waiting and seeing until Drew Brees is healthy. That's on the things that may change docket for me. But I just, I don't see anyone being as good as those two teams. I think the chiefs will beat the Steelers. But again, I'm, I'm open on that. But I just, I'm not going to, I'm with you.

I'm not going to wait around for some one of these NFC teams to get to be complete. It's just not going to happen. short of Breeze being 100% healthy, just a few weeks after a collapsed, a punctured lung and 11 broken ribs and having only 13 healthy ribs we found out last week. As short of that, we're going to have a weird NFC team in the Super Bowl. And there's not much we can do about it. And if it's Tom Brady, that's great entertainment. But I just, I'm tired of having to try to talk myself into NFC contenders for the Super Bowl. I'm tired of it because they keep letting me down.

So that's where I'm at. Well, this is why football is fun, right? Because if they played best of five series, I would have absolutely no doubt that the chiefs would end up winning. But anything can happen in a given game. We already saw it with the Raiders. They played a great game. That's a great formula to beat any good quarterback.

And they end up winning earlier in the season. So it's not like it can't happen. Neither of us is going to sit here and say that it's impossible. but I'm with you that I'm just not, it's not the right thing to spend mental energy on is nitpicking the chiefs when we look across the league and see weaknesses in so many other teams. Yeah, I would also say last thing is that we talked last week

about how just having Patrick Holmes is the only thing that matters. That's not necessarily the case this week. I mean, Travis Kelsey threw a pass today, okay? They've got a great backup quarterback in Travis Kelsey. But, you know, Tyra Kill is obviously great. But when you look at that final drive, and the fourth quarter, really, even though they screwed up a couple of plays. But that final drive showed the trust that Andy Reid has in Patrick Mahomes,

where he's spinning out and getting first downs, he's completing passes. I mean, that was having Patchamohomah's ice the game is as good as you can get. And the best way to win close games and the best way, I don't think it's healthy to have to come back every Sunday. And they obviously didn't have to do that today. But I think that when you're in the fourth quarter and your one score games and there's a lot of luck involved. I just watched a Bill Walsh video on how much luck is involved in one score games. I understand all that. But when you have the ability to have Patrick Mahomes ice the game, that's the position

you wouldn't be in. So I don't care that they're in close games until that somehow stops being sustainable for them. So that's all. All right. Can we do deep ball therapy? Yes. Let's do it.

Tom on the couch. I love Tom on the couch. Who's listening? Because I don't think it's Bruce Ariens. I don't know. Bruce Ariens is like out there. He's looking to just get it all out in the, get it all. out in the world. He wants to air whatever grievances he has. Just let everybody in.

It's Tom House. It's Tom House. It's Mad. Brady's, Brady's throwing coach. Also, also tried to get Drew Brees to throw a 60-yard pass over the summer. However, so this is the big issue in Tampa Bay right now. First four games in the season, Brady has six past plays of 35 yards or longer. Going into this game, he hadn't had any in the four games prior. And this was the crux of the entire story of Brady switching teams, right? Was how hard is that going to be? And is it going to be about Bruce Ariens' scheme and what the Bucks are used to? Or is it going to be about Tom Brady going there and sort of imposing what he's been used to for 20 years and helping them along in some ways?

I think a lot of people thought that he was going to be just sort of a culture ad who was going to teach them to play mistake-free. and impose a winning standard and all of the intangible qualities that we ascribe to Brady. And I think a lot of that stuff is valid. But my question is just that hearing a lot of people talk about this and the sort of tone of the discussion, it's like Brady's own agency has kind of been removed from this. And I just feel like it's worth mentioning that he wanted to do this. And I think that's totally valid. I would also want to go play with really great receivers.

But my question at a certain point is like when is it going to be all about like not only be all about what Bruce Ariens is saying about Tom Brady and start being a little bit like, okay, well, Tom, Tom, you wanted to switch teams. You wanted to play in a different offense. You thought that this was going to be a nice fun experiment. But it maybe it's a little bit harder than anticipated. they're certainly willing to work with you. I know what Bruce Ariens said about it, but I am just going to say that the reason Antonio Brown plays there is because Tom Brady wanted him to.

And it seems like he's forcing the ball there in some ways. And I think it's pretty natural that there's some tension between Ariens' scheme, which he's very dedicated to, and Brady not being used to playing in, it's not just about the verticality of the offense or the depth of the throws, but I guess it is the verticality that I'm making a point about it.

It's so many go routes. You know, it's not even so many like slants and stuff where receivers have a little bit more of an opportunity to separate, but it is that he's being asked to make a lot of throws that are just lower percentage throws. And now that doesn't make it make sense that he's going over 20 on them.

But it is a different thing than what he's used to. My only point in saying this is just that he's Tom Brady and, The entire calculus about doing this was that he was going to have some agency in this, too. And I just wonder where that's gone. And don't feel like I quite understand it. So I think that everything that is happening here was predicted by really smart people eight months ago. Okay.

There were some people who said that maybe the offense isn't going to fit or, you know, there were some people I remember talking to who said that actually schematically, Gruden, you know, Vegas would have been a little better just because of, of what a quarterback's act to do with Arients. And maybe this doesn't match up. The other part of that is just the cohesion of the thing we've talked about a million times about just learning, you know, all these communication breakdowns we're talking about. Those things are not helped when you don't have a full training camp.

You don't have OTAs. You don't have contact. I mean Aaron Rogers said a couple weeks ago, you can't even sit with guys in the cafeteria right now. And so the idea of accelerating team chemistry or on-field ESP, whatever it is, that's just impossible this year. And so it's everything right now. And I think that Tom Brady isn't blameless at all.

I also think that he probably should have taken into account how hard this is going to be. And I think we probably should have done it when we're sitting here and giving the Bucks unrealistic expectations, which were buoyed in part by the fact that they've looked really good this season. But I also think that they're seven and five. they're probably a 7 and 5 football team. They make a lot of mistakes. And I still think we have an optimism

because even though they lost today and even though Tyreekill had 200 yards in the first quarter, the narrative coming out of it, immediately on network television was that they're probably going to go to the Super Bowl. And so I think there's a disconnect right now between what we think this team is going to be and what they are and they're just running enough time

to prove what they're going to be. That's all. And I also think because the NFC is so bad, it might not matter. We might end up looking like clowns for being like, what's up with the bucks? then they rumped to a to a Super Bowl because nobody else in the NFC is either healthy or good. Totally.

I was teasing. So my dad is a Patriots fan. I was teasing him the other day because he just thinks the bucks are terrible. And I think it's a little bit of like a bitterness thing. And I was like, okay, who in the NFC is clearly better? And it totally may not end up mattering. But on the point about their cohesion or lack thereof being predicted a long time ago, it's week 12.

Yeah. And it's an incredibly hard year to do that. And all of that can be true. And it can also be the case that if they don't do something, if they don't find a way to have it get better, I don't know. I have nothing to tell you why week 16 or the first round of the playoffs is going to be significantly different than week 12.

Because it's just been a long time. And I'm not even talking about blame here. Like everything that we've described is normal and you don't know how it's going to be to join another team until you try. And Brady's reasons for wanting to do that are totally valid. My point is just that somebody has to do something. Otherwise, this I think, is just going to be what it is. And whether that's switching up what they're doing on offense just a little bit, maybe it does click over the last month of the season. That's entirely possible.

But it's just that I don't quite feel as confidence saying, oh, well, they just need time to get on the same page now that it's almost December as that felt in October. I kind of knew what this looked like when we saw them in the second Saints game, which was supposed to be the game where they were going to close the gap because of all the cohesion that was supposed to happen in September and October and all of a sudden they didn't get there. Okay. The Drew Brewery's injury changes the entire equation there. But it's for me, it's still, I know what the ceiling on this team is. Anyway, Nora, you talked a little bit about why football is fun a few minutes ago. Let's talk about why this year it can be not fun. It's Saints and Broncos.

So the havoc that COVID can wreak on just on the football aspect of it, just on rosters and depth charts and all that stuff, we now have a worst case scenario. We now have an avatar because the entire Broncos quarterback room are deemed close contacts. Vic Fangio, extremely upset after the game. said, quote, I was disappointed on several levels that our QBs put us in that position, that our QBs put the league in that position. We counted them to be leaders of our team, the leaders of the offense. Those guys made a mistake, okay? So the entire quarterback room is ineligible for the game.

In comes Kendall Hinton, who played high school and college quarterback, Lake Forest. This was not good football. Sean Payton said, quote, I feel bad for the cardboard fans. It is what it is. This was a couple of things. things. Number one, he can't finishes the game one of nine, 13 passing yards, two interceptions. I don't, I don't want to saw Nick Sabin here who famously said this about something else. But when I think about them playing this game and watching this game, because I watched a good chunk of it,

I don't think this is what football should be. I don't think that I, if we want football to look like this and we just say we're playing all these games and we're not going to be flexible and we're going to play this game at 4 p.m. Eastern time, as was on the schedule, and we'll move some games, we'll move the other. And the threshold coming into this game, according to the league, who told writers this, was that

basically roster and depth chart has nothing to do with whether or not they play the game. It's all about numbers and protocols and different stuff there. But as far as a position group, that did not meet the threshold of canceling or pushing or delay in the game. But I watched

this, and I did not actually have, I thought this was going to be funny and it was just sad. And it bummed me out. And Kendall Hinton did nothing wrong. He said after the game that it wasn't the rush that surprised him. It was just the speed of the game. The linebackers. And he said, well, you don't know it until you see it, which is exactly right.

And I thought he was put in an unfair position. And I hope that he doesn't become kind of a joke going forward. I hope he's able to stick in the NFL on an active roster and go forward and recover from this. But this was awful. And by the way, Tassum Hill being on the other side here did not help matters because he's a quarterback or any sort of any meaning in any meaningful way. He's not a quarterback.

So I guess my question is, what did you think of this? And are you as angry as I am? Am I as angry as you are? I am hopeful that what you said at the beginning that this is the avatar for the worst case scenario is true. because my fear actually is that it's not. And it's already pretty bad, right? Like, Kendall Hidden shouldn't have had to do that. He said that, so he's a practice squad receiver.

And because of all the normal social distancing and the sort of different ways that players and coaches have to behave in facilities this year, he said that he just didn't know a lot of the coaching staff and just didn't know a lot of the people on the team. And then had to go do this crazy thing, which I really hope. hope he can look at as a crazy life event and something to, you know, tell kids about in the future or whatever, because the stat line just really shouldn't matter here, at least as far as he's concerned in terms of like how he feels about that performance. The other thing is that, so they ran Wildcat a decent amount of this, including with Philip Lindsay, who got hurt. Yes.

And that's the real fear, right? Is that you already have these players. who in some ways have great resources and they get tested and there's a lot in place to keep them safe, but they are already having to do these jobs in these strange circumstances. And then once you're talking about not taking a position group getting decimated as a threshold to move or cancel a game, then you're talking about increasing the injury risk. And so I worry that, I mean, it didn't seem like it was a particularly serious injury, but we don't really know. And it could be different next time, right? And the NFL is really dedicated to its schedule. It is a sort of this monolithic element of our culture, right? So we spend all this time thinking about it and talking about it.

But the way that people process football and I think the way the league strategizes about it is just that it is this behemoth that descends upon American culture every fall and winter. And people just kind of go like, oh yeah, the Cowboys. And it takes a long time to adjust to who's good and who's bad. It takes a long time to kind of have the individual events and machinations of the season really sink in for people.

And I think what that's leading to with a little bit of built in just unprecedentedness and it's a hard problem to solve, right? How do you put on a football season in the middle of a global pandemic if you're hell bent on doing that? it just seems like the preservation of the sort of sketched outlines of a normal season

have been prioritized to a degree that when you zero in and you come down to the level of even like pretty big picture stuff like the Ravens getting ready to play a game without Lamar Jackson. The 49ers don't know where they're going to play the rest of their home games because contact sports have been banned in Santa Clara County. The Broncos missing all of their quarterbacks because Jeff Driscoll tested positive and the rest of their quarterbacks had a maskless meeting with him. So they were determined close contacts. Like, we are basically through week 12 and all the games have gotten played with only a

little bit of movement. But I am not sure that this is rock bottom. That's, that's my fear. I agree with you. I think that it depends on how flexible the NFL is. Because I think that from a game standpoint, I don't think you can get much worse. than this. I think if it gets

slightly worse, I think the NFL understands that there has to be a week 18 and you push everything back and you do what they voted on a couple of weeks ago and add an eighth team to the playoffs if it's a canceled game or they can't make it up or whatever. I mean, there are a number of scenarios here. But

this Ravens game this week, if they play it, if they play it, a huge if. And by the time anyone listens to this on Monday morning, we might have more news on that. they've had eight straight days of positives and I think 21. Yeah. If they play that,

if they play that game, that's going to be rock bottom. But it's up to the NFL to determine what rock bottom is because there's a way to safely execute all of this stuff. And, I mean, safely being relative. But I think that there's,

I think that we're probably not going to see going forward, hopefully, I hope, I hope, I hope. We do not see more players like Kendall Hinton who are pushed into the national. spotlight and asked to do something ridiculous like this because the NFL doesn't want to change

its schedule. I think that this is, I think it was a little silly today, quite frankly. I do want to switch gears and just ratchet up the funnel a little bit. The last time a team finished with one completion was 2005 Niners. The offensive coordinator for that team was Mr. Mike McCarthy. I wish our listeners could see Kevin's face right now. Like the grin is just so satisfied. He's fist pumping now. I'm fist pumping now. Cody Pickett,

who was a quarterback and was not plucked as a wide receiver practice squad. He was the quarterback for that game. So there we are. And I, you know, our Zach Cram said this on Twitter, and I thought it was a great point. Kendall Hinton won a state championship as a, quarterback. He played quarterback in college, and he could not do anything out there. The speed of the game was just too much. And this is a victory in every argument against every single

doofus who thinks they could complete a pass in an NFL game. It's just ridiculous. Kennell-Hitton is so much more talented than anyone who's ever made that argument, and he completed one pass and he was running for his life for most of the day. So there you go. If you ever, if you're ever saying, oh, I could get hit a screen or whatever. No, you couldn't. No, you couldn't. Let's move on. Wait, hold on. Unless you have any other takes on that. Do you think that you could, could, um, could you do like the toss on a jet sweep? No. I mean, this is a cousin of the, of the, of the, how long would you, how long could you go in a, in a, in a box. match without being knocked out thing because I think that defenses would react to you

differently if they knew you were an amateur. Does that make sense? So like I made this argument before where it's like if you're in an MMA match right or MMA fight and Conner McGregor knows that you can't fight he's just going to come over and knock you out. He's not going to worry about defense or anything like that. Right. But what I'm saying is it's just like if you're if he knows, if he thinks you're a real fighter he you can go like you can buy five, six, seven more seconds because he's going to be in a defensive posture, right? And so I think that the toss sweep thing, if they know they can just all just swarm you,

they would just do that. To answer your question, there's no way I'm completing anything on a football field. It's just a hard no. There's no way. It's also the cousin of people guessing what their 40 times would be. Like every guy who just had like six beers

thinks that he would run like a sub 540 and it's like you you wouldn't no no you wouldn't you definitely wouldn't I would also say I don't think it would be impossible to do anything worth doing on a in any professional sport you would look ridiculous in any sport I have an I have an extreme amount of respect for NFL players and it's also just the funniest thing because most things that I think are cool I'm like oh yeah that would be fun I am almost never like I should do that. That would be cool. Occasionally when like Aaron Rogers completes an incredible throw, I'm like, it would be

so sick if I could do that. Most of the time, I'm just like, that looks like it hurts so much. We have to move on from this. I will say the only thing I think I think that in a basketball game or a soccer game, you could at least like kind of blend in for like 15 seconds.

Like if you were just running up and down as a left winger in a soccer game, I don't think anybody would necessarily notice you couldn't play unless you were given the ball. So you just instruct them not. to give the ball. That's all. That's, this is a mid-week. You can just be further from the ball. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You can go on runs. You go on runs up and down. You just jog. You just jog. All right. Let's, let's move on

mercifully to our first winner. It's the San Francisco 49ers who played a really interesting game against a team that we had spent last month getting really excited by in the Los Angeles Rams. The NFC West makes no sense. We knew this coming in. It's only been confirmed. Nora, San Francisco 49ers. Pretty decent Nick Mullins day, right? 24, 353. Didn't have a touchdown, but... Pretty decent Kyle Shanahan Day.

Pretty decent Kyle Shanahan Day. Very good Aaron Donald Day. That tends to happen in football games. Yeah. He's a real game wrecker, and I would say that this was a and interesting, there's a lot that was interesting here. Number one is the Kyle Shanahan has swept Sean McVeigh in the last two years. As our buddy Warren Sharp, our colleague here on the Ring Round NFL show feed,

he said that Shanahan was an underdog in three of those four games. Kyle Shanahan is an awesome coach. We know that. Sean McVeigh is also an awesome coach. But if Kyle Shanahan actually makes a playoff run with this team, if they make the playoffs, they're one of the seven playoff teams, I don't know how we're going to view if they make the eighth seed, whatever. But we'll figure that out down the road.

But if they actually make a wild card spot, Kyle Shanahan's in the coach of the year conversation for me. This game had it all, gave it to a fullback on fourth and one. Debo Samuel made plays. Debo Samuel had over 130 yards receiving on the day. Gould wins the game. Jalen Ramsey has the weird offsides thing that pushed the gold. They'll go up a little bit.

Do you think the 49ers can make a run to put them in playoff? position. And does this tell you, does this game tell you anything about the NFC West you didn't already think? Well, the NFC, the NFC is just like fully on tilt on a weekly basis. I'm looking at the 49ers schedule right now because I forget what it is. I think that's, that's probably what's going to. So they've got the Bills, Washington, Cowboys, Cardinals, Seahawks. Yeah. So there's three tough games in there, right?

Bill's, um, Cardinal Seahawks. But I The thing is that here's a hot take for you. It really sucks. They got so injured because it is masterful, the just stabilization job that has gone on there over the course of the season. And yes, I think that, yeah, they could probably, do you know what the standings are off the top of your head? What would they need to go for the end of the season to get them? They're one game out of the wild card. Let me bring this up here.

They're five and six. same as the Vikings, same as the Bears. The Cardinals are 6 and 5, and we'll get to Kyle Murray in a bit, but there's some weirdness there. And so I don't know what this looks like, but from a, this is like one of those, it's a college team in a bowl game, right? Playing late in the year, I wouldn't want to play them. I would not want to play the Sonsko 49ers right now. I think they're, even with the quarterback weirdness, I don't think that, I think Kyle Shanahan understands what this team is. They're getting healthier.

like Debo Samuel coming back, who was banged up earlier in the year, makes all the difference. We see this. They're not going to get Nick Bosa back. They're not going to get George Kittle back, but they understand who they are right now. And the guys who can come back,

have come back, which are determined had a great interception today. And they're able to make teams like the Rams who have a ton of talent look ridiculous. And Jared Gough today looked awful. I have a lot to say about Jared Gough. I'll throw it to you first. Did this game,

as someone who like me has been excited about the Rams the past couple weeks, did this game dampen your spirits? Yeah, totally. It just, I thought, one, the most important thing is that I just thought that they were going to escape the Wittworth loss and have their offensive line be relatively stable. And it looked like that for a week, but maybe that was just a little bit fluky. And if that's the case, if they're going to have more trouble, there. We know what that means for Jared Goff. More than that, I just would love to see them have

some consistency. And we've said this and we're going to say it again. Like, we've just got to give up on it. And I do think that you add a little bit of just division game weirdness kind of to the gumbo when we're talking about this because I think it's relevant. I actually do think it matters when teams know each other that well and coaches know each other that well. But they had a chance to really kind of elevate. You know, we could have crowned the Rams. I think we've talked about crowning the Packers and we could have crowned the Rams, but we can't crown the Rams. Sorry.

Agree. So there was some uncharacteristic Sean McVeigh comments after the game where he said that Jared Gough has to be better with the football. Normally, he's very upbeat and optimistic. Doesn't say those sort of things. In the past four games, Jared Gough has fumbled it five times. He's lost four of them and thrown six interceptions. Okay.

After the game, McVeigh, said this, I saw this on USA Today, Rams Wire. They asked him what was wrong and he said every play is its own situation, but it might be keeping two hands on the football. It might be understanding that if someone's swimming around you, you can't throw it away when you don't see where you're going, being able to trust your guys to separate. You know, when I see this and I see Sean McVeigh's list of room for improvement with Jared Goff, looks like it might just be everything. Like it looks like it might be everything.

Keeping two hands on the ball, knowing that if you're getting pressure, you can't just chuck it up in the air, knowing when guys are going to separate, that seems like a pretty big portion of what it means to play quarterback. And he's just got to be better. He's just got to get it done.

A little Sean McVeigh coach before you. But I was surprised to see it. Because Sean McVeigh doesn't normally talk like. Okay. And I think that I am hopeful that Sean McVeigh is a good enough coach to have this Rams team in the mix. But Jared Goff is a system quarterback. And I think that there's been a weird conversation around that phrase in the past couple of years

because every time no system quarterback ever agrees to be a system quarterback, they say they're not a system quarterback. The difference with golf, obviously, he's the third highest paid player in football. So there's an extra layer there. But you have to get Jared Gough absolutely perfect. And right now he's not. And that relies on Sean McVeigh. And that relies on Jared Gough having a baseline of competence.

And I don't know. It is a hard team to trust in January. But that's every NFC team right now. And McVeigh today said we're counting on guys to make plays in Crunchtime. they didn't do it. And that means everybody. That could mean Ramsey jumping off sides. That could mean not letting Dubo Samuel go wild on you.

Or throwing that awful interception to Jvonne Kinlaw, who had the pick six, obviously. This is just, I don't know. I mean, this is, if right now the Rams and the 49ers played five times, I

would not commit to knowing who would win because I don't, I think the 49ers are getting much better. and I think the Rams just kind of a weird team. The 49ers, by the way, are going to be hurt by the fact

that they don't have a home stadium. Tough. They don't even know where they're going to go. This is what we're talking about when we say, this touches every game,

is that the Rams canceled practice on Friday, and now the 49ers don't know where they're going. So, yes, it touches on everything. All right, any other 49ers, Rams thoughts more?

I think it's time to move on. Now it's time for the State Farm's surprisingly great segment of the week. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm in a surprisingly great rate. That's like Mike Vrable, Derek Henry and Tennessee Titans pulling off a huge win over the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC South.

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State Farm goes from strength to strength. Nora, it's Titans team. Getting interesting as December comes around. What'd you think? You could say, strength to strength. Whoa. Derek Henry, AJ Brown. What about that synergy?

So this is a Titans team that has probably, of the 2020 teams, they might be among the 2020est. They had a COVID outbreak earlier in the season that led to a lot of games being pushed around. They win today 45 to 26 over their AFC South rival. They beat the Ravens in their last game. They beat and they lost the Colts before that. I think there's a very small list of teams that you don't want to play in January.

I think it's a strange year to compete in the NFL playoffs. And I think that everyone is kind of a little bit incomplete. What I think this Titans team is one of the toughest draws in January. Whether that's tackling Derek Henry, whether that's getting AJ Brown down to the ground, this is a physical team that knows its identity. And if they make the playoffs and it looks like they will, I don't want to have to play them. So huge win for them, first of all, against a division rival. So this has pretty significant implications for the playoffs.

I think what this game taught me is that sometimes I look at the Titans and go, yeah, but how long can they sustain this? And some of that has to do with how important their explosive athletes like Derek Henry, AJ Brown, to name a couple, are to their offensive functioning. Because a lot of what they do is based around play action. It's based around getting yards after the catch. But at a certain point, and I think those are things that sometimes we don't want to be too reliant on, not play action because that's something that every offense should use.

But some of the yak stuff, it can be variable and you don't want to be, you want guys to be schemed open. You don't want it to have to be you break nine tackles to score touchdown. That said, when you have Derek Henry and AJ Brown at a certain point, you can build some of that stuff in. And today the Titans rush for 217 yards, 129 of them came on explosive rushes of 10 yards or more. Henry had 178 yards and 119 came after first contact. He broke eight tackles according to PFF and he had 10 first downs. A.J. Brown, the fact that A.J. Brown had 98 yards in this game, before I looked it up, I thought he had 200.

I don't think, I, I've never seen A.J. Brown get tackled. It's, it's never happened. The aliens that are coming in 2021, they will be the first, they will be the first entities that have have a chance to tackle AJ Brown. Maybe. So they're now eight and three. If they had lost this game, they'd be seven and four and the six seed or the seven seed, depending on on tiebreakers. They would have been swept by the Colts.

This was a monumental win for them that you don't want to be at the bottom of the UFC playoff picture right now because of how many good teams are down there and how many weird tiebreakers there might be and all that stuff. And so for them to get this win, to get right now to be in the third. bird seed. It's massive. And so I think, you know, I once asked John Robinson, the GM, why he has so many guys on the team who were able to break tackles and play physical. And he said, one of the things he scouted for is he likes to see physicality late in games. And he likes to watch the fourth quarter of blowouts and who's still hitting guys and who who still has that,

that knack for physicality. And I think that's an interesting way to build your team. I think that they've done it. They're a tough physical football team that nobody wants to see. You know, I saw, I, I did joked about how no one can tackle idea Brown on Twitter. And someone said that maybe D.K. McCaf could. And our friend Seth Walter over ESPN actually ran the numbers and said that on DJ, D.K. Metcats run down of Buda Baker, he had 22 miles per hour. And AJ Brown's max speed is 21.5. So in theory, in theory, D.K. McCap could catch him. But again, the problem is, once you catch him, you can't take him down.

That's the issue. Catching A.J. Brown does not translate to tackling A.J. Brown. Those are two very different discussions. It definitely does not. We should mention that the Colts were playing without DeForest Buckner. That could have made a difference up front in terms of them getting dominated physically in this game. But the thing is that Derek Henry and AJ Brown can steal your soul whether you have DeForest Buckner or not. And the Colts won the first matchup.

So it's not as if this team has their number or anything. But when you get those kind of performance. performances from those standout players and then also have a little bit of a shaky Phil Rivers game on the other side. That's a recipe. We know how that story ends. And that does to me become increasingly important as you get further into the year and then in the playoffs because I think other teams, they look at the Titans. Nobody wants to end up on that viral tweet of just having Derek Henry run you over or hurdle you. I'm not saying that that is first and foremost in a lot of people's minds.

But it's not less. More players have that thought than maybe we would expect. It's on nobody's wish list. Choose insurance. It always brings its egg game. When you want the real deal like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. 2020 has changed the world of sports.

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Go to ZipRecruiter.com slash ringer NFL. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. Our third winner, the Green Bay Packers, 41-25 win over the rival Chicago Bears. Not a lot of surprises in this game. Mitchell Trubisky did not perform all that well. Packers had a huge lead.

Bears made a bunch of mistakes. But I would say to beat a team that was a 1.5 and 1, a team that is still in the playoff picture mathematically. It's a nice accomplishment. Or what do you think? Yeah, happy for the playoff. Packers. Happy for Aaron Rogers. Eight and three. It's got to feel great. It's good. It's good. Kind of ready to be done with with this Bears team, Mitchell Tribisky. I think all of Chicago agrees

with you. I would say a couple things. So Akeem Hicks was out and next gen stats had some interesting numbers about how the Packers were able to take advantage of that by running inside the tackles, front 50 yards and a touchdown. Since 2018, when Hicks is out, They, it costs them 0.7 yards per carry, uh, which is pretty amazing inside the tackle. So that's, that's a, that's a, that's a huge difference. Uh, Aaron Rogers 21 to 29 for 21 11 yards for touchdowns. Uh, I had this question. And we're going to do reader questions in a bit, but I wanted to bump this up in,

into this particular segment because it, it connects with everything else. This is from Brett, Brett 8.055. Would the Broncos have beaten New Orleans with Mitch Trubiskey, a quarterback. No. Mitch Trubisky is not, Mitch Trubisky is probably better than Taysam Hill, but not by enough.

Actually, Jason is throwing three picks a game. Like, I don't even, I'm not even sure. Mitch Chubisky, Mitch Chubisky is better at passing than Taysam Hill. But he's not a more valuable quarterback than he's not necessarily a more effective player to have on the field.

By the way, we should say that, that Mitch Trubisky, playing in relief of injured, Lula Lemon ambassador Nick Foles. Yes, exactly. And this is like, this to me is like, okay, so wins are not a quarterback stat. But if you wanted to make like wins are more of a quarterback stat than they are any other position stat, like if wins were a middle linebacker stat, the bears would have been the Patriots. And if you wanted to make that argument, this would be the game to do it with. So the reason obviously that Mitch Chubisky would not have beaten the normal stance is because he's just not a,

a good enough quarterback to overcome the fact that the Saints defense is really good. And the Saints defense, by the way, in the same way, they shut down Kendall Hinton. They also shut down like Tom Brady. Okay. So, like, it's just a little obviously. Right. Mitchell Trabiski probably would have thrown four picks. Yes. Yes.

And so the answer is no. Mitchell Chubesky would have been better than Kendall Hinton, but he would not have won the game. So it's a great question. It's worth entertaining. It is not. The answer is no. our first loser, who else could it be? It's the Las Vegas Raiders who lost 43 to 6 to Rahim Morris and the Atlanta Falcons.

This after they almost swept the series against Can City Chiefs, they did not. And now they've turned one loss into two and maybe more. This was strange. John Gruden apologized to Raider Nation. I don't know what I just saw, nor help me out. All right. So not only did you. just see the Raiders lose 43 to 6 to the Falcons.

They lost to the Falcons who were playing without Julio Jones or Todd Gurley. Yeah. You're not supposed to do that. Like the Falcons have actually looked a little bit better recently, but that is not supposed to happen. And it is concerning because last year, they fell to 6 and 5 when they lost 34 to 3 to the Jets, the New York Jets of Adam Gase. And then it totally derailed them and they finished seven and not.

And guess who the Raiders play next week, the Jets, which is probably a good thing. They can't. They can't lose to them. They can't lose to them. Do you trust them to do anything? I don't trust the Raiders anymore to do anything that requires skill. Beating the Jets does not require skill. It requires showing up.

95% of life is showing up and 100% of beating the Jets is showing up. Here's my thought on the Raiders now after this game. This was totally out of left field. And I understand the concept of having one loss in creating two, and that's, coaches have talked about that for decades now. But to lose to a bad team like this, this thoroughly makes me throw out,

it makes me have real trust issues with the Raiders. And I don't, I can't pick them to win a playoff game, even if I like the rosters. I can't pick them. If there's, when I'm looking at December of schedules and saying, who's got to pass the wild card or whatever,

I'm just out on the, Raiders right now. I mean, it's like if you've got a friend, if you're on vacation with your friend, a group of friends and one guy just like bails for like three days. So you have no idea where he went. And he'd be like, what? And he just shows up three days later and he's like, it doesn't mention anything. And he's just back with a group of friends and you have no idea we do for three days. Aren't you going to be like, oh man, I'm probably not going to put my faith in this guy. This guy seems a little weird and unreliable. Like this is the Raiders to me. They're the unreliable friend who's now disappeared for three days.

The Raiders went on a football bender on Sunday. Or like they got a pet snake. Like there's some things people can do that are just deal breakers or you're like, you are bad you do. I thought I had you pegged as one of my trustworthy friends. And now you're the weird guy. Now you own like an exotic animal. Oh, that's you now.

You're the weird guy. Okay. I didn't know you were the weird guy. by the way, their Twitter account, their like official Twitter account, shared a photo today. Their defensive end Max Crosby got a giant Raiders tattoo all over his arm that they shared. So just while we're on the subject of decision making, I hope he likes it. All right.

So Jason McCallum works for ESPN on SVP show said that the Raiders 11 penalties, 141 penalty yards, five turnovers, sacks, five sacks. five sacks and allowing 43 points, that's never happened. Those thresholds have never been met before. If you take those tent poles and say those are the mistakes you can make, no one's ever had a game like that before. I know it's specific, but it just shows you how many mistakes were made and how efficient the Raiders were at making them.

Derek Carr played awful today. And if Derek Carr, if they lost by 20 points today and Derek Carr looked fine, or they lost by 15 points and the defense looked fine and Derrick Carr looked off. I'd go, I don't know. Maybe it's a letdown game, trap game before the big Jets game next week, maybe.

I don't know. I could have spun it that way. But when I'm looking at this game, I'm saying I don't know what the hell I watched. And I don't know what the hell Derek Carr was doing. He was throwing just awful passes. And I wonder if, you know, I've seen this before with certain teams

where they put all of their, especially college teams, but I've seen it with pro too. They put all of their eggs in one emotional game and they really want to sweep with the chiefs. They don't get there and then just the errors out of the balloon. I'm willing to indulge that as an excuse, but I think at the NFL level,

I'd rather not have my teams doing that. Well, also, when you're in a pretty significant playoff race, like, fine, do it, don't do it. But if you don't do it, it's going to seriously cost you. And so they have the Jets, Colts, Chargers, Dolphins Broncos. To finish 10 and 6, they need to win four out of those.

And like, we are just, if you go through Derek Carr's day, he lost three fumbles on strip sacks, he threw a pick six, he was replaced by Nathan Peterman. Like, we are in such, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, like, how is the play territory? Replaced by Nathan Peterman is the worst part of this whole thing.

Tyree Kale had more receiving yards in the Raiders had yards today. There's probably, I mean, Tyree Kill had a lot of yards. But the Falcons, like the Falcons average 4.2 yards per play. You shouldn't really be able to get to 43 points if you're doing that. But when you get five turnovers, you actually can find a way to run up the score on 4.2 yards per play. So my, my feeling is, I guess, similar to yours in that, yeah, you can you can line up a path for the Raiders, but they're going to have to go do it because why would I ever trust this team again?

They are an ill-advised tattoo. are your friend going on a bender. They have acquired several exotic birds and illegal snakes. And that's just who they are. Could you imagine the Browns being the most normal playoff team or wildcard team? That's where we're at. That's where we're at. All right.

Next loser fired people. There's a lot of them. So Dave Caldwell fired on Sunday after a pretty uninspiring Jaguars tenure. he was under Tom Coughlin for some of that. I will say that I was thinking today as he got fired that he was wooed by the New York Jets when he was available in 2013 when he was taking the Jaguar's job.

And I was just thinking about how, there's so many like butterfly effects moments in NFL history was like, oh, what if Mitch Trubisky didn't go second over, whatever, all that stuff. And Dave Caldwell going to the Jets. or going to the Jaguars, one of those things where those teams would be in the exact same spot they are now. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Everything. The Jets and the, the Jets and the Jaguars

would still be awful. There we go. Just nothing there. And then obviously the Detroit Lions, fireman Patricia and Bob Quinn, Nora, what stands out about these three firings? Well, so I think we should look at them separately. I think the big question with the with Dave Caldwell is why did they fire the general manager and not fire the coach? I think probably the answer is just that you can get a jumpstart on that general manager search earlier. And there are, there's guys like Thomas Dimitrov who are out there who you can talk to and potentially have a little bit of a head start on some other teams who might move on from their GMs after the season. That's the main reasoning that I can think of.

And I think that's fine. That's legit. There's probably not anything super substantial that Dave Caldwell was going to do over the next couple of months that an interim can't do. The thing that I think is interesting about this is that it's kind of an attractive spot. Yes. I was thinking about this. It is an attractive spot. So let me ask you a question.

Let me ask you a question. You're a sought after your GM. You're a numeral one. Yes. You're a numeral one. Yes. Thank you very much. You are offered Houston, Detroit, and Jackson.

The money is the same, the years are the same. You go where? So I'm not going to Detroit because I think Detroit is just like a little bit, the sort of middle of both of these. And I was thinking about this earlier today. And I have not made up my mind yet because Houston, I am so sketched out by what is going on in that organization right now. And there is a sliver's chance that I could be proven wrong and could be discounting the role that Jack Easterby has come to fill in that organization just because he has an unusual path.

He used to be the Patriots team chaplain and character coach. That said, if that is the case, I will be wrong because I think it just screams of power vacuum void filling. no one really knows who's in charge or in what ways they're going to be in charge and it just doesn't seem like there's an opportunity for a clean slate there because they've said that while Eusterby's not going to be the GM, he's still going to be heavily.

He's not leaving. He's not going anywhere and he's going to be... Sounds like he wants to just hang out in the corner of the room and not have a job title so he doesn't have any accountability. Well, I guess you could paint that picture with what's happened, but this is also someone who people just seem to get fired when he's around. And it's someone who went from being a very good asset to an organization who was the team chaplain and character coach and got both the chiefs and then the Patriots through some tough times organizationally and was beloved by a lot of players for doing that. But somewhere down the line decided that he wanted a personnel job and nothing that has happened since has really been cleared.

me. And except for the fact that that wasn't going to happen for him in New England, how you get from there to the power accrual that has taken place in Houston is beyond me. But it would give me serious qualms about going there, particularly as a general manager, because that seems like the personnel side of things is where there's more opportunity for conflicts, power struggles. And I just would feel really nervous about it, even though they have a top five quarterback, which should be maybe the most important factor. The thing about the Jaguars is that they have a lot of draft capital. They have two first rounders, two second rounders, two fourth rounders in 2021. They have the third most cap space available next year, according to over the cap.

There's some young talent on the roster. And they have stable ownership who've been very patient with the people that they employ. I will leave it up to the individual how they feel about the state of Florida and the various tax and weather benefits and whatever. And proximity, I would say, I would say proximity to me and is in that equation. Proximity to Kevin, right? I'm right down the road, about 30 minutes south on 95. I'm just saying that's an option if you're thinking about taking that job. We have a really cool guest on Wednesday show who would have a really good insight to that.

So we'll, we'll tee that up on Wednesday and get, get more nitty gritty. I just think the Jaguar's job, I think people will reflexively look at that as kind of a black hole. And I don't. I think that there, if you want to be a true builder and not come in and make quick fixes. I mean, obviously, if you go into Houston right now, everything revolves around making Deshaun Watson's life better. And there's, there's huge benefits to having an elite quarterback. I think it's a different type of job for different type of person in Jacksonville.

That's all. Also, listen, if the Jaguers want to make me GM, I'm local. you know. Okay, well, you could pass it on. I would offer to pass it on, but since you do have such proximity, I'll maybe leave that up to you. Just drive by.

Just drive by tomorrow. You could get, you should get that plane that said Miles Jack was down and instead you do the banner. Kevin is available. I'm actually flying that plane now. That's why it's relocated.

Well, honestly, it's probably a good idea because now that we, now that the Matt Patricia Alliance era is over, like the podcast is just the podcast is over we have nothing left we're cycling down we were a mat patricia narrative podcast and now uh and now it's over yeah yeah yeah yeah uh we hardly do ye now now we're kentel hinton podcast all right third loser it's the arizona cardinals who are now six and five after a 20 to 17 loss to the new movement patriots cam newton has 84 yards passing uh kail

Murray has 170 yards passing, he barely eclipses 30 yards rushing. Obviously something is wrong with Kyler Murray. We'll get into his comments in a second. When you watch this game, Nora, you thought what? I thought that this is the,

of course, like my sort of Patriots bias is creeping in here, but I thought that this is exactly the game that can fool people about where the Patriots are, because this is just like Bill Belichick lives for this game. Isn't your Patriots bias that you don't think the Patriots are good. Well, right, but I just see things through their lens.

Like, this is probably actually a more interesting game from the perspective of what it means for the Patriots. You just have a bias for the Patriots. You just have a... No, it's just that I think in terms of what happens to them and... Right. Right. And, um, I got you. And I just think Belichick must have loved this game. And so part of this is, I think there's some question about Kyler's health that we're going to have to examine and probably don't quite have the answer to here. And with the caveat that I think this is a, that's a factor in this. Tom Curran, who does a great job at NBC Sports Boston, was telling a story earlier this week about how Belichick would talk about defending Doug Flutie and would talk about how you had to make him throw from a barrel. And I thought that was one,

just like very interesting visually, but two, I kept thinking about it when, um, watching how they were defending Kyler, which, who didn't run a lot in this game and didn't seem particularly, like, seemed less mobile than usual, which goes into the usage and the health question. But they were having Kyle Dugger and Josh Uchay, just as more athletic players, try to keep him contained. And they were pretty successful in doing that. And it just seemed like a classic Belichick against a young quarterback, also against Sir Clifford of Kingsbury, who was once with the Patriots,

just having kind of a mastermind game. that I think says basically nothing about where the roster is and what they're capable of this year. You're making a face. No, I was going to tell you that I was working on an elaborate bit in which Bill Belichick released Cliff Kingsbury in 2003 because he knew he was setting off a series of events in which he would outcoach Cliff Kingsbury 17 years later

when he needed it the most. I couldn't get there. I ran out of clock, but I just needed you to know that was on my docket. He was like, Cliff, look, we're going to let you go, but you're going to have a really bright future. 17 years from now. You're going to fail a Texas Tech,

but trust me, it's going to be fine. You're going to fail upwards. And you're just going to kick ridiculous field goals. Yes. I think it's in play. Yeah, so the Patriots, if they hadn't had, they had 90 things go right for them

and special teams and the Isaiah Simmons penalty and the Cardinals just helping them with the way that they planned, the way that they game planned and play called in this. And there were some things that went right. Like Stefan Gilmore did a good job on Hopkins. But I just would say that while the Patriots are always going to have this kind of game in their bag where Belichick can just come in and do a great job and they'll execute and they'll find creative

ways, particularly against less experienced players and coaches that they might have some sort of understanding of how they want to attack them win those games. Like I would really love it if we could not do. another cycle of like, oh, what's the Patriots path down the stretch? Like, there just, there isn't a path. There is no path. So Josh Weinfist and ESPN wrote this a couple hours ago, but basically, you notice in a game like today how much Kyler's rushing and the threat of him rushing opens up other opportunities for the offense. And I think, I think you saw today how much of a Kyler-centric offense

this this can be and it should be i mean he's an amazing player and he obviously was hurting today um he said he maybe thought he should have checked down one or two more times uh he also said that um he didn't shy away from any hits or anything like that i think that there were a couple of especially goal line play calls where you could tell cliff did not want kailer taking shots i think that's if you're reading the tea leaves you could see that there but i just think that he's not 100% healthy right now and i think you could show it i don't think there's much of an excuse for losing to a team like the Patriots. I don't think with the talent that's right there that the Patriots are particularly a good team. I think Cam Newton is a really interesting

optionate quarterback. I've sung the praises of that signing because I just think that Cam Newton at getting the Patriots to five and six when Jared Stinnon would not have done that, that is worth a hell of a lot more than $1 million and being the 884th pious paid player in the league. So Cam Newton was a phenomenal signing relative to what else was out there. But that doesn't mean that the Arizona Cardinals should lose to Cam Newton throwing less than 100 yards. Okay.

So a little disappointed in Cliffy, but we're gonna, we're still on the bandwagon. We're still on the Cliff Kingsbury's getting better every week bandwagon. It took a step back this week. No, I can't tell. I can't tell her how Cliff Kingsbury.

I support him. I just don't know if I want to be on any sort of bandwagon. I think he's, the thing about Cliff Kingsbury is that he came in to the league at universally panned as a higher. And then he looked okay.

But it's really weird. Everyone has to sort of over, overcompensate and be like he's actually, he's actually really good. And you don't, and no one's seeing it. And so the takes on Cliff are a little bit skewed. That's all.

Because he wasn't a disaster by like week five of last year. That's all. All right. It's time for hurry up where we go through the best of the rest games and give our quick takes. Nor are Browns Jaguars. Browns made this a little closer than it should have been. Yeah, well, and the thing everybody's talking about is that Baker missed that wide open touchdown to Richard Higgins, which I think had 86% completion probability according to next gen stats. The thing I want to talk about Baker keeps mentioning like food.

So he said something about skin milk. He took a shot at skim milk. He said skim milk is water pretended to be milk, which I believe was lifted from Parks and Iraq. So we'll nod to Ron Swanson, if not mistaken. Yep. That's right. So here's my question. Is Baker hungry?

Because he also said the real G's move in silence like lasagna. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, I guess we know that this is a man who's up on his pop culture references, but I'm also just wondering if he needs a snack. That's a great, great quick big question for later. Bills versus Chargers. Can we get the bills? There's a lot to get to.

Can we get the bills to hire the old NFL primetime crew to just be their Hail Mary coach, just knock it down. They gave up another Hail Mary. Thankfully, he didn't even score. And the Chargers just messed around for four plays. That was some of the worst playoff I've ever seen in my life. Justin Herbert ran a quarterback sneak where he was the only person sneaking it. Everybody else dropped into pass pro.

This was just, congratulations on the bills and getting this win. Anthony Lynn, my guy, you got to do something in December to keep your job. The problem with the Chargers is that they're actually just playing multiple different games. Like, nobody is, everyone's in a different simulation. That's 100% correct. Giants versus Bengals are what if Dave Gettleman was telling the truth and they really were the best two and 17 of all time. Wow.

I still don't think so. I don't think anybody, I'm doubling down. Dave Gettelman was lying. All right. Giants with the win have a path that's shaping up in the NFC East. Panthers versus Vikings. Hey, Jeremy Chin is one of the best rookies in football. Vikings get a nice little win.

Jeremy Chin rolls. He's unbelievable. The Vikings still in the hunt for the playoffs. We're out of time. Dolphins first jets doesn't deserve to be talked about. Also, we ran out of time. Jeremy Chin rules. All right.

Reader question. So I have two, and they're in the same genre. We'll get to each one quickly. The first one is from Danny Wilson. This is a great question. If every team was unable to choose a quarterback from their quarterback room, who would be the best team in the league? So they have to choose a different.

Yes. They have to go without. They have to, they have to, they have the roster. Oh, somebody else on their team. Yes, yes, yes. Who is a convert? Maybe.

So it's probably a good, it's probably a team with good running backs. I'm wondering actually, I can see the Browns being good for this. because they have a really good running game. And they have Jarvis Landry. And so Jarvis Landry is a quarterback and they can use the run game

and they have a pretty solid defense. I think the Browns are a good bet. And Odell Beckham famously has a great arm. He's obviously out for the year, but I'm just saying in this hypothesis, obviously this is already hypothetical, but if everybody was healthy, he has a great arm.

And Jarvis Landry could do a two-quarterback thing. If you have two quarterbacks, and you already have no quarterbacks. I am looking, less at it as who's a convert because I don't necessarily think like a guy who's playing wide receiver now or whatever could

I don't think that they would be so effective that they would be the best choice if that makes sense. I think that it's better to just go with the best defense and the best infrastructure. Like, I remember we've done this exercise in the past in this podcast like if you could have 11 of one player or 22 of one player who would it be and the answer is probably like George Kittle, right?

Because he could just block everybody to run every play. You could defend everything. They're fast enough they're big enough. And so for me, I'm thinking about like just the whole dynamic attack. And so I think it's, I think maybe it's something like Kansas City where you're just, you're just going to have a really intricate screen and running game and just hope for the best. Every team would be a bit of a mess. I would also say that if the Patriots were in a normal year and had your normal defensive talent, it would probably be the Patriots because Belichick would scheme them up. But I just think there's a lot of because Julian Adelman is like so desperate

to play quarterback. He's very desperate. And they used to have Muhammad Sunil. who, as we know, is the best quarterback in the street football. And actually, Logan, Logan Ryan, who used to have Rutgers practice battles as Scout Team QB with Mohammed's. I'll say this. I'll say this. If there was, if we had to start just randomly switching around positions, I think Belichick would thrive in this situation. That's all say about that. All right.

Next question. From Daniel to you wear. I love this question. Who should be the NFL's designated COVID quarterback in the event a team like Denver today couldn't feel with one. So this is someone who's unattached who would sit far away and just be on call to play emergency quarterback for all 32 teams. All right. So it's got to be someone who's available, right? So I'm looking at a list.

So there's some uninspiring choices here. Eli Manning, obviously, was in the league last year. As far as free agents, obviously, and listen, and I'm not going to this right now. Colin Kaepernick is like not is should not be on this list because he should be a starting quarterback in the NFL to be. That's a different conversation. On a normal Sunday, Colin Kaepernick should start in the NFL. It's a different conversation. This is about emergency COVID quarterbacks like we saw today.

Paxton Lynch is a free agent. Chad Kelly. Drew Stam. This is all. Sure. You're, this is a failure of imagination. It's Tony Romo. he would love it

can he keep broadcasting yeah he does and that's the trick of me so he has to play in a different window and then he logs on it maybe maybe he's in the same game he's broadcasting okay now here's my question though because I think if this is the case I think we can like do some under the table stuff

and get Bortals to leave the Broncos see so Bortles was ruled out today and I understand where you're coming from on this. I think the Bordals playing. I think Bordle's playing. I think Bordle's, I think, no, no, no, no, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying.

You're saying you want to see every team function with Blake Bortles or quarterback. Like, what do the Chiefs look like with like Bortles or quarterback? What do the Steelers look like with like Bortle's a quarterback? Well, some days, we kind of know. Yeah, we kind of know that one, but the Chiefs is juicy. We kind of know what that looks like. The Chiefs would be interesting. with Blake Bortals.

I would say the two things I wish I could see, and I don't want anyone to actually do it because I don't want to waste anybody's time. I'd like to see Patrick Mahomes on the Adam Gase Jets. I'd like to see Blake Bordels on the Andy Reed Chiefs. I don't want to see. I just want to simulate. I want to do the Dr. Strange, like just very quick simulation, see what that says.

All right. You know who the dream is? Can we save Sam Darnold and put him in... Is he the COVID quarterback? Make Sam Darnold the COVID quarterback. Save him from the jet. with one more. Hit you with one more.

Yeah. Brett Fav. Incredible. He's ready. You know he's ready. You know he's ready. He would love it. I mean, also, like, how badly did L.Way want to play in that game?

He would have done it. And they almost started the former UCF guy who's 30, but he hasn't played in years. The former UCF guy. That guy. Rob Calabrese, I think, is the name. All right. clickbait headline Nora go ahead

So I think it's going to be a Like I think it's going to be a Rams one Just something about Trouble between McPhey and Gough I think we're going to be in I think we're in in the market For not in the market I think we're due for some kind of sketchy Rams takes Just because normally

Sean McFay does not say the quiet part out loud And he did that today Golf sting is the quiet part. That's the quiet part. It's not the quiet part for anybody besides Sean McVey. But normally how Sean McVeigh

expresses that sentiment is just like, got to execute, man. I think that we're going to see the Tom Brady thing going to overdrive, super duper overdrive, with my guess.

Yeah. Like, we already saw Rob Ninkovich came out last week and made some comments. I think we're just going to see a little bit more of that. Brady,

after the game said, it's just external noise. You know that, you know that Brady thing. he does, which he's just like, I don't, I got so much to do here on my plate. The two things Brady does is he talks about how much he doesn't listen to the outside noise. And the other thing is, if something just insane happens, he'll just be like, well, you know, I've seen a lot of things in my career. And this is just one of them. And then that's how he deflects everything. So Brady knows

how to deflect, but I feel like you're going to see those sort of debate shows. Just kick it up a notch a little bit. All right. On Tuesday, great week of shows, Tuesday, Ryan, and Cole Wright are back. Warren Sharp and Chris Vernon on Wednesday. We are back on Thursday, very cool guest. And then Friday, Warren and Joe House with one of my favorite podcasts. This has been the Renfell Show on the Ringer Podcast Network.