The Ringer NFL Show - Week 13 Recap: Eagles Beat the Ravens, Bills Dominate the 49ers, and More

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Sheil, Steven, and Diante return to discuss, debate, and share their expert takes on their favorite games from the Sunday NFL slate. Eagles-Ravens (2:30) 49ers-Bills (21:59) Chargers-Falcons (37:31) Cardinals-Vikings (53:11) They then survey the league and offer superlatives and awards to the players, coaches, and teams who made newsworthy contributions to the Week 13 headlines (1:03:30). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee Producers: Chris Sutton, T Cruz, and Mark Panik Production Supervision: Conor Nevins, Arjuna Ramgopal, and Daniel Comer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's happening? It's Todd McShay and I'm back with a new home and a new show at the Ringer and Spotify. The McShay Show. It's a video and audio podcast coming to you year round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of my best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts. During the week, we'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that will include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be. keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week to the college football playoff polls and giving you previews and picks for each Saturday's slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction to the full day in college football every week. So if you love the college game, the NFL, the draft, or all of it like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe, and get ready

for the McShay show on the ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here with Deontay Lee and Stephen Ruiz. Good to have you watching on Fandual TV or listening on Spotify. We are going to recap all the action. And Deonti, you just reminded me before we came on that they say, the season doesn't start until after Thanksgiving for the teams, for the players. That's for podcasters as well.

We're ready to go now, finally. 1,000% and I'm also trying to show some solidarity with my East Coast co-host by doing a little performance. of coldness with the Columbia jacket. I've got my apple cider here to enjoy as we're podcasting as well. So coming off of the Sunday night football game, I'm trying to show at least a little bit of alignment with what you guys are going through, even though I will never experience this over here. He's appropriating cold culture.

Him in his 65-degree weather. He's over there and is bundled up and drinking hot beverages. We should be insulted. Deontes in San Diego, jacket on drinking hot cider. Ruiz and I are on the East Cold. but you know what, I like the chill in the air because it means we are getting to the stretch run of football season.

The playoff picture is clearing up a little bit the contenders, the pretenders, all that stuff. We're going to get to all of it, but you know how we start the show. Every week, we go through lessons. What did we learn this week? It's week 13. Stephen Ruiz, you are up first. What did you learn?

All right, we're going to have to have a conversation about Justin Tucker. I know the Ravens don't want to have it. I know John Harbaugh is saying it wouldn't be wise to move on from Justin Tucker, but he missed two kicks in this game, two field goals in this game, he missed an extra point in the game

that ends up being decided by five. I think the score is a little deceiving there. It was garbage time when the Ravens cut it down to a five-point lead. But that's Tucker's eighth missed field goal on the season. That's more than he's missed in any other season going back, even going back to his rookie year,

and he's cost the Ravens 61% in terms of win probability over the season. He cost him 28% of win probability in this game alone. And for a team that we've seen start to show cracks on the offensive side, I still think this is the best offense in the league. I think Lamar Jackson has been the best quarterback in the league this year, although Josh Allen is threatening him for that title. But we've also seen cracks on the defensive side. I don't know if this team has the margin for error to survive a kicking performance this bad.

And it's not like Justin Tucker has gone from the best kicker of all time to a mediocre or slightly above average kicker. He is like the worst kicker in the NFL right now. He's missed more kicks than anybody in the NFL. And then going back to last year, he's one for five from 50 yards out. So the signs were there. I think there are signs that he is regressing. And I don't think we can chalk this up to a rough patch that the Ravens are going to get over and that Tucker's going to get over. This is a serious problem.

Here's what Ravens fans might not want to say out loud right now, admit right now. I agree with you, Ruiz. But this game, this loss to the Eagles, this. this felt like their playoff losses of seasons passed in a way where you know you're going well wait how are we losing this game we're moving the ball wait missed field goal drop all of a sudden you're giving up a 25 yard touchdown run not to say they outplayed the eagles to your point by the time it got to the end but for most of this game for three quarters of this game it was that type of game and it's like the things they've been able to count on in years past in the regular season where

they say, we've got this going into the playoffs. And then they play a playoff game. And we all look up and go, wait, I thought they had that. They didn't have that in this game. And that's kind of what this loss felt like to me. And, you know, they don't have breathing room for these losses anymore. They've had bad losses this season. They've got to win these games.

And now all of a sudden, they feel unsettled for all the reasons you pointed out. Part of it is their offense has not looked nearly as good the past few weeks. Their defense has looked a little bit better, but you don't trust that as like a dominant, side of the football. And now you're throwing in this Justin Tucker thing. The thing they've been able to count on for the most part for so many years here. And just a couple more numbers to add to what you said there, Ruiz, from 50 plus, he is 44% on the season. The rest of the NFL is 72%. He is 63% from 40 to 49 yards. The rest of the NFL is 75%. So when he attempts a field goal of 40 yards or more, it's almost a coin flip.

He's 53% on those this year. And like you said, they're a very good team. I think we all believe they're a Super Bowl contender, but they're not like a juggernaut. Like they're not going to go into the playoffs as the favorite. They might have to go on the road in the playoffs. And so you can't have this added to your team at this point. And it's not just right now.

It's going on all season. Deonti, but I don't know what the fix is. Is there a fix? this something they just have to live with. If you were going to address this and admit that this was a problem, the time to do it would have been after the loss of the Browns, where I think they had an opportunity to tie it late in that game. Justin Tucker misses a field goal. The Browns go or they maybe would have extended the lead. The Browns go down and take the lead win that football game, right? I think

that would have been kind of like a boiling point if you were going to identify one and say, it's entirely possible that this season is going to hinge on the leg of a guy who was showing classic signs of regression, if not falling off the cliff outright. I think that to keep him now, you look up, you've got a month left in the season, what are the answers? You know, there really aren't many left, which leaves him, I think, probably as precarious a position you can be in. And, Sheila, I love the way that you teed that up talking about their playoff losses

in the past because you're watching the first half and it's like, okay, they're connecting with Zay Flowers. You know, they're not necessarily popping big explosive runs, but you can see Derek Henry's pretty effective as a hammer trying to keep them on schedule. Lamar Jackson is able to extend. Obviously, you get that incredible touchdown pass to Mark Andrews, where he snatches it out the sky after Lamar extends. And that was preceded by another play where he rolls out to his left by some time,

throws the ball deep and connects with the Rashad Bateman, I think. And you're thinking, all right, this is the Ravens offense. We've been watching when it's at its best. It's a machine. Even when things seem like it's going wrong for them, they always have number eight to be able to solve problems for them. And they were playing extremely well defensively to start this game. And then you just look at the way that the margin for error just,

drinks on this team because it beats itself. And this week, it was in the kicking game. It was in the special teams game. And I think that when you're talking about how they play against contenders, which is really all that matters for this team for the rest of the season, who's to say that they're not going to cost themselves a game against the Texans, a team that they should be able to dominate wire to wire based on how the two teams are playing because something goes wrong in a special team's game or this team has another bad penalty outing. And that has just been the story of this season for this team. And we've continue to try to give them credit for being as talented as they are and trying to solve some

of their problems on the fly. But similar to how we've talked about the chiefs, there just comes to a certain point where you have to acknowledge the fact that this team is going to cause itself its own problems and the kind of problems they cause themselves could very well be the season ending variety. Yeah, it really could. I mean, like you said, we're 13 weeks in now and how many times are we going to have these types of content? Like they're a game. There's no doubt they're a game. They can beat any team in the NFL, but it feels more unsciting. You know, right now is when you kind of want to be peaking or have an upward, you know, trajectory. And right now they feel as unsettled as ever. I mean, I mentioned the offensive stuff.

They're two worst offensive performances based on success rate have come in the last three weeks. I thought today Lamar Jackson had to put the cape on way too many times. We've had this conversation. I feel like a hundred times this season where the best version of this Ravens' offense is when, hey, they're doing a lot of stuff in structure. Todd Monkin's scheme is working. But if Lamar Jackson needs to be creative, he can do that. A lot of today, I thought, was Lamar Jackson needing to be creative. The scheme was not necessarily working for him today.

You have that. You have safety Marcus Williams was a healthy scratch today. Deonti Johnson, who they traded for, did not get in the football game. And now you have the Tucker thing. So I don't know, Ruiz. What is your sort of state of the Ravens at this point in the season? Am I painting too bleak of a picture? picture or do you have some concerns?

No, I do have concerns. Like, I'm not as confident that this team is going to reach the AFC title game as I was. If you asked me two weeks ago, and I think this game was the first time that we really saw Lamar tried to put on the cape and struggle to do so, too. I mean, it was still a positive day for him overall. Like, I think he finished with a positive EPA. He's only finished with a negative EPA like twice this whole season or maybe even one time this whole season. But I thought this performance for the offense was about negative plays. and their inability to avoid them.

Even Lamar Jackson, who we've been talking about, he just doesn't get sacked this year. He was sacked three times this year. It was his second highest sack rate of the season. And it just seemed like the Eagles rush plan wasn't necessarily to collapse the pocket and get those quick sacks. It was to keep them caged inside the pocket

and just tighten it, not give him those exit lanes. And I thought they did a better job than any other defense I've seen this year in terms of keeping him in the pocket and not letting him turn into a scrambler. I mean, he's inevitable. He's going to get outside of the pocket.

He's going to make plays. But even the plays he made, they weren't like the plays you're used to seeing with Lamar where he does all the hard work, the difficult work before he lets go with the ball. These plays, he had to escape for his life. And then he's still throwing 50-50 balls to Mark Andrews. He's making an amazing catch-over defenders. Nothing was easy about this game. And I think the more we see that, the more the cracks are going to show up,

the more we're going to realize that this receiving core still isn't where it needs to be if this team's going to win a Super Bowl, or win a Super Bowl convincingly. I still think they have the talent on the roster. The defense did look better, and I think that's the silver lining you could take away from this game. Is this defense is starting to shore up some of those mistakes we've been harping on all season? We didn't see really an explosive play downfield too often.

We saw A.J. Brown kind of break a tackle and create an explosive play, but it wasn't the coverage busts we're used to seeing. So I do think there's something positive to take away from this, but we saw the floor of this offense. And I think the floor is a little lower than we realized coming into this week. To Steven's point, one of my favorite shots from the production crew was a fourth and eight that they ended up not converting that effectively ended the game. And you saw Tony Romo kind of note just what the zone shell looked like on the back end before Scherzumacom got his hands on that pass to break it up and ultimately finished the game for the Eagles on defense. And that's

what I think the success was for Big Fangio and the defense on that end. And I think that that's what painted the problems for the Ravens' offense. This is not necessarily the way that they lost to the Chiefs in the AFC championship game where guys couldn't separate from tight coverage. This was more so Vig Fangio, I think, trusting that hey, our guys have a good enough understanding of where these routes are going to be breaking

that if we're in the windows, these are not guys who are going to make those tier one plays over the top of our defenders. They're not going to win at the catch point more often than we will. And I thought that that's what played out. I thought that again, in the first quarter, when Lamar was playing at his best and he was able to extend and push the ball

downfield and we saw more coverage break downs from Philadelphia. That to me ended up being more of the outlier on a down to down basis. And that's not necessarily what I expected based on the way that this game started. And this is all to give credit to the Eagles before we even interface what they did in the second half with Saquan Barkley in the run game. And that was ultimately what ended up being the backbreaking factor in this game. Deonté just touched on some of it. My lesson for week 13. And I didn't think I'd be here. Trust me. is that the Eagles are right there with any Super Bowl contender in the NFL, in my opinion,

in this weird season where I don't think there's that one team or those two teams that I'm like, no, they're getting there unless something goes horribly wrong. I think they're right there in that top tier with everyone else. And Deonté was talking about that Eagles defense. And that's where it starts for me. And again, this is not something I thought was even in the range of possibilities when we went into the season. They have one of the best defenses, maybe the best defense.

in the NFL right now. They did not completely shut down that Ravens offense. No one's going to do that. But when you look at what guys like Jalen Carter, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeGine, Zach Bonn in this game, and how Vic Fangio has played to everyone's strengths. I mean, these are two rookies I just mentioned.

There's a guy, Zach Bonn, they signed from the New Orleans Saints for a low-level contract, and he's been one of their best players all season long. So defensively, I feel like if you're able to do what they were able to do to the Ravens today, your defense is going to keep you in almost every game. And then the formula for this team, we've talked about it before. Well, what if they get in a game where they got to lean on their drop back passing game?

And it's like, it's hard for me to even imagine like how do they get into that type of game? You know what I mean? Because they get down early in this game and they can be down like 173 in the third quarter and they don't need to stop running the football at that point. So unless it's a situation where it's like the last four minutes of a game and you need two scores, other than that, they can kind of play their style of play. and their offensive line is their star. They're able to outlast every other team.

Saquan Barkley has more rushing yards in the fourth quarter than any other team in the NFL. So they're just really well positioned right now. It's different than what we talked about with the Ravens, where it feels like the Eagles have found their identity after a very shaky first five weeks of the season. They're relatively healthy. They want to run the football. They want to lean on their offensive line.

And their defense, again, is one of the best in the NFL. So, Deante, I'm putting them. right there with any team as a Super Bowl contender right now. I'm with you 100% and, you know, I know that you're not, you're not the Eagles fan that I am, right? Like, but this was probably the first time really watching this game. I would say maybe some of Sunday night last week played into this as well where I kind of have like a sinking feeling of like, oh man, they're going to kind of force me to believe

that this team can go win a Super Bowl. As much more comfortable as a fan when you think like, we'll be good and maybe we land there, you know, you might fall backwards into a Super Bowl. this team looks very, very similar, maybe not the same play style-wise, but it feels very similar to what it was in the back half of the 2022 season, where you look up and you say, oh, this team's got a recipe. Teams cannot knock them off of playing the game that they want to play. And they were able to come out in the second half and just dictate the terms at the line of scrimmage in a way that I didn't think they'd be able to do against the Ravens defensive

front that's been able to control the run game against most of the teams they played. And then on the other side of the ball, and we talked about this when we were focusing on the Ravens, I thought that they did a great job of just being disciplined in their rush lanes. They didn't do what Cincinnati did earlier this year where it was like, we're just throwing everything against the wall and just hoping that the Ravens make a mistake. It wasn't, you know, making high risk, high reward types of exchanges in terms of play calls. I think that in the first half, they kind of realized what the Ravens were trying to do to dictate personnel.

They made some adjustments in their play calling. I thought Vic Fangio did a great job in making sure that Cooper DeGine was on the field and near the ball. And that's the best way that they play. and they were able to take away a lot of running lanes and passing windows because they have these guys that have great, you know, change of direction ability and are good, you know, open field tacklers. And they made sure those guys were in position to make those plays. And they did. So just from a top to bottom in terms of all the things that we were maybe complaining about the Eagles not doing well in the beginning of the season in terms of managing game situations, in terms of executing in high leverage situations.

This team is 100% that. That's how they're winning games now. And I think that that change and that improvement over the last, you know, five or six weeks is a big reason why I'm such a believer in this team right now. I think I'm also there, but I'm also only there because of conference alignment. I think if they were in the AFC, I wouldn't trust them to win three straight games where this drop back passing game is that much of a concern. Like they started moving the ball because they started running a college offense in the second quarter. We're just going to call RPO's. We're going to call drag routes against man coverage.

At a certain point, a team is going to make you drop back and pass the football. Now, in the NFC, every other contender has a similar issue going on. Like, we've seen Detroit kind of struggle when they have to play left-handed, they can't play on the front foot. And of course, Minnesota is going to be, that situation is going to be precarious for them with Sam Darnold, who was itching to throw an interception in this game again, but managed not to against Arizona. So there are questions that are just as strong for every other NFC contender

that you could apply to Philly, but none of them have a defense that I've seen do this to a top level opponent yet. And that has to make them the number one team in the NFC right now, in my opinion. And I think that some of their strengths on offense are a little more reliable just because you have Sequin Barclay as an outlet, as a runner, as a pass catcher. And like Schill said, even when you fall behind in the game script, it doesn't matter. It kind of reminds me of those early Legion of Boom Seattle teams. Like that comeback against the Packers in I think it was the 2014 NFC Championship game,

that was on the back of Marshawn Lynch. Like they were down by three scores and they just kept running the football and kept getting explosives on the ground and then they eventually get back in that game. I feel like the Eagles have a similar setup with their defense. I don't think it's quite the Legion of Boom defense,

but it's like she'll said, it might be the best in the NFL right now. And this run game is amazing. We haven't really seen something quite like it in terms of down-to-down stability plus that potential for explosives on any time Barkley gets the ball. Yeah, I mean, they had 112 yards net passing.

today in the year 20, 24. I looked up, I'm like, how many teams have won a game this year with such few passing yards? There's been nine examples of it in the NFL this season, and two are by the Eagles. So it's a, you're right. I mean, the RPOs, and that's something that hasn't worked for them all season long. And this was like a step in the right direction with those in the second quarter, Ravens were playing a lot of zone coverage, and they were hitting them with the RPO's. And then it's just like, you run it, you run it. And it just feels like a matter of time. I think we talked about that on our preview show where it was like, which defense is going to be able to last in the fourth quarter to not allow the opposing running back to break off that big run.

And it ended up being the Eagles defense was able to do that. And the Ravens all of a sudden give up that 70 yards scoring drive to the Eagles. And that ends up being the difference in the game. So they're in a good spot right now. They're going to be no worse than the two seat in the NFC, unless they have a complete meltdown. Because you look at the NFC South and the NFC West, they've got like a three game lead over those divisions. And of course, they've got the lead over the commanders here. So it really looks like right now, a lot of things can change. But right now it's going to be them.

And then whoever wins the NFC North, whether that's the Lions or someone else. And their remaining schedule, I mean, they finished the season with the Giants and the Cowboys the last two weeks. They've still got the Panthers on the schedule. So anything can happen. Panthers are Panthers fans. Don't get mad. I know much more competitive team than you were a month ago.

Eagles are 12 and a half point favorites in that game next week. And then you look at the lion schedule. And it's a lot tougher than what the Eagles have left here. So we'll say this is a week to week league as we're learning with these conversations about the Ravens and the Eagles. But they've got to be thrilled with getting these victories back to back weeks. You go to Los Angeles. You beat the Rams. And then you go to Baltimore. You beat the Ravens. And now you get the easier part of your schedule. And you've won eight in a row. All right. We take a break. We come back. We learn what Deonti learned. What lesson did Deontay learn in week 13? Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook, because right now new customers can bet $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if you win. The Fandual Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place live bets on the NFL all in one place.

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Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook. Fandul.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. Deontay, you're up. What lesson did you learn in week 13? Is that Kansas City better go undefeated?

it the rest of the way because if they give home field advantage to the bills, the bills are walking to the Super Bowl. Right now, they look like the best team in the NFL to me. Like I look at, and obviously, you know, San Francisco's dealing with injury problems. They're kind of limping towards a finish line in a lot of ways. And I think that we'll get to, you know, some of the recent updates with some of the injury issues that they're having. But I think that when I was watching the Sunday night football game, I had this thought that there are identity wins, right, where a team just kind of plays to what they want to do and you get to see them, you know, kind of manifest all the play calls, the scheme, the use of personnel.

And then to me, there are institutional wins where you can feel from a top-down level that this is what the team was built to do and they can do it against anybody. And the bills have done that in their high-profile games of late. Basically, after those losses to Houston and Baltimore, this has just been a team that's leaned on exactly what they've been trying to build this team out to be. And it's been successful. You look at what they did in the ground game, almost four and a half yards after contact per rush season best from them.

They average seven and a half yards per carry this week this week. They've been one of the best rushing attacks in the NFL. I mean, James Cook averaged seven and a half yards per carry. As a team, they average 5.8, so just under six. I thought that for them winning at the line of scrimmage and basically just taking the heart out of San Francisco's defense, which has struggled to stop the run all year, but clearly was hapless. Whether the weather conditions were ideal or not, there was nothing that San Francisco

was going to do to win at the line of scrimmage. And when they're able to play that kind of football game, where all Josh Allen has to do is extend every handful of dropbacks to be able to find a Dawson Kincaid or find a Khalil Shakir, and you're able to get those shallow crosses and those overrouts running into a bunch of voids in coverage because these teams have to crowd the line of scrimmage to stop the run game, I don't know how you stop a team that's as balanced as Buffalo is right now.

And they didn't have to lean on the return of Matt Bolano to play well defensively in the way that we talked about in the preview show earlier this week. So to me, I think that in terms of checking boxes, I don't know if any team is playing to peak capacity at the level that Buffalo has been lately, especially relative to competition level. And right now to me, I don't know how anybody in the AFC can feel like they can go to high mark stadium and beat that team if they had to in a playoff environment. I mean, if I'm Baltimore, I'm still kind of confident I can do it. I still haven't seen Buffalo tackle Derek Henry in like five years.

That would be the one thing I would cling on to. And I still don't trust the defense. I don't trust the defense against a good quarterback in the playoffs. I need to see it. And I still don't trust the offense for, I mean, it has been a couple of months now that we've seen this team kind of be forced to play in a certain role. And we've seen Josh Allen get forced into hero mode. But I still think that's in this team. And I mean, but you could say that you could point out a flaw with every contender in this league.

And not every team has a quarterback that's playing at this level. Josh Allen just gives them immunity to any style of game. They can fit in with any style of game. I mean, what did he do tonight? He averaged over eight yards per dropback in this slop that they played in. Brock Purdy could barely throw the ball at times in this. And Josh Allen didn't seem bothered at all. He was one of his best games in terms of like efficiency, offensive efficiency.

He only had 18 dropbacks, but he didn't need that many dropbacks with the way the game was going. He's just an amazing player. And I mean, I've been Team Lamar for MVP all season long, but these are the types of games where you start to rethink that. All right, Ruiz, so I feel like we do this exercise. I don't know if it's every week, every few weeks. One team out of the AFC to get to the Super Bowl,

you have to choose right now. Who do you got? I mean, I almost have to pick Buffalo by default. You don't have to. I'm sticking with the Ravens. I'm going one more week. Ask me again next week. All right, yeah.

No recency bias. If you feel it's the Ravens, it's the Ravens. I just can't get that game out of my mind from September. And I know it's from September, and these teams are going to be totally different by the time January rolls around. But Derek Henry won't be different. And he will still be there. Number eight will still be there. And those slapsed reckon with that two-headed monster in the backfield.

And I don't think, like, even as good as Buffalo's defense has looked. And it's looked a lot better than I thought it would with this, like, no-name roster, especially on the back end. I don't think it's suited to stopping that style of run game. I think that's fair. I feel like the last three times we've done this, I've been on both. I've been leaning Buffalo. That's time you definitely have to build. Like I said, I mean, the defense to me is just clearing the bar of what it has to be.

I would not say that it's ceiling. It's as high as what even Baltimore's can be at its best, right? When they have Kyle Hamilton playing at his best, when Nate Wiggins is playing well on the perimeter, I do think that they just have a level of playmaking on the Ravens defense that the bills can't match. But I do feel like in terms of just having solid role players everywhere along this defensive front, and on the back seven, I think that that makes it so much easier on a guy like Von Miller, who was taking a step back from being the dominating force he was a few years ago.

But now if he only has to have five or six quality pass rush reps a game, instead of 20 to 25, that's a winning formula for them because they're getting enough from the rest of this defense. Terrell Bernard has been great in Matt Milano's absence, and I'm interested to see how much better Matt Milano can be almost as a force multiplier in terms of their middle of field defense. And I do think that that's going to be necessary, right? I do think that you can get after these safeties.

Taylor Rap has been susceptible to giving up plays downfield, not always the best tackler. DeMar Hamling can be a bit of a gambler in coverage. He's not always in the right spot and he's not necessarily a playmaker or, you know, one of the ranging middle of field players. So there are still ways, I think, to take advantage of this team. I just think that the defense reaches the baseline it needs to for what this offense is doing to give them as many bites at the apple as possible to beat most teams in the NFL.

And I think that that's just one. has been manifested on Sundays over the last few weeks. All right. In the past, when we've done this exercise, I've made sure we're safe and have one person still saying, settle down by the time we get to January, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. Join us. We'll be the team. Come on.

However, like everybody else, I watch that game on Black Friday. And I cannot do it anymore. I cannot. I cannot hold the mantle for the Kansas City Chiefs. Since 2000, there have been 23 teams who have had 11 wins at this point in the season. None have had a worse point differential than the 2024. They are plus 54 on the season, and yet they are 11 and 1. I am the they can't keep getting away with this meme. Maybe they'll figure down, but I'm coming over to DiLen. I am the they can't keep getting away with this meme. Maybe they'll figure down, but I'm coming over to DiO. Dante's side, I feel like if I had to pick right now and put, you know, my favorite hat on the line here, I'm going with the Buffalo Bills. I just think they can win different types of games. I hear what you're saying, Ruiz. Ravens took it to him. That was such a rare occurrence to this Bill's team. And so I understand it could be matchup based, but I need to see more quarterbacks playing out of his mind. Offensive line is very good and healthy. They can run the ball in the snow. They can throw the ball 45 times in a dome if they need to do that. And their defense is overachieved. You're right.

Would it surprise me if they're in a playoff game and the defense gets lit up? No, because they've had better defenses than this before. And then in a one game playoff, that defense gets cooked. So I'm with you there. I'm not saying like I feel great about it and they're definitely going to get there. But there are things lining up for them that's just maybe. Maybe this is the year the bills get over the hump with the rest. If this was this bill's team against like a previous version of the chiefs,

then I would still be going with the Chiefs, I think. But this version of the Chiefs, I can't do it. I've seen the bills beat them. And if they're playing each other tomorrow on a neutral field, or you know what, maybe even an Arrowhead, I might still be tempted to pick the bills. I've seen them get outplayed by Bryce Young, Aidan O'Connell, and Bo Nex in the last month.

Like the benefit of the, you waste the benefit of the doubt when that happens. That's not exaggeration. Yeah, they really have. But here's my pitch for the Ravens. So let me ask this. Offense, just offense, Buffalo or Barclays. Baltimore, which one are you taken? Honestly, you could genuinely flip a coin, and I think I'd be okay with either.

I think that's a fair answer. I think I would say bills, the numbers would say Ravens. If you just ask me my feel, no one has a worse gut to me. The gut's always wrong. I'm telling you right now. But my gut says, who would I trust more? I think I would trust the bills right now. That could be a recency bias, but that's how I feel.

Yeah, I'm leaning bills as well, Sheal, but this is truly a coin flip for me. I mean, you just saw them playing in the snow, like literally playing in the snow. Like Josh Allen took a pitch off of a pass and scored a touchdown off of it. Passed and scored a touchdown on the same play. So I think there is a little bit of recency bias. I think the numbers definitely point in Baltimore. Okay, now the other side of the ball. Defense, which one are you taking?

I'm taking Baltimore. Like, since week nine, they are ninth in EPA. They are third in yards per plate allowed. They are fourth in first down percentage allowed. They are eighth in success rate. Like, they've kind of figured things out outside of the coverage busts and the penalties. Deante said it earlier. They definitely have the higher ceiling.

I mean, I think you can make the argument that the Ravens are the sure thing on both sides of the ball. And I'm willing to concede it's a 50-50 proposition on offense, but it's not on defense. You could say it is. I mean, on defense for the season, the bills have had the better defense this season. Yeah, that's fair. But I mean sealing in January, who you trusting more. I think it's not a question. Right.

One game sample. And you know what, Stephen, I like that you did this. Kind of walk me back off of my ledge a little bit because I do think the margins are maybe a little bit tighter. between Buffalo's A game and Baltimore's A game. I would say definitely since they took Marcus Williams and Eddie Jackson off the field, this defense has like magically looked a lot more viable on the back end. That's really been it. It's kind of wild.

Yeah. And that was with Royquins Smith suffering a hamstring injury and basically being limited, if not just missing games outright over some of that span of time as well. I do think that maybe the margins are tighter than they would have been maybe a month or so ago. So I'll give Buffalo the edge on offensive Baltimore, the edge on defensive for talking about ceilings right now. And I guess you probably could flip a coin.

I just think right now if Buffalo's playing at home, I don't know how you're beating that team in a home environment in the playoffs with the way they're playing right now. Bring it back around. The key question, Tyler Bass or Justin Tucker. That's not even a conversation.

Not even a conversation. Maybe I'm dumb. Maybe I'm naive. I'm taking Justin Tucker. Okay. You're like Hardball. You still believe in him. All right. And Romo. Romo was like, yeah, he saw, I think Hardball came over and gave Justin Tucker a hug. And then Romo was like, oh, that's, it's fixed. He's going to make a game of field goal to get the chance. Yeah, Romo did love that. All right, last note on this Bill's Niners game,

Christian McCaffrey, Kyle Shanahanis, suffered a potential season-ending PCL injury. So he comes back, has had a rough season, had the Achilles, and now it looks like he could be done for the season. 49ers lose this game. It was in the snow, weird conditions in Buffalo. They're two back still in the NFC West,

with five to play. Seahawks are seven and five. Cardinals and Rams are six and six. 49ers are five and six remaining schedule. Bears, Rams, at dolphins, lions, at Cardinals. So five games left, two division games. Ruiz, last time we did this exercise, you and I said, they're not quite dead yet.

Have you changed your mind after the McCaffrey news and after this loss? Or are you saying probably dead, but not definitely dead? No, they're dead. They're dead. This was it. And it wasn't like that they lost. Like I said this earlier in the week. Like they have this game. They could lose this game. It was the manner in which they lost. And the CMC injury is the biggest part of that. I mean, he looked good before getting hurt. Yeah, he really did. The best he's looked all season, right? Yeah, seven attempts, 53 yards at 7.6 yards per carry, 5.86 yards per carry after contact. Like, that's the Christian McCaffrey we wanted to see. We wanted to see the explosive runs. We want to see the broken tackles. It happens. Maybe the snow assisted that. Like, there was bad footing. Players were kind of running gingerly. So I don't know if that would have translated it to a more normal environment.

But it was the McCaffrey you wanted to see. We're not going to see that version. I mean, I don't know. It seems like he's going to be out for an extended period of time. If he isn't and he comes back and he looks like he did on. Sunday night outside of the snow, then maybe they are alive. But right now, with all the information provided, like, I don't know how you could believe that this team has a chance other than, like, what you saw last year influencing it. The offense hasn't looked good since the Buccaneers game. It's been bad three weeks in a row, and that was with Christian McCaffrey being back. And with his absence, I just don't know how they generate the offense that they need, especially

in the drop back passing game to just keep pace with the team like the Rams or the lions or the Cardinals later on in the year. I just don't see it. They were already kind of back into needing to be a perfect team, basically the rest of the way. And you just look at what this defense has been like the last two weeks on the road. I mean, teams are just absolutely dominating them up front, moving the ball at will in the ground game.

They're not getting the pressure that they need to without Nick Bosa. I mean, there's just so many things that have gone sideways for this team. And so I don't want to position this as though it's heartbreaking. This is just what happens when the team gets hurt, right? I think that they're just, They've just run out of horses. I think that it's particularly frustrating because of all the one-score games that they've lost, especially early in the year.

They kind of missed out on an opportunity to bank some wins that they should have had. And I think that that's put them in a rough spot. And maybe that's why, you know, I know that you guys and a lot of people have kind of hung on to the 49ers because the argument was always there that a top 10 offense in a league average defense should be better than the record reflects. But now I just don't see a defense that can hold its position. around league average anymore with the way they're playing. And if they don't have two of their best horses between Brandon Iuk who got hurt over a month ago,

and now Christian McCaffrey being back out of the lineup, I just don't know how they move the ball well enough to win games. All right. I'm going to say probably dead, but not definitely dead. Listen, I got to give up on the Bengals tonight, so I need a replacement. I have trouble committing. Are you officially doing that? Cincinnati's done, finally?

Yeah, you'll hear about that. You'll hear about that later in the show. Yeah, the Bengals are officially done. I need a replacement. I don't like fear of commitment generally, but then when I do commit, I have fear of, you know, letting go. So it's just the more we do the show, the more you learn about some of the issues that I have. And listen, there are two games back. It's probably not going to happen.

But I look at the rest of those NFC West teams, or we're going to get to some of them here in a minute. No one's running away with this thing, you know? You win a game. You beat the Bears next week if they don't get the new coach bump. And maybe, you know, we're talking about them being one game back. Who knows? We'll say, all right, let's take a break. We come back.

We're playing a little game. If you listen last week, you know what the game is, but we've got three new teams to talk about. We'll do that in a minute. All right, we are back on the Ringer NFL show. Here's the game. It is called cooked, contender, play off pretender. Say it with me. No, I'm not going to make everyone chance.

It's okay. Did you make your family do the chant at Thanksgiving? Did you work out the show? It is fun to say. I'm telling you. It is very rhythmic. I did enjoy that. Yeah.

See, that was pretty good. That was my shining moment for the season there. The idea is simple. We are focusing on three teams that we watch today. And we're going to talk about what do we think of them after what we saw. Cooked means, it's over. See you next year. Not happening, not making the playoffs.

Contender means, you could see you maybe playing on championship weekend. Playoff pretender means you're somewhere in between. You still have a lot of. a shot to get into the tournament, but we're not taking you that seriously. When we talk about Super Bowl contenders, you are not getting mentioned. All right. The first team on this list, we go to Atlanta, the Atlanta Falcons, lose to the Los Angeles Chargers 1713. Kurt Cousins throws four interceptions. They are now six and six. They have lost three in a row. Stephen Ruiz. we start with you, what do you got? Cooked, contender, or playoff pretender?

Oh, they're cooked. They're cooked. Kirk Cousins is cooked. This whole Kirk Cousins experiment is cooked. No, I don't want to rule that out because I think he can come back from the injury next year and be a little bit better. But right now, the guy can't move. And you watch them try to play offense with the quarterback that can't move in 2024. And the results are what you would expect. And the results are getting worse of late. Over the last three weeks, only two quarterbacks have a worse EPA average than him. Cooper Rush and Aaron Rogers. And those are not two guys you want to be compared to right now. He's thrown zero touchdowns and six interceptions over the last three games.

On the whole season, he's only attempted 20 passes outside of the pocket. The next closest starter, full-time starters, too, who missed, what do you miss a month with the concussion? He has 38, almost doubled him up. This guy is not moving. They're not calling play action. They're not calling the offense that we're used to seeing Kirk Cousins operate, where he's doing the boot action. He's rolling to his left or rolling to his right and making throws down.

field. He's not doing any of that. And just like the hot potato aspect of his game, which has always been a feature of his game where he just wants to get rid of the ball before taking a hit. I feel like it's gotten worse now that he's coming off this injury. And you saw it in this game. Like some, he threw four interceptions. He could have thrown more interceptions. He was just panicking at some points, just throwing into traffic so he didn't take a hit. And like, I don't know which interception was the worst of the four. My favorite happened to be the running one into the end zone where he just floated it up into a DB meeting room and it was picked off. But all the other ones were just as bad and just as egregious.

Rahim Morris, after the game was asked, are you going to think about moving on from him and starting Michael Pennix? He said no. He said the reason why we brought Kirk in was to be in position to make the playoffs and we're in position to make the playoffs. But you didn't bring Kirk in to have the 13th best offense in the NFL. And I don't know what making the playoffs and having the 13th best offense in the NFL accomplishes going forward.

you have this first round pick on your roster. He is presumably the future of the team. The current, the present of the team isn't playing well. He's playing bad, and he's actively holding you back from making the playoffs. They could have padded this lead in the NFC South. The NFC South is not playing well as a whole, but they lose three games in a row, three winnable games in a row. One of them at home to this Chargers team that was trying to give the game away.

And right now, maybe they make the wild card, but I think if they do, they get blown out and embarrassed. It's almost, they would almost be better off letting the bucks take that L for them. Yeah, you look at the standings right now. They are tied with the bucks for first place at six and six. So it very well could be a situation where one of them wins the division and the other one doesn't get in. You know, because you look at teams like the commanders, the Packers, the Vikings, they all have eight, nine, ten wins. So that is how this thing certainly could play out. Dei, someone's got to win the NFC South, though.

I guess on the flip side of this, are you where, Ruiz's with this Falcons team. Because they swept the Bucks games and have that lead on them, I think by definition, I can't yet say that they're cooked, I'll say a pretender. But spiritually, this team is cooked because you already know how they're going to lose a playoff game.

I do have a little trivia question for you guys. Kirk Cousins was pressured on just five dropbacks today. Do you know how many of those plays generated positive EPA? I'll let you take a guess. Zero. Zero is the answer.

I was going to guess one. Not a single play, not one of the five plays in which he was pressured, generated positive EPA. I think that, you know, and I was kind of buzzing in and out of this game because there was a lot happening around the second half while this game was still within, you know, still like within a contesting distance for the Falcons to take the lead. And you just saw so many key plays where Kirk Cousins is just standing, totally statuesque in a pocket, doesn't give himself an opportunity to find any other receiving. options because he won't move. And before a guy even gets in the range to lay a finger on him, he's just flinging the ball a lot of times in a double or triple coverage. So the four interceptions, if you just watch the highlights, that was an accurate picture of what the game was like. Basically from the first quarter on, he was very, you know, I haven't really seen him play

with the ball that loosely since he was in Washington. And that was like at the worst, at the worst points of his career when he was still, you know, terrified of pressure that he could not see in front of them, didn't always know where his blitz answers were. This is a guy that's seasoned, 36 years old, if I remember, if I remember right, he's played in this style of offense, his entire career, he should know it like the back of its hands. And to see him be so, I guess, just rendered useless by pressures and blitz looks that he's seen a hundred times over, to me, there's no closer to being cooked as a team that technically has a division lead than the Falcons are right now. And that's without even talking about the

fact that this defense is still one of the NFL's worst, and they played one of their better games this season. Yeah, maybe their best game of the season. Exactly. And their quarterback cannot be relied upon in the second half to get them the one scoring possession that they needed in order to win this football game. I feel like the call about him playing like he did in Washington early on is, like that's what it is. That's the version of Kirk Cousins we're seeing right now. And I know he's like known as a smart quarterback, but he's always been like an overthinker at quarterback. Like he's a guy where he has to think too much, he makes like a dumber decision than what you would expect from a guy who does, like, he seems to be a smart quarterback and understand the game.

Like, the best evidence is when they played Philadelphia, he was in Washington, and he kneeled instead of spiking the ball. Like, that's classic Kirk Cousins, making a decision-making under fire. And now that he can't move, it just gotten worse. And he's missing, like, easy reads in the offense. Like, these are plays, like Deonti said that he's been executing his whole career. And even those plays, he can't be counted on to execute them right now. So for me, like, I don't know if I would bench him just.

yet, but I definitely understand the calls for Pennings. I would want to see him too if I was a Falcons fan. I don't want to see this for the rest of the year. As a member of team content, I very much would like to see Penix in this offense. Because like you mentioned, this isn't just one game. Now, if you look at the season, all right, they've been kind of mediocre, slightly above average offense. But to your point, it's trending in the wrong direction. When it's trending in the wrong direction with a quarterback at this age who is coming off of an injury. Now, he was asked about it afterwards and was pretty adamant that I, you know, I wish I could tell you that there was something wrong physically and that's why I looked that

way. But no, I just had a bad game. But these were like very, this was a very concerning game. I mean, the arm does not look good. The decision making is bad. He doesn't want to get hit and he can't move. So what do you have? I mean, you have a run game. Like, I don't know. Like, I'm trying to picture if Pennix gets in there. It's not like, like this looked like a rookie making his first start in the NFL. These were atrocious interceptions that he his job today was to not lose the game. Like the other day said, their defense

did their job. Their defense allowed 10 first downs and 187 yards. Your job was to not lose the game. Don't throw that pick six and he couldn't do that. And so if you're like a teammate of Kirk Cousins, if you're someone in that organization, and I don't know what

Pennix has looked like in practice or anything like that, but I very much, I don't think it's like, you know, you're being irrational or impulsive to call for it. I think there's a rational aspect to moving to Michael Pennings and seeing what he has here. So I'm going to say cooked. I started this exercise

thinking playoff pretender, but I just wrote last week on the ringer.com that the bucks are winning the NFC South. So if I think that, then I just got to say cooked for the Atlanta Falcons because they paid Kirk Cousins a lot of money. He's a veteran. I think they'll stick with him probably longer than they should, but I do wonder at some

point if they go to Michael Pennix here. $180 million. Like that's how much money they gave this guy. Mike Tyson has a more convincing performance in the last month than Kirk Cousins does. Like he might as well be playing the sport from like an office chair that he could swivel around with. I have more mobility.

I have more mobility than Kirk Cousins does. I have a bulky IT band. Well, no, I might not. He probably still has a little more mobility than I do. Not much. Not much. Not much. All right.

So I had cooked. Sorry, what did everyone remind me? What did you have? We're all cooked. This is unique. Everyone's cooked. They're done. See you, Falcons. See you next year. Unless Michael Pennings gets in there. There'll be a little juice to this stretch run of the NFL season if Penix gets in there. Oh, God. They're playing the Vikings next week. Brian Flores versus a stationary target.

And revenge game for Kirk Cousins. Wow, a lot of juice to that one. All right. The next team with the team that the Atlanta Falcons played, the Los Angeles Chargers come away with the victory in this game. Big victory for them. They're eight and four. They're in a. great spot in the playoff picture, but this was not, shall we say, the most convincing win in the world, 10 first downs, 187 total yards in this game. But again, they come away with the win. I feel like I know I've shifted my opinion on the Chargers week to week. What do I think their ceiling is? That kind of thing. So I'm interested to hear what you guys say. Deontay, let's start with you. Where are you with the Los Angeles Chargers after this performance? If the AFC weren't as competitive as it was, and we spent a lot of time in the A block kind of talking about the top teams there, I might consider them being a contender, but I have to say that they're a pretender right now.

When you just look at some of the issues that they have on offense with finding guys that are not named Ladd-McConkie, they can move the chains for them. And how often Justin Herbert is put in positions where he has to have perfect accuracy after extending or shaking a guy off of them that gave him pressure and then having to pin the ball on Will Disley's, shoulder pad or pin the ball on Josh Palmer's shoulder pads to move the chains. Today was another example of that. And I think that this offense had looked better in the weeks prior. I thought against the Bengals, they looked really sharp when we reflected on that. I thought even in the Ravens game last Sunday night for all of the issues that they had, especially in the second half, I thought that for the most part, they were able to move the ball

when they needed to, especially early in the game when things were kind of operating on script for them. but in games like this against the falcons defense that's pretty hapless, you should be able to move the ball at will. So to only come out of that game with 10 first downs, to struggle on third down the way they did. I think Ladd McConkey was the only receiver of more than two receptions today, and he had like 117 yards, if I remember right?

And even in that, a lot of that is dink and dunks, these quick end-breaking routes or stopping right at the sticks. This offense isn't going to have the answers it needs to beat a Ravens team, to beat the Bills, to beat the Chiefs in a playoff environment. I don't trust them enough to do so. But I do think that this is a team that can make it interesting against anybody just because of what this defense can do and what Justin Herbert looks like when everything is dialed in around him. Yeah, that's what I have, Ruiz.

I have them as Pretender with an asterisk because this wasn't pretty, obviously. This was not their best game. But on the season, you know, they entered the week eighth in DVOA. They've played the Ravens and were competitive. They've played the Chiefs and they were competitive. So if I'm just like one of these teams looking at which wildcard teams, teams I could face. And you have Jim Harbaugh coming to your building who's coached in a lot of big games

and you have a quarterback in Justin Herbert. Again, I don't want to say they're a year ahead of schedule, but like this isn't supposed to be the year where they're actually contending. But if you told me they were a little bit of a disruptor in the AFC and maybe I'll change my mind by the time we get to that wild card weekend. But I would believe you there. Where are you with this Chargers team? I'm going to call them a contender just based on where they're positioned.

and how the bracket might work out. If the playoffs started today, they would get a Houston team that I have no confidence in whatsoever. I think they would beat that Houston team. And if they won that game, they would get the Chiefs in the next game. And we've already seen them play the Chiefs tough

with Justin Herbert nursing, the High Ankle sprain. The Chiefs next week, I think, too. Yeah, they play in Arrowhead, which would be a preview of the possible playoff matchup. It would be in Kansas City. So maybe I should answer this in a week.

But my overall sentiment about this team is the same that it was as it was a week ago. And that's, they have the quarterback to go on a run. They don't have the offense to go on a run. And they don't have the offensive coordinator and Greg Roman to go on a run. Because I think, and so much of the season has been built around the idea of taking stuff off of Justin Herbert's plate and making things easy on him. Forcing him or not forcing him to be Superman, like they have so many times in the past. But that's kind of happened by default because the running game hasn't been productive enough on a down-to-down basis.

They're not ready to be the Lions right now. You have to build up that offensive line to become the lines. You have to get a running back or a couple running backs that can create those explosive runs that they're getting like once or twice a game and that kind of boost their rushing numbers. We've joked about that all year. But like down to down, this running game is putting Justin Herbert behind the eight ball more often than not. And the offensive line and the past catchers aren't good enough for him to be able to drag them on his back out of those situations. And I think we're seeing that.

And I think in the playoffs eventually it's going to send them home. And I mean, the defense, I still trust the defense. I thought they played relatively well against the Ravens a couple weeks ago on Monday night football. But that just showed you that there is a floor to what they can be. Even if they are top five defense at the end of the year, the best offenses in the NFL are going to be able to exploit you in some ways. Yeah. In week 13, they had the second worst success rate of any offense, only the Titans were worst, second worst EPA per drive of any offense ahead of only the Jets. I mean, 10 first downs, 187 total yards, and you win the football game.

That is pretty uncommon. So again, and five sacks. How do you take five sacks against the worst pass rush in the NFL? So they are a flawed team, but they have some interesting little pieces. Even the defensive scheming in like a one game playoff, that would be pretty interesting to me against some of these other AFC teams. All right. So Ruiz is the same contender. I like that going out on a limb.

Deonté and I are saying. pretender, although Ruiz, I like your case. I mean, if you feel good about them beating the Texans and then, you know, who knows? And one game, you're one game away from the AFC championship. And like I said, they are in excellent shape here in the AFC playoffs.

All right. Last team to get to here is the Arizona Cardinals. If any team wishes, they could just kind of have their game back from week 13. It might be the Arizona Cardinals. They're up 196 in Minnesota with 4

minutes left in the third quarter and then things fall apart for them. They end up losing to the Vikings. They are now six and six tied for second place in the NFC West. They could have kept pace there with the Seattle Seahawks with a win in that game and been seven and five, but now it's all bunched up there in the NFC West. Ruiz, we'll start with you here. The Arizona Cardinals cooked contender or playoff Pretender. I'm going to go playoff Pretender. I thought they gave this game away, not just with blowing that lead, but Jonathan Gannon, which is just cowardly decision making there at the end. You heard Greg Olson kind of railing against it. Greg Olson has dealt with that mistake more times than not in Carolina. Ron Rivera was a very big fan of kicking when you're up three to extend

a lead to six instead of just putting the game away or trying to put the game away. The Cardinals were four yards away from having a 10-point lead late in this game. Jonathan Gannon said, I wanted them to have a score touchdown to win, so he kicked the field. goal, the Vikings went down, scored a touchdown to won the game. Do you know what's better than forcing the opponent to score one touchdown to win? Forcing them to score twice to win would have been a lot better. And forcing them to drive from the four-yard line, drive like 60, 70 yards to get into field coal range.

That's another element that I think Jonathan Gannon overlooked. Like the numbers were very adamant. Like, you should go for it in that situation. Try to put the game away because you incentivize the other team to go for the win rather than trying to extend the game, put it into overtime. You're more likely to lose in regulation. And he failed that very easy test. And it's not the first time he's failed that test this year.

They've had other instances this year where they've kicked a field goal instead of going for the touchdown in a similar spot. Just last week against Seattle, beginning of the fourth quarter, four yard line, fourth and goal again, they're down by 10. Instead of trying to cut into that lead, they take the field goal to get within seven. Seattle comes right back down and answers with the field goal and they lose the game. The game's over. Like you can't do that.

The margins are too thin in this division, in this playoff. and for you as the Arizona Cardinals, you can't be affording to give away points and giving away games. And they've done it a couple times this year. And honestly, they've been lucky that the record isn't worse because some of these wins have been on the back

of miraculous fourth down conversions. It's well said. It's an interesting analytics thing to what Ruiz was saying that going from three to six is actually bad. And some coaches are like, all right, I understand. Others are not because you go up by six

and now the opposing offense has all four downs to go down the field. and they have to, they're forced to be aggressive because all that they know, either we score a touchdown or we lose the game. Now, if you go for it and you get it, obviously you're probably going to win the game. Your win probability goes through the roof. Even if you don't get it to Ruiz's point, the opponent is now thinking we're down by three. We don't have all four downs.

Let's get into field goal range and force overtime. So it's kind of like not total worst case scenario, but worst case scenario is that they kick a field goal and you go to overtime and you still have a field goal. 50% chance to win it. And it was, first of all, Greg Olson, like, announcer moment of the year explained it. It reminded me of how far, like, analytic stuff has come because he was explaining that in real time during the broadcast in a very clear and concise way. So we all, everybody knows Greg Olson is awesome, but I thought he had like a fantastic moment for the nerds here today explaining that. And I also like that it played out exactly how he described. Sometimes they

describe it and then it doesn't work out. And everyone says, Analytics is ruining football. So that didn't happen here. The Vikings are driving the football. They have a fourth and five, I think it was, from the Arizona 33. So if they're down by three, they are kicking the field goal there and you're going to overtime. They go for it. Darnold gets it.

And then they score a touchdown. You're going to overtime at worst. There was two minutes left in the game. If they kick the field goal there, you give Kyle and Murray the ball back with a chance to go for it. Yeah, you still had a chance. Well, and you know what the worst part of it to me is that their play call on third and goal is the exact kind of play call you want if you're going to take a chance on fourth down. Yes. They go into a tunnel screen. You get a bunch of yards of Trade McBride. You're inside the

five yard line now, which now means that Kyler Murray's legs is a viable way for you to get in the end zone. Even if it's not a design run, just him extending can give you a chance to get the ball in the end zone. We saw that in the New England Indianapolis game with Anthony Richardson, and they're trusting his legs to extend when they needed to in a goal line situation. But to take the field goal there, to your guys' point, that's always my biggest point of contention with these decisions is just play out what happens if you don't get it. You don't have to give me whether or not you think you'll convert. If you don't get it, this is approaching the two-minute warning now because the clock is rolling after a completed pass. You take a chance at the end zone.

If not, you've basically got the two-minute warning and now you still have control over the game because of your point shield. Teams are now incentivized to play for this high instead of play for the win because nobody likes losing your regulation. They had three timeouts too. Exactly. There is nothing to be gained there by going up six. And I think that for me, like that conservative, I love that the conservat is, is punished right off the bat for this team, you know. And I think that this is,

this speaks to Kevin O'Connell and how well he managed the end-of-game situation. You look up and it's like, oh, chunk play, chunk play, chunk play. You know, and then you get the four. And then you get that high variance, fourth down conversion that you need in order to get the ball across a goal line later on in that drive. So to me, I just don't understand why Jonathan Gannon, knowing that the opportunity is there to get a commanding lead over the division, even though all these teams are clustered together.

They have tiebreakers over a lot of their competition. This is an opportunity, I think, to really be aggressive there and to not do so and leave the window open for a team like the Rams, for a team like the Seahawks. It may ultimately cost them an opportunity to make the postseason this year. Yeah, and they don't really have a margin for error in the wildcard race. Now they're two games back or one in a – and they lost to Washington who has the last place. So they don't even have the tiebreaker there.

Washington's 8 and 5. Arizona's 6 and 6. But this was like one of three instances where Gannon went against the numbers to bring the punt team or the kicking team out and pass up an opportunity to go for it. And it's a shame that we're talking about this because the rest of the game was kind of like a proof of concept for this coaching staff and how good of a job they'd done. Like I thought the offensive plan was good mitigating that Brian Flores stuff on early down, staying out of third in obvious passing situations. When the Vikings were able to blitz with those all out of zero blitzes, they had a plan for it. beat it several times with like quick outbreaking routes. The defensive

play, I thought was really good. It was the first time we really seen that Vikings offense be neutered for like the first three and a half quarters of the game. They had a plan for Jefferson. I thought they really manipulated that past protection plan for Minnesota. They were getting free rushers all day long. They were forcing Sam Darnold

into bad throws, as I mentioned earlier in the podcast. It was a good performance for this coaching staff until those fourth downs. And it's been a area of weakness for Gannon for the last two years, and I hope that he figures it out, because I do think this coaching staff is doing a good job, and it has his team going in the right direction. It's also a fun team to watch.

Like, I want to see this team in the playoffs. Yeah, no, they had the fourth and two from the Minnesota 13 on, I think, their first possession of the game. It almost, like, it feels like as an objective observer, I'm watching Kyler Murray saying they're moving the football all day long, like trust him to make some of these plays. Even they have like a third and six sometimes, and I know like this is, Vogue and some teams that run the ball well. But like sometimes they take the ball out of his hands and then they kick after that.

Like I don't mind if you're going to run it, but then your plan is to go for it. But I'm like, man, if I had a third down in that situation, given how well he's playing, I would want to keep the ball in his hands. They go for one for six in the red zone. Like the final score year was 23, 22. But they were moving the football all game long. They had 406 yards of offense in this game. They didn't get it done on the last drive.

they had a bad last drive when they had a chance to kind of drive for a field goal there. But yeah, I feel like they should understand that their defense is outperforming its talent. Yes. But it's probably only going to last so long. And, you know, Darnel did make the plays at the end. Like you said, they weren't doing, Vikings defense, offense couldn't do anything. And then all of a sudden they're late in the game. They're completing passes all over the field and they get the victory.

So wasted opportunity for the Cardinals. I think I'm going to be a cooked on the Cardinals. Maybe it'll come back to beat me. I don't think they're winning the NFC West. Again, I think their defense has outperformed its talent, but I just feel like the lack of talent there in these big games down the stretch. I don't know that that's something that they're going to be able to overcome. I could be wrong.

They're one game out of first place. So that could be completely wrong here in a week, two weeks, three weeks, whatever it is. But you know what? That's why we play the game. Every week. Deante, what did you have for them? Cooked, contender or playoff pretender? I'll just say playoff pretender right now. They needed this game. I think they needed this game just to position themselves best. We kind of went over all the reasons. And now you've put yourself

in a position where next week's game against the Seahawks may be, you know, for the balance of your season. If you get swept by the Seahawks, the Seahawks now are in the driver's seat to ride out the rest of the way and win this division, which is not where the Cardinals want to be. Yeah, this game would have just gone a long way towards kind of easing some tensions going down the rest of the season. Because even against New England and Carolina, these are two teams that have shown signs of lives and ways that didn't exist for them a month or so ago. You don't want to have to be playing your A game every week down the stretch if you don't have to. And I think that this week would have gone a long way towards kind of opening up possibilities for them to make the playoffs that aren't

just winning the division. There you go. All right. So that's the Arizona Cardinals. That's cooked contender, playoff pretender, another rousing edition of America's favorite game. We'll probably come back and do it next week. Don't go anywhere. We will be back in a minute to hand out some awards. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. Awards, superlatives, the final segment of the Sunday night show where we get stuff that we haven't gotten to yet and hand out some of this. So Deonti, start us off. What do you have for your first award? I'm giving the, it ain't my fault award to Aaron Rogers for his post-game comments after this loss to the Seattle Seahawks. I don't know if you saw.

I missed it. I'm excited. So one of my favorite kind of like shirking of responsibility quotes is when athletes get into like explaining very mundane details of the game. So Aaron Rogers says, there are 11 guys on the field. Thank you for the clarity, Mr. Rogers. I wasn't sure. Wasn't sure of anybody I picked that up yet. And then after, you know, kind of rambling a bit, he says, you know,

sometimes it's my fault. And that's something that I do all the time in the house. I'm sure that anybody who has, you know, has a significant other, has some kids, you kind of give the veil of accountability. I said, hey, man, sometimes I screw it up. But, you know, sometimes there are other details that are going wrong in other spots, too. So I love that. He said the wind was inconsistent.

He had an opportunity to hit Garrett Wilson in the end zone when he was wide open, like butt naked open. Missed him. He said the wind was inconsistent. I think that that's a very funny quote coming from the guy who spent 90% of his career in Lambo. I'm not sure if that one really connects with me. So yeah, I just think that for Aaron Rogers and Lerner Williams kind of pointed to that else too, he was like, hey, man, that's an old guy.

Doesn't really like getting hit. You can kind of see it when he feels like he's about to take some contact. You get a little bit of chuck and duck. So, you know, Mike McDonald dialed up a few pressures that we knew would get close enough to where even if we didn't deliver a sack, the pressure would give him an opportunity that give us an opportunity to get hands on the ball. And one of those was also done in a Leonard Williams, 91-yard pick six.

And as I was watching that play, I just kind of had the thought. I've been watching them since he was at USC. I was like, man, I wonder when the last time is that Leonard Williams sprinted 90 yards for something that wasn't a conditioning test, you know. But he was moving. I'll give the old guy his credit.

He was moving. He didn't slow down. Yeah. The strive looked good. For a defensive lineman to run that, like he was, that was an impressive athletic feat by Leonard Williams. who was playing out of his mind, by the way.

Yeah, it wasn't your typical defensive lineman interception either. He kind of, like, dropped into like a zone, like a hooked zone almost and, like, cut off the play. Yeah, got underneath the route. Yeah, but he also had two sacks, like you said. He had a tackle for loss in the run game. And then he had that comment, which is the highlight of his day. But, yeah, Aaron Rogers blaming it on the inconsistent win, like his inaccuracy, just hilarious. Because, first of all, Aaron Rogers, 25% of his throws were off target, according to True Media.

The worst in the NFL this week. worse than Will Levis this week. But Gino, who played in the same wind, was sixth best in terms of off target. He only missed 6% of his throws, according to true media charting. So, yeah, the excuse doesn't fly. Sorry. Three and nine, the New York Jets. It only gets worse week by week for the Jets.

All right, Ruiz, what do you got? I'm going to give the, you had one job award to Bengals cornerback, Josh Newton, who was, I think, the man responsible for containing, Justin Fields game-clinching zone-reed keeper at the end of that game. I mean, you know why Justin Fields is on the field. Like, they've brought him on multiple times over the last couple of weeks to run this zone-reed situation. The Bengals need one stop to get the ball back to give Joe Burrow chance.

Fields does the zone read. He pulls it. There's no one to contain, and he gets an easy first down. I just don't know how you give that up. I'm sure Big Lou, who, I mean, Big Lou, we need him on a different team. this roster that they haven't working with it's not your fault Bigelieu I know I know everyone's blaming you and everyone

Jesse Bates merchant some listeners are saying I'm just saying that sounds like something you might say but not for Bigelow someone did tweet it whoever tweeted that at me sorry I forget who it was but yeah they said Jesse Bates merchant question mark but everyone's blaming the Bengals defense after this

lost hey the Bengals offense I gave up a couple touchdowns in this game they turned the ball over a bunch of the Bengals scored a defense of touchdown. I don't think we can lay this all on the feet of Big Lou, but we can lay it on Josh Newton for that botched run fit there. All right. I have two from this game. I need to say my piece on the Bengals. Best season for a quarterback who's not going to the playoffs goes to Joe Burrow. Yes, he did. The best ever.

If not the best ever. You look at him this season. Third and dropback success rate, sixth in EPA per pass play, 30 touchdowns, five interceptions. lose to the Steelers, 44 to 38 to drop to 4 and 8. They needed a defense this season that was like 21st or something. 20th something. Not great. Just keep on. And they've had some bad luck.

It hasn't just been that. But it's just you go through the offenses that are in the same category as the Bengals this season. And either every team is in the playoffs or they're like one game out of the play. No one's season is over except for the Bengals among like the top eight offenses in the NFL. So if you're a Bengals fan, this is such a bummer because you wasted a season for a great quarterback who was in his prime and most importantly stayed healthy. You got a healthy, you know, all the wrist stuff at the beginning of the season and he was able to stay healthy. And now T. Higgins

is probably going to be gone in the off season. And you don't necessarily trust your front. Like you got to rebuild the defense and also make sure you're good with past catching options and make sure that the offensive line that's got some older guys. eyes on the interior is buttoned up. Like, are they up for this? What do the next three years look like for the Cincinnati Bengals? So I think Joe Burroughs been awesome this season and he will not be in the playoffs. I finally have to give up on the Bengals at 4 and 8.

On the other hand, don't get outplayed by Russell Wilson and you win the game. Simple as that. Well, yeah, if Joe Burrow was going up against his own offense, he might have thrown for 700 yards today. Russell Wilson didn't turn the ball over. Well, he turned it over once. Oh, my gosh. He gets credit for his. defense carrying them to the Super Bowl and then he also gets credit for his defense

blowing this season like this enough all right that that was the one time he's had a good defense by the way is that true if you look at it statistically yeah every other one has been mediocre you guys have built the myth of captain lew anerumo who is a jesse bates merchant then they let jesse bates walk and the guy can't feel the defense for an entire season you're accusing big lou of being the product of myth making. Yes. I am.

General didn't become the quarterback. You guys all wanted him to be until this year. Okay. Well, this year, best season for a quarterback who's not going to the playoffs. And then best performance, my, I have another one from this game. Best performance by a QB who previously went by the nickname Mr. Unlimited. I was going to say best QB performance by an old, but then I needed to go through all the box scores and make sure there wasn't an old guy.

But Russell Wilson, I guess the, I guess, lose game plan was just he's not going to throw checkdowns. and Russell Wilson just took checkdown after checkdown after checkdown. Now, he did make some plays downfield. But his average pass went 5.1 yards. He was just dumping the ball off and they were picking up huge chunks. He throws for 414 yards. There was a pick six on the first possession. Next seven possessions, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown,

field goal, blocked field goal, and touchdown. So Steelers win this game, a Steelers offense that couldn't even score a touchdown in previous weeks, just goes up and down the field against the Bengals and are now nine and three, up two in the lost column against the Baltimore Ravens, had the highest success rate of any team today in the NFL. So, Russell Wilson, nice game for him. I had a superlative for him, too. I wasn't familiar with your game.

Actually, I was going to give him the old dog, New Trick Award. This is from Theo Ash, from Twitter. career high for passing yards and throws to the middle of the field of Russell Wilson, which has always been a thing with him. He doesn't throw to the middle of the field. 261 yards on 22 attempts to the middle of the field on Sunday.

It's a new day for Russell Wilson. He's back. He is like top 10 in like a lot of passing metrics overall this season. I think he's eighth in success rate, or no, 18th in success rate, but he's top 10 in all the other metrics like yards per dropback,

yards per attempt, EPA per dropback and all that good stuff. Some of those are George Pickin' stats. Most of them are. Most of them are. How does this end for the Steelers now? They're nine and three. Are they going to win the AFC North? I think they're going to end up winning the division now.

Wow. I don't think so. I'm struggling. I'm struggling to see if Cincinnati beating them would have been the gateway for Baltimore to kind of sneak back in and steal this division. But I don't know if the Steelers are going to have the kind of laps, the kind of lapses that I thought they would down the stretch that would allow them to kind of give away the division at this point. They still have to go to Philadelphia and start to go to Baltimore and they start to play Kansas City at home.

And they start to play this Bengals team again. Yeah, they do have a tough stretch coming. They do have a touch stretch coming. I don't think that I don't think the Cincinnati can beat them. And I do think that they'll beat Cleveland the next time they match up. And I think that that may just be enough for them to kind of sneak out with this division. And I'm not going to act like the chiefs. The chiefs don't get the helmet win for me anymore.

I've seen that team struggle against other competent teams. I've seen them struggle against teams that I thought were in. competent. I need to see the chiefs beat a team like the Steelers before I believe that that's the way that's going to go. Yeah, I think that's true. You don't look at the chiefs and it doesn't matter the opponent. It's not like this team's definitely going to lose to the chiefs. How can you think that way? Every game is a one possession game for them this season. So Steelers point differential on the season is better than the Ravens, which I think would probably surprise, not by a lot. This is crazy talk from you guys. Let's bet. Let's bet. Let's bet. Let's put something on the line. I did. Listen, I might have been on some group chats selling some friends last week or was it two weeks ago when the Steelers were heavy favorites. I'm like, put a little lettuce on the Ravens if you want to open your Fanduil account because they're plus money. Let me see what it is right now. Right now, the Steelers are the favorites at minus 160. Ravens are plus 130. No, I think I would still be on the Ravens in this case. I'm talking about the Kansas City game. I'm saying let's bet something right now that Kansas City is going to absolutely beat the Steelers. in week 17.

A week 17 is when they play. You want us to make a bet for week 17 right now? I might take some action on this. What are you going to put on this? All right, yeah. Well, how many points are you giving us? No points. Straight up.

What do you think we're suckers? It's at home. You guys were just talking about how they could lose Bryce Young and Bo Necks. They could. They can. Yeah, anybody can. All right.

Those are two of mine. All right, D. D.D.D. You're off next. What do you got? This one, I guess, is probably a little bit more. somewhat serious, but really I kind of just want to finger wag for this one. And it's an audios game check award for Aziz Alshayor for that ridiculous hit on

Trevor Lawrence that obviously spurs the fight, spurs the ejection. A couple of Jags players get ejected. And this is one of the things, if I'm going to kind of get on the pedestal as a defensive coach, like it actually does bother me when we have the conversation of, well, what are guys supposed to do? And I'm not saying that it's not difficult for a guy who's 6,6. sliding and quarterbacks have kind of mastered the art of stealing two and a half extra yards on a slide. But what you can't do is lead with your forearm. And then you can't lose your mind

and start tugging guys to the ground on the opposing sideline and then go chase down the starting guard on the opposite team on the opposite sideline after you're ejected, still looking for more problems. I know that Damiko Ryan's tried to kind of give cover to Aziz Al-Shahir after the game and say, hey, that's not the way that, We coach them, which I do believe. I don't think that any head coach in the NFL is teaching guys to do that to quarterbacks because you wouldn't want that done to your own. And I know that Domingo Ryan says a lot of respect for this game.

But if you just look at the history just this year, we've got a punch thrown after a play on the opposing sideline from Aziz Oshayir. We've got late hits out of bounds from the same guy. I like them as a player. But if this is the pattern of behavior, I do have some concerns about whether or not this is being enabled if it continues to happen this way. And this obviously was a flashpoint moment. So I'm hoping that he maybe not only loses a game check, but has to miss a game for everything that was incited after the hit. And ultimately, man, like, that's not football and we got to get it out

of our game. Yeah, I have one for Domeka Ryans. We're trying to pull that. That's not representative of who he is as a player or who we are as a team when you guys are second in the league in penalties. You are second in the league in unnecessary roughness penalties to be specific. And And like, I don't think Demico Ryan's is coaching his players to play like that, but a part of their system is playing aggressively, playing down. Recklessly. Hard playing fast. Like, there is a fine line. And when you put a dirty player, and I think Al Shaire deserves that label at this point, like Deonti said, he punched a running back who was just standing there.

It wasn't like Roshan Johnson was instigating a fight. The guy was just standing there. He got punched in the face. And he's even after, he's like, what did I do? I was just standing here on the sideline, on my own sideline, by the way. And then just last week, as Deontay referred to, he hits Tony Pollard going out of bounds and gets an unnecessary roughness flag just last week. It wasn't like a bang, bang, bang, play. Like, Tony Pollard was a good yard and a half.

Yeah, yeah. It was clearly out of bounds. It's, I don't know. Like, this is representative of who this player is, and it is kind of representative of who this defense has been. And it's held them back. Like, I forget the moral grandstanding. I think from a football perspective, the lack of discipline has hurt this team. And not just with the penalties.

these like we've seen offenses take advantage of their overaggression in a recent weeks. So I do think this is a problem going forward. But I also wanted to point out, like, Gerald Moose Johnson, who was calling the game, I do agree with what he was saying about Al Shaire and his lack of respect for the game. But then he tried to connect it to like the fights over the flag planning in college football and saying like there's a lack of respect in football now and that's why you're getting these dirty hits and these fights. Man. A little bit of a reach.

I grew up in the jacked up era. We used to have dedicated. segments to guys getting concussive hits in the NFL. Like, the game is cleaner than it's ever been. I totally disagree with that notion. I don't think it has anything to do with some lack of respect in the game. The game was way more disrespectful back in the day compared to now. Yeah, a hit like that within the action of the game and then like the flag planting stuff is very different there.

A little bit of a stretch. Yeah, you guys said it well on Al Shire. I mean, if it's a one-time thing, I always sort of have. some empathy when there's like a one-time thing for a defensive player and then they're getting labeled dirty and it's like, well, they don't have a pattern of behavior. But if they have a pattern of behavior, then I think it's fair to assess it the way you guys did just there. All right, I'm going to move to a lighter note on mine. Okay, best tweet to inspire a sports movie. Okay. This came from Adam Schefter this weekend who tweeted Saints interim head coach,

Darren Rizzy has specialized on special teams and his work has continued. During Rizzi's first two games as the Saints interim head coach, opposing kickers, Young Way Koo and Dustin Hopkins were a combined one for six on field goal attempts. The only made field goal the past two weeks against Rizzi's Saints was a 27-yarder from Koo in week 10. But the Saints have been helped with field goal misses from 51 yards, 27 yards, 53 yards, 35 yards, and 46 yards. I'm I mean, this has potential. You know, a coaches get it. If a coach was granted some type of superpower where he could make the opposing kicker miss

whenever he wanted. I had so many questions. This was one of the great thought exercises of my NFL Sunday. I'm like, if that coach sucked at everything else, but he could make the opposing kicker miss every single field goal, Deonté, I mean, how about that? That's pretty valuable. How valuable is that? You would know better than me.

If this was like the late 8. 80s to early 90s, we would already have a film in production about this interim head coach in New Orleans who was borrowing from maybe some of the voodoo culture that exists, some of the African-Rubian voodry. It would be problematic. It would be a problem. A little bit. Absolutely.

Absolutely. I think that that would already be in production. I can see the paramount pictures or the 21st century Fox or 20th century Fox logo going over before that film comes. on. I do think, though, if we're going to take a little bit of a serious tilt at this, I have been impressed by New Orleans' dedication to playing hard since making his coaching change. And shoot, I mean, if we're going to joke about it, if we're talking about the value of this, if I'm Justin Tucker, I want to go to Darren Rizzy and say, hey, man, can you

can you gin some of this up in the opposite direction for me? Well, what is it going to take? You know, I'll come play for the Saints on a one-year deal after my time in Baltimore is up. if that's the exchange I got to make to knock down field goals and maybe reverse some of whatever jinx it is that I have. I love that. Deante thought for a second about having a serious Saints take. But then he can, he's like, no, we're going back to this

and then just making fun of the Justin Tucker of it all. So yeah, Saints lose 2114 to the Rams. I don't know if the Rams missed any field goals today. But again, that would be quite the superpower for a coach there. All right. Ruiz, what do you got? All right. My last one goes to Gino Smith for the master of Revenge Game Award. He is 5-1

against his former team. This stat comes from Dante Koppelowitz Fleming, an NFL media researcher. That's the best record by any quarterback since the merger, minimum five starts. Five and one, he beat the Jets today. It wasn't the best game for Dina, but he made the plays that he had to make, and he was able to overcome the

inconsistent win that took out Aaron Rogers. I think it maybe helps when the Jets and Giants are your former teams? I was going to say two worst teams in the last 10 years. Are there any Jets, other former Jets or Giants who could potentially do this in the future? That's the question. He also beat the Chargers, too.

You're taking away some wins from him. The Chargers are more competent team. It was the Brandon Staley era. It was Justin Herbert was hurt. I think it was after the rib injury, but it still counts. I forget what year Gino came in, but over the last 10 years, Giants 30th in win percentage and the Jets

31st in win percentage. So he did a good job picking his... Okay, okay. You don't have to tear him down. Hey, he's got the Seahawks in first place in the NFC West. There you go. All right, Deontay, what do you got? This one, we'll kind of be, we'll be brief with this one.

The last one is just like potential quarterback of the NFL's future. I might be given that to Drake May after watching him over the last month and just seeing the growth in his game. I think that Stephen, you've talked about this. Our friend Derek Klasson at the Athletic has talked a lot about this. Nate Tice at Yahoo Sports has talked about this as well. He was the kind of quarterback that just needed to figure out what he can and can't get away with at the NFL level. And then you would start to see how all the physical traits can manifest themselves into winning football plays. On Sunday against Indianapolis, he goes 24 for 30 for 238 yards and a touchdown, runs for 59 yards.

You've seen games where the scrambling has been a game breaking, has had a game breaking effect on defenses. I think that his accuracy has improved week over week, how quickly he makes his decisions, has improved week over. a week. And I think even when he's holding the ball long, and I think that that was part of the reason why he took four sacks today and another four last week against Miami, for the most part, the decisions he's making when he is holding the ball is about punishing defenses, right? It's not about just staring down looks or staring down a favorite receiver. I think that he's usually working through the progression the way that you would ask or expect your quarterback to and trying to push the ball down the field wherever it's possible. And if I'm, if I had to pick a guy out of

this rookie class. I know that we've kind of had, you know, a lot of different discussions about Jaden Daniels and Caleb Williams and where they're going to stack up in the immediate future. But I just look at how a guy is managing the pocket right now. I don't know if any rookie quarterback quarterback is managing the pocket and making aggressive but sound decisions in the exact same way that Drake May is right now amongst our rookie quarterbacks. Yeah, he has the most impressive quarterbacking tape of any of the rookies. Now, I think Caleb Williams still has the higher ceiling. I think he's a younger quarterback compared to Drake May. I think he has more room to grow, and I think he's had more put on his plate,

even though Drake May hasn't been, he hasn't been blessed with, like, this great supporting cast, it's been the opposite of that. But I do think Caleb has been asked to do a little bit more before the staff and stuff like that. But like in terms of, like DeAndo said, pocket management, throwing the football accurately, that was a big concern. I know there was a lot of talk about his footwork. That hasn't been a concern at all. At all.

I haven't seen any misses where I'm like, oh, that's bad footwork. That has not been the case. usually when he misses, it's because the receiver is running the route at the wrong pace or running at the wrong depth. He's been very good outside of the construct of this shoddily built offense for the Patriots, I would say, is fair to say about them. And I think he's not being asked to call all the shots before the snap, but he's definitely being asked to do more than, like, say, Jaden Daniels. And I think he's looked more impressive from that quarterback perspective. but these other two guys still have a chance to pass them. Even by the end of this year,

like you look at the numbers, Jadenials has put up better numbers than him, and he still has a chance to put up high-level tape against high-level opponents. He's going to be able to do it in the postseason, which may, and obviously Caleb Williams, won't be able to do. It's working out nicely if you're a Patriots fan. You know, you're going to get a top five pick. They keep losing, but the quarterback is legit.

We've seen that now for over a month here. If the season ended today, the Patriots would pick fourth overall in the end. NFL draft and you look at like the other teams. Well, I guess the Jaguars would be the exception. Jaguars would have the first pick, first overall pick if the season ended today. This is from Tankathon. Raiders would be second, Giants, third, Patriots, fourth, and Panthers fifth. Panthers fan, any Bryce Young thoughts, Ruiz, or should we save that for the midweek show?

No, yeah, I thought Bryce Young looked good again. Three of his four best games have come in the last month by EPA. Like, I think there's very encouraging signs. I don't think we've seen the signs that like, oh, this is the guy. Like, we haven't seen that breakout performance, especially in a winning game yet. But he looks like a viable quarterback. He looks more like the quarterback we expected him to be coming out.

I was low on Bryce Young before the draft. I would not have taken him with the first pick. But I did expect him to be a league average quarterback, like an Andy Dalton style, not style, but like that level of a quarterback. And I think there's still a chance that can happen. Mind you, Carolina hasn't put a good supporting cast around him. I don't think we've seen the best of Bryce Young yet because he doesn't have the teammates to allow him to play like that.

But the signs are encouraging. I think he's at least earned another shot unless he just totally dovetails over the last month of the season. Very good. That's the nicest thing the Ruiz has said about the Carolina Panthers since we first started podcasting together. Can you blame me? No.

It's a nice milestone. I'm just saying. Whoever's he is changing the signs there at the, what is it, the Dilworth Bar? What is it? Dilworth Bar and Grill, the one where Tepper went in and flipped the guys. guys lit, you know, maybe give Ruiz a shout out. He just said nice things about your team. With all that

said, he averaged 6.5 yards per attempt. It wasn't like everything in perspective. Everything in perspective. You know, I should have just signed off. It left it on a good note there, but it's all good. All right, that will do it for this episode of the Ringer NFL show. Thank you to Deontay Lee. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. Christopher Sutton producing additional production supervision by Conorne Evans, Arjuna Ram Gopal and Dan Comer. T. Cruz for the video production. We will be back later this week. Everyone, have a good week. We'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem. Call 1-800

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