The Ringer NFL Show - Week 13 Recap: Ravens Fall Short Against the Steelers, Herbert Beats Burrow, and Chiefs Dominate the Broncos

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

Kevin, Nora and Ben start things off by discussing the Ravens' loss against the Steelers and Justin Herbert's performance in the Chargers' big win over the Bengals. Then they dissect the Seahawks' win over the 49ers, Taylor Heinicke's development with the Washington Football Team, and the Lions' first win of the season, against the Vikings. Then Kevin and Nora are joined by Steven Ruiz to talk about the Jaguars-Rams game and the state of the Carolina Panthers. Hosts: Kevin Clark, Nora Princiotti, Benjamin Solak and Steven Ruiz Producer: Arjuna Ramgopal Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let's help everybody. I'm JJ John Gistramski. And I'm Jason Gough. And if you haven't heard, the ringer has gone local. I'm bringing the fire. I'm bringing the rain from the big apple with my show, New York, New York. And I'm reping Shy Town with my new show The Full Go on All Things Chicago. We've got episodes three nights a week with all the reaction to the local teams and guests.

Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines. So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. It is the Ring Run NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast. Network. I am Kevin Clark. Great day of football. Steelers Ravens. Joe Brady fired. Bangles Chargers, Herbert Burrow, a lot to get to. Nora, what's going on? Hello, Kevin. Lovely to be here with you. Not a lot. Just a good Sunday. Nora, Prince of Adi joins me. Ben Solac joins me. Nora, you have a Christmas tree up. I do. I do. Are you like a post- Thanksgiving Christmas tree person? This year I was a day after. Awesome. Well, let's get to it. All right. We will start with Steal 20, Ravens 19. We should have known the Steelers are going to win when midweek it was announced by Adam chapter that Ben Rathesburg and privately been telling friends and teammates

this was going to be his last year. Like, no one hits bottom and then does the dead cat bounce quite like Ben Rathesberger. So you knew it would be an okay performance by Ben Rothesberger. We know what happened here. The Ravens go for two at the end. Reason being, according to John Harbaugh, that they were out of cornerbacks and they had to go for it then. There's a pressure, T.J. Wackett's pressure on Lamar Jackson. He misthrows to a mark and. Andrews. It's just over Mark Andrews's fingertips. It's a drop. He could have made it if the throw was on target. But this is the type of game coming into this game. I think it was the 27th second season meeting between John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin. They had tied 1313 going into this.

Like this is a pretty typical C.O.S. Ravens game. But it's a kind of thing that has ramifications all throughout the AFC, nor would you think? Look, Lamar's going to get a lot of flack for this because he's just apparently how things go. He seems like he's doing everything he can, right? Like he had trouble with the Blitz again. And I guess that's just going to happen until it doesn't. But at a certain point, it's like, what else are you going to do at the end of the game when you have a chance to win it and you're down your best defender? They've scored on like four straight possessions. This is just, this game is like the game of the week where the takes are going to be the most out of whack with just like, all right, everybody calm down. I don't know what

else you expected them to do at that point. So Lamar Jackson has a. turnovers in three career starts against the Steelers. He's one and two. He's been sacked 16 times. Ben, what did you think in particular about this game? I think that T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith both had career highs and quarterback pressures. That's going to happen against Lamar because it's just the way he plays. There's going to be pressures just because that just sort of happens. But will Lamar against the Steelers, what stands out to you? So Watt had the most pressures in the last two years per next year in sides of his charting. 12 pressures, 37 percent pass-rest win rate, by the way. Yeah. What? My pops is a Steelers fan. I was talking with him after the game,

and he said, every single Steelers win has been because of TJ Watt, which is the best explanation of T.J. Watt the defense player of the year that I think we can get, right? Like, that's just as clear as it is. What has been, he was inactive for the first Cincinnati game and then the Chargers game, both of which were losses for the Steelers. In every game that he has played, say, for two, he has a sack. in every game he has played, say, for two, he has a TFL. In every game he's played, say for one, he has a quarterback hit. He no player just shows up to the field and starts winning the way T.J. Watt does, right? He is formative to the defense.

And to me, like, that puts his defensive player with your conversation at the Paramount, even above how efficient he's been, how consistent he's been. Like, he just is an impact player. Now, the Ravens left him unblocked on the two-point conversion. So there's a little bit of, like, you know, what are you doing there offensively? but the Ravens issues with the Blitz and Lamar's turnovers there's a good piece of that pie that belongs to Lamar there's a good piece of that pie that belongs to the offensive line Alejandro Villanueva tackle right like they really just struggle to pass protect on the outside but man you wish you wish for a long-term offensive coordinator like Greg Roman to at this point in his season been able to have identified that this is a problem and have two solutions three solutions like anything right this it's not like you know oh like like the cover two thing and the two high stuff for the chief is like a little bit different just in terms of like we know our solutions we just have to kind of like jerry rig our personnel to execute it this is like this is like this is like there's a there's a there's a there's a there's a couple days in the summer where you

work on this like this should not be as shocking of a thing to have to deal with as it is and the ravens continue to go like hey what if we throw this wide receiver screen on third and 13 do you think they'll know it's the only thing you guys do man like like this is an embarrassing thing for gray roman to continue to throw the same pitches against and continue to lose to week after week. It's just embarrassing, flat out. The Steelers hadn't blitzed over 35% in a game this season, and at least in the first half, because those are just the stats that I saw. They were blitzing Lamar on 46% of his dropbacks.

It's just kind of, you know that the other team is seeing the thing that Ben's talking about, right, going, okay, well, they're not going to change their tendencies, so we know exactly what we have to do. And if you're the Steelers, you're thrilled that you have the personnel to do that. really effectively. But it is, Lamar is excellent in a lot of ways, but they are a, they are a square hole and there's just a square peg that you can kind of put through it. And there aren't a lot of ways that they're proving they have to fix it. Does this tell you nor anything about the AFC North?

So look, the other, the other piece of this is it looks like Marlon Humphrey has a pretty significant. Yes. Inraport reported that he's expected to be out for the. season with a shoulder injury. And what it tells me about the AFC North is there was a time this season when it felt like the Ravens kind of had had that thing on lock, right? And that obviously had dissipated, but they do feel like a team where the arrow is really pointing down.

They're no longer the number one seed in the conference, right? That not even pending. The Patriots will go into Monday night football with the top seed in the conference. and obviously this season has shown us that anything can happen. Teams that you think are dominant go on these weird streaks, and who knows, there's still quite a few weeks left, but you see a dwindling number of ways that it looks like Baltimore could go, oh, this isn't working, so let's try this.

This isn't working, so let's try this, just because at a certain point, the list of things they have going for them are Lamar Jackson is their quarterback, and it's a well-run organization that makes a lot of, you know, plus value decisions, but they've just got too many players hurt, right? So I think that's sort of the, that's the impact on the conference. Ben, we talked about the Ravens offense, Sears defense. Ben Rothsburg in the fourth quarter, nine of 10, 129 yards, 158.3 pass a rating. This dealer's offense, what?

Listen, Ben Rothelsberger threw a touchdown pass off of play action for the first time since week 11 of 2020. Oh, he's getting the hang of this thing. Extension time? It took us a calendar year, baby, but we got it. The play action dutchdown pass for Ben Rothesberger. By the way, it can't be emphasized enough. His office coordinator, Matt Canada, if he had his druthers, would be calling more play action than anybody else in the world. Yes, and so we got that. It was the Jonathan Johnson. It was a nice little pump fake too. It was a very nice Big Ben play. It is, every Steelers win just always boils down to me. I've said this on the show before. the Steelers make you play their stupid game.

They just get you in this 4.4th quarter rock fight where everything just comes down to like third downs and mistackles. And then they just out into you. Every win is just ugly and annoying and it doesn't feel reasonable, but it happens. And here they are at 6.5 and 1. The Steelers are 3 and 0 in this rivalry when it's a one point game. Just so you know. Like this is what they do. That's so dumb.

Yeah. They just win one point games. fine. We need to talk about Mike Tomlin for a second because last week he said that it was put up or shut up time for the Steelers. Now it has progressed to put up and shut up time. Put up and shut up. He also said there was a quote card I saw that said last week was last week.

This week was this week. Next week will be next week. And there's a danger here. And I swear to God. No, no, I swear to God. Sports Illustrated quote carded this. and their caption was Mike Tomlin speaking straight facts. True.

Like, yes. Like, there's a danger here in that we're just going to meme everything Mike Tomlin says because he gets up there and he says stuff like this because he, some of it is provocative. Like there was, he made that, he kind of made a dig about analytics. He made a dig about former Steelers playing the Ravens. Now he hopes they always, when you trade within division, that's kind of an indictment of you as a player and you should always be angry, that sort of stuff. Chris Warmly Revenge Game. Yeah.

And so, so he was just. filling time and we can't quote card everything Mike Tomlin says. But yes, it's put up and shut up time in Pittsburgh. I actually disagree. I think we should quote card everything at Tomlin's like. How about the direct shot at Kyle Shanahan? Last spring, Shanahan told us, uh, you know, I don't know if we're all going to be here tomorrow. Mike Tomlin's like, no, sir. Next week will be next week. I'm positive. Next week will be next week. I can guarantee seven days, baby. Oh, coach platitudes kill me. Oh, man. My all-time favorite Belchag filibuster used to be when if the Patriots were playing on a Monday or a Thursday and the schedule was kind of screwed up,

he would just like get some question he didn't like and go, well, you know, it's a different week. So Monday's Tuesday. Tuesday is Wednesday. Wednesday is Thursday. And then you'd be like, all right. Okay. So he's made his point. And then he would just keep going.

He would do the whole week. You'd be like, all right. Yeah. No, I got the gist. Like four days ago. I started up. I got what you were doing here. But I love it.

He would also do that at the Combine, I'm sure you remember, where it's only 15-minute increments for the press conferences. And so he would just get there and be like, you know, a lot's changed since I first came to the Combine. It would just tell some 15-minute story and they'd go, okay, I'll see you guys. And we'd have no idea. We'd have no more insight.

It would just be like, I came here with Ted Marsha Broda in 1986. I covered the Patriots for four years. Bill Belichick, I do not believe, spoke at a single combine. So I'm very jealous to have that experience. She tried being an old head. You don't know shit about. Ted Marsha Broda. All right.

So let's move on to our first superlative. And it is Nora Chargers Spangles. All right. Stephen Ruiz isn't here, right? Can we like look under some couch cushions? Just make sure. You're going to zoom bomb us. I'm scared.

I'm scared. Because I'm giving the offensive coordinator of the week award to Joe Embardi. Yes, baby. Oh, no. So the Chargers win 41 to 22. Decisive victory. Weird game. Incredibly weird game. There's three scoring runs in this game. The Chargers go up 24 to nothing. The Bengals score 22 unanswered and then the Chargers score 17 unanswered and then the game is over. Very strange stuff. But Justin Herbert looked phenomenal. Okay? They're making the early down passes. He's got an 8 out of 10.2. Herbert goes 5 of 7 on pass. of 20 plus yards for 188 in a touchdown. Mike Williams has his best game since like early October.

And he was just, I mean, the 44 yard touchdown to Guyton traveled 61.2 yards in the air. So if you are a card carrying member of the I would like to see Justin Herbert Slingit organization, you love this game. You love what you just got to watch. For the Bengals, there's this thing going around about. okay who who actually had the better game Herbert or Burrow I think it's pretty clear that it's Herbert because of the explosives Burrow though Burrow got no help 300 yards 24 40 two touchdowns two interceptions like really concerning looking pinky injury most of this happens screaming in pinky

pain if you saw that screaming in pinky pain the pinky looks like a balloon clearly it had to have been affecting him in meaningful ways I will say he was still making some beautiful throws now and again. I agree. But at the same time, I saw, I saw the phrase he was willing the ball at some point. It really did look like that.

They were just, they were long passes, but it was looked like he looked like he was just like kind of shoveling them like 30 yards in the air. It was not a great day to be Joe Burrow. Season low, 2.6 seconds to throw. He was sacked six times. He was pretty much under pressure the whole time.

Again, still made some really impressive throws, but he was also dealing with drops. the chase drop that turns into an interception was just, I mean, you hate to see it. We all have bad days. Obviously, that's continued to be a little bit of a problem with Chase. I think it was his eighth drop this year. But you just look at that game and go, okay, for Herbert, we saw him get the sort of

institutional help and support in terms of what they were running on offense that a lot of people have wanted to see. Koff Koff, Stephen Ruiz. Burrow, he's out there trying to basically will his way through an injury and a lot of adverse circumstances. So Ben, before you started this podcast, you tweeted, you quote tweeted Dan Arlovsky, our friend Dan Arlovsky, and said you disagreed with his take that Burrow outplayed Herbert. And I like to you,

obviously, I think we all agree on this, but let's just unpack the differences between the two on Sunday and what you saw to both. So Dan's point is like well taken and like Dan, Dan, Dan knows what he's doing. My thing with the Herbert Burrow comparison, because it was inevitably going to be made regardless of the outcome. It could have been a three-and-nothing game at the end. And people would have been like, so Herbert versus Burrow, who's better? You know, I mean, that's inevitable going to happen.

Same draft class, top five picks, whatever. If you just took an agnostic look, you just took physical talent out of the equation and said, all right, one quarterback quarterback's like this. He's regularly operating the entire offensive line of scrimmage. He's got option routes built into a lot of stuff. He's checking plays at the line. he almost invariably throws to the correct receiver.

He's dot accurate, middle between the numbers, 10, 15, 20 yards down the field. And then you have another quarterback who likes to hold on to the football a little bit, pushes the ball downfield into contested windows, you know, will take some hits that he probably shouldn't take when he's out there running around, has moments of bad accuracy because he's trying to put a lot of velocity on the ball. If you just took physical talent out of it, just described how the quarterback's play, you'd end up thinking Burroughs the better quarterback. because he does it in a traditional sense

where you view the quarterback as like a piece of the puzzle for the offense, he does it in a more traditional way. He does it in a more understandable way and he does it in a more translatable way where if you took a different quarterback skill set and plugged it into how Burrow plays, it likely translate into a pretty good ball. If you try to take any average quarterback

and make him play like Herbert plays, it would be horrible. But that's not happening because it is Justin Herbert. Like we have to start putting Herbert into the Mahomes category of... Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. In the Mahomes category of, no, no, you should not be doing this, but because of your physical ability, because of what God graced you with, sling it, my dude.

Like, absolutely, right? Like, the second and 11 throw to Mike Williams, get seven yards, get to third and four. You can do what you have open guys. But Herbert says, I've got Mike Williams 41 yards down the field, and I like him against, I think it was Mike Hilton, 21 in coverage. I'm just going to put it up catchable. That's what I'm going to do.

And because I can drop the ball in buckets 40 yards down the field and nobody else can, I'm going to do that. And that's been the whole point of this Chargers pass on early downs, throw the ball down the field push. It's been the whole idea behind it. It's been, yes, you're going to have three and outs. Yes, you're going to have like, oh, we could have sustained a drive if we ran our little stick RPO. But because you can do this, because you can score 24 points in a lightning look on four drives to start the game, just always do this.

And if you go down 14-0-0, it won't matter. It's not real. Because you have a guy who can just put it on him. You can just go and roll them out right and then throw back left to Jalen Guy and then score a touchdown. There are two or three of these dudes in the league. Use them. And so, yes, Burrow plays the position in a more traditional sense

and played it really, really well, especially with a finger injury considered on Sunday. Herbert is in a different echelon. It is a different conversation because of the physical gifts this guy has. He is a rule breaker. He is a world-ender. He cannot be treated the same way. framework to look at quarterback decision making that works where Joe Burrow ends up looking better.

And that framework, it's not that it's not valid because it works for the majority of players. Right. And therefore it has broader applicability, right? But you get some, you know, you get some one of ones. And I think that's what you're saying, Ben, is that at a certain point, you can't use the same framework because there are decisions that would be. very bad decisions if the majority of players made them that are good decisions if you're Justin Herbert. Absolutely. He does, he cannot get graded on the same scale that you have traditionally grade a quarterback on. We have to get to that point with him because when he makes that fourth

and goal throw to Keenan Allen in triple coverage, no quarterback besides flame thrower dudes, Alan Mahomes Herbert should be doing that. But because it's, it's Herbert, he should be doing that. That is a good decision in that context. I'm getting sweaty. I know you're getting sweaty. I think that sometimes, Ben, like, the thing I've noticed over the past couple of weeks and months is that so much, and I'm not including Dan in this group, but there are so many front office executives who still take Burrow over Herbert because A of their priors and B, that they're not, they're looking at a million things that aren't the film, right? They're looking, they're still thinking about pre-draft interviews or they're thinking about the trip to their colleges or they're still

thinking about 2019 and I kind of feel like it's going Herbert has to so significantly outplay Burrow for like two more years for there's for some GMs say okay you know what I was wrong because everybody had Burrow and there was a lot of internal doubt within the league about Herbert and that's why I think you see a slow sea change because even now I still check in with guys sometimes I say hey still burrow over Herbert still and they're like yep absolutely this one's going to win out it's really interesting to take the temperature of the league that way and drafting burrow one and not Herbert was the correct call because Burroughs, like, cone of outcomes, right? His projectable potential outcomes were a lot more understandable and we're a lot more narrow,

high floor, right? And so we're going to take him and we're positive. If we can get this right offensive coordinator, if we can get this right receiver room, we're going to get a good offense. Herbert could have come in, been trying all this stuff and not have been this accurate because he was not at Oregon, right? Like, this was not happening, right? So it's like taking Burrough one was not a problem.

And it's just, it's an availability heuristic, right? it's biased. It's saying, like, this is what I understand. This is, this is the scope of lead that I have. So Burrough just makes more sense. I can, I can compute him. Herbert is can't compute. And we're seeing smart teams find edges by getting quarterbacks later in the draft,

the homes at 12th, Lamar at 32, with can't compute guys, guys who are rule breakers, who traditional evaluators are unwilling to take the risk on. But if you have that humility to say of your own evaluation, it is limited. All of a sudden, you get Lamar Jackson at 32. And listen, do you, do any of us understand how Lamar does what he does? No, but he does it. And he does it consistently enough that we can rely on. Let me ask you a question.

This is the last thing I want to, but we have to move on. But Herbert versus Burrow, which interesting to me is that Burrow, you know, to me and others, talks about how he just likes getting guys out into routes, just, you know, vision is a superpower and he just solves things, right? And I'm curious, is part of the evaluation, part of the hesitancy that there are situations where you can actually kind of bottle up Herbert with bad play calling or uncreative coaching? like we saw at Oregon, quite frankly, not letting him do a lot. Like, we've seen in some parts Joe Lombardi, whereas Joe Burrow almost seems bad.

I hear that. Like, I understand the framework of that argument. I will say that I think, like, again, if I use, like, Lamar as an example, I think Lamar is kind of proving himself to be a little bit bad coach-proof. Now, these are not the best two games, you know, against the Browns and against the Steelers to be making that sort of acclaim. But in terms of his offensive coordinator, right?

Harba's a great coach. But in terms of his offensive coordinator, I think you see that. And that's just paramount physical. ability, right? That's just where the other dudes lining up opposite this guy don't think he can do X, Y, and Z, and he just can. He can do it reliably. But, right, that variance is there. Like, we have to remember, we've had bad Herbert games, right? There's been poor performances. And I think that's just because you get that degree of variance. But you should feel confident in your ability to maximize this

player by simply letting the Bronco buck, by simply taking the bridle off. And that's a hard thing for coaches to do. I understand that. But you just, you gotta let the young man play. When he can play like this, when he has these peaks, go find him, go get him. They are worth the cost. They are worth the bad plays. That's the lesson that has to be learned there is that over time, those spikes, those positive EV decisions, went out. Oh man, I got this, there's too many emotions now. Knight or Seahawks was just a crazy game, was just absolutely off the rails insane game. I think George Kittles said I've never played in a game like that in my entire life. You had the fake punt touchdown Travis Homer.

You had Gerald Everett fumbling the ball deep in his own territory. The Niners immediately pick it up, throw a touchdown to George Kittle. Then you have Garoppolo throwing an interception directly to Bobby Wagner because he turned the wrong way on play action. You have the Nick Bost of Strip Sack, which created a second and 43, which then created a third and 32 afterwards. And all of that stuff is just the first quarter. After that, we get two roughing the passer penalties, extended drive. for a Seattle touchdown. Adrian Peterson scored a touchdown in this game,

and that felt weird at the time, but honestly, it's like the 10th weirdest thing that happened. Niners fumble the opening kickoff. Gerald Everett bobbles, the ball in the goal line becomes an interception. Gromplo takes a safety on third and eight. He throws the biggest heat check interception of his life.

There's a fall start on fourth and one on Alex Mack for just snapping the football. Like the fall start was him snapping it. Pete Carroll both won a challenge and went for a fourth down and got it on the same drive. Like insane stuff happened. This game exceeds the bounds. of reality. The main thing that I think is important to note here is for San Francisco, a team that

I was willing to start believing and that I thought was going to be able to make a playoff push. They had so many errors. Seattle had four first downs off of penalty. San Francisco had none, including roughing the passer calls, including a helmet-to-helmet contact call and a really critical down. They had multiple special teams issues. Obviously, Trent Cannon, their returner went down with a really bad injury on the

opening play. Shanahan told me after the game, he's, in the concussion protocol. He's staying at the hospital overnight, but he is aware of his surroundings. He remembers things. And so it looks like there's a lot of positive signs there. But so they had that cannon injury, and subsequently their replacement returner fumbled that opening kickoff on the second half. They had a big kickoff return allowed that allowed the Seahawks to score to end the first half. They had a mixed extra point. San Francisco's nuts and bolts remain really, really good. That's still reliable. That's still trustworthy. Even without

Debo, the offense was extremely impressive. However, the mistakes that this team, team makes were debilitating. And when we talk about Kyle Shanehan as a coach, again, like the offensive scheme stuff is really, really good, as an ex as a nose coach. He's, he's delightful. He's very impressive. That, you know, personnel management thing continues to rear its ugly head. And in this case, it was just a lot of really bad situational errors by his team, whether it's penalties or critical mistakes or whatnot. And so very winnable, eminently winnable game for a San Francisco team that wanted to stay in control of the NFC playoff race, and they very simply gave it to Seattle at every possible turn. Disappointing loss for a San Francisco team that was just

starting to feel legit. Nora, what did you think? Well, yeah, so to Ben's point, the Jimmy mistakes that he'd kind of been avoiding popped up again. And, you know, look, that's not a surprise, right? If you get good Jimmy Garoppolo for a few weeks, there's probably something that's a little bit like, I wish you hadn't done that coming. That's not, you know, that doesn't tell us anything about the player that we didn't already know. Clearly, the special teams thing is, is real and is a problem. That's, that's just been a recurring issue for them. For the Seahawks, Wilson looked a little healthier.

It seems like maybe that's going in the right direction. I don't really know. It just seemed as though he had a few more flashes. Yeah, that third down touchdown was mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a beautiful throw. You figure. he's getting healthier if he can do stuff like that.

Although, you know, it's really hard to know. Like, it's really hard to know and you don't actually know what the severity of that was. But for the most part, it just seemed like every NFC West game feels like either, it's either bingo or it's a madlib. And it's just who's going to make the last sort of critical mistake. I kind of would have thought it would have been Seattle turned out not to be the case. When Everett had his third turnover and his second one inside of the two yard line, I was like,

come on. That's the one. That's, this is a full Seattleing. There's no way this goes wrong. And then in a dramatic twist, the Seahawks were not called for an extremely clear penalty in the end zone on the Niners Drive and they ended up winning the game.

And man, like should they have won it? Probably not just in terms of like both teams played really sloppy. But a lot was going wrong in Seattle. You know what, you know what cures all ills? Winning a football game against a division rival. That makes everything feel a lot better.

That's old school. That's old school. Seahawks, man. Just commit so much pass interference, it just all blends together until it's the third down in the end zone and you get away with one. The Seahawks are back. And the best thing, it was, it was an instance where Sidney Jones, he was the corner, finished the play, saw the incompletion and then just didn't look up because he knew the flag

was coming, right? You know, the corner does, like, just like the walk and stare into the distance. But no flag ever came. My favorite part of the game was in the post-game presser. Jimmy Gropolo was asked about a failed fourth and won. This was the Alex McFall start, where they ran. and Zone Reed with him. And he was immediately tackled.

And he said, yeah, the play call was Zone Reed. And then he did like a little Jimmy smile. And he's a handsome son of a gun. So I smiled as well. And he went, some shit happened. And yeah, and then we got out of the play because there was the fall start. And you're just like, man, Shanahan must want to punch this guy in the mouth sometimes.

He must be so mad at this dude. Did you see this stat, Ben, that the Seahawks are the first team in the last 20 years to win a game in which they committed two turnovers, within the five-yard line. I was trying to find, like I was in the prep for the show, I was trying to do that stathead thing. I didn't get the exact number.

There are a lot of games, but I'm fairly certain the Niners are one of a very short list of teams to average at least 9.5 yards of pass and have three takeaways on defense and also lose the football game. I didn't even fold in the three of those takeaways happened basically in their, or two of those three happened basically in their own end zone. But yeah, on the box score,

if you take the points, away, you look at this and you go, Niners by four, Niners by six? Nope, man. It's just sometimes that NFC West, it's just, there's always a fake punt that ends up mattering at least once a year in the NFC West. And this year it was Travis Homer, baby. That is, that is the moral of that division. We got a couple questions legitimately asking if the Seahawks, like, are in the wildcard

hunt. They're four and eight. So they're actually technically in the wildcard hunt, considering that the seventh seed is kind of anybody's guess right now, and right now it belongs to Washington. but no one actually thinks Seattle's good, right? Listen. They're win now mode, okay? They're making a push.

Win now mode is undefeated. Over the top. Adrian Peterson very nearly, because he had the second in goal carry before the third and goal ever at fumble. He very nearly had two touchdowns in this game, which if you sign Adrian Peterson off the street in 2021 and then he gets two touchdowns, I think you get like a bonus half win when it comes to playoff tiebreakers. You don't get to keep the, they actually have to do like the Stanley Cup thing with the

Lombardi trophy where, like, you don't get to keep it. You didn't win the Super Bowl, but it, like, visits your stadium for a day. In the, in the wild card race, the whole thing swung on Washington not retaining Peterson a couple years ago and him going to Seattle. He's the key piece for the race for the seventh seed. Anything else about this game, guys? George Kettle's very good. I am aware of that targeted 12 times twice as much as any other receiver on San Francisco.

It's good to have him back in the NFL is my take on that one. He's back and rolling. He's fun one to watch. I know, I like, there's always this cliche that's like, oh, this league is so much better with this guy is good. And it's like, well, okay, maybe not. George Kittle just runs dudes over and that's just very visually resting. Like anybody who likes football should enjoy George Kittle doing such things.

Agreed. All right. Chiefs 22 Broncos 9. I'm giving the Chiefs my Alabama award because in January, the feeling that we all had on Saturday night watching Alabama dismantle Georgia and we went oh right them those guys they're pretty good we're going to have that feeling but the chiefs in January they're eight and four now they're five and two at home um Daniel sorensen had a pick six off of ben neman assist uh they've pretty much like all the things we used to make fun of about the chiefs have now strangely become okay um i don't want to say

they fixed the defense um the defense playing a lot better but the broncos offense not very good um Vic Fangio I saw some tweets tonight. I mean, I think that maybe this era of Broncos football is ending a little bit. This will be the second year of the GM coming into it. But I think that this game went exactly how I thought it was going to go, nor are any surprises. The Chiefs offense has played one good game in their last six. We have to acknowledge this. I mean, they controlled the game.

It was fine. I mean, like, okay, what specifically do you want to see better of? Mahomes, I guess, could be sharper. Scoring of the points. Sure. First of all, Mahomes always struggles with Vic Fangio. We knew that was going to happen. That's happened even when Mahomes has been dominating.

I just didn't think that this, you come out of this game worried about Mahomes? Do I come out of this game going, oh, exactly what happened to this game is deeply concerning? No, but I just think at a certain point, do I trust quarterbacks who have great track records as good bets long term? Yes, they get a bump because of that. At a certain point, I am skeptical about this team.

like do it once like look good on offense don't throw an interception just get through a clean game they did it two through three weeks ago in Vegas when they won 41 14 and moham's right and that is the one good offensive performance in six games I'm not like the world is not on fire here they could absolutely get it together in time of their playoffs make a good push mahomes is mahomes all of that is true but I do think there's a little bit of hesitancy just because they're the chiefs and and we know what Mahomes can do and we've seen it. And that's fine. I think that's rational. But we also, they're starting to just be a critical mass of this team, not exactly being a juggernaut, even if they're winning games. Okay. Ben, we're in the chiefs in AFC. Yeah, you made the Alabama comparison. For me, it's, uh, Sam Ellinger at the, the 20, 2018 Chicago. Texas, we're back. We're back. We're back. And then they were decisively not back. They were better than previous Texas's, but they were not back. They were not Texas, Texas. And that's where you are with with the Chiefs. It's like, all right, defense clearly figured it out, right? As our friend Nick Wright

very carefully tweets, uh, the Chiefs have not given up more than 10 points in a half in the last six games. I don't know. Oh, well done. But in general, the defense is keeping points off the board, the generating turnovers, the generating pressures, they've got a lot of stuff going for them. The offense has found their solutions, the quick game, Travis Kelsey's playing a lot better. They got Clyard Edwards-Alerback. But for as much as the chiefs winning games, the chief's improving, is a very real thing and in a really competitive, cannibalizing AFC, they've got as good of a shot at the number one scene as anybody does. They very clearly are not the chiefs.

They're just the chiefs right now. And they're a good football team and a lot of good players could very well make a playoff run, as Nora says. But in no way, shape or form does this feel like the juggernaut rumbling down the mountain? This is just a right now, it's a good team that's been solving its problems and is hoping to continue peaking as we get into December and into January. So I think that they don't feel like. the chiefs, and they haven't all year, and we've diagnosed that problem over and over again,

did a podcast two weeks ago, and why that has been the case. But I also feel like the AFC is just not the AFC. And I kind of feel like it, they just need to do enough to survive. And the chiefs are that. And I think that we all said, oh, if the defense gets a little better, well, they've gotten a lot better. And so I can't sit here and say, okay, Mahomes isn't going to like to play. I think he is. He has the data. There's a lot of data that says he will. So I don't, right now, I can't sit here and say, I have all these questions about the chiefs because I have so many questions but everybody, and I'll default to the team that just wins all the time. That's my take.

Sounds eerily similar to the Titans state. Except this team has Patrick Mahomes. I know. That was rude. I didn't mean that. No, but it's not a million miles away from it. Like, I mean, at some point, you just have to be, okay, this team is winning. Like, I know we're both joking a little bit, but like, at some point, the team that's

winning is the team that's going to, that we should favor in the AFC and the team that knows how to win. And like, we joke about the Steelers being three and O in one point games, but, like, at some point, teams just know how to win. That's my completely unscientific take. Yeah, I sat on the gambling show that like the bills are having similar problems, but Daibel and Josh Allen haven't really earned our trust away at like Reed and Mahomes. And then Spags as well have, right?

Like if there's a team that I trust to like kind of just win, it's this nucleus group. It's kind of funny because I actually was talking to someone in the league this week, and they're actually talking about Herbert and they were just like, the thing that no one realized is that there are just teams and players that know how to make one more play than the other guy. And like it's totally unscientific and it's totally stupid. but it's a real thing and you can watch it unfold in real time. And I actually do think that's the Chiefs. And that's why you need Daniel Soren.

To be the X factor. To be the, oh, and Ben Neiman. And Ben, sir. To be clear. You got to have, that's the Bash Brothers.

Yeah, yeah. Nor, anything else in this game? Just if they are supposed to be that team that we're, where we have a different level of trust in, I would like to see them do it more than once a month. I think that's fair. That's fine.

Alabama was, you know, they almost lost Auburn a couple weeks ago. Then would they do? They have the Raiders, by the way next week. The team they beat 41 to 14 a few weeks ago. So that's a get right game.

Then they have the Chargers on December 16th. That's exciting. They're in a good position. It's good to be the Chiefs. It'll confirm a few priors. I just, all I am doing is I'm redacting the privilege of, I assume things about them being able to create explosive offense

that I would not assume about any other team in football. I think they have lost that right. My elevator pitch on the Chiefs is that I feel the best about their weakness. right now out of anybody in the AFC. I feel, I feel comfortable with their particular weakness right now. And their particular weakness being, they can't score points right now in the same way they normally. Okay.

But just, just, just think about that for a second. That is what we're identifying as their weakness right now, which, which seems to have some conflict with the comprehensive theory of the Kansas City Chiefs, right? That's all that's right. No, but that's the point. I'm making, we're in agreement here. That that's a problem, but I agree that I think it will be fixed. That's part of the reasoning.

I think this will be fine. It'd be fine. Andy Reed and Patrick Mahomes, that offense, the team team better every single week on other parts of the ball. It'll be fine. That's my take. All right, now I'm going to get to a couple of these games via listener questions, and this is a pretty obvious one.

It's from Sean. What defense were the Vikings playing on the last drive? So if you didn't see, the Detroit Lions got their first win of the season. They had tied previously. They're now 1-10-1, 29-27 over the Minnesota Vikings. And it came on the last play of the game when it looked like to me, I don't really know how to describe it. It was prevent defense while everybody was in the end zone.

Basically making sure there were no big plays, even if that meant giving up a touchdown. They were not going to go up a 40-yard touchdown on the play that was 20 yards deep. That was their red zone defense. And you know what? It worked. They did not give up a 40-yard touchdown. Listen, listen.

They were up by four, and touchdowns in the front of the end zone are only worth three. And then the further back in the end zone you get. See, that's why it's scaled. It's like what they always think about doing with the three-point line. That's right. So the Lions writers said that Amun-Ross St. Brown called to Cush on the final play actually crazy. Ben, not much disagreement there, bud. Yeah, that's a rookie being.

I'm like, I'm not really sure. That's how that should go. I think what it's got to be is the expectation that the outside corners are playing a lot further up, because they've got six bodies in between the numbers. And so I don't understand why the outside corners are playing backpilom. They should be playing front pylon and play outside leverage or funnel everything into those bodies. But it's not just the corner over Monross St. Brown, who I think is Danciler 27. It's not just him who's doing it.

The guy on the opposite side is doing it. I don't know if it's just fundamentally coached wrong. But you basically just told Jared Goff, who like... Coaching. Coaching is in there. Yeah. Is it's one of the reasons there. It's just wild that, like, it's not even like it was a particularly dangerous arm back there. It's Goff. Golf's not going to throw back bylaw.

He can't. Like, he doesn't have that in his quiver. So you don't got to... We're going to worry about those throws, man. I'm sorry. This was truly a game of Jared golfing, though, because Goff did a lot of golfing, but Kurt Cousins did himself plenty of golfing as well. the late first half, I'm getting sacked.

Let me try to throw a little sidearm pass. Yeah, I mean, just a little too much dip on your chip there, Kirk. Like that's, I don't know who you think you are, but you're not that. Losing Adam Thielen in a game which they already lost Dalvin Cook meant they were Justin Jefferson or Boston on offense, made it really tough in the red zone. They had to kick fuel goals. And that led Detroit hang around in it. Detroit's been hanging around in a lot of games.

This was the one where they were finally able to get the breaks for them. The Dan Campbell post, he had the presser, which was really beautiful. But then he also had the release the video of him in the locker room. And you can just see this man's genuinely really happy to do it a football game. And that's a heartwarming thing to see. Yeah, that's lovely. Nora, take-o-wis? This is less lovely.

It's not just the last play of the game, right? It's not just the, it's not just giving it the touchdown. The softest prevent defense nonsense allowing Jared Gough and the Lions to go 75 yards without a timeout, less than two minutes on the clock. You're past the two minute warning. It just, I mean, if it weren't that opponent, if they hadn't been playing golf and the Lions, you would have been going the entire time.

Like, oh, God, I've seen this movie before. Like, this does not end well. Don't stop just trying not to lose. Try to just win the game. So, yes, the last play rightfully, the defense on the, the last play rightfully gets the most attention. but that had been, that was building. Ben, is it time in Minnesota?

It is in the sense that, like, we talked for this with Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson. After a while, you just tore your hands if we go, we got nothing, right? And I think Kirk and Zimmer are kind of already there. In my head, you move on from... They've been there for a long time. Yeah, right, exactly.

Like, this has been going on for the year. I think you move on from Zimmer because it's easier, right? And obviously Kirk has the money tied into him. But I'll tell you, like, where Zimmer ends up DCing or being a head coach, everything, there's a Ron Rivera thing and kind of just takes a year or whatever, he's going to be really good. Yeah, I really agree with that.

Yeah, I really agree with that. Still got his stuff. And what Zimmer does on defense is something that's becoming really like, more and more teams are adopting in terms of how he gets into his pressures. So he's got the good. Zimmer isn't like behind the times in any way, shape, or form on the defensive side of the ball. It's just very clear that right now in Minnesota,

somebody's got to be at the end of the rope. Spielman's had a long time to get this wrong. roster right. I don't really think he ever has. Zimmer's had a long time to, to, you know, make a defense dominant enough that they can make the Super Bowl run. There's really only been one look in 2017, where they had a shot. And then Kirk's had a long time to not be Kirk Cousins. And it turns out he's still Kirk Cousins. Arifac had, of the athletic, excuse me, had the screenshot that they showed on the broadcast, where Kurt Cousins with the lead since you started with the Vikings is like 24 and 1. And Kirk Cousins, trailing into the fourth quarter is like

1 in 24. Like, this is just what he is. He is the Mendoza line. and that's got to be a reality they accept. Nora, any thoughts? I think maybe you hope if you want to sort of take an optimistic look at it, it sucks for Thielen and it sucks to lose him, but you wonder if it might not be the worst thing in the world, if there were some karmic intervention, cosmic intervention to kind of nudge this team into rebuilding mode

and to take on that project in a more serious way than they ever have. in recent memory. So maybe they'll do that. Maybe they won't. Kirk makes it tough. But the Vikings. Okay. I got a long and involved question from Miles Thomas about the Giants.

And it's really, it's a bunch of different scenarios, one of which is, will Russ or Rogers be the quarterback of the New York Giants in 2022? And I think that that we can debate that. But I really just, I think we really just want to talk about the Giants playing the dolphins today and Tua and Logan Ryan shot at him and Tua being the short pass master he completed 21 of 255 passes within within 10 yards stay 452 yards overall Ben Zilock is written about this this week he is sort of mastered not only the RPO but just the art of throwing extremely short passes and the dolphins won and there's a lot to unpack here Ben where do you go there's nothing wrong

with two is the best quarterback it goes Tua and then Herbert and then Burrow I love the way they built the offense. Well, you earlier put, you'd earlier put Herbert on the Mahomes level as far as in one particular category. Yeah, too is on Brady's level. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say. Okay, yeah. Yeah, with like a dash of Joe Montana, probably, a little bit of Dan Marino.

And like cross with a jugs machine. Yeah, yeah. Again, what the important thing for me with Miami is this. Self-awareness is a highly valuable. It's a precious trait in the NFL. And a lot of people miss it out. A lot of coaches miss it out, and it ends up being a death knell for them. Miami understood the assignment.

When we have a quarterback who, when we push the ball down field, it's really going to be jump balls and back shoulders just because of the nature of the arm strength. Mike, and Sicki and Devante Parker both had huge third-down conversions in this game by simply being really big and really physical at the catch point. That's understanding the assignment. Jaylon Waddle is out here pushing the record for rookie receptions. If we're going to be a shallow target team, we need a guy who's insane with the ball in his hands. We need a guy who's an insane immediate separator.

able to create space like that, they went and traded up to go get that player. They understood the assignment. So this pass catching court is very nicely built to sustain a quarterback like Tua, which has been done, not over super long stretches. Mitchell Trabiski 2018, Nick Ful's 2017, but has been done. And so kudos to them for getting that job done, getting those players healthy because it's shown this passing game now has enough to finish the job that their defense does, which is really just being able to be dominant with their man coverage, with their aggressive safeties and whatnot. So the way that, they built it. This is how it was always supposed to look. It means 20 to 9 wins over the

giants, which ain't pretty, but it's how they built it. And they've won games because of that. Remains to be seen if they can punch at the AFC East wait. Nora, answer Ben's question. Can they punch at the AFC weight? No. Like, not long term. Because the thing that the examples that Ben just gave, right, like Mitchell Trubisky, Nick Foles, not on inspiring stuff. The other thing that I want to just get into here, you mentioned, and did a little bit, Kevin, but just in case anybody missed the actual specifics of the Logan Ryan thing. So obviously, Daniel Jones is out. Mike Lennon was playing.

Logan Ryan said that he was available as an emergency quarterback. He played quarterback in high school. He was an emergency quarterback in college. This is something that actually means a lot to Logan Ryan. I've heard him talk about being an emergency quarterback in the past. So I'm sort of not surprised he waited into this territory. But he goes, I'm a lot like Tua. I can throw two-yard passes to the.

the left. Yep. Which this happens to Tua a lot. Like, he gets weird shade from other players after games, and I don't understand it. Because while I mean, usually that stuff sort of has to do with who's friends with whom a little bit less than like on the field stuff. So I don't understand why he's taking so much shade, but I don't know if it's a great sign.

First of all, he missed an opening for the phrase Tua Yard pass, which I feel like she maybe be out into the universe a little bit more. I don't know. If you're trying to send a shot, you don't usually throw a pun to a well. No, you know what you do is you say the line and then you punctuate it by going, to a yard pass. Yeah, the only reason I said it was just for the bit, the pun, right, right. Yeah, you do a bit. Give yourself a little coverage. Yeah, you put a button at the end of it. You know, just Logan Ryan wants bit lessons. We can go from there. Okay, yeah, this is, the problem is, as you mentioned, Ben, like this is not the NFC. There's six and seven in a conference

with a bunch of six-win teams, and I just don't think that they're going to be able to separate themselves. I really enjoy they've won five in a row. They've probably saved everybody's jobs, and they've probably shown, I mean, this is a team that was trying to trade for Dejaume Watson a couple weeks ago to go to the point of desperation. I think they know they can probably roll with Tua next year and try to figure this out. They don't necessarily have to go and get a quarterback in the next couple of months, which at some point maybe there was talk about it, because obviously they were trying to find an upgrade. But, you know, it's a nice story, and that's pretty much the extent of it. All right. That's a Moria Cooper asks, is Washington good?

And it's the jumping off point for the Washington football teams win over the Las Vegas Raiders. Nora. The Washington football team sometimes plays good games. Their quarterback is Ryan Fitzpatrick light. So sometimes they also can play bad games. But sometimes they put a product out there that on any given Sunday can be a good product. It can also be, and this is critical, insane. But sometimes it is good. Wow. There's a lot there, Nora. I agree with you.

You pretty much covered it all on whether or not they're good. I think they're going to make the playoffs. And what's interesting to me is that we had this reaction where obviously Washington football team coming into the season, their defense was wildly overrated. Ryan Fitzpatrick, I think even just as a piece going into the season, was, was, I felt that the whole team was overrated. I felt like I kind of cowardly said they'd be okay because I was worried about the

Dak Prescott's shoulder. We've litigated that over and over and over again. But now they're coming back and they're a pretty solid team and they're an intriguing team. And I kind of feel like I've, because I had reversed all my priors coming into the season, I'm having a hard time reckoning with that. Ben, just, just walk me through. You wrote a great piece about Tyler Heineke at the end of last week. walk me through what's actually happening with this Washington team right now.

Defense was terrible to start the season, massively punching under their weight in terms of the talent they brought in. We're settled in now a little bit. They were doing this thing in the beginning of the season where we have five defensive line, let's put them all in the field. And then they were like, why are we giving up so many passing yards? You only have six guys in coverage, man. So, you know, they kind of have recalibrated a little bit,

and that defense is playing a really good ball. Heinecke simply, you know, we got to remember. Like, he's an older dude, right? It was the 2016, 2015 draft class I want to say for him. But he didn't have a lot of reps. And so he's had a nice little learning curve, right? Like not similar to Jalen Hertz that you've seen in Philadelphia over the course of this season where I'm starting to figure out where my throws are and where they aren't, what I can and can't get away with.

And then he's always had this scrappiness to him, right? He's always has a little moxie to him. He's a fun guy to root for where he makes these clutch plays. And he's able to get these third and goal conversions, these third down and four conversions, make these tight window throws. A lot of trust in himself. and sometimes it gets him into trouble. But in general, that's what you want in your backup.

Norah called him a mini Fitzpatrick, and it's very true. Not so much on like the nine ball stuff. Like that's where Fitzpatrick is. But like with the intermediate middle stuff, those tight Jimmy Garoppolo windows, He'll just keep shooting. And he really won't be deterred by anything. And that'll give you the positive plays that you need. This Washington team also was getting healthier.

Logan Thomas was back. Curtis Samuel was back, taking some of the load off of Terry McLaurid. Logan Thomas looked really, really good in this game. I think got her to get, yeah. Yeah, went down ACL. an MCL injury. That really, really sucks because that tight end was important for how Heineckee plays. J.D. McKessick's been critical for them catching past out of the backfield. He goes down, right? And so they kind of have this hamster wheel on offense a little bit,

but as they've been settling into having guys more consistently, the offense has found enough. They found their answers. They found the stuff they can get into. That makes you a functional team. And in the NFC, that's probably good enough for the seventh seat at this point. Do you know how old Nora Taylor Heineke is? 31? It's 28. I don't know if you, I don't know if you, I don't know if that's supposed to be older young for Taylor Heineke.

I have no idea. I didn't, I didn't peg it but 28. Anyway, all right, let's get to Ruizans. Bye Benjamin. Bye guys.

All right. The Ruizans have begun. Nora and I are still arguing about whether or not the chiefs are the best team in AFC. I think they might be the new patriots and that we just give them the benefit of the doubt all the time. And they end up being correct. Stephen has sat mostly silently while we bicker. Yeah, I disagree with Nora.

I don't think the chiefs are a terrible team like Nora was saying. Nora, do I really do. No, no, I just really think it's unfair. She didn't say that. She didn't say that. No, no, she didn't say that. I think it's unfair that when we weren't recording, she called them the worst team in football.

And I just think that's just ridiculous. And I think that's why Stephen was correct in the record. Okay, so Stephen, we have two things to talk about. Number one, producer Isaiah was at the Jaguars Rams game today. And we're really proud of producer Isaiah for buying tickets and wearing a Jags jersey and go into that game. So shout out to producer Isaiah. Maybe midweek update from him. But the Rams are the team we're watching.

And we also want to get to the Joe Brady News as well. What did we see from the Rams? Do they get right? Is this offense back? No, no. They played the Jaguars. That's my analysis. And I say that I wrote a midweek column about the Rams.

And one of the big issues is teams have been able to take away the middle of the field. And for the most part, the Jaguars were able to do that except for like the four snaps where they decide it, oh, let's blitz everybody and leave our very bad secondary one-on-one with Cooper Cup and company. And it didn't work out. And there was only still two plays. They still are having a problem accessing that part of the field where they basically lived in for the first two months of the season when they were flying high. And that's my one concern. Like, what is this offense going to look like against a non- Jaguar's defense? I will say a lot more under center, a lot more play action, which I think they need it.

But some of these issues are still plaguing them. I don't know if they're the explosive downfield passing team they were even a month ago. So we dove in as a site over the past week. Just the idea that Sean McVeigh does necessarily make a ton of adjustments this season goes along. Maybe he just gets a little stale. and that's why some of the drop off of production has happened over the past couple of years in the second half of the season. Did you see any creativity day? Did you see any experimentation just where you're just like, hey, maybe he's doing a little bit or was it just kind of doing the bare minimum because it's the Jags? The one thing I did see that was different. I saw a couple of more plays where they were like actually pulling a guard. It wasn't just straight zone runs. And they're one of the like the teams that employed zone runs the most. And I saw more like man blocking schemes. But that was really it. Like there was still a couple times on third and.

medium where I knew what play was coming and I'm not trying to like make myself into some Tony Romo guy like I never am able to do that and I was able to do it at least twice in this game. All right. Anything else in this game before we get to the Joe Brady News? I want you guys to try to guess who the Jaguars leading receiver was. He was a former first round pick. James O'Shaughnessy. Oh God. A former first round pick. A receiver, not a Titan. Okay. I know this. I know this. I recently, I recently was surprised. this person was on the team. They were disactivated, right?

They were disactivated. Tell me. Lequan Treadwell. Oh, wow. He was the best non-Trever Lawrence player on the field for the Jaguars today. It was another good performance by Trevor Lawrence. You wouldn't know it by looking at the stats, but I just want to say the Jaguars, they need to be contracted.

They can't keep doing this. We need to get him out of Jacksonville. Lequan Treadwell? I was thinking of Tavon Austin, who, It's embarrassing he wasn't the leading receiver. Lequan Treadwell is way worse than Tavon Austin, and Tavon Austin is on the Jaguars. It's an embarrassing, embarrassing roster.

All right, you're a Panthers fan. Let's get to the Joe Brady news here real quick. So Brady was fired on Sunday 18 months after being the hottest assistant coach prospect in the country. Report came out. David Newton had it that basically Rule wanted to run the ball 30 to 33 times a game. Last game out, by the way, with the backup running back in most cases this year. and I think they ran the ball 16 last year or last week rather so Brady went is this a panic move like Matt Rule's under contract for like five more years but this is all getting off to a very weird start yeah I mean I think it's a panic move I think it's a shift the blame type move I mean Matt Rule's not going to blame himself he's not going to blame Phil Snow who he's been working with for more than one and a half years so it makes sense that Joe Brady's the guy but when you watch them on tape in their offense even earlier in the year with Sam Darnel,

I don't know how an offensive coordinator could realistically be expected to do a better job than he did. Especially after this last game, I saw a lot of Panthers fans complaining about the job he did. They had two people that were great, two offensive linemen that were graded with zeros by PFF and pass blocking.

How do you call plays for that? I don't know. I don't know what play you call when, like I could have done the same job as they're starting left tackle last week. Yeah. There was a midweek story about just how basically, like, they couldn't, they had no idea what to do with some of the stunts in the fronts. PFF had that.

They were just letting guys through. I mean, it was like one of those flag football games where you couldn't block. Like it was just, the guys were just coming through like, yeah, whatever, do what you need to do. Where did the Panthers go from here? Like, is a franchise. Like, should Matt Rule be on the hot seat? I mean, I think he should be on the hot seat. And the fact that he is saying they should be running the ball 30 to 33 times when they're behind every week makes no sense.

And that just, yeah, yeah. That just reminded me of when he was first hired. And I remember one of the first things I read was him talking about how he did some study at Baylor where if they ran a certain amount of times, they had this record. You know, the classic thing that the analytics guys make fun of. He said that. And it sounds like he wants to get back to it. I'm sure he ran a study and he was like, whoa, when we run it 30 to 35 times, we win every game this year. And that's because you're running in the fourth quarter and you're ahead.

I don't know. If that's why he fired Joe Brady, then I don't know what David Tepper is waiting for it. Fire Matt Rule 2. He has done nothing. He's done nothing. He was brought in to build up a program. Do you guys know whether the Panthers are rebuilding or whether they're competing for a playoff spot? Because I can't tell you.

Well, they gave pretty significant money to Cam Newton, which was really kind of a mixed signal in that regard. And, like, again, we're both huge Cam Newton fans in this podcast as just a, a, a, the potential of him in an offense as an entity sure um but functionally on the panthers i mean it's kind of a nostalgia thing and you don't need to actually spend that money out there so the whole thing was just a little stupid nora um the panthers yes or no it's not great right the fire the offensive coordinator stage in the well this isn't going well and we've got to do something cycle is not that far away from the end of the cycle sometimes so it's it's tough and they have obviously committed a lot of money to people at the quarterback position who have not worked out. So they're playing from

behind, you know, they maybe just said goodbye to good talent for reasons that didn't really have to do with job performance, but more had to do with internal stuff. And that's tough. You need some of those things to work out, right? And it's not happening. I was talking to someone the other day. And it was actually about a different owner. And they said that there were some owner. And there were some owners who want to win and are committed to winning, but they don't know how to win. They don't know what that looks like. And I think that applies to David Tepper. I think David Tepper wants to spend the money.

I think the process that he goes through, okay, I'm going to commit to this guy. I'm going to give him a lot of years to figure it out. I'm going to give him job security. He's going to be able to run his stuff. Like, that to me is fine. That's actually what you need to do in most cases. But I think he hired the wrong person. I don't think this is going to work there in Carolina.

I'm correctly, I'm wrong, Stephen. But I think that he's a really good example of someone who, when they figure out what winning looks like, they're going to be a very, very dangerous owner for the rest of the league. But until then, it's going to be a little bit aimless. And all the commitment in the world, it won't matter if you don't commit to the right things. And that's what happens when you have a young owner, typically. No, I agree with that. I think the first, what is it, two and a half years now, three years of his ownership have not gone well.

and when he was brought in, he was supposed to be the analytics owner. Like he pays attention to analytics. And I was trying to tell people what he calls analytics might not be what you call analytics. Like I would not be surprised if David Tepper thinks password rating is analytics. Like you remember when Troy Aikman was like railing against yards per attempt like two years ago? I think that's what he thinks analytics are. And he interviewed Matt Ruhl and Matt Ruhl told him that cool stat about when they run the ball this many times they have this record. And he was like, whoa, this guy's an analytics genius.

and that's probably why you hired him. That's what we're dealing with in Carolina right now. Wow. I feel for you, buddy. I stopped caring about this team like five years ago, so you don't have to. The last three weeks after Cam Newton, that was an all short. You're only under for Cam Newton. Stephen, great stuff.

We'll see you on Friday with the Ben Solack, Kaelin Jones, Stephen Ruiz Power Hour. That's what we call it. All right. Thank you to Ben and Stephen, Nora. See you this week. This has been the Ringar NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network. Thank you to Chris Sutton, first production up with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ramkapal.