The Ringer NFL Show - Week 15 Recap: Jets Refuse to Lose, Chiefs Can't Lose, Patriots Keep Losing | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Kevin and Nora react to the New York Jets' first win of the season and how it affects their chances for Trevor Lawrence (1:00), name their winners and losers of Week 15 (17:45), go through the Hurry Up (1:06:10), answer listeners' questions (1:08:23), and pick their clickbait headlines of the week (1:14:22). Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the ringer NFL show, part of the Ringar Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined today by Nora Prince-Diati to discuss the Jets beating an NFC playoff team, the Chiefs beating the Saints in a potential Super Bowl preview, and which washed-up NBA player we'd choose in a goal-line fade situation. Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm at a surprisingly great rate. That's like drafting a player that becomes an all pro, the real deal. State Farm agents provide personalized service so you can customize your insurance to fit your needs,

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When people listen to this, it will be a Jets Victory Monday. That's incredible. Joy is in the air. It's a holiday miracle. You can feel it. You can feel it, I think, walking down the streets of New York. A lot to get to. Obviously, the Chiefs and Saints played a very interesting game.

The Jalen Hertz, Kylo Murray game delivered. But we'll start with, wow, I'm not sure what to call it. A game. A game. A game happened. The Jets beat the Los Angeles Rams 23 to 20. There are so many stories. lines here that I don't know where to start. We'll start with what do we learn about both of these

teams and what happens next, Nora Princeati. We learned that we learned with the Jets something that we already know or should know, which is that tanking does not, players don't tank, coaches don't tank. No matter how futile it had been for 13 games, Frank Gore was trying. And it's far more concerning for the Rams that that actually resulted in a positive outcome and then that actually worked. The Jets in some ways, all of the implications are longer term, right? But for Los Angeles, I woke up this morning spending a lot of time thinking about them as maybe the most stable NFC team. And that is where I went out, right?

How'd that go for you? How'd that go for you? They lost to the Jets, Kevin. They sure did. So when we're talking about week-to-week league and half-to-half league, whatever you want to call it, how inconsistent this league is, I present you, Sean McVeigh destroying Bill Belichick, having 10 days to prepare for Adam Gase and getting outclassed. This is not normal. This is not a normal year. We got a reader question, and I'll just share it now.

It was, did Gase do it on purpose? Did Gase do what on purpose? I don't even know what that means anymore. Did he accidentally win a football game? Because you can't accidentally win a football game. They were all trying. But this has so many ramifications this year and for the future. Because I can't trust the Rams right now.

I understand that I can say all the time that this is a week to week league and there's so much inconsistencies and all that stuff. But I'm not picking the Rams to win a playoff game until I see something dramatically different. And McVeigh talks all the time about consistency. and see that's his big thing. This was such a weird game that at this point, the only hope for the Rams, and they have so much talent, they have great coaches,

it's golf. And it has to be golf having one of his good games for two, three, four weeks in a row. That's how they make a playoff run, okay? Hope is not a strategy.

That's what everybody says in every NFL office, every NFL front office across all 32 franchises. Hope is not a strategy. Jared Goff right now is hope. And that's, that is concerning. That should be concerning. So McVeigh comes out,

says it's embarrassing. You're sick to your stomach about it. Very humbling. Yeah, that's all the things you should feel when you give the Jets their first one of the season. Okay. It is the- But I also, I don't want to see your offensive line struggle against the Jets defensive line. Like that shouldn't be happening. There's a lot of this stuff where it's like penalties, mistakes, golf's holding the ball for too long. They're playing a messy game. All of that. You can kind of, ah, I hate a Jets Mulligan, but it's 2020, so you get a mulligan on some of it. but I really don't want to see your offensive line, which is still one of the places on that team that's been hit by injuries

and has been less consistent, especially later in the season. It's great that Quinn and Williams is starting to coalesce as a player. I don't want to see you struggling against the Jets. That's scary to me. So PFF had this. There were only two completed passes over 15 yards today, none over 20.

Average depth of target was 6.5, under 6.5. This was two quarterbacks taking, zero chances. And there were, you know, listen, the Jets tackling, especially in the second half, was really bad. The Rams should have won this game. There's not a scenario in which there's any excuse for them not to have won this game. They were sloppy. There were penalties.

They turned Marcus May into a superstar for an afternoon. I really like Marcus May, but I mean, he was just all over the place. This is not good. And, you know, first of all, from the Jets perspective, this is why you hang on to Greg Williams. This is why you don't panic during a tank. Greg, could you imagine fourth quarter Greg Williams there?

My God. So the big picture thing here, aside from the Rams, and we can get back to the Rams here in a second, is the Jets and what happens now? Because they obviously have lost the first overall pick. Jaguars probably are smart enough to know how to rest their starters or do a massage the next two weeks, okay? And it looks like they're at the number two spot,

which is Justin Fields or Sewell from Oregon or something else. Daniel Jeremiah said there's three options now. It's best quarterback available, best player available, or trade back and get a haul for a quarterback needy team. The problem there is that that would be on the surface of commitment to Sam Darnold, who's going to cost $25 million if he picks up a fee for your option. Cost control is such an important part of it. Or do you go out and you try to take advantage of the quarterback movement out there?

Do you try to, you know, a Matthew Stafford type who might become available with the new GM in Detroit? something like that. I think that there's a lot of places you can go here now that the Jets have screwed this up. I think that the number one, like worst draft scenario ever for the Jets and the worst day in Jets history was the day that Peyton Manning went back to school, okay, in 1996. That was so important. That would have been 15 years of Peyton Manning, everything would have changed. This is probably number two. Now, I do want to address the fact that, as you said, the players don't care. The players do not care that Trevor Lawrence is not coming to Newark. They don't care. That's not their job. Jason Kelsey had that amazing rant last week. The focus is always winning

on Sunday. The players probably not going to be back most of them. Okay, maybe a handful of the core, but most of them are fighting for their lives, for livelihood. They're fighting. The coaches are fighting for it to get another job somewhere. I'm like, Adam Gates and I guaranteed anything next year. Okay. And so every assistant that you don't want to stink on you. Okay. And so I think that I understand why the Jets did this. If you're a Jets fan, I understand being upset. said about it. But this is, this is just sort of what happens. And so this is, you couldn't guarantee a winless season. The Jets were going to win at some point. I'm just surprised to happen today. So if you're the Jets, what do you do? So my gut says that if you're at number two, this is still a team that has a lot

of holes on the roster. And you would have to be confident in some semblance of a plan for, okay, where do you think Donald is? Who are the quarterbacks that might be veteran options who are available? What are you going to do there? And that's the part that, you know, they know how they feel about that and we'll see. But I think you trade down.

I think you try to take more swings. I don't think that they are a franchise left tackle away. And the gap between Lawrence and Fields or a Zack. Wilson. Yeah. Seems to be, by the way,

this looks even worse after Clemson smokes Notre Dame. Like, this is just a bad, this is a bad, bad sort of narrative arc of this weekend for this whole situation. But I just think there's too many holes on the roster. You try to take as many swings as you possibly can. But that is a initial reaction thought that is dependent a lot on what the guys that are going to still be there, think of Darnold and what they think of the other quarterback

options that are available. Joe Douglass. Because if none of that feels tenable, well, just if none of that feels tenable, then, then, yeah, you take your pick between Fields and Wilson or, you know, whoever you think is the second best quarterback available. I feel like that is not far less of a gamble than trying to revive Darnold, trying to see if what you originally thought was there. is still something that exists and can be salvaged, which is a tough thing,

but probably easier if you can infuse that roster with a good deal of talent. So a couple things here. Number one is that I would love Brandon Staley, the Rams Defense Coordinator, to engineer Trevor Lawrence to Jacksonville and then get the Jacksonville job. That would be the greatest conspiracy theory, frozen envelope situation of all time. I will say that the Jacksonville job just became that much better, both GM and coach. coach is not available, but we probably understand what's going to happen in two weeks there. GM, I mean, that is, if you're the top GM candidate right now, I'm calling Jacksonville.

And I'm prioritizing that because you have the blanks like, you love Jacksonville. You have the cap. Well, I mean, they're going to have the cap space. They're going to have a jack, I'm a Jacksonville guy. What? You are a Jacksonville guy. I'm not a Jacksonville guy. Kevin just wants to like play golf in Jacksonville. I mean, I don't, I wouldn't turn down golf in Jacksonville. but I wouldn't say that's like my personality trait. I wouldn't, that's not a personality trait.

I'm not a Jacksonville guy. I don't own. I feel like I don't own enough dry fit polo for that. Having spent some time in Jacksonville, I will say that. All right. So let's with with the quarterback thing because as we talk about so, Joe Douglas is going to be there in New York. He's going to make that decision.

They're not going to fire Joe Douglas. They're going to fire Adam Gase. Douglas is going to stay there. And I think that there's a scenario in which, and I think Joe Douglas is a really good I think he did really good things in both Philadelphia and Baltimore. But there's a scenario in which the quarterback doesn't matter there because their franchise such a tire fire. You know, one of the parts I thought was interesting about Jason Kelsey's rant last week.

And I implore you to watch it if you haven't seen it, is he was saying a high draft pick doesn't guarantee anything because it's all about culture and kind of figuring out what to do with that high draft pick. He said it might be the start of a Super Bowl championship, but it's not a Super Bowl championship. And I think that's profound. And I think that there's something that, you know, there is no, Justin Herbert looks amazing. reason right now. Okay.

Amazing. One of the best rookie quarterbacks we've seen in a long time. But the Chargers organization needs to get its, I don't even know, get its head on straight

and figure out what to do with him. The Jets could have taken Trevor Lawrence and screwed him up. The Jets might take Justin Fields and screw him up. And I think that what's happening now is that the winning here, I think, is,

I know this is a weird thing to say. It might be an okay sign. And I think if they lost this, and they were telling these guys, they were instructing these guys to lose or whatever, I would have felt a little queasy about, you know, Pat McAfee tweeted a couple minutes

and he said, I love what the Jets did today. And I think a lot of players feel that way because they're offended by the shamelessness of tanking. And I don't think that it was an actual tank this year. I just think they were a bad team with bad coaches with bad ideas. And so I think that there's a case to be made that in the grand scheme of things,

Justin Fields, plus this team isn't that bad. They've got pieces. They can, they can rattle Jared golf in the offensive line. Like, I feel like there's hope here for the Jets. Okay. I'm not going to sit here and make fun of the Jets for the next 10 minutes because I just don't think that that's, I think that there's a path forward here.

And I think that the second overall pick plus what they've got, it might not be the worst thing in the world. That's all. All right. Well, if you're not going to sit here and make fun of the Jets, I am. Which means I want to pose to you. Okay. So Peyton Manning going back to school.

we're ranking this as more significant than that. What about if we take three events? Because they had the first overall pick. They had the first overall pick in their grass. Already locked down. Kishan Johnson. Rank those two plus Bill Belichick on the napkin. I resign as H.C. of NYJ.

What changed the future of the Jets more slash less? See, this is an amazing question because it gets to which you rather have Bill check for two decades or paid money for two decades. Okay. True. And also, by the way, by the way, my, my best friends family, Jets fans, I texted her dad during the game and just said Jets. And he just texted me back and said, I missed it entirely.

Worst part is that now I have to follow the Jaguars. Perfect. See? Now that's a Jacksonville guy. Okay. So, um, I think I'd rather have, I think I'd, think I'd rather have Belichick. Now, assuming, assuming that Belichick gets all the power that he got in New England, he gets to do the roster management stuff. I don't, I don't want to pair him with

somebody. I don't want him all. I don't want him to have to fit into the Jets ecosystem. But I would rather have Bill Belichick than at that age than Peyton Manning or Trevor Lawrence. This is my take. Do you agree? Okay. I think that makes sense. I think the, the Peyton Manning one is tough because I think while you can, well, I agree with you that if you have Belichick, you want the full Belichick, you want an empowered Belichick that you can say on paper and it's fine, but it has a lot to do with ownership. And that's sort of the third piece of New England and why it worked. And I don't know how they would have been able to do that in New York.

Manning is more significant because we know what he became. You know, Trevor Lawrence is an incredible player and has been an incredible. player in college. We don't really know what he will be as an NFL player we can project. So that feels less significant. So I guess I'm inclined to agree with you. I'm, I'm, maybe would flip Manning and Belichick. Manning and Belichick. Yeah, no, I don't know. I, it, I think, I think that you need more to go right when you have what you need more, you need other things to go right at a higher clip than with Manning than you do Belichick. I think Belichick, I think Belichick, gives you, gives you a organizational, I don't want to go Charlie Weiss here, but he gives you

a schematic advantage over the long haul here. Uh, last thing I want to say is I want to get back to the Rams here and just get angry for a second. So from the Jets perspective, this was, according to ESPN, Sats info, the second biggest upset in history for the Jets, uh, number one being the, uh, the 1968 championship against the Baltimore Colts that changed the entire concept of how we view football. Um, this also changed the entire concept of how I view football, But with the Rams now, I was getting, I'm with you, I was getting so excited about the possibility that this team was on that level with the Packers and the Saints and the NFC. And we can talk about them like that. You know, I had heard a take last week on the PFF forecast podcast.

So that was great about how the Rams match up so well with the Packers because Jalen Ram's, you can take out Devonté Adams and Aaron Donald can pressure Aaron Rogers up the middle and all this stuff. And I was starting to think like, hey, here they come a little bit. And now, again, I just, I've lost the ability to trust the Rams this year. And I will think about this every time I get hyped up on the Rams. And I don't know what they can do to erase that. It is a bigger heat check than we have seen in a season just chock full of them. Because I was doing the version of that with how they would match up with Chiefs in the Super Bowl this morning. And then they lost to the Jets.

And then they lost to the Jets. And they're still going to make the playoffs. I was looking at the 538 thing. And there's no, really no scenario which they're not going to make the playoffs. Like they're 90% even if they lose out. They'd be 9 and 7. Totally. I mean, they would have,

they would have clinched a playoff berth if they'd won today. But then they lost to the Jets. They lost to the Jets. And then they play the Seahawks next week, I think. So that'll be important. But it's not, they're fine, except that no one's fine. They're going to be up like 10 points in the Super Bowl with nine minutes to go. and we're going to be texting

whether or not we trust through the Rams. I need to learn not to feel. Like that's, that is what I learned from this game is that I need to detach. I need to detach for the next month and a half or whatever gets us through February 7th. Like,

it's too, there's too much pain. The idea that the Jets might keep Sam Darnold around because of this game is actually quite funny to me. That is the one part that's funny. All right. First winner,

Kansas Chiefs. When one of the games of the season, just from my paper standpoint, 3229 over the New Orleans Saints, Alvin Kamar was asked after the game, Alvin, would you say this felt like a playoff game? Alvin Kamara said, quote, no. Oh, wow.

There you have it. Okay, so this is, I think that this was one of the more instructive games for the playoffs this year, because this is two teams I think we could see in a handful of weeks in Tampa. Two of the best rosters in football. Two of at certain points, if they're healthy, the best quarterbacks in football.

Drew Brees came back from a punctured lung and broken ribs. This was his first game back. Wow. He starts out 0 for 7. He gets in a little rhythm as the game goes along. He's good on some tempo stuff. And he actually had a 51-yard pass to Manuel Sanders that according next-gen stats traveled 50 yards in the air, okay?

His longest completion in three seasons. So our guy misses. A month with a punctured lung, he comes back and he's throwing down the field like he hasn't in three years. This is peak saints. It's always interesting when you're hearing the words flack jacket on a sports broadcast. Like that's the type of thing where you know you're in a new new piece of territory. But yeah, all that training with Tom House working out. Was he training or was he just waiting for his punctured lung to heal?

Oh, I meant over the off season. But yes, I think that's, I doubt he was trying to complete 60-yard passes while he was waiting for his puncture. I just thought that was amazing. That feels like a bad idea. I thought that was amazing. Incredible. Okay. So it was like, it must be a Drew Bree's deep ball these days.

It's like you rub it three times for good luck or something. I think that, and I don't want this to become the analysis of every time we talked about the chiefs. It's the same. But I think you saw in this game what having a dominant quarterback is like. And even with the roster of the saints being what it is. is, Trey Hendrickson was really, really good before he left the game. And I think that there's so many stats. I was playing around with the next gen stats earlier. And the Saints pass rush and their coverage really got to Patrick Mahomes in the first half. And he had the second longest time to

throw of his career over three and a half seconds. He struggled when he holds the ball for a long time. I think that's kind of counterintuitive to what we think about Mahomes. But with the Saints, their coverage was so good that he wasn't able to make the play, especially in the first half. They were able to generate pass rush without blitzing, which is really important. Hendrickson had six pressures on 19 pass rushes. And by the way, Henderson has the second biggest pressure rate in football after CJWatt. And yeah, I think that what I learned is that the Saints could do everything right in this game in some things, well, that's coverage in the first half, the pass rush or whatever. And it doesn't matter because Patrick Mahomes there. And this was the same

analysis we have at the Raiders game and all that stuff. It reminds me a little bit. And please don't read it to this too much because Dante Wetter got knocked out a couple months ago. but it reminds me of when I was covering Deonti Wilder before his fight against Tyson Fury, and he kept saying something, which is that because he had such knockout power, he would say to Fury, you know,

you have to be perfect for 36 minutes. I have to be perfect for one punch. And the longer I watch, Patrick Mahomes, the longer, I just think that the only thing that matters is that they have that roster and then Mahomes makes place.

I mean, it's just unfair. They ran that power option kind of thing and he's flipping the ball to Lev Bell for the touchdown. That throw in the back of the end zone to Hardman, was just unbelievable. Listen, we saw some really nice plays from

Drew Brees today that I think are probably repeatable in the playoffs. I think that that he throws that dropped interception to the Honey Badger and the next play he throws to the Latavius Murray kind of three yard pass that goes to the end zone. That stuff is repeatable. But he struggled.

First half he had as many completions as the saints had punts. Didn't look like there was much chemistry there early. I just think that there's, I think we saw what would happen at these two teams played in the Super Bowl. I don't think it's much different, even if Breeze is healthy in five weeks.

I think that we saw what happens when these two teams play. That's the long and short of it. I just, I think that the chiefs are better than the Saints. With maybe a small asterisk for the quarterback in the flack jacket, which feels like it's a factor.

This felt like New Orleans's best swing, especially consider, I mean, they got a lot of pressure on Mahomes. and they can do that. They have the personnel for that. And I think that's legit. I think that's replicable.

The chiefs do have a pretty makeshift offensive line right now. They had. So Mike Remmers, their right tackle was out with a back injury. So Andrew Wiley, who's normally their right guard, was playing right tackle. Yes. Seven was Newski got elevated from the practice squad to play right guard. Mitchell Schwartz is on IR. Eric Fisher, who had a lot of trouble with Hendrickson, also as a back injury.

So Mahomes. ends up taking four sacks, he was hit 11 times. That is sort of the reality that they're living in right now, but it might get a little bit better because some of those guys will get healthier by the time were deep into the playoffs, at least I assume. So I think that that actually would go even further in Kansas City's favor if they met in the Super Bowl. It just seemed like, you know, they're playing two semi-deep safeties for most of the game

and relying on getting pressure with four. And normally what that's going to do is that either Mahomes is just going to go over the middle and he's going to use Kelsey or he's going to focus more on the rollouts and making plays on the move. And it seemed like just because the pressure was getting to him so much, the big plays were when, you know, when he rolled right and he threw the pass to Sammy Watkins and then he had that touchdown throw to Hardman that seemed like it was going to be a throwaway. Yeah. But then he was just going left and then all of a sudden it was a touchdown, which is just that's Mahomes. Yep. I guess. And so you add it all up. And to me, Breeze could get a little bit more solid maybe now that he's knocked the rest off. But other than that, this felt like what the Saints would hope for almost. And it's just tough. It also appeared to me that the Saints were trying to get in the Chief's head a little bit with physicality. I don't think that the Cam Jordan thing was planned at all. But he was kicked out of the game because that physicality you could see guys were in the chiefs head a little bit with physicality. I don't think that the Cam Jordan thing was planned at all. But he was kicked out of the game because of that physicality. You could see guys were in my, Holmes's face. And after that big hit, there was a big hit over the middle.

I think it was Hardman got knocked over. And Mahomes was rushing down the field to call for a flag. And it was like every Saints player was getting a Mahomes' face. I think that they were trying to be a little bit physical with him. And I don't think that Mahomes is the kind of guy who gets rattled. And I don't think the chiefs are the type of team that gets rattled. And I thought that was interesting. I mean, they've been down so much.

And their ability to just shake everything off is now should be known by everybody. I don't think that strategy worked. with Breeze, okay, and him getting better. And again, he looked more comfortable as the game went on and all that stuff after that, I won seven start. We know, if we agree that they cannot beat the Chiefs, can they at least get to the Super Bowl?

Do you feel that they are the best team of the NFC right now or is it somebody else after watching today? And watching, by the way, the Packers over the weekend. Man, I think I still do. And built into that is a little bit of the expectation that Breeze will continue to get healthier. He said that he wasn't 100% after the game. He can't be.

He can't be. He should be fairly self-evidence. Okay. But I'm having a hard time. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. Let me, I don't know who needs to hear this as well.

But I'm not a doctor. I don't know how he's going to be healthy by the Super Bowl when he had half of his ribs broken and a punctured lung. I can't do it. I can't go, oh, well, just wait until his lung is totally. totally healed. I feel like we're going to see a hobbled bill. I just decided to believe him. We're going to see a hobbled breeze for the rest of the year. And if this is it, it was fine. It was fine. They can, they can win like, they can beat teams like this. They just can't beat the

chiefs. I think if we assume that, that he will, that if the second half of this game, breeze was, uh, demonstrative of what it would be going forward, then yes, I still would say that they're the best team in the NFC, although I would have loved to put the Rams in that spot, but the Rams lost to the Jets. They sure did. Clyde Edwards-Hilar leaves the game. That could be a big injury.

Lev Bell also left the game. We'll see what happens to Trey Hendrickson, who also left the game. And then, yeah, I mean, a couple big injuries there. But for me, we said this earlier today when we were talking to Nora, but if I had written down,

what I think about the Chiefs, one thing about the Saints on a piece of paper, put in an envelope and they had to get it out after the game, it would be unchanged. It would be completely unchanged. Basically the same thing. Yeah. So the Edwards, uh,

Elair injury looked pretty bad though. Like we'll see on that. But just if anybody didn't see it, he sort of had to be essentially carried to the locker room in the fourth quarter. So just keep an eye on that one. Yes. Okay. Second winner,

Tempe Buccaneers who, who, you're not going to believe this, Nora. Tom Brady has come back against Matt Ryan once more. Uh, win 31 to 27. Tom Brady goes 21 to 29 passing for 320 yards to touchdown. in the second half alone, the most pass yard in the second half by a quarterback this season.

I was getting nervous watching this game that we were going to have to cancel another NFC team. They come back and I saw, I saw on that game winner at least to Antonio Brown what this Bucks team should be, which is, and I heard Brady talk about this after the game, which is Mike Evans is doing a really good job on one side, drawing attention. Antonio Brown is doing a really good job on the other side. the safety gets stuck in the middle, Brown blows past a guy, and it's a touchdown. That is what this is supposed to be.

This is why the Antonio Brown signing, as crappy as it was from a, you know, everything else perspective, from football perspective, was supposed to work. It hasn't worked at all. And their offense has not gotten that much better since you joined the team.

But when I look at that play, that's how this is supposed to work. What did you learn about the Bucks today? Well, the Bucks just did the thing that they usually do game to game half to half. And they did on offense and on defense. But on offense, we know their deal, right? Like so when they've going into this game, this is for me, SPN, when they were winning games,

Brady had been sacked five times, pressured on 13% of his dropbacks, 44% of his passes of 20 yards or more, four touchdown, zero interceptions. In losses, he'd been sacked 11 times, pressured on 27% of his dropbacks. completed 21% of his passes of 20 yards or more with one touchdown and five things. So it's we just, we know what this is like for them, except that this time, instead of having the switch be week to week, they just switch it at half time. And it goes for their defense too. They got absolutely no pressure on Matt Ryan in the first half, we're having coverage bus left and right. Calvin Ridley was just going absolutely off. And then in the second half, they started

pressuring Matt Ryan. Devin White had three sacks. And they just slowed. them down and and Brady and the offense had five straight scoring drives. So I don't know. I feel kind of the same about this game that you felt about, uh, chief saints in that, yeah, they get credit for coming back and winning, but this is still why they can't do it either two weeks in a row or for 60 minutes is remains confusing to me. Because yes, there is, there is a, there is a, a little bit of an element where we're saying like, oh, what? Like, it's hard when we're talking about something that is in fact hard to get all these players on the same page and running a coordinated offense. But I give them credit for winning, but I don't give them credit for being

consistent. And consistency has been the main complaint about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this week. So, they're a winner. But for me, they're a winner that I'm still giving the side eye to. I barely give them credit for coming back on the Falcons. That's just something the teams do when they play in the Falcons. I was laughing when I was looking at PFF and they were saying that Tom Brady does. That the, um, the bucks are the fifth best in EPA in the second half of games. The Falcons are 25th. And you can flip those two. The Falcons are really good in the first half and the bucks are really bad in in the first half. So, uh, that's, that should not be surprising. Um, I agree with you. I was actually, for a game that was so strange, I ended up being impressed with a lot of the roster on the bucks,

whether that was Devin White, one of those sacks really screwed up the Falkins field position, even though Kuh made the field goal. Winfield, I thought, made some really nice plays. Todd Gurley, by the way, and pass pro against Devin White. Not what you want.

That was that. That was that failed blitz pickup that forced the field goal when it was tied 2424. It's, this is, I tweeted this, but there is something with Matt Ryan. The man, who I really like Matt Ryan as a quarterback.

I would say that I'm relatively speaking very high on him. The man has a knack for taking a sack at a bad time. Yes. That is just like nothing I have ever seen before. Is it possible it's because he... Like for a good quarterback. He plays in bad times a lot. Like he gets sacked a lot because I think he creates bad times and then he does badly.

Right? Yeah. I guess. I don't know. I think I have to put some, I'm putting some blame on him. When I think about Matt Ryan. For your inopportune sacks. When I think about Matt Ryan, I think of like a really big fourth and five in which everything breaks down at the snap and he throws up like a bad 11 yard pass that there's no receiver in here. That is my vision of Matt Ryan. Mine is him getting like an eight yard sack that knocks them out of field goal range or that like

puts them into a really, really tough, long field goal. This guy's an MVP, and we're just thinking that the only time we see him is he's a bad times merchant. He's a bad times baron. It is a tough time. Okay. Is there anything here after seeing this today, and I don't want to do this for every NFC team, but just because I am so confused as to what the NFC East, excuse me, what the

NFC is, and by virtue of the fact that the Rams, who we liked lost to the New York Jets today. Is there anything with the Bucks here that made you think that they might be in the upper Ashland and the NFC teams? They had the Lions next week and then these same Falcons in two weeks. I just don't think we're going to learn much before January. Yeah, they're really friggin talented and they have Tom Brady. Like they're discompobulated every week.

That's just the deal. But like they've got a slew of great receivers. I do think it's good that the Brady to Evans connection seems to be where we thought. it would be. I don't know if it's great that it took until week 15. I mean, not that it completely took until week 15. But we'll take it whenever it's there is my major point. So the reason, the argument for the bucks to be good is that they've got a lot of really good players and they have a really experienced quarterback.

But we're not going to, we're not going to see it week to week. We're out of time for that. We're basically, essentially, what the NFC is is a bunch of inconsistent teams with the exception of maybe the Packers. It's a bunch of inconsistent teams hoping to get lucky and hot at the same at the right time. Right? Like, oh, whoops, Drew Breeze played three good games. Whatever that's saying about, like, it's better to be lucky than good or whatever. That's the NFC.

I think the, I'm talking myself into the Packers. I'm going to make a call this week. We'll get Kornacki on. I was, I took a walk this morning and I was picturing Aaron Donald, pressuring Mahomes, trying to figure out, like just so deep into that matchup, they lost to the, I'm not over it. I'm just not over. I'll never be over it. I'm never going to be over it. Let's talk about it. You better be ready. You better wake up pretty early in the morning to shock old Adam Gase there. Okay. Our next winner is everybody involved in the Cardinals

Eagles game. So the Cardinals win 33 to 26. Jalen Hertz is a really good quarterback. So Doug Peterson says, I'll have a decision tomorrow and who starts with the quarterback next week. I, spoiler alert, it's Jalen Hertz. Hurtz 24, 44 for 338 yards, three touchdowns. Kyla Murray, 27 or 36, 406 yards, three touchdowns. Murray made, but both Hertz and Murray made some mistakes in this game, but not nearly enough to cause any concern. I like both their performance. DeAndre Hopkins made two catches that just reminded me. I think sometimes, because we were joking about the route tree and sort of how they used him the last month or so, I think, think that we sometimes forget how just amazing he is,

it's just actually catching the ball. And he made one catch in the second quarter between two eagles that just shows you how we can go up and get the ball anywhere at any point. I mean, he plays like he's nine feet tall. And then the second one at 26 and 26, the second one was when the game was tied at 26. And he basically just catches the ball near the pylon with the defender at his face. It shows you the coordination he has.

He can catch the ball sort of wherever it's thrown. His catch radius is the entire state of Arizona at this point. That's what we're dealing with. Yes. If the ball is thrown in his general direction, he will make it work. That is why the route tree thing was so uninspiring is just throw in his general direction and everything's going to be fine. There are not a lot of people like this, okay?

From an eagle's perspective, second straight week of everybody looking good. And there were so many plays, Nora, today that I saw there was a fourth quarter play where Hertz takes a snap, fumbles it, picks it up, rushes to his right and throws it dark. that wouldn't have happened because Carson Wentz would have taken the snap he wouldn't have fumbled he would have fallen down

he would have just fallen down they wouldn't have been tied they wouldn't have been down a score because they wouldn't have been in this game they would have like the pocket would have just kept collapsing we're taking so many sacks on Sunday there is a

there's a Christmas carol situation here where the ghost of Christmas future would have seen Carson Wentz and said oh my God he's just falling down all the time. I don't know what this is with Jalen Hertz. I don't think he's the greatest quarterback of all time, but he's making everybody around him better

and making everything look more competent. And there's something to that. He's revived Miles Sanders. Like he like pumped him back up to life. He's making the Jalen Rager pick look good. So Shil Kapati had this. The only other quarterbacks this year who had the numbers he had,

which is 338 yards and 60 rush yards. Kyle Murray, Russell Wilson, Justin Herbert. And Capati makes the point, and I agree with him, that we need to start wondering what would have happened if Hertz was inserted earlier. Because I'm feeling that the talent that I've seen in Philadelphia that caused me to overrate them the last two years, I'm feeling that I was, I'm vindicated here. And actually the problem was Carson Wentz.

Okay. And the team, the team, obviously there. Yes. And the team actually was. okay and they actually built this in an okay way but Wentz was just so bad at running everything that that nothing that nothing worked and so if the Eagles had made this change weeks ago we're talking about a very different NFC East I'm not talking about a team that would contend for the NFC I'm just talking about a team that wouldn't be a total disaster there's more energy

on the field guys who didn't who looked lost a month ago don't look lost anymore um there's just something here at Jalen Hertz. Again, I think that there's a long way to go for him to be a top NFL quarterback. This is not a Justin Herbert situation here, but what it is is a team playing like they should because they have a quarterback

and knows what he's doing and he doesn't have the yips or whatever. And there's a report that came out today that said that Carson Wentz is unhappy. He might not like how this went down. He might want to get out of town. We talked about that. I talked about it on Rosillo on Friday. I talked about it with Jeremy Fowler during the week.

he's well thought of in the league. Maybe someone takes the chance. There's a lot of smart people who say that contract is tradable with some minor adjustments. But right now, Carson Wentz, like, start planning on something else because I don't, I don't see a way back. Well, I worry about it's great that Hertz looks really poised. He's just, the one thing I know is that if he were playing earlier, we would have had a lot more fun watching this team. I don't know how much more I can say beyond that, but it just would have been a better product to consume on Sundays.

The thing that worries me is I just worry that that team is in a place where there's a lot of figuring out to do sort of relationships-wise and who's in charge and who's making the decisions and why the just bad vibes of the coach saying that he's not ready to name a start. I mean, this is usually your bit, but like there's one human being on the face of the earth. who's not saying who the Eagles starter is and it's the Eagles coach. Like, I really don't feel good about what's going on there except for what's happened since they've inserted hurts.

So I'll take it. That's where I am is I'll take it. It's more fun to watch. Yes. So I think that there's, I just think there's a lot of ways you can go here. And I think that there's a path. I don't think that the NFC East, I think the NFC East, I think the, NFC East is in a weird spot right now because I guess the Cowboys can be good next year,

but they're going to bring Mike McCarthy back. And we saw what that team looked like before Dax injury. We certainly saw what it looked like afterwards. The Giants are in year one of something. The football team is in year one of something. I think that next year, I don't, I think all four of those teams are better. I don't think any of them can compete in the NFC. I think all four of them are better.

And I think what's important right now is that the Eagles just spent the last two months saying, oh my God, what do we do with Carson Wentz? And now they can say, okay, financially we might have to just, you know, eat this and eat 10 million bucks, which is a roster bonus that he's due that, or it could be more, but that would go a lot. I mean, it's going to be, the dead cap is going to be substantial. It's going to be 30 something. And then the next year is going to be more as well, even if they trade them. Even if they trade them after June 1, it's going to be a lot. And so they can't be the roster bonus is what they have. to take if they keep them on through the start of the league year they're going to have to. Otherwise,

the cap charge is way too high. It's all very complicated. But the fact of the matter is, is that I think that they know in this organization right now that Jalen Hertz is the guy they need to build around because I've seen Carson Wentz this year. Again, I think Carson Wentz was good at one point. I think he has every chance to be good again. But I don't think right now Carson Wentz in the situation can be good. I don't, I just don't know. Go ahead. So if they all know that, why aren't they saying it? Who's they? Doug Peterson? Yeah. I think it's like a relationship thing. I think that they don't want to just be like,

yep, Jalen Hertz is our starter permanently. I mean, all the reports basically say that that he's probably going to be the guy for the rest of the year. I think Carson Wentz is just a guy who, you know, is a four year, 140, $60 million extension hasn't kicked in. And the four years hasn't. And they're just trying to manage that right now. I think it's a very tricky situation. I think I actually understand, as much as I make fun of Doug Peterson for doing that, actually understand why he's being careful. It's because there's a, there's a guy on the team who thought this was his franchise, who saw Nick Foles got, get a statue built of him and who's been replaced before and he knows that it's over. And I think that there's some ego massaging.

It's over for Carson Wentz in Philadelphia. It's over. Like, I don't, I just, if they bring him back and he starts again, either that means Jalen Hertz was hurt or it means that something has gone deeply wrong in the organization because I just don't, I just don't see a path forward. It's really, it's, I just have never seen regression like that.

I saw a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about it, so in a column, but there was some statistical analysis done. It was the second worst regression in modern history except Peyton Manning that year that he basically just threw ducks all the time the Broncos accidentally won the Super Bowl. And unless the Eagles can do that and build one of the best defenses of all time and get Vaughn Miller and Wade Phillips and all those guys,

unless they can get that band back together, then Carson Wentz is not going to win you games. Right. So when I say why isn't he saying that? Like coaches massage the truth all the time and that's respectful to Wentz and that's fine. my question is this team clearly needs some sort of clean slate. Like if they're going to take advantage of the talent that is still on the roster, if Hertz is the guy to build around,

that's a delicate balance. That's something where you need buy in from the coaching staff, from personnel, like all over the place. And I am worried that they do not have it. I'm worried that there's conflicting impulses about the direction that things are going here. And I guess we'll see. But if there's one thing that would get in the,

their way of being an NFC East contender or maybe being able to get to a point where they could make a little bit of noise in the playoffs in a season soon to come, that is what I worry would get in their way because they are not going to have a lot of financial resources to play around with because of their salary cap situation and especially if they do move on from once because of what that's going to do for them. And I just, I think this seems like a really, really weird and delicate balance. And I'm a little surprised that it does not, like, I just worry when a coach doesn't say the obvious, you know, because it's not unclear to anyone, including Carson Wentz, what's going on here. You covered Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick's the king of,

we'll see how it goes. Yeah, but he's not the king of we're going to name a starter during the week. Like, that's weird. That's fake. Who says more just insane responses to really obvious questions in Bill Belichick. I'm not going to rank them. I'm not going to say here and rank them. What, do you want a ranking? I forget if I've told this story on this pod before. So I'm sorry if I have.

But the funniest one in the world was when the Patriots briefly had James Harrison, just a cohort of reporters trying to get Bill to say something about going against James Harrison, him not liking the Patriots. and isn't it crazy that he's on the team now. And this went maybe 10 rounds. And Bill is just giving like monosyllabic answer after a monosyllabic answer. And then finally someone's like, well, was it, what was it like when you got him in the building?

And Bill just goes, well, it's always nice to meet someone. Yeah. And I thought that was incredible. That was an all-timer to me. My favorite, I think it was when Tebow was there. I think I was there that day. And also Taylor Swift, the Tibo's first practice was the same day of Taylor Swift's concert. And so they were both there at the same time.

This was before my time, but I wish it hadn't been. And like everybody was there, like every media member from every ally was there. And he was just like, so how was it? And he's like, yeah, we'll see how it goes. That was it. And everybody was just crestfallen. All right. Let's move on, I think, unless you have any other Doug Peterson takes.

No, it's okay. I'm worried about the Eagles. Speaking of our first loser, it's doing the Patriots. And this is, I don't want to spend much time on the New England Patriots. We're doing this as a vehicle to talk about two other teams. So the Miami Dolphins beat them 22 to 12. The Patriots have not missed the playoffs in 11 years, 2009 to 2019. Longest such streak in NFL history.

They've made it for 11 straight seasons. There's just an unbelievable run that had to end at some point. The season seemed like as logical as anyone. They lose Tom, they lose Tom Brady. And we also want to talk about the Bills, who won the AFC East, who are a really good team who won before Sunday. but are worth talking about. AFC East,

pets aren't winning it, nor would you learn? Well, so the dolphins found some semblance of a running game, which was a bit of a surprise to me, given that they were averaging

3.6 yards per carry and then got six against the Patriots, which wasn't great for New England. But that would be good for them to have a little bit more balance in that offense going forward, because I think as it stands, they're on the inside of the playoff picture. They're clearly not.

There was a point when I will cop to having felt during this season, like they could be the best team in the AFC East. The bills are really, really solid. I think their defense is peaking at a good time. And their offense is just so, there's so many different ways that they can stress a defense. And I think, you know, watching that Broncos game, whenever it was, they were facing any type of sort of off coverage, the stuff that they could do underneath with Beasley and then with digs on all the comeback routes and the curls.

And it just feels like that. They're tight ends unless Alan is reverting, which I guess my prior assumptions are so baked in that I'm still little as much of a fan of his as I am. I'm a little bit like, ah, yikes, let's see it in the playoffs. but they're a really, really solid team. I mean, I think they're better than the Steelers, certainly at this point. So those are my AFC East power rankings that you didn't really ask for.

No, I asked for. I think there's one really solid team. Where are the Jets for you? Well, they're four, but they really closed the gap today. They really did close the gap. Okay. So first of all, I was impressed with just the way the dolphins bullied the Patriots in some parts of this game. It was closer in the first half than maybe they would have liked,

but I feel like they wore them down. The run game was really, really good. Tua was not spectacular, but I think that the fact of they win games when Tua is not at its best, shows you kind of the organizational depth there. I just think that there's something there with the dolphins. And it's unfortunate to me that this team might take a huge step forward and not make the playoffs because there's just a lot of AFC teams who deserve that. And, you know, the Ravens might not make it. The Dolphins might not make. I think the dolphins are at 41 percent to make it. They have a tough schedule here.

They have the Raiders next week, which is a massive game for their AFC chances and they have the bills in the last week of the season. The Bills thing, I don't know if they're going to rest their starters. That depends on everything. But I don't think you can talk enough about the dolphins in the job they've done to year-over-year improve. Now, speaking of improvement, Josh Allen, just right now, okay, after 14 games,

I just want to read the last three years, okay? He started 11 games, his rookie year. 16 games last year, obviously, 14 games so far this year. He's gone from 10 touchdowns to 20 touchdowns to 30 touchdowns. He's improved by 10 touchdowns every single year, even though he hasn't played the same amount of games. His yardage has gone up at almost the exact same rate, 2000 in 2018, 3,000 in 2019, and exactly 4,000 in 2020.

Okay. Interceptions, 9. this year, same as it was last year. It's going to be up slightly, although it's his interception percentages down this year. One thing I was just wrong about. It's 1.8 to 2, but it's around, it's in. One thing I was wrong about is

there's so much data out there, stories out there, whatever, that the big jump is from year one to year two. And that at year two, the trajectory starts and you kind of know where you are and you obviously get better throughout the course of your career, but you're not going to make that huge jump.

And that, you know, the year one to year two thing, that's the biggest jump of your career. And what we're seeing now from Josh Allen, and I actually think Troy Aikman was a little bit like this too. But what we're seeing right now is the jump that he had from year one to year two also happening in year two and year three. When you talk to quarterback coaches or you talk to scouts or you just talk to data people, this does not happen. Okay. And what Josh Allen is doing right now is a masterclass improvement. I have said many times I was I was wrong about my draft evaluation of him. But I think that there's a lesson in this. And this is something I've said a lot, but having with them having clinched yesterday, I just feel like we just need to have a big picture

viewpoint of this, is that I think that this is probably a humbly experience for everybody in the league because the bills were not always smart enough to draft them. They were smarter to know what to do with them. And I think that there were a lot of scouts. And I think, listen, and this is not, I think people are coming at the media now with the Josh Allen thing and I'm saying, you guys didn't know what you're talking about. That stuff started with the league. Okay.

And that's, it stuff normally does. It's not like we're all sitting around and saying, who are we going to slam this week? A lot of it is like, you know, people inside the league give us draft evaluations and then we go from there. Okay. And so, but I think that not only is it football people, it's the media, it's any commentator, it's 99% of Twitter. We're all wrong about Josh Allen because we were wrong with the bills, the infrastructure, his ability to improve, his ability to get more accurate. You've written about Josh Allen.

You talked to him this year. You know this better than anybody. But I just think that this is one of, I think what we're seeing now is one of the best draft to mid-career improvements that we've ever seen. And it's funny because he was obviously a top 10 pick. So it's not like he's Tom Brady here where he's a six-down pick because that was obviously a different situation. What I'm saying is that statistically what we've seen from his college to his rookie year to now, it does not happen. And I think there's a lesson in that. Well, I think there can be a sort of fundamental misunderstanding in the way that people who think about probability and think about data analysis professionally and day.

and day out, see something that they're saying has a 90% chance of happening or a 10% chance of happening. Like, I will be the first to admit, when I hear 90%, I hear that's in the bag. I hear done deal. Like that is what is going to happen in this situation. And that's actually not true, right? Like things that have a 10% chance of happening happen 10% of the time. And I think it's totally possible that Josh Allen, which is a huge credit to him and everybody around him and the bills for identifying the things that would be necessary to make this happen, that all worked together to make the 10% chance thing happen. And that could very well be what's going on here.

I do think there are lessons to be learned from it where you see a guy who did not really have to throw with a lot of anticipation to succeed in college just because of who the receivers were. He could wait until a receiver at Wyoming got open. and then just because of his arm strength, fling it and get it there. And he didn't have to worry about separation. He didn't have to worry about a ton of touch or anticipation.

That doesn't mean that he's incapable of doing it. It might mean that he's less likely to do it at the NFL level if he hadn't proven that he could do it regularly at the college level. But it's possible for someone to learn and grow. So I think when you talk about the second year leap, there's a lot of reasons why someone like Allen might be an outlier. And then you talk to Jordan Palmer, who's his quarterback's coach, they spent the offseason doing stuff like he was throwing on sand a lot. And that's because it's impossible to truly set your lower body.

So it was about having a consistent top half with every throw, even when the bottom half was changing with every rep that they went through. And I think that that happened this past off season. Well, I don't think this is what Jordan Palmer told me was because they were spending seasons. prior working on things like basic footwork and stuff that was going to make him take the initial leap and then he just needed a little bit more time. So there are ways, I think he's both an outlier and then I think there are also some lessons to be learned. And it takes a village and we're seeing that. Troy Aikman's mid-care improvement, by the way, the outlier part of his career was that he got better from year three to year four. So beat that, Josh.

Troy got better later. Josh Allen, year four. Troy was kind of, was kind of rough the first couple of years of his career. It's kind of a tough scene. Mediocre in his third year and it should explode in his fourth year. Probably because the team got better.

All right. So, yep, we can't say enough about it. And Patriots, beautiful run. Wait, can we just, I think we should toss in just so that I don't continue to be way too hard on Tua. The dolphins are missing like half their skill position players. So that that That injury stuff today

Gisicki was out Devante Parker was out It was tough today Yeah So Bill Belichick hasn't lost For a rookie quarterback In like nine games So I think we should just

Credit the doll It wasn't the prettiest game On the face of the earth But credit the Dolphins for Fingering out how to do that one When they were down A lot of important players Our second losers

In Minnesota Vikings They lost a number of ways here Number one is that Mitch Trubisky is back. He's all the way back. If he ever left. If he ever left. This season, 63% completion percentage, 94 rating, 13 touchdowns, five receptions. Dan Arlovsky pointed out that they've kind of figured out what to do with him as far as having them outside the pocket, RPO's, a lot of play action passes.

Like Mitch, the best thing you can say about Mitch right now is he looks okay, which I think exceeds all of our expectations. okay. 8.4 yards per attempt over the last three weeks. The Vikings did not look good. Tackling was awful. Kirk Cousins threw a pass that was so bad that Justin Jefferson yelled something. And we don't know what that was.

So Warren Sharp, our colleague here on this feed, tweeted out that he said something along the lines of F and Kirk throw the ball. Is that correct? Yes. And then Justin Jefferson retweet, quote, tweeted that and said y'all love

blowing stuff out of proportion I ain't no diva don't get a twisted which doesn't he didn't say I didn't say that he didn't deny he did not deny it if I think I think it may have been an accurate transcription from our buddy Warren Sharp otherwise you'd be like I didn't say that

so Justin Jefferson not saying that he didn't say that I think convinced me when I first heard it. And I was sort of reluctant to even bring this up because I just, I, you know, I live for drama. So I would sort of rather that he did say it. Yeah. But I thought there was a chance, um, that instead of F, Kirk, he said like F or throw the flag instead of throw the ball. I, in my heart of hearts, I was like, I think he might have been talking the ref. But if he didn't deny the transcription, then I believe that it is canon now.

Absolutely. I absolutely agree with you. All right. Listen, this podcast has to go nine hours. Okay, this big a last dance style, 10 episode thing if I ask this question. So I need you, I need us to just keep this. Have some discipline. In perspective and not get too deep on it.

Should Mitch Trubisky be the quarterback in Chicago in 2021? No. So what should they do? And should he be the quarterback anywhere in 2021? He can be a, so what this is based in is that this good three weeks that Mitch has strung together, it's been against Detroit, Houston, and Minnesota. Minnesota is the best of those passing defenses and they are 19th. So I just color me a little bit unimpressed, even though yes, it does look like he's been better

and they're getting him on boots and rollouts and getting him moving. which is a help because our offensive line isn't very good. And all of that is great. I'm just not ready to anoint Mitch as a different player than what we have a pretty significant sample size of him being. So you want me to fix the bears in like the last five minutes of this podcast? That's unfair. I don't know. Go to the draft.

Find a veteran. They found a veteran. They're paying him a ton of money. His name is Nick Foles. and he's not as good as Mitch Chubisky, who is 27 and 20 in his career. I'm just saying. Are you advocating for them to extend Mitch?

I'm not, I'm not advocating for it. But what I am saying, if you get him on like an impossibly cheap deal, the problem is he's going to, they obviously decline us fifth year option, as they should have. I'm just saying that with the money they're going to pay foals,

I don't know. I mean, there's going to be a lot of, if you go back to the quarterback, they're not going to be good enough to have a high pick in the draft. It's, there's a case to be made for it,

is all I'm saying. He's bringing those two quarterbacks back and see how it goes. Well, also, also, it depends who the coach is. I think it'd be unfortunate if, if Trubisky was playing so well

that somehow Pace and Nagy kept their jobs. That would be really bad. So it's probably what'll happen. Absolutely what's going to happen. All right, let's move on. All right, Next we get to Sunday night football. The loser is the New York Giants.

They start Colt McCoy. Not a huge surprise here. The Browns win their 10th game, but the first time is 2007, 20 to 6. Baker Mayfield does Baker Mayfield not pressured things when the offensive line comes through. He was dominant down the field, I guess you could say. His downfield passing the last four weeks has been really, really good because the offensive line has done their jobs. We know who Baker Mayfield is when he stays upright. He's one of the worst passers in football, one with Jared Gough, when people were on his face.

But we saw tonight when there's no pressure, what he can look like. Nora, what did you think? Well, yeah, the Browns were dominant at the point of attack. And this was a good game for them. They've been pretty consistent just with Baker not getting pressured and them looking really good. That seems like they're in a good place. The Giants are a loser for a reason, which is that Washington football team, I think now per 538's playoff probability model. 75% chance of making the playoffs. So it seems like those guys are,

are likely to be the one from the NFC East, the chosen, the crown, the legendary. So just mostly tough for the giants in terms of their path to potentially getting a postseason appearance. But no, Cleveland looks really good. Uh, per the NFL. So Mayfield tonight on downfield throws, uh, 10 air yards or more, 11 for 1,300. 172 yards, two touchdowns. Last four weeks, 150 pass rating for Mayfield when he's throwing beyond 10 yards and air yards second in the NFL and completion percentage above expectation. And so, listen, Mayfield's strength this year has been that he's not the problem. Okay.

And Kevin Stefansky has put him in position to not be the problem. And that that's what's so encouraging about anything that Mayfield does beyond that is that this team can win without Mayfield performance. Like he can be, I mean, it's, it's almost like a, it's almost becoming like a Jared golf situation, where, where the value is what happens around him. And so that's what I find interesting. From the Giants perspective, when you're starting Colt McCoy, I didn't expect anything. Did you learn anything about the Giants tonight? No, basically seemed par for the course. I also don't know that Daniel Jones really would have done all that differently. I think he probably would have been a little bit better. Was I dreaming the Joe Judge, the Joe Judge hype for like three weeks? That happened, right? Yeah, no, that that was real. But the Browns are pretty good right now. The Browns are good. The Browns are good. That this is the first, and this is kind of cherry picking stats, but I'm saying it because it surprised me when I learned it a few weeks ago when I was writing about them. But this year overall, he has a positive completion percentage above expectation for the first time in his career. Like that was not the case. when, uh, in 18 when, when he set the world on fire or whatever.

Like, this is, this is new for him. So congrats to Baker Mayfield. Yeah. And I think that this Browns team is playing consistently. And I think they can win a playoff game if they get the right draw. And I just, I just don't think you can say enough. Again, this is something we come going back to when we did the coach of the year thing. And I had Stavansky third.

Nobody else had him on the list. I got, I heard some from some fans who said, why, why are we acting like? this is normal. Why are we acting this was supposed to happen? Kevin's DeFancy to get more budge. It's a good point. Like, Stefansky's done an amazing job and someone had to take that talent and turn into something good. Andrew Barry, the first year GM has done an amazing job. I will repeat the statistic because it is maybe the most amazing statistic in team building. The last time the Browns had a year, a calendar year that did not include a coach or GM change was when Phil Savage and Romeo Cornell

worked together from 2005 to 2008. Okay, that was a long time ago. That's not going to happen this year. Okay, everything's going to be fine. Barry and Stefansky are going to stay together. There's going to be stability. And I don't want to overstate this because it's not like Baker-Mayfield is some superstar.

But when you have the Browns with talent and stability, two things they have not had, surprise. They're not been talented, not been stable or both. They certainly haven't been stable at any point. But when you have those two things, I think the ceiling starts to get raised. And I think this is the, instead of saying this is the end of something is at the end of the process or the re-border or whatever, it might be the beginning. A lot of that depends on Mayfield. But I just love what I've seen from the Browns this year. And 10 wins is an accomplishment. It's hard to win 10 games. It really is. That sounds flippant. But it is really hard to do that. And it's, it doesn't,

doesn't happen by accident. You know, it's, it doesn't, this isn't a flash in the pan. So, yeah, it, it sort of brings them into an interesting new chapter for the suddenly stable browns. Wow. Incredible. Are the jet stable after Sunday, would you say? Would you say they've entered the realm of stable? No, I would not. Absolutely not. All right, let's get to the, the hurry up, the best of the rest. All right. Nora, Ray, Ravens Jags. Ravens take care of business. Yeah. And so they've got two good wins, depending how you slice it against the Jags. But you love the Ravens. So how are you feeling about them?

I'm feeling okay. You wanted to make the Ravens a winner. I say there's just no credit earned for a victory over the Jaguars in 2020. Come on. It was going to be, I was going to be looping in some residual Browns game into making them a winner. But we elected to place them at the top of the hurry up. Tyler Huntley in relief looked pretty good as the backup Ravens quarterback. It's just something to watch is maybe they have a developmental guy there. All right, Colts Texans. Colts win late on a brutal fumble.

This keeps happening to the Texans. I feel bad for Deshaun Watson. Yeah, we actually have to take this Convo offline because we got to put the plan in action to get him out of there. Like we got to save Deshaun. Me, you and Chase, Arana. We have to talk with this offline. Yeah. We have to put the heist in action.

The cults are inconsistent team. The Colts are inconsistent team, but this is just this is a math problem. one they have problems. We'll talk about it in the midweek, but generally I'm okay with, with beating the Texans late. Titans Lions, Derek Henry took another soul. The Titans put up 45 points. This is a good team. Congratulations to Josh Norman.

You are free from the stiff arm curse. You get to exit now. The Titans keep dropping like 40 points on people. And I'm not really ready to talk about it, but I just Tennessee, like I see you. Okay. That's it. They scored 40s. I short-changed him.

I scored 46 points, not 45 points. Wow. That one point. There's typical negative media. All right. Seattle Seahawks beat the Washington football team 2215. Pete Carroll after the game said that the media can make it negative if they want. But beating this team by five points, he sees nothing.

You can get rid of negative. Nora, what do you think? I love Pete Carroll. That's all I have to say. I just love the guy. Weird game, inconsistent, Washington defense is still really good. I'm not talking about Cowboys 49ers. Just not doing it.

Apologies to Cowboys Niners. We ran out of time. That's it. That's been hurry up. All right. Time for our listener question. I love this question. It's from someone named Do Your Job Football.

Could be a burner. Bill Belichick. Yeah, I was going to say Nike Belichick. All right. Which washed up basketball player would dominate goal line fade situation? Okay, so if we're signing a guy tomorrow, who is it? I have some candidates. Nora, go ahead.

Is Blake Griffin washed up? So I thought about this. I was going with guys who were available to sign. I thought about Blake Griffin. I thought about Blake Griffin. Would Blake Griffin want to make the move? He's playing in Detroit right now. It's not exactly Lob City.

Would he make the move and go play for the Lions tomorrow? I don't know. I don't know. It would be a new challenge. So I had three people. So number one, yesterday Gerald Green was released by the Rockets. Great, tall. I think he's six foot nine.

Great vertical leap. I could see that. So there's a number of things you have to consider. Number one, do you want them to be tall? Is there such thing as too tall? Do you want them to be six eight with a 40 inch vertical jump? Do you want them to be six four so they can run a little bit? I mean, there's so many.

different things. You know, they need to be able to run because you need to get to the routes very quickly, especially in a gold line fade situation, everybody's jammed together. I assume you would want them to have some coordination so they catch the ball. So I had Gerald Green. I had, and this is, I don't, he's 42 years old. I don't know if he can still run. I'm sure he can jump.

I had Sean Marion. Obviously, one of the most, the best athletes of his generation. I don't know if he'd be up for it. Obviously, Joe Green was, you know, practicing with an NBA team yesterday. So that's in. And then Josh Smith, who's out of the NBA, but only in his mid-30s. So if I, if those are the guys I'm after, I think I could get those guys. Now, listen, like, you would want LeBron.

On the unrealistic list, like, you know how teams make lists for guys if they have to sign somebody in a pinch? That was what I was putting together for this hypothetical. Okay. But obviously, if you could pull LeBron off the Lakers, yeah, that'd be great. Or Janus, that'd be great. I want Blake Griffin. because he jumped over a Kia in that commercial. No, I know what he did.

Well, he was at the dunk contest, right? That's true, too. Yeah, it wasn't just a commercial. Brandon Bass. So why would you say that? Brandon Bass played for the magic. And I never, at any point, was like, this guy would be dominant for the Patriots.

So I'm just now trying to function in the realm of more attainable. So I don't know if Brandon Bass would be. would be all that good. And now I guess the question is like, would a Dwight Howard work here or is he too tall? Let me tell you something. That Kirk Cousins past day that got Justin Deverson all upset,

that goes right to Dwight Howard. That goes right in Dwight Howard's hands. Some people think that the Phil Rivers, T.Y Hilton connection has been coming on strong recently because Rivers is getting used to throwing to shorter receivers.

Maybe there's like an opposite thing. There you go. I think that there are like 15 guys who have incredible vertical leaps who would be great at goal line fades. I think they're available. I think Blake Griffin would be realistic. I think he's ready for a change. This is my take.

Well, so, okay. I would like to see that for Blake as well. I think he has a, he has like a taste for life where I think he would like to try something new. Would he have to go through the draft? Would he have to go through the COVID protocols? Well, I mean, those are two, he's never played football before. So I think there might be rules against someone just joining the NFL if he's never declared for anything.

I don't know the answer to this. No, I don't think. Well, so because, okay, take like Mo Allie Cox. Yeah. I don't know why I'm connecting all of this to the Colts. But. Jimmy Graham, Jimmy Graham played college football. So that's a little bit different.

So, like, Mo Ali Cox was not drafted. So you, theoretically, like, is it, I don't, it, maybe. it's different maybe it's not depending he signed so moe alleycox it says he went undrafted in 2017 and signed with the colts but that was on april 21st 2017 so i don't understand this i'm not sure i understand if you're coming if you're coming from college even if you weren't a college football player do you have to declare for the draft or whatever um versus coming from the Detroit Pistons i don't know i mean like the international guys have to go have to go through the draft like more it's bowling yeah there's probably something it would probably

Probably, I think what we're arriving at is that it would probably be a little bit different for Blake Griffin, difficult for Blake Griffin to hop in and get in the mix here. We have knee problems as well from what I understand. Yeah, that seems right. Because he jumped over a key. I feel like Kenneth Farre, that was it. That was the start of it. I think like Kenneth Farid would be good. Just an energy guy.

Six foot eight. I'm telling you, there's a lot of guys. Realistically, like, six eight is too tall for this. But I, but I don't care. Most of my guys are 6-8 or 6-9. Most of my guys on this list are 6-8 or 6-9. So do you want more like a Shannon Brown, like 6-4 but can jump a mile? I think for the purposes of the exercise.

Like, because also the question was goal line fade, right? We're not talking about a Hail Mary. We're talking about a fade. Yeah. Yeah. So realistically, I'm saying your best vet is probably with like a 6-4-65, 6-6. disagree as tall as possible. Taco fall.

Taco fall. All right, let's get to a quick clickbait headline of the week. Nora starts off. All right. So my real clickbait headline is going to be Carson Wentz, once out of Philly, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. But I want to use this time to just read you the back pages for tomorrow of the New York tabloids. They're amazing. So the back page of the post.

host is incredible. It says Lawrence Welp, which is a play on Lawrence Welk. Lawrence Welk. Lawrence Welk died in 1992. I had to look this up. Beyond that, did you know who Lawrence Walk was before this? I knew that that was a name.

Like as soon as I saw it, I was like, that's a play on Lawrence Welk. Yeah. Remind me what the deal is here. But I had to Google it. Like, yeah, I had to do a little bit. research here. There's also what, so that's the main headline, but there's this whole, um, involved, like I guess Lawrence Welk would be like a one and a two. And there's a whole long pun lead up to this. So it's, it's quite the involved back page. Um, and then the, uh,

Daily News back page says the Grinch is stole Trevor, which is cute. Oh, I'm, all I'm saying is, might not end up being the worst thing in the world. There's a chance that like Justin Fields makes them very happy. Okay. Justin Herbert looks like he's probably the best quarterback in this draft. He wasn't first overall. Small sample size, but I'm just saying. It's the team.

The team, the team, the team. All right, my clickbait, I agree with you. It's going to be a lot of Eagles talk. I also think that just, I think this jet situation is going to drive people insane. Yeah, I do too, because you're, right that sure fields could end up being the guy whatever but the reason that if i were in that spot my at least first reaction is that you trade down you try to get a bunch of picks and then see what you can do about quarterback is because if that happens it's because of the randomness of

the draft and the randomness of evaluation like this whole process of being terrible was in service of getting as high of a pick as possible. And now you don't have... I disagree with that. I don't think there was any plan. I don't think it was in service of anything. I think they were rolling the ball out every Sunday and doing the best they could.

No, no, no, but I'm saying it. And that's how bad it was. Gase had no idea what he was doing. And Sam Darno wasn't a good enough quarterback. And the talent there just wasn't good. And so I think the actually, the scary part of all of this is that they were trying. I'm now realizing that on this,

on this back cover. There's a Trevor Lawrence is like at the bottom and he's dressed up as an elf and he's like celebrating. They were going to go winless incidentally. There was no plan. And that's what's amazing about the Jets. That's like there's a chill in my bones right now thinking about it. So in European soccer, English soccer specifically, there's a guy named Sam

Auerdice who is, he keeps teams from getting relegated. Tony Poulos is another one of these guys is he keeps these guys up. They never get relegated or rarely get relegated. So if you're like in trouble, you hire these guys that the specialists, right? What I'm saying is that Adam Gase is now your tank specialist. Is that you bring him in if you're just like, you know what?

There's a generational prospect. We need the first overall pick. We're going Gase. Okay? I'm just saying it's out there. All right. Anything else? We've ended with more teams should hire Adam Gase.

I don't know how we improve on that. All right. Great week coming up on Tuesday, Warren Sharp and Joe House are here for their weekly show. Obviously, it's a little bit early because of the schedule this week. On Wednesday, Nora and I are back with Warren Sharp and Danny Hyfitz. It's kind of a super pod, I guess you could say. Wow. It's going to be great.

This has been the Renfellow Show on the Ringer Podcast Network.